N. Korea `ready' to fire off missile
By NOBUYOSHI SAKAJIRI, The Asahi Shimbun
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WASHINGTON--North Korea may be bluffing, but it appears ready to launch one or more Rodong ballistic missiles capable of hitting Japan anytime it wants, according to a senior U.S. official.
On the other hand, Pyongyang's posture may simply be aimed at gaining leverage in future negotiations, the official told The Asahi Shimbun here Thursday.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said latest U.S. intelligence showed that preparations for a launch of the medium-range missile appear complete.
``My understanding is they right now could shoot it anytime they want,'' the official said. ``They are pretty well prepared to do it. There might be a few more steps they have to take, but they will not take long.''
The official's comments suggest North Korean technicians have filled rockets with liquid fuel. Thus, it would only be a matter of hours before a missile was ready for launch. The official suggested that the technicians may only need to conduct final checks before blast-off.
Washington, like Japan, is stepping up surveillance of the Korean Peninsula to try to ascertain whether Pyongyang is bluffing in an attempt to gain concessions at six-way talks on its nuclear development programs, or in fact is getting ready to fire a missile.
The U.S. official said the intelligence was gleaned from satellites and monitoring of telecommunications. He said the Pentagon is fairly certain that Pyongyang is preparing to launch or test-fire a Rodong missile.
The official noted that the North was well aware its moves are being monitored by the United States. He indicated that launch preparations are being done at sites easily visible from the sky, not at mobile launch pads hidden in forests.
Some in Washington believe North Korea ``expects us to go running to them, begging them to stop,'' the official said. This, he theorized, might be a North Korean gambit to gain concessions from the international community in return for its agreement to freeze its nuclear and missile programs.
The official said Washington is not ruling out the possibility the North is ``actually preparing for a launch.''
He noted that Pyongyang expressed its hope during recent six-nation talks that the United States and other participants-Japan, South Korea, Russia and China-would reward North Korea for shelving its nuclear and missile ambitions.
The official said the United States would not be intimidated, adding there is no possibility of Washington altering its position that North Korea abandon its programs in a verifiable manner.
Meantime, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday warned North Korea not to break the extended moratorium on missile launches it promised Japan in 2002.
``I think it would be very unfortunate if the North Koreans were to do something like this and break out of the moratorium that they have been following for a number of years,'' Powell told a news conference in New York after meeting with South Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Ban Ki Moon.
Powell called such a development ``a very troubling matter'' for China, Russia and Japan.(IHT/Asahi: September 25,2004) (09/25)



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Prospect of North Korean Missile Launch 'Alarming' to Seoul
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 24, 2004; Page A19
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 23 -- South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon said Thursday that intelligence indicating a possible launch of a North Korean ballistic missile is "very much alarming" and that it could set back diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
"We have gotten that intelligence report that North Korea appears to be preparing to launch a missile," Ban said in an interview. "We are very concerned about the North Korea activities. We hope that they will not launch this kind of missile at this time."
Ban said a missile launch would have an "immensely negative adverse impact on the ongoing six-party dialogue process," referring to the six-nation talks over North Korea's nuclear program, "as well as the ongoing South-North relationship. And I think their relationship with Japan will be very much affected in a negative way."
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, attending meetings on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, told reporters that "it would be very unfortunate if the North Koreans were to do something like this and break out of the moratorium that they have been following for a number of years." But Powell said a missile launch would not "change our approach to dealing with the North Korean nuclear problem."
Ban said he did not understand why North Korea would appear to be scheduling a missile launch, except to alarm countries in the region and gain "an upper hand" in the nuclear talks. A fourth round of talks was set for this month, but North Korea has balked at attending.
A U.S. military officer who monitors Asia said the missile in question is believed to be a new intermediate-range model detected in North Korea in the past year. U.S. analysts have said the land-launched missile is derived from the Soviet SS-N-6, a 1960s-era submarine-launched model. Some reports estimate its range at more than 3,500 kilometers -- enough to reach Guam, a U.S. territory with a large military presence.
