Egypt shaken by major theft of explosives from warehouses
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Monday, August 9, 2004
CAIRO √ A massive supply of explosives stolen from Egyptian warehouses last week could have found its way to either Al Qaida or Palestinian terrorists.
Egyptian security sources confirmed that a large amount of explosives was stolen from a warehouse of an oil company in the Western Desert near the Mediterranean coast. The sources said authorities have conducted an intensive investigation and detained hundreds of employees and guards of the company.
The Egyptian government has not announced the theft.
The sources said authorities were concerned that the explosives were stolen to fulfill an order by Islamic or Palestinian insurgents. They did not rule out that some of the explosives could be headed for the Gaza Strip.
Another scenario was that the explosives would be used for a major Al Qaida-inspired attack in either Egypt or another North African ally of the United States. Over the last year, Egypt has arrested hundreds of Islamic suspects connected to the Muslim Brotherhood or Al Qaida-inspired groups.
On Aug. 4, the opposition Egyptian Al Ahali daily quoted a security source as saying that 1,062 pieces of explosives went missing from an unidentified foreign oil exploration company in Marsa Matrouh northeast of Cairo. The newspaper said the explosives could be detonated by remote control, So far, 1,000 people, including guards and employees of the company as well as local residents, were arrested, Al Ahali reported.
Later, security sources confirmed some details of the Al Ahali report. But they said about half of the amount reported by Al Ahali was stolen. They also said the explosives were owned by Al Salam Petrol Services in Marsa Matrouh, about 500 kilometers northwest of Cairo.
About 100 pieces of explosives were found, the sources said. So far, none of the thieves were captured, they said.
Egypt has been cited as a leading source of weapons and explosives to the Palestinian insurgency in the Gaza Strip. Western diplomatic sources said a large amount of Cobra rocket-propelled grenade launchers was stolen from Egypt's state-owned defense industry and smuggled to the Gaza Strip.
Copyright ╘ 2004 East West Services, Inc.

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Saudi Reformists Stand Trial for Dissent
The Associated Press
Monday, August 9, 2004; 6:34 PM
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - In a rare open court hearing, three advocates of democratic reform appeared before a judge Monday on charges arising from their criticism of the kingdom's political and religious life.
Saudi trials are normally held behind closed doors, but Monday's hearing was attended by about 200 people.
The defendants - Matrouk al-Faleh, Ali al-Dimeeni and Abdullah al-Hamed - are charged with sowing dissent, creating political instability, printing political leaflets and using the media to incite people against the government, according to two political activists who attended.
The activists, Abdul Rahman al-Lahem and Ibrahim al-Mugaiteeb, said the three asked the judge for two weeks to study the indictment. The judge granted the request.
The open trial is the latest of a series of moves toward limited reform in Saudi Arabia, the boldest of which is a pledge to hold municipal elections starting in November.
The pace of reform has been fitful, reflecting the government's need to conciliate conservative and progressive strands in society. Conservatives say reform will undermine the traditional power structure and strict Islamic orientation. Liberals view reform as vital to stem Islamic militancy and to meet the desire for greater freedom among young people.
The three defendants are the last remaining detainees of a group of 13 reformers arrested March 17 who had openly criticized the kingdom's strict religious environment and slow pace of reform.
Some of the 13 had signed a letter to Crown Prince Abdullah calling for political, economic and social reforms, including parliamentary elections.
The detentions caused tension between Riyadh and Washington after the U.S. State Department condemned them as "inconsistent with the kind of forward progress that reform-minded people are looking for." The Saudi Foreign Ministry replied it was "disappointed" by the U.S. reaction.
On Monday, activist al-Mugaiteeb hailed the hearing as "a landmark."
"It is the first public trial of its kind, and it is positive in the sense that it validates the principle of freedom," said al-Mugaiteeb.
Al-Mugaiteeb, who leads a group called Human Rights First, said the state should release the defendants: "They are prisoners of conscience. They should be at home. They are not criminals or arms bearers."
The hearing was adjourned until Aug. 23.
? 2004 The Associated Press

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Riggs Investigation Prompts Inquiry Into 3 Oil Firms
By Kathleen Day
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 5, 2004; Page E01
Federal regulators are probing at least three of the nation's largest oil companies -- Marathon Oil Corp., Amerada Hess Corp. and ChevronTexaco Corp. -- for possible violations of securities law prohibiting bribes to foreign government officials.
The Securities and Exchange Commission notified the companies of the probe by letter within the past two weeks, following the release of a Senate report that described transactions handled by Riggs Bank involving the oil companies and the dictator of Equatorial Guinea and his family, spokesmen for the companies confirmed yesterday.
A grand jury in the District is also investigating Riggs's handling of the Equatorial Guinea accounts.
The Senate inquiry, which included the report and a subsequent hearing, is part of a series of ongoing investigations by Congress, bank regulators and the Justice Department into Riggs Bank and its once-prestigious embassy banking division for long-standing violations of laws designed to prevent money laundering.
The report by the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations concluded, "Oil companies operating in Equatorial Guinea may have contributed to corrupt practices in that country by making substantial payments to, or entering into business ventures with, individual Equatorial Guinea officials, their family members, or entities they control, with minimal public disclosure of their actions."
The report found that Riggs may have allowed Equatorial Guinea, its largest customer, and the country's dictator, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, to siphon millions of dollars in oil revenue into his personal accounts. Federal regulators also have said Riggs failed to report hundreds of suspicious transactions in more than 150 accounts held by officials of Saudi Arabia. The Senate report also found that the bank helped former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet hide millions of dollars from foreign prosecutors.
Marathon Oil, the nation's fourth-largest oil company, disclosed the probe in a filing with the SEC. Jay R. Wilson, a spokesman for Amerada Hess, the nation's fifth-largest oil company, confirmed that it, too, is a subject of the SEC inquiry. Marathon, Amerada Hess and Exxon Mobil Corp., the nation's largest oil company, are the largest oil companies operating in Equatorial Guinea, according to the report.
ChevronTexaco is the second-largest oil company in the United States but has a much smaller presence than the other three in Equatorial Guinea.
A spokesman for Exxon Mobil said it has not been contacted by the SEC in connection with Equatorial Guinea. Spokesmen for Marathon, Amerada Hess and ChevronTexaco said their companies are fully cooperating with the inquiry.
SEC investigators will seek to determine whether the companies broke anti-bribery laws and whether they committed securities fraud by failing to properly disclose disbursements made to a foreign government or official, according to lawyers familiar with the probe who spoke on condition that their names not be used because of the sensitivity of the investigation.
"Amerada Hess has received a letter from the SEC requesting our voluntary cooperation in an informal inquiry into payments made to the government, government officials and persons affiliated with government officials in Equatorial Guinea," spokesman Wilson said. "We will fully cooperate with the SEC."
Marathon, in its SEC filing, said, the SEC "notified Marathon that it was conducting an inquiry into payments made to the government of Equatorial Guinea, or to officials and persons affiliated with officials of the government of Equatorial Guinea. This inquiry follows an investigation and public hearing conducted by the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which reviewed the transactions of various foreign governments, including that of Equatorial Guinea, with Riggs Bank. The investigation and hearing also reviewed the operations of U.S. oil companies, including Marathon, in Equatorial Guinea."
Marathon spokesman Paul Weeditz said, "We have conducted our business with full compliance with the law."
The SEC probe is an informal investigation, which means the companies are being asked to voluntarily answer questions, submit records and provide other information. If the SEC staff finds evidence that it needs to investigate further, the next step would be for the agency's five commissioners to approve a formal investigation, which would allow SEC staff to issue subpoenas.
? 2004 The Washington Post Company
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Japan Nuke Plant Accident Kills 4 People
By MARI YAMAGUCHI
Associated Press Writer
MIHAMA, Japan (AP) -- Japan suffered its deadliest nuclear power plant accident Monday when a bursting steam pipe killed at least four workers and injured seven in another blow to the industry in an energy-poor country already worried about nuclear plant safety.
No radiation was released when the boiling water and steam exploded from a cooling pipe at the plant in Mihama, a small city about 200 miles west of Tokyo.
But the steam leak followed a string of safety lapses and cover-ups at reactors, and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi vowed to launch a thorough investigation into the accident. Fears about the safety of the country's 52 nuclear power plants soared in 1999, when a radiation leak northeast of Tokyo killed two workers and exposed hundreds to radiation.
Monday's leak was caused by a lack of cooling water in the reactor's turbine and perhaps by significant metal erosion in the condenser pipe, said the plant's operator, Kansai Electric Power. The pipe's wall, originally 10 mm thick, had become as thin as 1.5 mm in the 28 years since the reactor was constructed.
After the accident, Kansai Electric officials found a hole in the pipe that was believed to be the source of the leak. They did not say how big the hole was.
The water flowing through the pipe at the time of the accident was about 300 degrees Fahrenheit, said Akira Kokado, deputy plant manager.
Four workers died after suffering severe burns. Of the seven injured workers, two were in critical condition, three were in serious condition and the remaining two suffered minor injuries.
"The ones who died had stark white faces," said Yoshihiro Sugiura, the doctor who treated them at the Tsuruga City Hospital. "This shows they had rapidly been exposed to heat."
Investigators prepared to inspect the accident site Tuesday, and Japanese newspapers reported the government might be forced to shelve plans to build 11 new plants.
"In Japan, it's virtually impossible to build new nuclear facilities now," the national Asahi daily said in an editorial Tuesday. "But facilities are wearing out, and there are worries about increasing problems with corroding pipes, rupturing valves and the reactor core."
All the workers were employees of Kiuchi Keisoku Co., an Osaka-based subcontractor of Kansai Electric. They were all inside the turbine building to prepare for regular inspections of the plant, which began operating in 1976.
Government officials said there was no need to evacuate the area surrounding Mihama, a city of 11,500.
The plant's No. 3 nuclear reactor automatically shut down when steam began spewing from the leak. Its two other reactors were operating normally.
Yosaku Fuji, president of Kansai Electric, apologized for the accident as he bowed deeply before reporters at a televised news conference.
"We are deeply sorry to have caused so much concern," Fuji said. "There is nothing we can say to the four who lost their lives. We pray for their souls from the bottom of our hearts and offer our condolences to their families. We are truly sorry."
Kokado told a news conference that the metal erosion in the pipe was more extensive than Kansai Electric had expected. An ultrasound test might have detected the thinning but Kansai Electric never carried out such inspections, Kokado said, adding the company may have to review the way it conducts checkups.
Security guards closed the road leading to the seaside plant after the accident, which the city's residents said caught them off guard.
"I was so shocked. At first, I didn't think it was such a major accident," Naoki Matsubara, a 26-year-old office worker. "I'm so relieved there was no radiation leak."
Resource-poor Japan is dependent on nuclear fuel for nearly 35 percent of its energy supply, and a government blueprint calls for building 11 new plants and raising electricity output from nuclear facilities to nearly 40 percent of the national supply by 2010.
The deaths in Mihama also come as Japan is bidding to host the world's first large-scale nuclear fusion plant, the $12 billion International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, or ITER. But the project's sponsors - the European Union, the United States, Russia, Japan, South Korea and China - remain deadlocked over whether to build the plant in Japan or France.
The government vowed to quickly find out what happened on Monday.
"We must put all our effort into determining the cause of the accident and to ensuring safety," Koizumi said. He added that the government would respond "resolutely, after confirming the facts."
The United States had a similar accident at the Surry nuclear power plant in southern Virginia almost two decades ago when an 18-inch steel pipe burst and released 30,000 gallons of boiling water and steam, killing four people.
In Japan's 1999 accident, a radiation leak at a fuel-reprocessing plant in Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo, killed two workers and caused the evacuation of thousands of residents. That accident was caused by two workers who tried to save time by mixing excessive amounts of uranium in buckets instead of using special mechanized tanks.
Several major power-generation companies have since been hit with alleged safety violations at their reactors, undermining public faith in nuclear energy and leaving Japan's nuclear program in limbo.
A 2002 investigation revealed that Tokyo Electric Power, the world's largest private utility, systematically lied about the appearance of cracks in its reactors during the 1980s and 1990s. The company later temporarily shut down all 17 of its reactors for inspections to reassure the public they were safe.
In February, eight workers were exposed to low-level radiation at another power plant when they were accidentally sprayed with contaminated water. The doses were not considered dangerous.
? 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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>> IRAN WATCH...

