>> PROGRESS REPORT

U.S. Conducts Successful MD Simulation Against NK Missile Attack
The United States, which will start work on a missile defense system late this year, put on a war game for reporters Wednesday (Korea time) during which an enemy nation modeled on North Korea fired six ballistic missiles at the United States, the Washington Post Internet edition reported. During the simulation, the U.S. successfully intercepted all six missiles.
The U.S. Department of Defense, in order to reveal some of the plans for operating procedures behind MD, invited reporters to an air force base in the grasslands of Colorado and simulated the intercepting of missiles launched from an enemy country. The base is responsible for designing a missile defense simulation known as MDWAR and training MD operating crews.
In the simulation, a fictional nation located in the East Sea (Sea of Japan) launched six ballistic missiles at the United States. The Americans responded immediately by launching interceptor missiles, destroying all the enemy missiles in mid-flight. Two enemy missiles were destroyed early after launch.
The tensest moment came when it came time to shoot down two enemy missiles targeting Boise, Idaho and Anchorage, Alaska. The United States had only one spare missile, and in case both interceptors missed, it would bring about an urgent situation in which the Americans would be forced to choose which city they would try to save. Both interceptors hit their targets, however, and an intolerable choice was avoided.
U.S. military officials said that factors like population would be taken into consideration if such a choice came up in real life.
Meanwhile, officials say that one of the goals of the computer simulation is to show the "urgency" involved in missile defense. A ballistic missile launched from North Korea would take about 25~30 minutes to reach the northwest of the United States, and about eight of those minutes are taken up trying to find out the missile targets and computing trajectories for the interceptors.
Moreover, the U.S. military command structure surrounding missile defense is quite complicated, officials added, and during a real-life conflict could produce problems.
(Robert Koehler, englishnews@chosun.com )

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NK Threatens to Expand Nuclear Arsenal
North Korea has again threatened to expand its nuclear arsenal, accusing the United States of making aggressive moves against the communist government in Pyongyang.
The official North Korean news agency said Pyongyang will strengthen what it called its "nuclear deterrent" to protect itself. This comes as the United States and South Korea are preparing for joint annual military exercises that begin Sunday and run through the following week. About 37,000 U.S. troops are stationed in South Korea to deter aggression from the North. Pyongyang says the joint exercises are a rehearsal for a U.S. invasion of North Korea, but the U.S. military counters by saying the exercises are defense-oriented.
North Korea often issues threats on the eve of joint military exercises between South Korea and the United States. Pyongyang previously threatened to strengthen its nuclear program after a second round of multi-party talks in Beijing last month ended without a breakthrough.
China announced Tuesday it has circulated a draft plan for advancing the limited progress made at those talks. It did not reveal details of the proposal, except to say it covers the working groups all sides agreed to in Beijing. The Beijing talks ended with a pledge to create working groups that would talk through obstacles and issues not deemed appropriate for the high-level agenda.
VOA News