Adding to the tension, North Korea's state-run Rodong Sinmun newspaper declared Thursday: "If the United States ignites a nuclear war, the U.S. military base in Japan would serve as a detonating fuse to turn Japan into a nuclear sea of fire."
In 1998, North Korea test-fired a ballistic missile over Japan into the Pacific Ocean. After receiving the new intelligence, Japan was reported to have sent two destroyers and a surveillance aircraft to the Sea of Japan to monitor North Korea's activities.
Ban said South Korea is "very much frustrated" that another round of talks appears unlikely soon. He said he recently told his North Korean counterpart that "they should not wait for the U.S. presidential election -- that whoever will be elected, Republican or Democrat, there will be no fundamental changes in addressing the issue."
Democratic candidate John F. Kerry has said he would allow direct talks with North Korea, but Ban noted that such talks have already taken place during the six-nation discussions, so he does not know whether there is "any substantial difference."
Staff writer Bradley Graham contributed to this report.
? 2004 The Washington Post Company

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Son of N. Korean Leader Arrives in Beijing?
A figure assumed to be the eldest son of North Korea leader Kim Jong-il arrived at Beijing International Airport on Saturday.
The man, who asserted himself to be the son of the "North Korean leader," wore a dark blue sports jacket, white shirt, and sunglasses, insisting to reporters in Korean, "I'm Kim Jong-nam."
PHOTOS
A man believed to be Kim Jong-nam who arrived in Beijing on Saturday (left) and the real Kim Jong-nam (right)
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200409/200409250018.html
Making use of a flight other than a flight from Pyongyang, which arrived at Beijing in this morning, he said he had traveled to several countries since being deported from Japan in 2001 after he tried to enter the country on a fake passport.
He didn't say which country he had passed through on his way to China, and when asked about Koh Young-hee, the wife of Kim Jong-il, who was rumored to have died recently, he said "I don't know."
He was alone, and nobody picked him up. "I will stay at a hotel in Beijing," he said as he took off in a taxi.
The son of the late former actress Song Hye-rim, Kim Jong-nam was busted and deported by Japanese authorities after he tried to enter Narita International Airport with two women and a four-years old boy in May 2001. It is surmised that he has wandered about various regions including Moscow and Beijing.
(englishnews@chosun.com )






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US offers to sell F-16s to Pakistan
By Joshua Kucera JDW Staff Reporter
Karachi, Pakistan
Additional reporting by Michael Sirak JDW Staff Reporter
Washington, DC
The US is offering to sell 18 F-16 fighter aircraft to the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) pending Congressional approval: one of several such deals in the works after years of US-led defence sanctions against Pakistan, the PAF Chief of Staff has disclosed.
"[The Americans] have indicated that they are ready to give us F-16s," said Air Chief Marshal (ACM) Kaleem Saadat. "This is not a rumour; it is from the American government."
Pakistan said it hopes the deal is the beginning of greater US co-operation. "Eighteen I consider to be the first instalment of what would follow," ACM Saadat told JDW. Approval from Congress, however, is not likely to come until after the US elections in November, he said.
Pakistan is asking that the F-16s be equipped with Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAMs). Along with additional fighter aircraft, Pakistan has also outlined a requirement for a beyond-visual-range missile, which the AMRAAM would meet.
In 1988-89, Pakistan arranged to supplement its stock of 40 F-16A/Bs - about 32 of which remained in service as of 2003 - by ordering an additional 71 aircraft. Lockheed Martin began producing them, but then the US Congress imposed sanctions in 1995 that barred military sales to the country unless the US president could certify that Pakistan was not pursuing nuclear weapons.
As a result, only 28 of the 71 were ever built and none of them were delivered to Pakistan. Instead they were kept in storage in the US until the Bush administration reimbursed the Pakistanis financially and assigned 14 aircraft each to the US Air Force and Navy in June 2002 for training and testing purposes.
The episode still rankles in Pakistan and the renewed possibility of acquiring F-16s is seen partly as making amends in thanks for Pakistan's efforts as an ally of the US in the wake of 9/11.
"Right from day one, we have been impressing upon the US government what symbolic value the F-16 has for the Pakistani people and the Pakistani nation," ACM Saadat said. "So it's not as if 10, 15, 20 aircraft would make a world of difference in our operational capability, but it's a symbol in the sense that the people of Pakistan think that if they give us this then they are really sincere in helping us."