Iran Denies Providing Missile Test Site
The Associated Press
Saturday, August 7, 2004; 4:25 PM
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran on Saturday dismissed allegations it was providing test sites for North Korean long-range missiles designed to deliver nuclear warheads, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
A Bush administration official claimed earlier that North Korea was getting around a self-imposed missile test ban by sharing technology information with Iran, which is allegedly carrying out missile tests on Pyongyang's behalf.
Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani rejected the claim, saying, "Iran does not cooperate with North Korea in missile technology and it does not need to."
President Bush has labeled Iran and North Korea as being part of an axis of evil, accusing both of pursuing nuclear weapons programs.
A leading military publication, Jane's Defense Weekly, reported recently that North Korea was developing two new ballistic missile systems that have "appreciably expanded the ballistic-missile threat."
Shamkhani said Iran is developing its Shahab-3 missile as a measure against Israel's missile power, which Tehran concluded tests of last year.
The missile is thought to be capable of carrying a 2,200-pound warhead over a distance of some 800 miles, which would put Israel within its range.
While Shamkhani denied any kind of nuclear military activity by Iran, he said his country would not leave its people without defense.
"That's why we have to invest on nuclear defense preparation," he added without elaborating.
Washington is working with South Korea, Japan, China and Russia to negotiate an agreement with North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program.
With Iran, the White House has been trying to haul Tehran before the United Nations Security Council based on accusations that the Persian state has been trying to build nuclear weapons against its Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations.
Iran maintains its nuclear program is entirely peaceful, geared toward production of nuclear energy.
? 2004 The Associated Press

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Iran seeks to improve Shihab-3 missile as US officials say Bush diplomacy failing to slow down Tehran nuclear program
08-08-2004, 08:07
Iran aims to soon test an improved version of its Shihab-3 medium-range missile, Defence Minister Ali Shamkhani said, following Israel's boosting of its anti-missile missile capability.
"We will improve the Shihab-3 and when we test it, in the very short future, we will let you know," what improvements have been made, said the minister, who was quoted by ISNA student news agency.
"These improvements do not only concern its range, but other specifications as well," Shamkhani said, without providing further details.
Late last month, Israel successfully tested its Arrow II anti-missile missile in the United States. It was the seventh time the missile has worked, but the first time it destroyed a real Scud missile.
Shamkhani insisted the Shihab-3 was intended for defensive purposes.
"The Israelis are trying hard to improve the capacity of their missiles, and we are also trying to improve the Shihab-3 in a short time," Shamkani said, denying the Islamic republic was working on a more advanced Shihab-4.
When asked if the army was involved in Iran's nuclear program, Shamkhani said that its "only intervention in the nuclear area, is nuclear protection," referring to possible attack from Israel's suspected nuclear arsenal.
"If a military operation is carried out against us, we cannot do nothing, so we are investing in nuclear protection," he said.
Meanwhile, according to a report in the New York Times, US intelligence officials and outside nuclear experts have reached the conclusion that the Bush administration's diplomatic efforts with European and Asian allies have "barely slowed the nuclear weapons programs in Iran and North Korea over the past year", and that both have made "significant progress".
In a tacit acknowledgment that the diplomatic initiatives with European and Asian allies have failed to curtail the programs, high-ranking administration and intelligence officials said, according to the report, that they are seeking ways to step up unspecified covert actions intended, in the words of one official, "to disrupt or delay as long as we can" Tehran's efforts to develop a nuclear weapon. (Albawaba.com)
Israeli officials admit ''Arrow'' system should be upgraded in order to intercept Iranian missiles
03-08-2004
"There is a need to upgrade the capabilities of the Arrow missile so that it can intercept the Iranian Shihab missile; its interception ability is currently limited", according to representatives of the Arrow missile program that briefed the Israeli parliament's Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, on the experiment that took place last weekend in the United States.
Head of the Arrow project, Yair Ramati, thanked the committee during the Tuesday meeting for its success in convincing the U.S. congress to add $82 million to the mutual production of the Arrow by the Israeli Aircraft Industries and Boeing Company in the U.S.
In a test that took place last week, an Arrow missile successfully intercepted a Scud missile, which was launched from a vessel in an experimental field of the U.S. navy in California. In the course of the experiment, the Arrow was launched from an island in the Pacific ocean, located dozens of kilometers from California's shores.
The Arrow Interceptor is the first missile that was specifically designed and built to destroy ballistic missiles on a national level. It is aimed at becoming the first anti-ballistic missile system able to intercept its targets so high in the stratosphere. The Arrow ABM system was designed and constructed in Israel with financial support by the U.S. in a multi-billion dollar development program.
The system was designed and constructed after the massive failure of the anti-aircraft Patriot missile system to properly intercept and destroy the Scud missiles fired by Iraq during the first Gulf War in 1991.
Iran's Shihab-3 ground-to-ground rocket has an effective range beyond 1,300-kilometers, meaning it can reach Israel.
Iran has also plans for two longer-range missiles: a Shihab-4, with a 2,000-kilometer range and a Shihab-5, with a 5,500-kilometer range. (Albawaba.com)