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>> RUSSIAN FRIENDS...
Higher-tech missiles feared in Iraqi hands
By Bryan Bender, Globe Staff, 3/18/2004
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon is investigating whether new, more deadly versions of Russian missiles may be in the hands of Iraqi insurgents, possibly enabling them to shoot down US Army helicopters and threaten other aircraft, according to defense officials studying missile components retrieved from recent crash sites and seized in raids.
US military officials thought they were well prepared for the variety of shoulder-fired missiles utilized by Saddam Hussein's forces, mainly missiles manufactured in the Soviet Union during the Cold War. For years American intelligence officials gathered technical information on a variety of portable Russian missiles -- including the SA-7, SA-14, SA-16, and SA-18 -- in order to develop countermeasures, such as electronic jamming equipment and decoy flares.
But missile components and other weapon systems uncovered by US forces in Iraq have fueled suspicions that insurgents may have obtained more advanced weapons, not previously known to US intelligence, that can confuse helicopters' electronic defenses or overcome attempts to send them off course, the officials said.
Nine helicopters have been lost to enemy missiles, rocket-propelled grenades, and small arms fire -- costing the lives of 32 soldiers -- since the US-led invasion last March. Several airplanes flying into Baghdad International Airport have also been hit by missiles, but managed to land safely.
"There is nothing conclusive, but it is a matter of importance," a US defense official said of the investigation, confirmed by other US officials who also declined to be identified, citing security precautions. "There's a constant process of assessing our countermeasures because everyone wants our troops to be safe."
The officials said investigators have been piecing together parts of missiles in an effort to determine why they were not deflected by aircraft jamming equipment, intended to thwart the missiles' computerized tracking systems, or decoy flares, designed to provide an alternative target for heat-seeking missiles.
Specialists in helicopters believe it is highly unlikely that insurgents could have downed nine helicopters without more advanced technology than had been previously in the Iraqi arsenal. But the official added that "we have not found anything that we have conclusively determined has been modified."
Still, concerns about new missile technology played a part in the Army's decision last month to terminate the multibillion-dollar Comanche helicopter program and apply the money to finding new ways to protect the existing helicopter fleet, the officials said. Of particular concern are the helicopters flown by the National Guard and Reserve, which do not have the same level of protection as the active force but are being widely used in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Officials are also probing how advanced technology -- almost certainly developed over the last 10 years in Russia -- might have gotten into the hands of Iraqi insurgents.
In particular, officials are concerned that insurgents may have newer versions of two deadly Russian missiles, the SA-16 Gimlet and the SA-18 Grouse, both portable surface-to-air missiles similar to the US military's Stinger, officials and military analysts said.
The leading theory among some specialists is that Russia may have sold the new technology to other nations, and that Hussein obtained it on the international black market.
"The idea that somehow through a wink and a nod this is showing up in Iraq is not surprising," said Tim Brown, a senior fellow at GlobalSecurity.org, an Alexandria, Va., think tank. "It could be an SA-18 or an SA-16 that [the Russians] sold to someone else and was transhipped to Iraq. It could be a new version smuggled in through the black market."
At the start of the Iraq war, the United States believed Hussein's forces had acquired thousands of SA-7 surface-to-air missiles, an older and less sophisticated version that is visually aimed, as well as an unknown number of subsequent models, such as the SA-14, SA-16, and SA-18. But Pentagon officials were confident all could be thwarted by existing antimissile technology on US helicopters.
Now, with nine helicopters having been downed, senior officials are increasingly worried. In internal discussions, the Army Chief of Staff, General Peter Schoomaker, has repeatedly mentioned the growing threat of Russian-made missiles as a key reason why manufacturing a new helicopter -- the Comanche -- was unwise, officials said.
"What we're seeing on the battlefield is a proliferation of much more sophisticated missiles," Lieutenant General Richard A. Cody, the deputy Army chief of staff, told reporters on Feb. 24 when the service announced it was canceling the $39 billion Comanche project after nearly two decades of development.
In recent months, the Army has taken measures in Iraq to enhance helicopter defenses, such as varying flight patterns and altitudes. But if pilots fly low to avoid missiles such as the SA models, which are designed to strike aircraft at higher altitudes, they become more vulnerable to lower-tech rocket-propelled grenades, which have been responsible for some of the helicopter losses.
According to Loren Thompson, president of the Lexington Institution, an Arlington, Va., think tank that specializes in weapons developments, helicopter and aircraft crews face at least two enduring challenges: the possibility that new weapon systems are available to the enemy that can filter out American countermeasures and the likelihood that the weapons the US spy community already knew were in Iraq performed better than anticipated.
Concluded Thompson: "The pilots have to have some idea of the adversary and how they are likely to be equipped."

? Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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>> SYRIANS MOONING...

Syrian: Antiterrorism cooperation has fallen
WASHINGTON - (AP) -- Syria's ambassador said Wednesday that counterterrorism cooperation with the United States has declined since Congress approved sanctions on his country late last year.
Ambassador Imad Moustapha said the sanctions bill did not diminish Syria's interest in cooperating with the United States, but some U.S. officials ``feel very anxious when Syria cooperates on terrorism because their premise is that Syria is a terrorist country.''
U.S. officials didn't make a decision to reduce cooperation, ''but the communications started to fall down. However, we are trying now to reestablish our cooperation on this,'' he said. Moustapha made his comments during and after a forum on whether Israel also should be subjected to a sanctions bill.