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Russia's new pre-emptive strategy
Kremlin generals have studied US doctrine
Borrowing a leaf from the current US military manual and responding to the massacre of the Beslan school children, General Yuri Baluevsky, the Russian Chief of General Staff, announced last week that his country's military now reserved the right to "launch pre-emptive strikes on terrorist bases... in any region of the world".
No Western government publicly responded to this Russian statement. Yet, privately, Western military planners are beginning to worry about what the official shift in Moscow's policies may actually mean. Moscow's claim that it is fighting the same war on terrorism as the United States is not taken seriously. The people who belong to Al-Qaeda and who struck at the US three years ago, rejected everything America stood for: its economic prowess, its technological advances and its notions of society. For Osama bin Laden, the war is an apocalyptic clash of civilisations, a global confrontation between religions.
The terrorism that faces Russia today is of a different variety. It was born out of a war for the liberation of one ethnic group. The militants who attacked the US were foreign; those who attacked Russia were, nominally, its own nationals. Furthermore, Al-Qaeda rejects the concept of the Western world, whereas the Chechens want to join this world, albeit as a separate nation.
The Chechens are not fighting in the name of Islam, although they happen to be Muslim. They fight for the nationalist aspiration of independence. Al-Qaeda and its allies cannot be negotiated with, even if they were to give up violence. But, at least in theory, there is an answer to the Chechen problem, namely that of granting independence to this Russian province. The conclusion, therefore, is that the Russian government's threat to deploy its armed forces around the world represents nothing more than an attempt to avoid discussing the real issue: the future of the Chechen nation.
Furthermore, unlike the Americans, who had to deal with a country like Afghanistan that shielded terrorists, there is no government that supports Chechen terrorists. Even Russia's claims that it is facing an international terrorist movement are doubtful. Immediately after the terrorist attacks on a theatre building in Moscow two years ago, the Russians asserted that Arab fighters were involved. Not a single Arab was subsequently produced as evidence; all turned out to be local Chechens. The same claim was made after the horrific massacre in the school. Even before all the bodies of the murdered children and adults were identified, Russia mysteriously already claimed to know that 10 of the attackers were Arabs. But, yet again, the evidence never appeared. The reality is rather simple: although some links with other terrorist organisations may exist, the bulk of Chechen terrorism has always been home-grown.
What are the Russians up to?
So, why are the Russians still insisting on their own doctrine of military pre-emption against alleged overseas terrorists? There are two reasons. The first is long term and remains strategic. Ever since the end of the Soviet Union, the Russians have wanted to maintain control over the oil-rich and strategically important Caucasus region and especially over the neighbouring republic of Georgia. The Georgian government, now assisted by the presence of some US military personnel, has always resisted these Russian advances. Under the guise of fighting terrorism, the Russians now hope to reimpose control over Georgia. It is rather convenient that they can do so by using the same justification that the Americans are using elsewhere in the world. But, more importantly, Russia's pre-emption doctrine represents a free-for-all for its secret agents. For years, the Russian government demanded the extradition of Chechen political leaders who sought asylum in other countries, claiming that they were terrorists. Without exception, courts in Western countries rejected these claims as unfounded. Well before the school massacre, however, the Russian security services adopted a new technique -- that of simply assassinating such people. The former Chechen president was assassinated in the Gulf state of Qatar in February and further assassinations are sure to follow. Yet again, the Russian authorities will claim that they are doing nothing different from what the US Central Intelligence Agency has done. In practice, however, the Russians are targeting all those Chechens with whom a peaceful deal to the crisis can still be negotiated -- far from eliminating terrorism, they are eliminating the chances for any political settlement.
Our prediction: Wholesale assassinations of Chechen protagonists and Russian bullying of Georgia. Do not expect Western governments to say anything about it either.

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Ukraine arms Cuba and Venezuela
Ukraine's arms exports last year stood at US$530-550m, an increase on the year before when they were officially recorded at $440m. JID's regional analyst looks at the implications of Kiev's weapons policy.