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Bush Says Iran `Must' Abandon Nuclear Weapons Ambitions
By Alex Keto, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Iran must abandon any plans it has to develop nuclear weapons, President George W. Bush said Monday.
However, Bush didn't outline any steps the U.S. might be willing to take to halt Iran's nuclear program other than to say the U.S. and its allies will continue to put pressure on Tehran.
The first step in halting any nuclear weapons program in Iran is to get the world to unite behind the idea that such a development would be unacceptable, Bush said.
"The first (step) is to make it clear to the world that Iran must abandon its nuclear ambition," Bush said.
"We've got to continue to keep pressure on the government (of Iran) and to help others keep pressure on the government so there is universal condemnation of illegal weapons activities," Bush said.
Bush made the comments in Annadale, Va., in response to a question from an audience of supporters.
Bush praised the actions of the U.K., Germany and France for helping deliver the message to Iran that the U.S. won't tolerate its nuclear weapons program. The three countries reached an agreement last year with Iran that opened up its nuclear program to greater outside scrutiny and included an agreement by Iran that it would halt development of its ability to enrich uranium.
Iran recently abandoned the agreement, saying it hasn't received help with its civilian program as promised.
Bush appeared to rule a military option to halt Iran's nuclear program, at least for the moment.
"Every situation requires a different response," Bush said in an apparent reference to the decision to topple former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
"We tailor our responses based on the reality of the moment," he added.
One response, Bush made clear, is to fan popular discontent among the Iranian people with the government in Tehran.
"The United States does have an opportunity to speak clearly to those who love freedom inside of Iran and we are," Bush said.
The president noted there is a "significant" number of Iranian-Americans "who long for their homeland to be liberated and free and we are working with them to send messages to their loved ones and relatives through different methodologies."
In addition, Bush noted that many radio broadcasts that originate in the U.S. are being received in Iran which say "free societies are possible."
Bush said he has few direct actions he can employ against Iran. Not only does the U.S. have no diplomatic relations with Tehran but "we have totally sanctioned them," Bush said.
"We are out of sanctions," Bush added.
On Sunday, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice offered much stronger comments on Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
"I think you cannot allow the Iranians to develop a nuclear weapon. The international community has got to find a way to come together and to make certain that that does not happen," Rice said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
She said the U.S. hasn't ruled out any options that it may use but also indicated that at the moment the U.S. is content to pursue a diplomatic approach. She predicted that in September the International Atomic Energy Agency will issue a strong statement that will leave Iran isolated.
-By Alex Keto, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9256; Alex.Keto@dowjones.com
Dow Jones Newswires
08-09-041257ET
Copyright (C) 2004 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
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Rice Cites International Concern Over Iran's Nuclear Intentions
By William C. Mann
Associated Press
Monday, August 9, 2004; Page A16
With Iran stepping up its nuclear program, a top White House aide said yesterday the world finally is "worried and suspicious" over the Iranians' intentions and is determined not to let Tehran produce a nuclear weapon.
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice also said the Bush administration sees a new international willingness to act against Iran's nuclear program. She credited the changed attitude to the Americans' insistence that Iran's effort put the world in peril.
She would not say whether the United States would act alone to end the program if the administration could not win international support.
Iran's foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, announced a week ago that his country had resumed building nuclear centrifuges. He said Iran was retaliating for the West's failure to force the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency to close its file on possible Iranian violations of nuclear nonproliferation rules.
Kharrazi said Iran was not resuming enrichment of uranium, which requires a centrifuge. But, he said, Iran had restarted manufacturing the device because Britain, Germany and France had not stopped the investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"The United States was the first to say that Iran was a threat in this way, to try and convince the international community that Iran was trying, under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, to actually bring about a nuclear weapons program," Rice said on CNN's "Late Edition."
"I think we've finally now got the world community to a place, and the International Atomic Energy Agency to a place, that it is worried and suspicious of the Iranian activities," she said. "Iran is facing for the first time real resistance to trying to take these steps."
President Bush, in his 2002 State of the Union address, included Iran with North Korea and Iraq in an "axis of evil" dedicated to developing nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.
Since then, North Korea has publicly resumed its nuclear development program. In Iraq, invading U.S.-led forces have found no such programs since President Saddam Hussein was deposed.
Iran announced in June that it would resume its centrifuge program. Afterward, the U.S. official whose job is to slow the global atomic arms race, Under Secretary of State John R. Bolton, told Congress that Iran was jabbing "a thumb in the eye of the international community."
On NBC's "Meet the Press," Rice reasserted that the world has fallen in line on Iran and said she expects next month to get a strong statement from the IAEA "that Iran will either be isolated, or it will submit to the will of the international community."
She also said: "We cannot allow the Iranians to develop a nuclear weapon. The international community has got to find a way to come together and to make certain that that does not happen."
? 2004 The Washington Post Company
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Iran Seeks Support on Nuclear Technology
By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Iran is demanding Europe's leading powers back its right to nuclear technology that could be used to make weapons, dismaying the Europeans and strengthening Washington's push for U.N. sanctions, a European Union official and diplomats said Monday.
Declining to respond to a list of demands presented by Iran last week - whose contents were made available to The Associated Press - the Europeans are urging the Iranian government to instead make good on a pledge to clear up suspicions about its nuclear ambitions.
But diplomats said Iran's demands undermine the effort by France, Germany and Britain to avoid a confrontation. They had hoped to persuade Tehran to give up technology that can produce nuclear arms, but now are closer to the Bush administration's view that Iran should be referred to the U.N. Security Council for violating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the diplomats said.
The Iranian list, presented during talks in Paris, includes demands that the three European powers:
Support Iran's insistence its nuclear program have access to "advanced technology, including those with dual use," which is equipment and know-how that has both peaceful and weapons applications.
-"Remove impediments" - sales restrictions imposed by nuclear supplier nations - preventing Iran access to such technology.
-Give assurances they will stick by any commitment to Iran even if faced with "legal (or) political ... limitations," an apparent allusion to potential Security Council sanctions.
-Agree to sell Iran conventional weapons.
Audio
Bush says it's important that the Iranian government listen to global demands that it not go nuclear.
-Commit to push "rigorously and systematically" for a non-nuclear Middle East and to "provide security assurances" against a nuclear attack on Iran, both allusions to Israel, which is believed to have nuclear arms and which destroyed Iraq's nuclear reactor in a 1981 airstrike to prevent it from making atomic arms.
France, Germany and Britain last year had held out the prospect of supplying Iran with some "dual use" nuclear technology, but only in the distant future and only if all suspicions about the Iranian program were laid to rest.
With Iran still under investigation, the demands stunned senior French, German and British negotiators, said a European Union official familiar with the Paris meeting.
Ignoring the list, the Europeans instead urged Iran to act on its leaders' pledge to clear up suspicions about their nuclear ambitions by Sept. 13, when the International Atomic Energy Agency meets to review Iran's nuclear program, the official said.
The Paris talks ended "with the two sides talking past each other," said a diplomat familiar with the meeting, who - like the other diplomats and the EU official - agreed to discuss the matter only if granted anonymity.
In London, the Foreign Office declined to comment on the negotiations with Iran, but said Britain is "not prepared to stand by and watch them collect the necessary technology to make a weapon."
Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi insisted in Tehran that the international community has no reason to be suspicious about his country's nuclear plans.
"Iran has not violated any of its commitments to international treaties in its nuclear program," Kharrazi was quoted as saying by the official Islamic Republic News Agency.
The Bush administration insists Iran wants to make nuclear weapons, despite Tehran's claims that it is interested in uranium enrichment and other "dual use" technology only to help generate electricity.
During a campaign stop Monday, President Bush said U.S. officials are working with other nations to make sure the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency based in Vienna, asks Iranian officials "hard questions" about their weapons activities.
"Iran must comply with the demands of the free world and that's where we sit right now," Bush said in Annandale, Va. "My attitude is that we've got to keep pressure on the government, and help others keep pressure on the government - so there's going to be universal condemnation of illegal weapons activities."
Iran agreed last October to suspend uranium enrichment and cooperate with the IAEA investigation of its nuclear activities in exchange for a promise from the France, Germany and Britain to provide technology for peaceful nuclear programs once all open questions had been answered.
It subsequently stopped enrichment, but continued related activities. That fell short of a demand from the Europeans that it permanently renounce the process, which can both produce fuel for generating electricity and create the core of a nuclear warhead.
While enrichment remains suspended, Iran announced last week that it has resumed full-scale manufacture of centrifuges, which are used in uranium enrichment. It said the move was a reaction to the Europeans not persuading the IAEA to end its investigation.
Past American attempts to have the IAEA refer Iran to the Security Council foundered in part because of European resistance. But the hardline Iranian stance has emboldened U.S. officials.
A U.S. official in Washington, who spoke Monday on condition of anonymity, said the Paris meeting was a factor in the Bush administration's stronger confidence that it will get support for an IAEA board resolution asking for Security Council action against Iran.
On the Net:
International Atomic Energy Agency: www.iaea.org
? 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Pakistan slams US for 'mind-boggling' envoy sting (09/08/2004)
ISLAMABAD (AFP) Pakistan angrily accused its close ally the United States of endangering the life of one its top envoys in a reported sting operation, describing it as bizarre, dangerous and regrettable.
It was responding to claims that a US secret agent posed as a terrorist seeking to buy missiles to kill Munir Akram, Pakistan's ambassador to the United Nations, in a bid to catch potential money launderers.
"At one level this is a bizarre story; at another quite dangerous," government spokesman Masood Khan told a weekly press briefing about the New York Times report.
The projection of a fictitious threat to a senior envoy from a close ally of the US was "regrettable," Khan said. "It is mind-boggling why they could not use the name of an American functionary," he said.
Khan added: "This has increased our ambassador's and our mission's vulnerability. This technique and methodology is tantamount to autosuggestion and could have endangered the life of our ambassador."
The Pakistani government, one of Washington's most pivotal partners in the war on terrorism, has lodged a complaint with the US embassy in Islamabad.
"We hope that the US will realise its mistake and give instructions for rectifying this faulty methodology," Khan said.
Two men were captured in the operation and are being held by US authorities.
Pakistan's outburst came in the midst of a high-profile crackdown on suspected top Al-Qaeda operatives hiding out in the world's second most populous Muslim nation.
The July arrests of Tanzanian terror suspect in the 1998 east Africa US embassy bombings Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani and Pakistani computer whizz Naeem Noork Khan have led to the uncovering of a worldwide Al-Qaeda wing which was plotting fresh terror attacks in Britain and the US.

?AFP
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Elite veterans prowl Pakistan
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The United States, on the hunt for Osama bin Laden, is augmenting counterterror operations in Pakistan with scores of former special-operations warriors who work for the CIA and other agencies under contract.
Thousands of U.S. troops are openly fighting in Afghanistan along the Pakistan border. The stated U.S. policy, however, is that no American troops are inside Pakistan pursuing bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorists or advising local troops.
The reality is there are "a load of contracts" with U.S. agencies attracting veterans of Special Forces and other elite units to Pakistan, one source told The Washington Times.
The official ban is in deference to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, whose solid alliance with the United States in the war on terror stops short of allowing American ground troops in his country.
Asked at a March press conference whether U.S. troops were inside Pakistan hunting for Osama bin Laden, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld responded, "The U.S. Department of Defense people? I doubt it. Not that I know of."
But Washington is getting around the ban by signing up former Delta Force commandos, SEALs and Green Berets and assigning them to special duties in Pakistan, according to two sources close to the special-operations community.
"There are a load of contracts going on for ex-SF [Special Forces] types there for every alphabet agency there is," one of the sources said.
The source said the former covert warriors joined CIA operations in Pakistan and train local soldiers in counterinsurgency techniques.
The de facto deployment of U.S. troops is an example of how far Pakistan -- an acknowledged nuclear power -- has come in its global alliances. Once a backer of the al Qaeda-supporting Taliban regime in Afghanistan, Islamabad has become one of Washington's most essential allies.
There was a time when such cooperation seemed impossible.
In the early days of President Bush's term, Dan Gallington, then a senior adviser to Mr. Rumsfeld, received a courtesy call from a former top Pakistani defense official who told him that the Taliban was sure to finally defeat the Northern Alliance and conquer all of Afghanistan. More alarmingly, this person predicted that his country also would fall to Islamic militants -- making it the first theocracy to own the world's most powerful weapon.
Three years later, Pakistan is the setting for the third hot war in the global war on terrorism, joining Afghanistan and Iraq as places where the military hunts and battles al Qaeda and other terrorists.
Bush administration officials say, in an odd twist, bin Laden's September 11 attacks might have saved Pakistan. Gen. Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup, saw his hold threatened by Islamic militants who were infiltrating more organs of government, especially the powerful intelligence service.
"Musharraf has clawed his way back, aggressively supported by the United States," said Mr. Gallington, an analyst at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. "We saved Musharraf in the nick of time. Pakistan is the focal point in that part of the world, and Musharraf understands that."
September 11 forced Gen. Musharraf to pick sides under pressure from Mr. Bush. He chose the United States.
During the invasion of Afghanistan in December 2001, the Pakistani president allowed his soil to be used by U.S. special-operations forces and the Predator spy drone to begin missions across the border.
During the subsequent counterinsurgency that continues today, he took an even bigger step. For the first time in memory, a president of Pakistan sent government troops into the vast tribal lands bordering Afghanistan. They are hunting for bin Laden and, in the process, confronting and killing bands of al Qaeda terrorists.
Pakistan's close working relationship with the CIA and FBI produced the arrests this summer of key al Qaeda members who use the country as a base from which to plan attacks and conduct worldwide communications. One key capture was Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who was indicted in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa.
On the ideological front, Gen. Musharraf's government has begun dismantling the network of harsh schools or madrassas that teach the young to hate. They are being replaced by public schools funded by the United States.
Pakistan served as sanctuary for bin Laden and his network for more than a decade. The teeming neighborhoods of cities such as Karachi and Islamabad serve as perfect hiding places.
Now, Gen. Musharraf is allowing CIA and FBI personnel to infiltrate those haunts, as his troops mount incursions into no man's land. It is all part of a risky attempt to methodically weed deadly militants from his country, while keeping the larger population in check.
Mr. Rumsfeld, in an Aug. 3 interview with Atlanta-based radio talk-show host Neil Boortz, described the alliance.
"We have thousands of troops in Afghanistan that are working along that Afghan-Pakistan border in close cooperation with the Pakistan government," the defense secretary said. "And the belief continues to be that Osama bin Laden and some of his senior operatives are possibly in Pakistan or in parts of Afghanistan from time to time."