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Report: Saddam's Government Stole $10.1B
By MARY DALRYMPLE
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Report: Saddam's Government Stole $10.1B
WASHINGTON (AP) -
Saddam Hussein's government smuggled oil, added surcharges and collected kickbacks to rake in $10.1 billion in violation of the United Nations' oil-for-food program, congressional investigators said Thursday.
The estimate, much larger than previous calculations, comes as the United Nations considers expanding its probe into the humanitarian program, which allowed Iraq to sell oil for food and medicine. Other oil sales were prohibited under a U.N. embargo imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.
Investigators from the General Accounting Office told a congressional subcommittee that Iraq collected $5.7 billion by illegally smuggling oil out of the country through several routes. The oil traveled to Syria by pipeline, across the borders of Jordan and Turkey by truck and through the Persian Gulf by ship.
Surcharges levied against oil producers and commissions imposed against commodity suppliers participating in the oil-for-food program fetched another $4.4 billion.
The GAO had previously estimated that Saddam's government had received $6.6 billion in illegal revenues from the program from 1997 through 2002.
The effort to identify and recover Iraqi money hidden worldwide has met with mixed success, GAO investigators told lawmakers on the House Financial Services oversight and investigations subcommittee.
The Treasury Department acted Thursday to freeze the assets of 16 family members related to Saddam and his top advisers. The list includes Saddam's wives Sajida Khayrallah Tilfa and Samira Shahbandar; his daughters Raghad Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti, Rana Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti and Hala Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti; and his son Ali Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti.
The Treasury Department also identified 191 quasi-governmental companies suspected of engaging in illegal commerce and hiding money abroad.
The Treasury Department submitted the information to the United Nations, triggering a resolution that calls on member nations to freeze and transfer the assets held by those individuals and companies.
Juan Zarate, the Treasury Department's deputy assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes, told the House subcommittee that some countries do not have the legal structure or "political will" to recover the money.
In the last year, countries other than the United States have recovered and sent about $750 million to the Development Fund for Iraq. Money in the Development Fund for Iraq has been spent on wheat purchases, electricity and oil infrastructure, equipment for Iraqi security forces, Iraqi civil service salaries and government operations.
About $1.3 billion in cash and valuables have been recovered in Iraq.
The amount of money the former Iraqi regime hid abroad remains unknown, and estimates range from $10 billion to $40 billion.
"One of the conundrums of this effort has been trying to understand and get a hold on the full universe of assets pilfered by the Hussein regime," Zarate said.

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Astronauts Try to Save Hubble Telescope
By MARCIA DUNN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -
They risked their lives for the Hubble Space Telescope and did so gladly. Now, many of the astronauts who worked on Hubble hundreds of miles above Earth are dismayed, bewildered or both by NASA's decision to pull the plug on the mighty observatory.
"I just think it's a huge, huge mistake," says Greg Harbaugh, who performed Hubble repairs during a pair of spacewalks in 1997. "It is probably the greatest instrument or tool for astronomical and astrophysical research since Galileo invented the telescope, and I think it is a tragedy that we would consider not keeping the Hubble alive and operational as long as possible."
Though the decision is not absolute, there appears to be little chance NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe will change his mind about a Hubble servicing mission, deeming it too risky to astronauts in the wake of Columbia.
That would mean a premature death for the 14-year-old observatory whose latest snapshot - revealed last week - showed the deepest-ever view of the universe, a mishmash of galaxies dating almost all the way back to creation.
Tom Akers, part of the spacewalking team that restored Hubble's eyesight in 1993, also favors another mission.
"I definitely think that's an asset that we shouldn't throw away," says Akers, who teaches college math in Missouri. "That's my position and they know it."
NASA has been fending off heavy criticism ever since O'Keefe decided in January to cancel the last servicing, set for 2006.
Last week, at congressional urging, O'Keefe agreed to ask the National Academy of Sciences to study the issue from all perspectives, including using robots to install new cameras or augment battery power.
But he does not expect to reconsider sending up astronauts despite the outcry.
An Internet petition has collected thousands of names, O'Keefe's e-mail system is clogged with complaints, members of Congress are demanding reviews by independent groups, and the chief Columbia accident investigator is urging a public policy debate on the Hubble gains versus shuttle risks.
Even John Glenn has weighed in, telling President Bush's commission on moon and Mars travel that another servicing mission is necessary "to get every year's value out of that thing."
The canceled servicing mission would have been the Hubble's fifth and would have equipped it with two state-of-the-art science instruments already built and worth a combined $176 million, as well as fresh batteries and gyroscopes. The work by spacewalkers would have kept Hubble humming until 2011 or 2012.
Without intervention, Hubble will probably take its last picture in 2007 or 2008. O'Keefe says he does not see how NASA could launch a servicing mission before then without shirking the recommendations of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board.
As an alternative, engineers are trying to figure out how to prolong the telescope's life with robotic help.
NASA is quick to point out that when Hubble was launched, 15 years of service were promised, a goal that will be met next spring. The space telescope has helped scientists gauge the age and size of the universe and confirmed the existence of black holes.
Regardless of Hubble's merit, O'Keefe says he cannot let astronauts fly to the telescope and risk being stuck there if their shuttle is damaged by foam or other launch debris.
There's no way a stranded shuttle crew could get from Hubble to the international space station in an entirely different orbit.
The NASA chief insists his decision is rooted in safety, and he's recruited the agency's chief scientist, John Grunsfeld, a two-time Hubble space repairman, to help defend his decision.
Yet eyebrows were raised given the timing of the announcement: It came two days after President Bush unveiled a plan to complete the space station and retire the shuttle by 2010, and to send astronauts back to the moon by 2020.
Glenn worries the Columbia accident may be making NASA gun-shy.
Harbaugh, now director of the Florida Air Museum, says he felt no more danger flying to Hubble than anywhere else in space. There is little difference, he says, "in risk between launching to Hubble and launching to station and just launching period."
Astronomers would be at a loss if Hubble is abandoned and its powerful replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope, is lost in a rocket explosion or has crippling design flaws. That's why so many would rather wait to decommission Hubble until Webb is launched, now set for 2011.
While NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope see the universe in X-ray and infrared, respectively, Hubble observes visible light and peeks into the ultraviolet and near-infrared. Webb will focus on the infrared and outdo Hubble with a mirror more than double its size.
Astronauts - Hubble repairmen included, who say they would do it again - like to point out that a ship is safe in the harbor, but that's not what ships are built for.
Says Bruce McCandless, who helped deliver Hubble to orbit and now works in industry: "John Paul Jones is also reported to have said, 'Give me a fast ship for I intend to sail in harm's way.' He wasn't going to sit in the harbor, either."
On the Net:
NASA: http://hubble.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Save Hubble Initiative: www.savethehubble.com