Ukrainian experts analysing this highly secretive sector of Ukraine's foreign trade believe that the volume of military exports could rise to an annual maximum of $700m. Of course, these figures do not include the large volume of unofficial trade in weapons. Since 1992, Ukrainian arms have ended up in many conflict zones around the world, including Peru, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Pakistan, Malaysia and Sri Lanka.
This year's figures for military exports will be heavily boosted by the establishment of two new markets namely Cuba and Venezuela. Sources involved in preparing the contracts have informed JID that the first shipments of military equipment to Cuba and Venezuela are scheduled to take place sometime during September and October.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence has recruited officers with Spanish language fluency. These experts have been promised additional increments on their low salaries in return for travelling with the shipments to Cuba and Venezuela. The officers who are set to accompany the shipments will include language experts and interpreters, as well as specialists able to train the Cubans and Venezuelans in the use of the military equipment being supplied. During September and October it is expected that the military equipment will be installed on site in both countries.
The volume of equipment to be sent by the oddly-named Ministry of Machine Building (Ministerstvo mashinostroeniya), which is heavily involved in Ukraine's military exports, will be equally divided between both countries. The bulk of the military equipment being sent to Cuba and Venezuela is light to medium equipment. This includes light infantry weapons coupled with small and medium sized military vehicles. JID has learned that negotiations are underway for Ukraine to supply more sensitive and strategically important military equipment to both Cuba and Venezuela.
Throughout the summer, hundreds of pages of documents to accompany the weapons shipments have been translated into Spanish and English. These documents include operating manuals, an inventory and the contracts. It is understood from sources involved in organising the shipment that the contracts are for the supply and maintenance of the military equipment, in addition to training, for between five to 10 years.



17 June 2004
Ukraine's missing missiles
Since March, Ukraine's defence minister, Yevhen Marchuk, has been searching for missing missiles and other weapons that could have fallen into terrorist hands or been sold to rogue states. JID investigates why this potentially catastrophic situation is only now being brought to light.
Marchuk raised a domestic storm when he publicly revealed that the Defence Ministry had no unified accounting system. Nor has a comprehensive inventory of military equipment in Ukraine ever been carried out. It is unknown what weapons the Defence Ministry actually possesses or what it inherited from the former Soviet Union.
When Marchuk became defence minister in June 2003 he ordered two inventories that indicated US$170m of military stock was probably missing. These results were so shocking that Marchuk ordered a new team of investigators to conduct an additional check using different methods. They uncovered that additional equipment, worth $20m, was missing.
Ukraine's officially declared revenue from the sale of military equipment is $3bn. This, according to JID's inside sources, only represents a small fraction of the real volume of Ukraine's military exports. Meanwhile, Marchuk has complained that there is no data available to him regarding the quantity of military equipment Ukraine inherited after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
The sheer scale of what appears to be missing equipment is astounding, as demonstrated by just one example. In 1990-1991, on the eve of the break up of the Soviet Union, 1,942 S-185 rockets were delivered to the Zhytomir military base, west of Kiev. These rockets were to be dismantled.
In fact, only 488 of the 1,942 rockets can actually be accounted for. The missiles could have been sold to unknown groups or countries. Or their scrap metal, gold, platinum and silver could have been sold separately with the proceeds being transferred to offshore accounts.
"We are looking for several hundred missiles. They have already been decommissioned, but we cannot find them," complained Marchuk.


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JTIC briefing: Hizbullah's escalating role in the Palestinian intifada
By David Eshel
Lebanese Hizbullah is taking advantage of the present power vacuum in the West Bank and Gaza to expand its involvement in supporting the intifada, Israel security officials fear. JTIC examines evidence of recent Hizbullah activity in the Palestinian Territories.
Since the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa intifada in 2000, Israel has expressed growing concern over what it claims is the involvement of Lebanese Hizbullah in supporting the activities of Palestinian militant groups. Indeed, the group's leadership itself has openly declared its support for the Palestinian 'resistance' in the form of money, propaganda and 'popular participation'.