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Top trainer at al Qaeda camp captured
By Paul Haven
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- In a new blow to al Qaeda, authorities in the United Arab Emirates captured a senior operative in Osama bin Laden's terror network who trained thousands of militants for combat and turned him over to Pakistan, the information minister said yesterday.
Qari Saifullah Akhtar was secretly flown to the eastern city of Lahore, where he was being interrogated, a Pakistani intelligence official said on the condition of anonymity.
Pakistan, a key ally of the United States in its war on terror, has arrested about 20 al Qaeda suspects in less than a month -- including a top figure sought by the United States. The arrests prompted a series of raids in Britain and uncovered al Qaeda surveillance in the United States.
Akhtar once had run a vast terror camp in Rishkhor, Afghanistan, that was visited by bin Laden and Taliban chief Mullah Mohammed Omar. The camp -- a sprawling complex of shattered barracks and dusty fields about 10 miles south of the Afghan capital, Kabul -- trained 3,500 men in combat skills, including assassination and kidnapping.
Akhtar disappeared in the hours before the United States started bombing Afghanistan in October 2001 and had not been heard from since.
"Yes, we can confirm that we have Qari Saifullah," Pakistani Information Minister Sheik Rashid Ahmed said.
Akhtar was arrested in Dubai "in the past week" and turned over to Pakistan, the minister said, without giving any details about the arrest.
Officials in Dubai had no comment.
In Washington, the head of the White House's office of counterterrorism said Akhtar's arrest was significant and that he was thought to be involved in two December attempts to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf.
The arrest is "very important, particularly for Pakistan," Frances Townsend said on "Fox News Sunday."
Asked whether Akhtar is thought to be involved in current al Qaeda operations, Mrs. Townsend said, "Absolutely. Absolutely."
But Mr. Ahmed said it was "premature" to link Akhtar to the assassination attempts.
Akhtar is said to have been active in several Kashmiri militant groups, including the Harakat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami, whose Muslim fighters have fought as far afield as Chechnya and Bosnia.
"He had a hand in various cases," Mr. Ahmed said of Akhtar, without elaborating.
Pakistan's Geo television reported yesterday that authorities also had arrested Kashmiri militant Maulana Fazl-ur Rahman Khalil on charges of sending militants to Afghanistan to join the Taliban.
Khalil is said to be the leader of Harakat-ul-Mujahideen, a group linked to Harakat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami and one of several Kashmiri militant groups banned by Gen. Musharraf on suspicion of ties to al Qaeda.
Khalil also helped organize a clandestine 1998 trip by about a dozen Pakistani journalists to interview bin Laden in Khost, Afghanistan -- one of the last interviews he granted.
Senior government ministers had no comment on the Geo report, which did not say when or where Khalil was arrested.
Mr. Ahmed said the arrest of Akhtar was not linked to the recent capture of two other al Qaeda operatives, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani and Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan.
Information gleaned during those arrests helped lead to a terror warning in the United States and a sweep in Britain that has netted about a dozen suspects.

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Lebanon suspends all investment plans in Iraq
Lebanon has suspended all investment plans in Iraq as a result of the latest wave of kidnappings, which included five Lebanese hostages. The nabbed Lebanese comprised of a businessman and four drivers whose trucks have also been hijacked along with a big load of power generators, An Nahar newspaper reported Sunday.
It quoted the chairman of Lebanon's Industrial Association, Fadi Abboud, as saying in an interview that Iraq's rickety security conditions "have led to halting any Lebanese planning to invest in Iraq."
"The Lebanese were eager a year ago to move into Iraq's industrial sector, because of the low cost of energy, which is almost non existent and the low costs of labor," Abboud conveyed.
According to him, the plan was to invest in the fields of plastics, power generating, air conditioners, petrochemicals and prefabricated houses. "But all this planning has now come to a standstill after the targeting of Lebanese in Iraq," Abboud said.
He stated Lebanon's exports to Iraq have ebbed between 30 and 35 percent as a result of the latest kidnappings. (menareport.com)

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Salem Chalabi Denies Murder Accusation
http://www.npr.org/rundowns/segment.php?wfId=3841739
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from All Things Considered, Monday , August 09, 2004
Salem Chalabi, nephew of former U.S. adviser Ahmed Chalabi, denies allegations that he was involved in the June murder of the Iraqi finance ministry's director. An arrest warrant has been issued for Chalabi, who is currently overseeing the special tribunal for prosecuting Saddam Hussein. Hear Salem Chalabi and NPR's Melissa Block.