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>> POLICY WATCH

Government Warns of Drug Card Scams
By DEVLIN BARRETT
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) - For many Americans, the government's new Medicare drug discount card will be a way to save money. For a few, it is a way to make money - by scamming seniors.
The much-anticipated Medicare program to offer cards with discounts on prescription drugs won't begin until May, but 11 states already have seen cases in which con artists are targeting Medicare beneficiaries in fraudulent come-ons, officials said Thursday.
"It's so appalling these individuals are willing to create schemes that take advantage ... of a law intended to do so much good," said Leslie Norwalk, deputy administrator at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Scams so far have involved phone calls or door to door solicitations to ostensibly register people for the new program. Those behind the scams offer to enroll seniors in exchange for their bank information, social security number, or credit card number.
In other instances, the caller already has some of the individual's private health history and tries to collect their banking or Medicare information, which could then be used to file false claims.
People have complained about such scams in Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Maryland, Nebraska, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia and Washington, officials said. Officials in Arkansas have also warned seniors to be on guard against such pitches.
There is no reason to think the scams are connected, but the con artists take a common approach in trying to fool the victims, officials said.
"They will do all sorts of things to try to make the beneficiaries trust them," said Norwalk. "They're eliciting enough information to be able to extract money from the (victim's) account."
Seniors should be on guard against phone or personal solicitations, officials warned. They stressed that Medicare contacts its beneficiaries only by mail.
The real cards will cost no more than $30 a year and offer discounts ranging from 10 to 25 percent on prescription drugs. The cards will eventually be phased out when a broad prescription drug benefit is made available in 2006.
Medicare plans to announce the companies selected to offer the cards in a matter of weeks, and then launch an advertising campaign in May to alert seniors to the benefit.
Norwalk, the administrator, emphasized that Medicare will never phone or knock on a beneficiary's door to enroll them in a program, and will only send mailings about the drug card.
She also cautioned seniors not to give out personal or financial information to people they don't know.
On the Net:
Medicare: http://www.medicare.gov