There is firm evidence that Hizbullah's initial activities particularly involved provision of propaganda support to the Palestinians using their television and internet news outlets. However, since 2001 it has become apparent that not only has Hizbullah's assistance become increasingly operational in nature, but that the group and its sponsors may be attempting to establish themselves as major power-brokers in the Territories, at a time when much of the Palestinian Authority (PA) is in disarray and the main militant groups have been largely forced onto the back foot by sustained Israeli counterterrorist pressure.
Establishing the exact nature and true extent of Hizbullah's present involvement in the intifada is a difficult undertaking given the abundance of disinformation surrounding the issue from both Israel and the Arab world. However, a steadily growing body of information now points toward an intimate involvement by Hizbullah in training, arming, and attempting to gain some influence over domestic Palestinian militant groups. Israeli intelligence sources insist that Hizbullah, thanks to its Iranian patronage, is providing significant funds to the militants, training their cadres at Hizbullah camps in South Lebanon and smuggling operatives into the Occupied Territories to provide bomb-making and other operational expertise.
What is Hizbullah's objective? If Ariel Sharon proceeds with his plan to completely withdraw from the Gaza Strip in 2005, then the ultimate security nightmare for Israel, government officials warn, would be a repeat of the 2000 Israel Defence Force (IDF) pullout from the 'buffer zone' it occupied in South Lebanon.

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from the September 27, 2004 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0927/p07s01-wome.html
Israel sends Syria tough message with Hamas strike
The killing of a Hamas operative Sunday underscores Israel's intolerance for radicals in Syria.
By Ben Lynfield
JERUSALEM - Widening its pursuit of Hamas beyond the occupied territories, Israel reached into Damascus Sunday, dealing a blow to both Hamas and Syria.
Even as part of official Israel declined to comment Sunday on the death of Izz el-Deen al-Sheikh Khalil, a Hamas operative killed in a car bomb, Israeli security sources told the Associated Press and the Haaretz newspaper that Israel was indeed responsible.
After last month's double bus bombing in the southern city of Beersheba, claimed by Hamas, Israeli army Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon had said that Israel would "deal with those who support terror" including those "in terror command posts in Damascus."
But Israeli analysts say the killing of Mr. Khalil was more than retribution. Operationally, it deprives Hamas of a key military leader, they say, while it also sends a tough signal to Syria that Israel will not tolerate its hosting of Hamas and other radical groups in Damascus.
"Khalil was the Salah Shehadeh of Damascus," says a former security official who requested anonymity. He was referring to the chief military leader of Hamas in Gaza who was assassinated by a one-ton bomb dropped on his residence in Gaza City two years ago.
The former official says that Khalil was responsible for smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip from Egypt and for organizing armed operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "The capability of Hamas to activate attacks in the West Bank and Gaza from outside will be reduced for a while," he says.
"Also," he continues, "this attack inside Syria's capital shows the authorities in Damascus that it cannot be used as a hiding place. This is a blow to the prestige of the regime."
In Damascus, a neighbor of Khalil who identified himself only as Nabil said, "He said good morning to us like he did everyday and walked to his car. He got into his car and then the phone rang. When he took the call we heard the explosion. We rushed toward his car and found pieces in the back seat."
Ahmad Haj Ali, an adviser to the Syrian information minister described the bombing as a "terrorist and cowardly action."
Ghazi Hamed, editor of the Hamas-affiliated al-Risala weekly, faults Washington for the bombing. "Israel would not do this without American permission," he says. "The United States is threatening Syria that 'Israel will attack you if you don't do what we want.' "
Khalil was the latest in a string of Hamas leaders to die at Israel's hands, the others better known than he was. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the movement's founder, was assassinated by a helicopter gunship in March as he left a mosque after prayers and acting leader Abdul-Aziz Rantissi was killed a month later.
"Following the killing of Yassin and Rantissi, the leadership outside became much more important," says Reuven Paz, director of the PRISM research institute in Herzliya, near Tel AviV. He estimates that there are 20 to 30 Hamas officials in Damascus that deal with foreign relations, finance, and directing military operations.
But Mr. Hamed says the Damascus headquarters is political and not military: "Israel believes that if it cuts the legs and hands of Hamas outside, then it will impact on Hamas here. I don't think so."