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>> ANOTHER

The UN Betrayal
Produced on 08/09/04
Listen to the story
800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus perished in Rwanda's genocide. It's been more than 10 years since the slaughter and there's much unfinished business. One case involves Callixte Mbarushimana. The charges against him are shocking, even in the context of the horrors that engulfed Rwanda. Mbarushimana worked for the United Nations there. He's accused of lending UN resources to the mass killing and even murdering co-workers. Michael Montgomery of American Radio Works produced our story in cooperation with the PBS program Frontline.
One final note on this story. Callixte Mbarushimana is suing the United Nations for back pay, reinstatement and damages. A UN advisory board has recommended that Mbarushimana receive back pay. But the matter is currently pending before the UN Administrative Tribunal.
During the Rwanda genocide ten years ago the UN's small contingent of foreign workers struggled to save lives. Men, women and children were being butchered by the thousands each day. Hutu extremists went to great lengths to track down and kill minority Tutsis working for international organizations like the United Nations.
Gregory Alex is a veteran aid worker in Africa. In April, 1994, Alex was working for the UN Development Fund or UNDP. He chose to stay in Rwanda during the genocide to lead emergency relief operations and try to protect his Rwandan colleagues. Alex says he was especially concerned for a UNDP employee named Florence Ngurumpatse. She was a Tutsi who was loved by many UNDP workers. Because of her ethnicity she was targeted by extremists.
Alex is a stocky man with a crew cut and an intense gaze. He steers his SUV through the center of Kigali. The streets are quiet as he passes freshly painted government buildings that served as the nerve center of the genocide ten years ago. He approaches a dirt lane and stops before a single story house surrounded by lush trees. Florence Ngurumpatse lived here. During the genocide it was just half a mile from a UN safe haven.
Gregory Alex: She was there with I think it was 10 children she was taking care of. I think there was a hope because of who she was that maybe she might be able to get out and save the children.
Ngurumpatse had taken in the children, mainly teenage schoolgirls, because she thought her UN status would give them protection. Surrounded by militiamen, she telephoned friends and UN officials, pleading for help in escaping. Alex says her voice grew increasingly desperate.
Gregory Alex: And she is saying they came again today, they threatened to kill us, they threatened to rape the girls. You know it was every day a terror. Kind of like the false execution torture where they say we are coming back later and we are going to kill you. So you spend the entire day terrorized that they are going to come and then they say `naw we are going to kill you tomorrow but we are going to rape you first before we kill you.'
Some UNDP workers were already dead. Tutsis in hiding or under UN protection told Alex they suspected a fellow UNDP worker, a Hutu, was behind the killings. His name is Callixte Mbarushimana. In 1994, Mbarushimana was 30-years old and working for the UNDP as a computer technician. During the genocide he assumed control of the UNDP compound after international staff was evacuated. Witnesses told Alex they saw Mbarushimana directing Hutu death squads.
Gregory Alex: The first thing they would tell me is don't give any information to Callixte. He's the one that is looking for us. And he had this, what I sensed from them, this desire to make sure he completed his task, which was to eliminate all Tutsis working for the UN.
Two weeks into the genocide Alex says he encountered Mbarushimana at the UNDP compound. He was armed.
Gregory Alex: And he came over with this angry look on his face and unprovoked he said "Nous eliminarans tous." And he had a paper in his hand and he slammed his fist into his other hand and he said no.....we will eliminate them all and he was referring to the Tutsis.
Three weeks later, in mid-May 1994, the UN finally authorized a rescue of UNDP employee Florence Ngirumpatse. But hours before UN armored vehicles were dispatched, Hutu militiamen invaded Ngirumpatse's house.... armed with knives and machetes.
Gregory Alex: I Imagine that all those people down at the checkpoints said, hey...and I'm sure there were people on the inside knowing what was happening, that the rescue operation was being mounted said `hey tomorrow's the day, you'd better do it today.' So they came in and they just cut them all to death. Women and children.
Alex suspected Callixte Mbarushimana tipped off militiamen to the impending rescue. But he didn't have the chance to find out. Like thousands of other Hutus, Mbarushimana fled Rwanda after the genocide. UNDP officials stationed in Africa say they were aware of allegations against Mbarushimana immediately after the genocide. But there is no record of any investigation by the UNDP into the killings of its staff or the possible use of its resources by the extremists. Not only did the UN fail to investigate Mbarushimana at the time ...he remained on the UN payroll seven years later. Charles Petrie is a senior UNDP official who served in Rwanda.
Charles Petrie: What infuriated me and others is that somebody like that could continue working for the UN. He was an international civil servant responsible for the murders of our colleagues.
In 2001, Callixte Mbarushimana was discovered still working for the UN...in Kosovo. Prompted by newspaper reports, the UN detained Mbarushimana and a complex legal battle followed. In the end, a Kosovo court rejected an extradition request from the Rwandan government. Mbarushimana was released and eventually moved to France. The story seemed to end there. But hidden from the public, the UN war crimes tribunal for Rwanda launched a secret investigation of Mbarushimana in May 2001.
Torny Grieg: The initial reaction was that, we are embarrassed at this story.
Torny Grieg is a lawyer from New Zealand who led the UN investigation. He is speaking publicly about the case for the first time.
Torny Grieg: It is a shocking story. Here is a man who was our colleague, who killed our colleagues, and we must not be seen to be sitting on our hands. We must get him.
Greig interviewed more than 20 witnesses in Rwanda and across Africa and Europe.
Torny Grieg: The picture we built up was that for some time prior to April 1994, Mbarushimana had formed a militia, and had done drill and weapons training in the months leading up to the genocide. They had attended party meetings which from the description seemed to resemble Nuremberg rallies that had been used to whip up feelings and hatred.
Witnesses told Greig that in addition to providing cash, vehicles and satellite phones--all UN property--to militias and the army, Mbarushimana was present at massacres of possibly hundreds of people, allegedly shooting some of the victims himself. Some witnesses were Tutsi survivors who told Greig they recognized Mbarushimana. Others were Hutus like this man who says he took part in the massacres alongside Mbarushimana.
Anonymous: There were two kind of people among us. Some of us joined the militia because we had to. Then there were people who really wanted to be there. People who had a desire to kill and would keep a list of the dead and the ones left to be killed.
This witness, who asked that his name not be used, is a 33-year-old carpenter who says he was given a club and ordered to help hunt down Tutsis. He remembers Callixte Mbarushimana as one of the top militia authorities in his neighborhood.
Anonymous: Callixte was a vicious and cruel man. He had lists and would direct the militias to homes. Most of the victims in this area were killed under Callixte's orders
American RadioWorks obtained a copy of a secret indictment drafted by a senior lawyer with the UN war crimes tribunal in the fall of 2001. It charges Mbarushimana with genocide and crimes against humanity. The document lists Florence Ngurumpatse, Callixte's former co-worker, as one of his targets. Mbarushimina would have been the first UN employee ever charged with war crimes by an international tribunal. But instead of signing the indictment, Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte closed the investigation. In an order of dismissal, Del Ponte said there was insufficient evidence to support the charges. Prosecutor Del Ponte declined to discuss the case but Torny Grieg, who has since left the tribunal, says her decision ignored strong evidence against Mbarushimana.
Torny Grieg: I had eyewitness accounts, I had parties to his acts, I had their accounts. There was corroborative evidence from impeccable sources and there was evidence still lying in the ground literally waiting to be dug up, had anyone wanted to do so. The evidence was there. It stacked up and it compared with other cases that I had dealt with.
A senior official with the UN Tribunal who requested anonymity agrees that there was enough evidence to prosecute Mbarushimana but declined to elaborate on why the case was dropped.
Payam Akhavan: It is somewhat suspicious. Payam Akhavan is a former legal advisor to the UN war crimes tribunal. He left the tribunal prior to the Mbarushimana investigation and is now a senior fellow at Yale law school. Akhavan says that while the tribunal has sought to prosecute only the top leaders of the genocide, and not lesser figures like Mbarushimana.-- the UN had a special responsibility in this case because it involved a UN employee.
Payam Akhavan: What is strange in this case is that the prosecutor has gone out of her way to issue an order for dismissal which I find very unusual. Usually an investigation is simply dropped. There is no reason to have a specific order.
Speaking through his lawyers, Callixte Mbarushimana strongly denied playing any role in the genocide. Mbarushimana confirmed he was living with his family in Kigali during the genocide and coordinated work at the UNDP compound. But he says he too was attacked by gunmen during the genocide. Mbarushimana says the UN violated his rights during his detention in Kosovo. And in a further twist, he is now demanding back pay, reinstatement and an unspecified amount in damages before the UN administrative tribunal in New York. As for the allegations against him, Mbarushimana suggested they were part of a vendetta.
Charles Petrie: It's not a vendetta against Callixte. It's a moral responsibility towards those colleagues that we worked with who were killed.
Charles Petrie is now the UNDP's country representative in Burma.
Charles Petrie: The fact that somebody like Callixte and that affair can remain active ten years after 800,000 people were massacred is symptomatic of the fact that maybe the lessons haven't been learned and systems haven't been established to insure that something like that wouldn't happen again.
Petrie is now pressing the UNDP for a high level inquiry into the hiring of Mbarushimana, his activities during the genocide and the possible misuse of UNDP assets. He also wants to know why the UN war crimes tribunal dropped the indictment. Petrie says there is growing concern inside the UN that the organization might reach a financial settlement with Mbarushimana.
Charles Petrie: The UN is not a government. We have no armies. We basically are able to assert ourselves in difficult situations because of a moral authority. Were the UN to back down or not to pursue this to a new level then I think it would harm the moral authority.
UN officials in New York would not discuss Mbarushimana, citing the case pending before the UN administrative tribunal. But sources close to the case say the organization is resisting any large payment to Mbarushimana. Payam Akhavan says Secretary General Kofi Annan should order an inquiry.
Payam Akhavan: If there is an allegation of bribery or embezzlement or financial wrongdoing by a UN staff member, clearly the SG is under an obligation to order an inquiry. I would suggest that the case for an inquiry is thus much more compelling where the allegation is that a UN staff member was involved in the mass killing of thousands of innocent people.
Thousands, even tens of thousands of cases of murder remained unresolved in Rwanda. This is the poisoned legacy of genocide. 33 of the Rwandan victims worked for the UN Development Program. In Kigali, a column carved with their names stands in the courtyard of the UNDP compound.
Gregory Alex: You know you can come by here every day. You don't think of, you try not to think of what took place.
Gregory Alex, who left the UN and now works in Africa for the World Bank, still comes to this place to mourn his murdered colleagues.
Gregory Alex: You can see Florence. You can see my drivers. You look at the names here and you just think of, these are people that had skills and were people that represented a future for this country, and they're all gone.
This past spring the Rwandan government added Callixte Mbarushimana to its list of top genocide suspects living outside the country. Rwandan officials say they are discussing the case with authorities in France and will likely press for his extradition. But relations between Rwanda and France are poor. Meanwhile, a ruling from the United Nations Administrative Tribunal is expected in the coming weeks. For the World and American RadioWorks, I'm Michael Montgomery.
American RadioWorks is the documentary unit of American Public Media. Michael Montgomery and Stephen Smith produced this story in cooperation with the PBS program FRONTLINE.
For photographs and primary documents relating to the case visit: http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/rwanda/segb1.html

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U.N. to Report on Iraqi Oil Corruption
By EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated Press Writer
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The panel investigating "serious" allegations of corruption in Iraq's oil-for-food program hopes to report on accusations of U.N. involvement by mid-2005, chairman Paul Volcker said Monday.
At a news conference releasing the committee's first quarterly report, the former Federal Reserve chairman said he doesn't know how long it will take to complete the investigation, which he estimated will cost at least $30 million over the next year.
The committee's report states that "the allegations of misconduct and maladministration are serious" and Volcker told reporters, "I think clearly there's a lot of smoke." He refused to speculate on what the investigation might find.
"If you really wanted to wrap this up, in the sense of chasing down every contractor involved here and what happened to the money, I think we'd be here until the next century," he said. "Obviously, we want to investigate enough of these cases to have an understanding, as best we can, of what happened."
The oil-for-food program, which began in December 1996 and ended in November, was launched by the U.N. Security Council to help Iraqis cope with U.N. sanctions.
Saddam Hussein's regime could sell unlimited quantities of oil provided the money went primarily to buy humanitarian goods and pay reparations to victims of the 1991 Gulf War. Saddam's government decided on the goods it wanted, who should provide them and who could buy Iraqi oil - but the Security Council committee overseeing sanctions monitored the contracts.
Volcker, the former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, initially predicted that the Independent Inquiry Committee would produce some results on the U.N.'s internal operation of the humanitarian program in six to eight months. But he said there is a massive amount of documentation to examine just in the United Nations - "10,000 boxes ... with millions of pages" - plus critical material in Iraq and thousands of contracts.
Volcker said the committee's priority is "to make the definitive report" on the U.N.'s administration of the program and the accusations of corruption involving U.N. officials.
"We would certainly want to get that part of it done in the first half of next year - no later than the middle of next year," he said. "But that does not mean the investigation as a whole will be completed because there's so much going on outside the U.N. that we have to follow up on as well."
Volcker said there's "a lot of competition" in investigating allegations of payoffs, bribes, kickbacks, overcharges and undercharges by companies and individuals who bought Iraqi oil and sold Iraq goods.
The U.S. Congress has launched five investigations, the U.S. Justice Department is investigating, the U.S. attorney's office in New York is interested in potential corruption by American companies, Britain is investigating a company that reported some involvement, and Iraq's interim government has launched a major probe in hopes of getting some money back, Volcker said.
Allegations of corruption in the oil-for-food program surfaced in January in the Iraqi newspaper Al-Mada, which published a list of about 270 former government officials, activists, journalists and U.N. officials from more than 46 countries suspected of profiting from Iraqi oil sales that were part of the U.N. program.
Volcker's committee has taken custody of the U.N. files and he told reporters it will only give out information to other inquiries that it feels will not prejudice its own investigation or be prejudicial to particular individuals. He said the committee's 50-member staff was already "well advanced" in organizing the U.N. documents and has started conducting interviews.
? 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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China's PLA: 7-carrier exercise signals U.S. strategic shift 'from Atlantic to Pacific'
The global naval exercise known as Summer Pulse 2004 represents a new strategic U.S. military trend, the Chinese military publication PLA Daily stated last week. Seven aircraft carrier battle groups have put to sea simultaneously around the world, including two in the Pacific, as a show of multiple carrier operations. The report maintained that the focus of the exercise was for the U.S. to contain its Asian "potential opponent."