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Companies Benefit by Shifting Health Costs
By THERESA AGOVINO
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK (AP) - Employers who aggressively shift health care costs to their employees expect lower levels of spending increases than the average company, and sharply less than firms without strict policies to make patients better consumers, a new study found.
Companies that have taken actions such as substantially increasing copayments and insurance policies or instituting insurance programs with high deductibles expect their health care costs to rise 7 percent this year.
Overall, companies costs are expected to rise 12 percent. But for companies that haven't been aggressive in cost-shifting, the increase should hit 17 percent, according to a study of by the National Business Group on Health, a nonprofit organization, and Watson Wyatt & Co, a benefits firm.
"As employers are spending more they want employees to act like true consumers," said Ted Chien, global practice director of group benefits for Watson Wyatt. He said that happens when employees have to spend more of their own dollars on health care.
Chien said employers with aggressive programs to contain health spending aren't simply shifting costs to employees. They are also providing employees with tools to help them make more informed decisions, such as offering programs dealing with chronic disease and information on various providers.
Still, Chien said he was suprised by how aggressive some employers were becoming. For example, 18 percent of employers were offering plans with very high deductibles without giving employees any kind of a fund to help pay for some medical costs.
Chien also noted a sharp downturn in companies changing health providers. Last year, 11 percent switched providers, down from 29 percent in 2002.
Chien said it is expensive for employers to switch plans, and often there isn't much difference between the insurers.
The study included 450 employers that provide benefits to more than 8 million employees.

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>> GITMO TROUBLES CONTINUED...

Guantanamo agent investigated
In probe of airman,document handling is again scrutinized
By John Mintz, Washington Post, 3/18/2004
WASHINGTON -- A military investigator who worked on the case of Air Force Senior Airman Ahmad I. Halabi, the Guantanamo Bay prison linguist charged with mishandling classified documents, is himself under investigation for allegedly having classified materials at his home, according to a government document. Last week, Air Force lawyers prosecuting Halabi asked the judge to exclude from the case any mention of the probe of Special Agent Marc Palmosina of the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Palmosina's alleged misconduct is similar to some of the charges against Halabi.
The documents on compact discs at Palmosina's home did not concern the Halabi case, but instead focused on cargo transport operations, an area to which the agent had been assigned before he was sent to Guantanamo Bay, where the United States is holding more than 600 alleged Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives, the government document said.
Palmosina, who has been removed from work on the Halabi case, could not be reached for comment, and the Air Force declined to confirm whether he is being investigated or to provide the name of his attorney.
The Syrian-born Halabi, 25, who has been in detention at a California military base since last summer, is accused of illegally possessing letters from Guantanamo Bay detainees and other documents about the jail. He is also accused of espionage involving an alleged plan, apparently never carried out, to pass information to someone in Syria.
Halabi's lawyers have said he was in touch with the Syrian Embassy to secure a visa to travel there for his wedding.
Three other members of the military at Guantanamo Bay face breach of security allegations. Army Captain James Yee, the former Muslim chaplain there, is charged with mishandling classified material from the prison, adultery with a female officer there, and downloading pornographic material onto his laptop computer.
Army Reserve Colonel Jack Farr, who served in the Guantanamo Bay unit that interrogates detainees, was charged in November with mishandling classified material and lying to investigators after he was found with classified papers in his bags.
And Ahmed F. Mehalba, a Muslim linguist who worked as a prison contractor, faces charges in a federal court of lying to investigators and mishandling classified data after secret files about the prison were allegedly found on his computer when he landed at Boston's Logan International Airport on a flight from Egypt.

? Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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WAR ON TERRORISM
Ex-detainee: I was a spy for the CIA
A former Guantanamo detainee, whose family has links to al Qaeda, claims he was a spy for the CIA.
BY DeNEEN L. BROWN
Washington Post Service
TORONTO - Abdurahman Khadr traced an invisible X in the dark air, the mark of an outcast in his own family, a man rejected by his friends.
'The Arabs have X'd me out. It's like, `You're done. . . . We don't want you around.' My family hates me now and my sister sent an e-mail saying I was a [expletive] liar,'' Khadr said in an interview last week.
Five months after being released from custody at the U.S. naval detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Khadr, 21, has publicly claimed he was a CIA informant and provided U.S. authorities with detailed information about Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda terrorist network.
TV DOCUMENTARY
Khadr's story was first broadcast last week in a two-part Canadian television documentary, in which he described the life of his family in an al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan, in close quarters with Osama bin Laden.
Khadr, whose father and brothers also are linked to al Qaeda, provided a rare insider's view of bin Laden's operations and daily routine.
A CIA spokesman had no comment about Khadr, and a spokesman for the Canadian intelligence service, CSIS, said, ``We don't publicly comment on who is of interest to us.''
Since the broadcast, Khadr said, he hasn't slept much and has been living in hotels in Toronto. He is fatalistic, he said, about what might happen to him.
''If they have someone outside right now who will shoot me, nothing will change by me worrying about it now,'' he said, seated in a Pakistani restaurant.
STRANGE STORY
Khadr's story is complicated, more so because he now says he has lied previously. Much of his tale could not be independently verified, largely because of intelligence agencies' unwillingness to corroborate the information.
U.S. and Canadian intelligence have long connected Khadr's family with international terrorism.
His father, Ahmed Said Khadr, was born in Egypt and immigrated to Canada in 1977, and later became an al Qaeda leader. In 1996, Pakistani authorities arrested him in connection with a bombing at the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad.
After the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Ahmed Khadr was named on a U.S. international terrorist wanted list. He was reported killed on Oct. 2, 2003, in a gun battle with Pakistani troops near the Afghan border.
TRAINING CAMPS
Khadr has three brothers and two sisters. He said he and his brothers spent eight years in Afghan training camps. His eldest brother, Abdullah, is in hiding, said Khadr, who is the next oldest. The third brother, Omar, was arrested in Afghanistan in July 2002 and is held at Guantanamo, accused of throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. medic.
Karim, 14, wounded in the same gun battle that killed his father, is in custody in a Pakistani military hospital, Khadr said.
''The Khadrs are pretty infamous,'' said John Thompson, director of the MacKenzie Institute, a Toronto-based nonprofit organization that studies organized violence. ``There was intelligence before 9/11 that Khadr was a friend of bin Laden and was inside the al Qaeda command structure.''
Abdurahman Khadr was born in the Persian Gulf emirate of Bahrain and grew up in Toronto and Afghanistan, straddling the cultures of North America and the Muslim world. Although he has only an eighth-grade education, he said, he speaks five languages, including Canadian-accented English.
Khadr said his father moved the family in 1996 to an Afghan compound where Khadr first met bin Laden, whom he said he recognized from a magazine photograph. Bin Laden, Khadr recalled, despised American products and rejected many modern conveniences, including electricity.
`VERY SERIOUS'
''He is very serious and very concerned about the cause,'' Khadr said. ``He said America had destroyed our culture, our economy and destroyed our everyday living. We will do anything to make them leave Saudi Arabia.''
Although bin Laden was younger than many leaders in the compound, he was respected because he was rich, Khadr said. ``If he didn't have money, nobody would give a [expletive] about him.''
Khadr said he was captured in November 2001 by Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, a militia that cooperated with the United States against al Qaeda and the country's Taliban government.
He paid a $10,000 bribe to one of his captors to be freed but was held for more than two months before being transferred to U.S. custody, he said. The Americans asked questions about his father and brothers.
'They said, `We know your father has links. You cooperate and we will let you go,' '' he said. Khadr said he told them anything they wanted to hear.
''I told them my brother was a trainer at a training camp,'' Khadr said.
``That rumor was brought up by me when the Americans first got me. To boost my credibility with the CIA, I told them he was a trainer. But that was a lie. That was a mistake. I'm very sorry now. I said a bunch of other lies. I told them other detainees were al Qaeda.''
SPY AT GUANTANAMO
Khadr said the Americans sent him to Guantanamo to infiltrate the prison population, spy on prisoners and identify those who had spent time at training camps.
''I wasn't useful in the past because of my bad record with al Qaeda,'' he said. ``They thought I had ability in the future with all my languages.''
Khadr said CIA agents gave him a $5,000 bonus and a promise of $3,000 a month. They asked him to sign a document acknowledging his work, he said, but he did not keep a copy.
U.S. guards treated Guantanamo prisoners well, he said, but he was unhappy with the isolation and demanded his release.
``After three months in general population, I couldn't take it. I said I was going to tell the Canadians the next time they came to see my brother, if they did not let me out.''
SENT TO BOSNIA
In October, CIA officers sent him to Bosnia to spy on the Muslim community there, he said, but he still disliked working alone. By late November, he said, his CIA contacts agreed when he asked to return to Canada.
Since appearing on television, Khadr isn't anonymous in Toronto.
''I like attention,'' he said. ``I won't deny it. Sometimes it can cost you your life, but I like it.''