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U.S. replaces troops departing South Korea for Iraq with a 500-man Patriot missile unit
N. Korea letter to UN threatens war, calls U.S. force reorganization 'massive arms buildup'
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Election-year politics impact U.S. strategy for 6-nation talks on N. Korea
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Starving masses plus a cornered but well-fed leadership equals desperation for N. Korea
Saudi Arabia arrests senior ''militant''
A "militant of the deviating group" called Faris bin Ahmed bin Showeel Al-Zaharani and an individual accompanying him were arrested on Thursday evening while Saudi security men were hunting down members this group, an official source at the Ministry of Interior stated.
The source described to SPA on Friday Al-Zahrani as one of the leading terror suspects, who denounces people as infidels, calls for bombings, lambastes Ulema, and instigates other individuals to kill security men, noting that it will not disclose the identity of the second person for security reasons.
The source pointed out that the security men detained the two swiftly and efficiently so that they could not use the weapons they were carrying, indicating that no one was injured in this incident. (albawaba.com)

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Syria frees scores of political prisoners
Syria has freed 90 political prisoners this week, including three who have been in jail for more than 20 years, a Syrian human rights group said Wednesday.
The Human Rights Association in Syria said the government had released 35 political prisoners on Monday. A member of the association, lawyer Anwar al-Buni, told The Associated Press that another 55 political prisoners were released on Tuesday.
The Monday releases included Syria's longest serving prisoner, Imad Shiha, who was jailed in 1975 for belonging to the outlawed Arab Communist Organization, as well as two members of banned Islamic groups, Abdul-Qader Ahmed and Mohammad Hallak. Ahmed was imprisoned in 1979 and Hallak in 1982.
Shiha was imprisoned in connection with his alleged involvement in bombings. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour by the Supreme State Security Court (SSSC). During the initial stage of detention he was reportedly tortured and ill-treated, apparently to force him to confess to the charges brought against him.
Al-Buni said the prisoners were freed as part of last month's amnesty by President Bashar Assad to mark the fourth anniversary of his July 2000 accession to power.
Al-Buni said most of the prisoners freed this week were affiliated to Islamic groups and had already served their sentences. He added that four were seriously ill.
Some 160 prisoners jailed for common crime or military desertion have been freed during the past two weeks, al-Buni added. (albawaba.com)
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N.Korea Asylum Activist Released from China Jail
Reuters
Monday, August 9, 2004; 5:50 AM
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Japanese man accused of helping North Koreans flee abroad via China has been released from Chinese custody and allowed to leave the country, a Japanese embassy spokesman said on Monday.
Takayuki Noguchi, of the Tokyo-based rights group Life Funds for North Korean Refugees, was arrested last December in the southern region of Guangxi while trying to help two North Korean asylum seekers escape to Cambodia.
Noguchi was jailed for eight months and fined $2,400.
"He was freed today and they let him go home," the embassy spokesman said.
Life Funds for North Korean Refugees said the pair he tried to help, who had returned to North Korea from Japan in 1960 during a mass repatriation of North Korean nationals, had been sent back to the closed Stalinist state.
Activists say that as many as 300,000 North Korean refugees are hiding in northeast China after fleeing hunger, poverty and repression in their impoverished homeland. Defectors say North Korean refugees who are sent home may face imprisonment, torture or death.
Activists have orchestrated a series of mass defections at foreign diplomatic missions across China to try to pressure Beijing to reverse its policy of viewing North Koreans as economic migrants instead of refugees.
China, which fought alongside the North in the 1950-53 Korean War, has an agreement with its neighbor to repatriate illegal migrants. In recent years, however, it has allowed scores of North Korean asylum seekers who managed to enter foreign embassies and consulates to travel to South Korea via third countries.
? 2004 Reuters
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http://www.commentarymagazine.com/Archive/Pdf.aspx?v=118&i=1&p=32&o=1