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>> OUR FRIENDS THE ARMY CORPS...NOW DO IT IN IRAQ?

Report criticizes Army Corps of Engineers
By MATTHEW DALY
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON -- A new report says an irrigation effort in Arkansas and a flood-control pump in Mississippi are among 29 wasteful projects of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The report by the National Wildlife Federation and Taxpayers for Common Sense also singles out projects to deepen the Columbia River and transport salmon around four Snake River dams in the Pacific Northwest.
The Army Corps risks damaging the environment for little tangible economic benefit, says the report.
Corps spokesman Dave Hewitt said the projects are recommended only after they have been molded to represent a sound investment of federal, state and local dollars.
The report calls for Congress to reform the Army Corps, saying that despite efforts by three presidents to curtail projects by withholding funding, a lack of accountability has allowed the Corps to continue wasteful spending virtually unchecked.
In the face of "exploding deficits, Congress continues to spend like drunken sailors on gold-plated pork-barrel water projects," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense.
The 29 projects would cost $12 billion and threaten more than 640,000 acres of wetlands and shoreline areas; about 6,500 miles of rivers and coastlines; eight national parks, seashores and wildlife refuges; and the Great Lakes, the report said.
The report calls special attention to the $319 million Grand Prairie Irrigation Project in eastern Arkansas, which seeks to build a pumping station to deliver river water to the heart of the country's largest rice-producing region.
The Bush administration declined to fund the pumping station project in the current 2004 budget or in the proposed 2005 spending plan, but Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., succeeded in securing $3.2 million late last year for the start of construction.
Terry Horton, executive director of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation, said the group will seek an injunction to stop work.
The corps is preparing its environmental impact statement on the Yazoo Backwater Pump project in Mississippi, which supporters say would protect more than 1,200 homes from flooding and improve farming for soybeans and other crops along the Big Sunflower River.
But critics say the $191 million project would destroy up to 200,000 acres of protected wetlands in the Mississippi Delta, as well as harm valuable bottom land hardwood.


Associated Press Writer David Hammer in Little Rock, Ark., contributed to this report.


On the Net:

Taxpayers for Common Sense: http://www.taxpayers.net

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers: http://www.usace.army.mil/

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Feud may hinder Madrid bombing investigation
Date: March 19 2004
Spanish security sources believe bad blood with Morocco may hamper the investigation into the Moroccan terrorist cell that appears to be behind last week's train bombings in Spain that killed 201 people and injured more than 1750.
Spanish police have arrested three Moroccans thought to be linked to Islamic terrorist groups and have identified five more who are presumed perpetrators of the bombings.
On Wednesday they widened the hunt for a further 20 Moroccans thought by Morocco to have entered Spain illegally after a string of suicide bomb attacks in Casablanca last May.
But arguments between the two governments over the island of Perejil, fishing rights and illegal immigration had badly damaged co-ordination on known shared threats, the newspaper El Mundo quoted security sources as saying.
Relations between the two countries became further embittered during the tenure of the defeated prime minister, Jose Maria Aznar. The prime minister-elect, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, made sure that one of his first remarks was a pledge to improve Spain's relations with Morocco. He also said the Government would implement additional security measures and reiterated his intention to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq.
It has emerged that the explosive used in the 10 bombs in Madrid was goma-2 ECO dynamite made last February at Union of Spanish Explosives of Paramo de Masa in Burgos, northern Spain. Police are now investigating mines and quarries to discover how about 100 kilograms of the explosive disappeared.
The security services suspect the attacks were organised by the Moroccan Combat Islamic Group, thought to have been founded in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1993 to which the main suspect to be arrested, Jamal Zougam, has links.
Some members of Mr Aznar's People's Party are saying the Madrid attacks were not necessarily reprisals for Spain's support for the war in Iraq but based on Islam's historic claim on Spain.
The three Moroccans and two Indians arrested in connection with the bombings were due to appear in court yesterday.
The US said on Wednesday that Spain had mishandled early information about the bombings when it played down evidence that Islamic extremists were behind the plot. Mr Zapatero, who opposed the war in Iraq, was trailing in the polls before the blasts, which Mr Aznar instantly blamed on Basque separatists.
The Telegraph, London; The New York Times