In Search of "Righteous Arabs"
Robert Satloff
Robert Satloff is the director of policy and strategic planning at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. His "What Do Arab Reformers Want?" appeared in our December 2003 issue. * A case in point is the Arab professor of English literature who contributed a brilliant essay to an Internet-based "virtual symposium" on Arab views of the Holocaust. See www.legacy-project.org/symposium/comments.html?Symposium_Paper=1&ShowID=1. hoped to conquer. That included a great Arab expanse in North Africa, extending from Casablanca to Tripoli and onward to Cairo--a region that was home to a half-million Jews. Indeed, the countryby- country plan of extermination laid out at the Wannsee Conference in Berlin in January 1942 makes sense only if the wildly inaccurate figure for the Jews of unoccupied France--700,000--is understood to include France's North African possessions: the colony of Algeria and the protectorates of Morocco and Tunisia.
In the brief period when they had a chance, the Germans and their allies made a significant start toward their murderous goal for North Africa's Jews. For three years--from the fall of France in June 1940 to the expulsion of German troops from Tunisia in May 1943--the Nazis, their Vichy French collaborators, and their Italian Fascist allies applied in these areas many of the same tools that would be used to devastating effect against the much larger Jewish populations of Europe. These included not only statutes depriving Jews of property, education, livelihood, residence, and free movement, but also forced labor, confiscations, deportations, and executions. Virtually no Jew in North Africa was left untouched. Nearly 10,000 suffered in labor camps, work gangs, and prisons, or under house arrest. By a stroke of fortune, relatively few perished, many of them in the almost daily Allied bombings of Tunis and Bizerte in the winter and spring of 1943 when the Germans forced Jewish workers to stay at their jobs clearing rubble. But if U.S. and British troops had not driven the Germans from the African continent in 1943, the 2,000-year-old Jewish communities of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and perhaps Egypt would almost certainly have met the fate of their brethren in Europe. Many Arabs today would respond that all this has nothing to do with Arab history. It has to do, rather, with the history of colonialists who played out their designs on Arab soil; Arabs had no part in it, they would say. But they would be wrong. Just as in Europe, most members of the local populace stood by and did nothing; a few helped--the Arab world, too, had its "righteous Gentiles"; and some made matters demonstrably worse.
The story of the Holocaust in Arab lands has three main divisions: the extension of Vichy's "state anti-Semitism" to France's North African possessions; the imposition of Mussolini's anti-Jewish regime in Libya; and the six-month occupation of Tunisia by German and Italian troops. OtherFrench possessions in the Levant--Syria and Lebanon-- were affected by Vichy, but to a much lesser degree and for a considerably briefer time. There was also the special case of Iraq, which in 1941 witnessed a rapacious campaign against Jews in the course of a short-lived military coup by Rashid Ali al-Gaylani, a Nazi sympathizer; but neither the Germans nor their other European partners were central actors in that drama.
Particularly hard hit was Tunisia, the only Arab country to come under direct German occupation. In just six months, from November 1942 to May 1943, the Germans and their local collaboratorsimplemented a forced-labor regime, confiscations of property, hostage-taking, mass extortion, deportations, and executions. They required thousands of Jews in the countryside to wear the Star of David, and they created special Judenrat-like committees of Jewish leaders to implement Nazi policies under threat of imprisonment or death. Tunisia was also the training ground for some of the most notorious Nazi killers--like SS ColonelWalter Rauff, who had earlier invented the mobile death-gas van.
Nevertheless, of the three European countries that brought the Holocaust to Arab lands, the most malevolent by far was France. In Morocco and, especially, Algeria, France implemented strict laws against local Jews, expelling them from schools, universities, and government employment, confiscating their property, and sending a number of local Jewish political activists to harsh labor camps. In some respects, Vichy was more vigorous about applying anti-Jewish statutes in Arab lands than in metropolitan France.
Not content with this, Vichy also dispatched more than 2,000 European Jews to forced-labor camps in North Africa. The origins of this tale lie earlier, in the 1930's, when France's relatively liberal Third Republic provided safe haven to thousands of Central European Jews fleeing their homelands while they still could. Many of these new arrivals promptly joined the French army. Indeed, when war arrived in 1939, a Jewish veterans' organization operating out of a single office in Paris reportedly registered 10,000 volunteers, all noncitizens, in a mere ten days. But none of this made any difference. The collaborationist government established in 1940 under Marshal P?tain turned the Jews, both foreign and native-born, into ready scapegoats for France's shameful collapse at Nazi hands. As recent scholarship has definitively shown, the persecution of Jews under Vichy originated as a French, not a
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In Search of "Righteous Arabs"
[32]
Commentary July-August 2004
German, affair; eventually, thousands of French Jewish citizens would be herded into cattle cars, sent to notorious transit stations like Drancy, and then on to death camps in "the east." It was, however, the foreign Jews living in France who first felt the brunt of the French defeat. For Vichy, the thorniest problem was presented by those who had volunteered for military duty and had been led to believe that their service to France would be repaid with legal residency and perhaps citizenship. Even hardened anti-Semites blanched at the idea of discharging Jewish soldiersone day and consigning them to death the next.The deserts of France's Arab possessions offered a ready solution. One of the first acts of P?tain's government was to revive the old imperial idea of a trans-Sahara railway: a thousand miles of track across the sands that would drastically cut the travel time from Niger to Nice and bring the riches of Africa to the metropolis. To level the dunes, clear the rocks, lay the tracks, and mine the considerable deposits of coal and ore near the route, Vichy summarily dispatched more than 7,000 unwanteds to desolate corners of western Algeria and eastern Morocco. Most were political prisoners of various stripes-- Spanish republicans, Communists, socialists, anti- Nazi Germans, Gaullists; also included were a smattering of Arabs and even a Japanese. More than 2,000 were Jews, who, unlike the rest, were deported not for their politics but for their religion. The places where these unfortunates arrived were concentration camps, conceived by Frenchmen and filled with individuals whose only "crime" had been to flee fascist tyranny for the safety of a once-welcoming France. Soldiers and legionnaires, technically demobilized from their military service, were immediately compelled to sign contracts reclassifying themselves as "wartime labor conscripts," which meant they were subject to military discipline. Though the contracts stipulated the payment of a wage--typically, a few francs a day from the payroll of the Mediterranean-Niger Railway Company--few ever received any money. They were, in fact, prisoners in all but name. Shipped southward by cattle car from the ports of Algiers and Oran, they were herded into camps from which there was no leaving; some died in the attempt. Given little food, water, or rest, they worked from dawn to dusk gathering, breaking, loading, and moving rocks. Medical care was virtually nonexistent. Having built stone casernes to house their French overseers, the prisoners themselves were consigned to tents; smuggled photographs show 40 individuals packed inside tents designed for eight. Their clothes and blankets were threadbare; often, they had no shoes. Torture was common and frequent. According to later testimonies, the camp commandants and senior officers, mostly legionnaires themselves, were vicious anti-Semites, sadistic and often drunk, many of German origin or fascist sympathies. They were assisted by Arab and Senegalese guards, notorious for their cruelty. Any Arab or Berber watchman discovered showing sympathy for the Jews, secretly providing them with extra water, blankets, or rations, was quickly assigned to other duties and replaced by local guards whose ruthlessness was more reliable.
A 1943 British Foreign Office document, "Barbaric Treatment of Jews and Aliens in Morocco," records the testimony of Polish Jewish prisoners who made their way to London after being freedby the Allies. Here is one such testimony, describing a common method of torture: The tombeau--tomb--is a grave dug in the ground, two meters long, 40 centimeters deep and 60 centimeters wide. Men under punishment are confined to this tomb for various periods. . . . The minimum sentence is eight days and nights. The maximum survived was seventeen days and nights. In this case the victimwas a Polish Jew called Rosenberg.Typical of the offenses which earned a man a stretch of tombeau was that of the German Jew Selgo. . . . Like all the others, he had to lie face up night and day. He had no covering,only a tattered Legion uniform with no underclothes. He was not allowed to move or change positions in the tombeau. An Arab was posted over the graves to see that the victims stayed rigidly still. . . .
The only occasion when a man was allowed to raise his head a little was after a rainstorm when the graves filled with water. Then he was allowed a stone for a headrest to save him from drowning. As the subsoil was clay, the waterwould take three days to drain away. . . . [Foreign Legionnaire] Gayer or one of the other guards would bring the men their meals--one liter of water at 0800 hours, 250 grams of bread and a glass of water at 1200 hours, and another glass of water at nightfall. A man was allowed to relieve himself only during these three visits of the guard. If he could not do it then he had to do it in his clothes and lie in it. . . . As the majority of prisoners were suffering from severe and sanguinary dysen- tery, a man lying in his own filth was the rule rather than the exception.
Not many men were able to survive the longer sentences in the tombeaux. They succumbed to the appalling variation in temperature in every twenty-four hours. By day, an egg could be cooked hard in the sand within five minutes. By night the temperatures fell to near freezing point and in winter below it. Another survivor, a German Jew named Harry Alexander whose story has been recorded for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, had managed to escape from Germany to France, where he planned to join the French army. Instead, he found himself on a freight train to Djelfa, a Vichy labor camp in the Algerian desert. "There were many ways to die" at Djelfa, he explained: "You had dysentery. You had malaria. A lack of food. A lack of water. Bitten by scorpions. Bitten by vipers . . . and you're dead in an hour." As for torture, a common form at Djelfa was "the fort," wherein French soldiers and Arab camp guards would tie your arms in the back and hang you on your arms naked for about two, three days. You would hang on your arms and every night they would come in and, when it's the coldest, hose you down with ice water and beat you about. . . . And when you got through hanging there, when they cut you down, you were not able to walk. In fact, you were lucky to be alive. Thus far I have touched but lightly on the role of Arabs themselves in the events I have been recounting. There has been, indeed, scant writing about and little documentation of this side of things. But for the past two years, while living in Rabat, the capital of Morocco, I have tracked down stories of Arabs who played a role in the Holocaust, be they villains or heroes. With the help of researchers and investigators in ten different countries, I have been able to unearth the stories of dozens of such individuals.
Their number includes outright collaborators-- i.e., Arabs who personally participated in the persecution of Jews. Among these were an Arab sadist who commanded a Jewish work brigade in the Tunisian countryside; another Tunisian, Hassen Ferjani, convicted by a French military tribunal of having informed to the Germans on three Jews fleeingacross Allied lines, an act leading to their deportation and eventual beheading; Arab patrolmen who tracked down Jewish escapees from forced-labor camps; Arabs who walked alongside German soldiers, pointing out Jewish homes and property for confiscation; the Arab accomplice to a German soldier who raped a Jewish woman in La Marsa, outside Tunis; and Arab camp guards who urinated on the heads of Jewish forced laborers as they lay buried to their necks in the sands of Algeria. In addition to these individuals were the hundreds of Arabs who volunteered to join Axis and pro-Axis forces like the Phalange Africaine, the Brigade Nord Africaine, and the German-Arab Training Battalion. And then there were the nameless thousands throughout North Africa who extorted money and property from Jews at their moment of abject weakness.
As for the heroes who helped save Jews from pain, injury, indignity, and perhaps death, they included:
* the Bey of Tunis and, more famously though less conclusively, the Sultan of Morocco, both of whom bucked their Vichy and German overlords to provide vital moral support to their Jewish subjects, as well as practical help to a number of Jewish personalities and their families;
* the Arab country squire who opened his farm to 60 Jews escaping from an Axis forced-labor camp in Tunisia's Zaghouan valley;
* a middle-aged Arab notable in the Tunisian seaside town of Mahdia who, upon learning that a German officer was bent on raping a local Jewish woman, a mother of three, whisked away the entire family in the middle of the night and kept them hidden on his farm for several weeks until the Germans quit the town;*
* the Arab politician who secretly warned and offered shelter to his longtime Jewish friends when Nazi SS troops were planning raids against the Jewish leadership in Tunis;
* religious leaders in Algiers who forbade any Muslim from serving as a Vichy-appointed conservator of Jewish property;
* Arab inmates of a prison camp in the Algerian desert who forged an anti-fascist bond with their Jewish prison mates;
* Arab soldiers whose response to shoot-to-kill orders was to fire wide, purposely missinghelpless Jewish laborers;
* and, in faraway Paris, the rector of the municipal mosque, Si Kaddour Bengabrit, who is said to have given Jewish children counterfeit certificates of good standing as Muslims, thereby enabling them to escape deportation. * In October 2003, this woman's daughter, Anny Boukris, told her family's story in detail for the first time to an interviewer I arranged to visit her in Palm Desert, California; she died eight weeks later. I was able to confirm key details of the story in a May 2004 visit to Mahdia.
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In Search of "Righteous Arabs"
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Commentary July-August 2004
Similarly not to be forgotten are those Arabs who suffered alongside Jews--as prisoners in Vichy concentration camps or, as was the case in Tunisia, as forced-laborers drafted once the Jewish community had exhausted its own manpower. A small number of Arabs and Berbers also participated in one of the war's most daring and overlooked exploits: the takeover of key sites in Algiers by the predominantly Jewish underground, an action that eased the amphibious entry of thousands of U.S. and British troops on the night of Operation Torch in November 1942.
Taken together, this history is rarely told, and the heroes, in particular, have never been recognized. Of the more than 19,000 "righteous Gentiles" honored by Israel's Yad Vashem for rescuing Jews from death during the Holocaust, not a single one is an Arab (though there are a number of Muslims, including Turks, Bosnians, and Albanians). In my view, the reason for this lacuna is dual: few have ever looked for "Arab righteous," and fewer still have had an incentive to be found. For Arabs, the legacy of World War II was soon overshadowed by two other developments: the conflict with Zionism over the fate of Palestine and the struggle for independence against European colonialism. By the late 1940's--and certainly by the time of the Suez crisis in 1956--the blurring of the state of Israel with "the Jews" was already a deeply embedded theme of Middle Eastern politics. For an Arab, there was little to be gained (and much to be lost) by being identified with the defense of Jews or of Jewish interests. Sultan Muhammad V of Morocco and, to a lesser extent, Habib Bourghiba, the secular leader of Tunisia's independence movement, were significant exceptions, noteworthy not least for their rarity. For Jews, the situation was more complex. To many of those remaining in North Africa, memories of their horrible wartime experience were swiftly overtaken by the less systematic but often more violent anti-Zionism that compelled hundreds of thousands to quit their homes for Israel in the late 1940's and 1950's. Once in Israel, wartime memories were further obscured by the tension in that country between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews. To the degree that the former jealously guarded their Holocaust legacy--theirs, after all, had been by far the greater calamity--the latter tended not to focus on theirs. Similarly neglectful were Holocaust historians and institutions; even today, one hears debate in Israel over whether it is even appropriate to use the term "survivors" for Jews from Arab countries who suffered Nazi-era racial laws and punitive actions.
An additional wrinkle concerns the odd position held by the small and still dwindling remnants of once-grand Jewish communities in Arab countries. Less than 2 percent of the wartime Jewish population is left in Morocco and Tunisia today; in Algeria and Libya, the communities are effectively extinct. Navigating between the Scylla of Islamic radicalism and the Charybdis of regime indifference to their fate, Jews in these countries have by and large opted for quiescence. This attitude even extends backward to their past history. Although in the course of my research I did come across Sephardi activists agitating for wider acknowledgement of the history of the Holocaust in Arab lands, none actually resides in an Arab land today. But if these considerations help to explain the obscuring of the Arab encounter with the Holocaust, they hardly excuse it. When I began my research into this hidden history, my secret desire was to organize a commemorative event in May 2003 on the sixtieth anniversary of the Allied liberation of Tunisia. For the obvious reasons, I wanted it to take place in Auschwitz--as it happens, a handful of Tunisian deportees were eventually killed there--and I envisioned a ceremony that would bring together Tunisian government officials, scholars, journalists, local Jewish community leaders, and members of Tunisia's expatriate Jewish community.
My idea died when, traveling to Tunis, I asked my first interviewee, a prominent Arab historian, about the day his country was "liberated" from Nazi occupation. With a quizzical look on his face, he replied: "Liberation? What are you talking about? The departure of the Germans meant thereturn of the French, who were infinitely worse!" And this rebuff was nothing compared with my reception by the children of one of my prime candidates for recognition as a "righteous Arab": Tunisia's wartime prime minister, Muhammad Chenik. Walking a dangerous line between the Germans and his longtime personal friendships with Jews, this Arab notable, according to various interviewees, had used his connections to warn Jewish leaders of impending arrests and had secured dispensations from forced labor for the sons of Jews he knew from his business days. He very likely saved Jewish lives, perhaps at risk to his own. Whatever the motive behind these deeds--personal friendship, old business obligations, simple kindness--they were truly noble. Since I was intending to resurrect the story of this long-forgot- ten statesman, and bring honor to his name, I had expected his family to embrace the revelations I was offering them, or at the very least to thank me for my efforts. And indeed, the family members who gathered in their comfortable seaside villa to hear my tale were polite, generous, and welcoming, plying me with tray after tray of delicious sweets and several rounds of coffee and tea. But through the smiles and handshakes, it rapidly became clear that they wanted nothing to do with my story of their father's exploits. We have never heard about any of this, they insisted, and even if what you say is true, it does not amount to anything significant. Although they urged me to return with irrefutable proof, they offered no help, and it was obvious they hoped never to hear from me again. Perhaps the hardest blow has been the silence that has greeted most of my entreaties to moderate, forward-thinking Arabs to assist in shedding light on this chapter of their history. For every positive response to a phone call or a posting on an Internet message board, there have been a dozen cold shoulders, unanswered faxes, or unfilled promises.
In October 2003, to take one example, I contacted the prominent Egyptian thinker Ahmed Kamal Abulmagd--widely considered one of the most moderate and open-minded of Muslim theologians, and certainly no Holocaust denier--after his appearance before an audience at the American University of Cairo, where he had participated in an exchange with the American ambassador. At one point in their discussion, Abulmagd had turned to the ambassador and said:
We all condemn the policies of Hitler and the Holocaust, but enough is enough. There is a moment of saturation and, let me be very blunt on this, world Jewry is in danger because of the very irresponsible policies of the government of Israel, supported by some unaware leaders of the Jewish community in the United States. I hate to see a day where there is an unleashing of dormant general anti-Semitism, in Europe, particularly, and maybe in the United States. But we Arabs are not part of it. We are not part of the Holocaust. We never persecuted Jews. In contacting Abulmagd, my purpose was not to persuade him to repudiate his remarks. On the contrary, I wanted to ask him to use his good offices in helping me gain access to Egyptian consular records from the late 1930's. Those files, I believe, may contain evidence of an "Arab Wallenberg," an Egyptian diplomat who I suspect provided marriage or birth certificates to German and Austrian Jews, enabling them to flee to Cairo and from there to freedom in London. Though one might think Egyptian officialdom would be eager to exploit proof of a great humanitarian act by an Egyptian diplomat, one that would burnish Egypt's bruised image in the United States, none of my requests to Cairo policymakers--some of whom, at the highest levels of government, I have known for more than fifteen years--has ever been acknowledged. That is why I wrote to Abulmagd--twice. Noting the absence of a single Arab among Yad Vashem's list of "righteous" non-Jews, I begged for his intercession: "Didn't some Arabs help or rescue some Jews?," I asked. "And if indeed some Arabs didrescue some Jews, then isn't this the positive, constructive answer to Arab Holocaust denial?" But the taboo against recognizing any Arab connection to the Holocaust, even in order to celebrate the deeds of a heroic Arab rescuer, is evidently too strong. I am still waiting for an answer.
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How would you fix Social Security, Sen. Kerry?
He could legitimately be accused of implicitly endorsing tax increases
By MICHAEL TANNER
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle News Service
When it comes to Social Security reform, John Kerry is clear about what he is against.
``I will not privatize Social Security,'' he declared in his acceptance speech to the Democratic National Convention. ``I will not cut benefits.'' The Democratic Party as a whole takes the same position through its party platform: ``Democrats believe in the progressive, guaranteed benefit that has ensured that seniors and people with disabilities receive a benefit not subject to the whims of the market or the economy. We oppose privatizing Social Security or raising the retirement age.''
It is a clear, resounding message... that says absolutely nothing about what Sen. Kerry or the Democrats would do to solve Social Security's looming financial crisis.
Yet Social Security will start running a deficit - spending more money on benefits than it takes in through taxes - in less than 15 years, by 2018, according to the last report of Social Security's trustees. The so-called Social Security Trust Fund, which is supposed to help pay benefits until 2042, in reality contains only government bonds, essentially an IOU. While few people doubt that those benefits will ultimately be paid, the federal government will still have to find the money to pay them.
And a lot of money it is.
In 2018, the first year that Social Security faces a shortfall, the cash deficit will exceed $17 billion. That's almost as much as Kerry has proposed in increased spending on Pell Grants.
By 2022, the annual Social Security deficit will have grown to roughly $100 billion, as much as Kerry would spend for a proposed energy trust, increased veterans benefits, fully funding Head Start and increased spending on homeland security.
By 2027, with the annual deficit approaching $200 billion, you can add inhis proposed increases in aid to state and local governments, his national service plan, and science and technology research.
And so it goes.
Overall, Social Security now faces unfounded liabilities in excess of $26 trillion.
One has to wonder where Kerry plans to get the money.
Actually, it is all too clear where the money will come from. As former President Bill Clinton pointed out, there are really only three options for Social Security reform: raise taxes, cut benefits or invest privately.
Since Sen. Kerry rules out private investment or benefit cuts, he could legitimately be accused of implicitly endorsing tax increases. And mighty big tax increases they would have to be: a 50 percent increase in the payroll tax or the equivalent.
This would be a tax hike far higher than what Kerry would ``save'' by rolling back parts of President Bush's tax cuts - even if he hadn't already promised to use those savings to fund other government spending. Not that financing is the only problem with Social Security. The program already provides today's workers with a low, below-market return on their tax ``contributions'' to the program. The program unfairly penalizes blacks, working women and others. Workers don't own their money or have any guaranteed right to their benefits.
In short, it is a program crying out for reform.
But Sen. Kerry continues to duck the issue.
Frankly, that's not good enough. No one should be running for president if he can't stand up and tell the American people what he would honestly try to do about Social Security.
President Bush has made his position clear. He would allow younger workers to privately invest at least a portion of their Social Security taxes through individual accounts.
You can agree or disagree with that idea, but at least you know where he stands.
If Sen. Kerry plans to raise taxes to prop up Social Security, he should tell us. If he has another idea, he should share it with us. If he believes that the current program, with all its problems, is the best we can do, he should say so. Sen. Kerry says that he has ``reported for duty.'' But on one of the most important domestic issues facing this country, he has been AWOL.
Tanner is director of the Project on Social Security Choice at the Cato Institute. Readers may write to the author at the Cato Institute, 1000 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20001; Web site: www.cato.org.
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Fiscal Follies
Clinton balanced the budget by cutting the military. That's not an option now.
Monday, August 9, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
In a startling reversal of the usual party roles, John Kerry is staking his White House claim as a defender of "fiscal discipline" to counteract a spendthrift Republican Administration. It's all the more startling because his publicly announced proposals would actually increase the deficit.
Now, there is a certain satisfaction here for those of us who advised President Bush to veto a spending bill or two. His decision to acquiesce to Congress's worst spending impulses, from farm subsidies to Medicare, has given the Democratic challenger a chance to score political points simply by announcing his good intentions. It's true Mr. Bush never campaigned for a smaller government, but after 9/11 he certainly could have argued that the government had to choose between guns and butter. Until this year, he's gone along with both.
But none of this means the Kerry campaign deserves a free pass. According to last month's estimate from the National Taxpayers Union, Senator Kerry is promising to increase net spending by $226 billion in the first year, or $6,066 per taxpayer over four years. And that's a lowball figure. The calculation used the lowest cost estimate of each spending proposal. And it took at face value proposed spending cuts, such as ending subsidies to corporate farmers and reducing federal energy usage by 20%, which may be impossible to implement. Cuts in corporate welfare and the federal travel budget sound good, but they are campaign perennials that never seem to happen.
Even overlooking these flaws, how can Mr. Kerry blow out the budget so badly? It's not hard if you promise to be all things to all people. On top of Mr. Bush's huge education spending increases, the Democrats want to add $75 billion more in the first year alone. Another $56 billion is earmarked for public works and social programs. The Kerry health care proposals will cost another $71 billion that year, or $653 billion over 10, according to a former Clinton Administration economist. His original estimate was nearly $1 trillion until he found some miraculous savings.
Meanwhile, as part of his new image of toughness, Mr. Kerry promises to continue beefing up the military and homeland security, to the tune of $24 billion. Most of that will go for personnel benefits, but it will also pay for 40,000 more active-duty troops and to promote port safety, both respectable proposals.
The Democrats are trying to spark nostalgia for the Clinton era of supposed fiscal discipline. But remember the latter was achieved largely by cutting military spending. As the table nearby illustrates, Bill Clinton and a GOP Congress balanced the budget by withdrawing a "peace dividend" at a time when al Qaeda was declaring war. Mr. Bush, and presumably a President Kerry, must now walk that back up the hill.
Yes, you may be saying, but John Kerry says he can pay for all this by taxing those who make more than $200,000 a year--raking in $860 billion over the next decade. There are just a few problems. Current budget projections are based on current laws, which say the Bush tax cuts will phase out over the next five years unless Congress renews them. So the real take from soaking the rich a few years early will be modest, while the deficit projections will increase by a much larger margin if the middle-class tax cut is made permanent, as Mr. Kerry promises. Over the 10-year horizon his overall tax plan would reduce revenue by $602 billion, according to the Urban Institute.
The biggest canard is that Mr. Kerry will control spending by relying on spending "caps" and restoration of the "paygo" system, which required legislators to find offsets for any new tax cuts or spending. These only apply to the discretionary portion of the budget, not entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. The U.S. has just created the biggest new entitlement in half a century with the drug benefit for seniors, and Mr. Kerry wants to expand health spending still further. So paygo will do nothing to control the biggest sources of new spending.
Paygo really means that when the time comes to make the middle-class tax cuts permanent, there may not be enough money left in the discretionary part of the budget to find the offsets. So promises that tax increases will hit only the rich belong in the same category as Bill Clinton's 1992 pledge to raise taxes only on those making more than $200,000 a year and impose a "millionaire surtax." A year later that turned into a tax hike on those making as little as $114,000, while the definition of $1 million miraculously expanded to include those making as little as $125,000 a year.
While we agree that Mr. Bush has a lousy first-term spending record, he is now saying that in a second term he'd restrain non-defense increases. Mr. Kerry's stated agenda is increased spending nearly across the board and tax hikes. The voters can decide which of these better constitutes "fiscal discipline."