He says the armed wing in the occupied territories is independent and does not receive its orders from outside. Asked about Khalil, Hamed said he did not know what positions he held. He recalled that Khalil was deported to Lebanon along with 414 other Hamas figures in 1992, but, unlike the others, he did not to return to the occupied territories when they were allowed back.
Damascus, according to Mr. Paz, is no longer a safe place for Hamas not only because of Israeli military action but because of American pressure on Syria to oust radical groups headquartered there.
"Regimes like the Syrian regime might think that they are next after Iraq," he says. "And maybe [President] Bashar Assad would like to renew peace negotiations with Israel. He could easily sell out the Hamas leadership to improve his situation with the US or Israel."
Paz believes that despite the Israeli military strikes, Hamas is a highly durable organization inside the occupied territories.
"This is not just a terrorist organization, it has a well-organized social, educational, and cultural infrastructure which is seen as incorrupt. They might take a break now [from attacks] to invest more efforts in the municipal elections" beginning on Dec. 9, in which Hamas will field candidates, he says.
But Sami Abu Zahari, the Hamas spokesman in Gaza, pointed toward revenge.
"This crime expands and enlarges the struggle into Arab lands. The reply is obvious: escalating the attacks. We count on our Arab and Moslem youth to take action," he told Al Jaazera in an interview Sunday.
* Wire services contributed to this report.


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Arab Nations Fail to Support Lebanon
By Luke Thomas
Sep 17, 2004
In an appalling but all too common display of despotism and indifference, Arab nations throughout the Middle East failed to condemn Syria's suppression of Lebanese sovereignty.
As the Digital Freedom Network observed on Friday, September 10:
On September 3, the Lebanese parliament, under intense pressure from the Syrian government, approved an amendment to the Lebanese constitution that will allow current president Emile Lahoud to service a second term of three years.
Following the passage of this amendment, the United Nations (UN) passed resolution 1559 which called for full national sovereignty for the Lebanese and respect for Lebanon's constitution while also calling for the removal of all foreign troops without specifically mentioning Syria.
In addition to international condemnation from the U.S. and European Union (EU), local press and various religious and political leaders widely castigated the move. Four members of parliament under chief Druze MP, Wahlid Jumblatt, resigned in the aftermath.
The general expectation of behavior for Syria's Arab neighbors following its regrettable maneuvering of power was if not outright condemnation, certainly nothing indicating praise or approval. Unfortunately, approval was all that was to be found.
According to reports from The Daily Star, "Egypt appeared to have stood with Damascus Wednesday, as Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak reportedly rejected international condemnation of Syria's domination of Lebanese politics."
Ironically, Syria's official news agency, SANA, reported that Mubarak and Syria's leader, Bashar Al-Asad, called for "total Lebanese sovereignty" and repudiated UN Resolution 1559.
There are indications that "strong initial warnings" by Egypt, Jordan and Arab Gulf States for Syria to not interfere in the Lebanese electoral and constitutional affairs were altered or removed after intense lobbying from Syria.
Presumably, Syria introduced a goal of mutual interest that could be achieved given that there was unanimity between Arab parties. Forcing further U.S. difficulties in the increasingly dangerous Iraq is arguably chief among those.
With respect to Resolution 1559, Syria and Egypt deflected attention from the political arm-twisting by noting the need for a "realistic and political framework that would lead at the same time to the end of the Israeli occupation of all Syrian and Lebanese territory."
Lebanese Foreign Minister Jean Obeid reiterated that position, according to The Daily Star, by observing, "Lebanon was being asked to deal with the issue of the national anti-Israel resistance without bearing in mind that there is Lebanese land still under Israeli occupation."
Also there is the shared history of Syria and Egypt in the 1967 Six-Day War where both countries ceded territory to Israel in an overwhelming military defeat. While Egypt officially made peace with Israel under the leadership of the late Anwar Sadat, Syria still believe it is entitled to those lands (the Golan Heights), though has neither the means nor the real desire to attempt any recapture.
Michael Young of Reason Magazine and The Daily Star argues any serious implementation of Resolution 1559 is difficult, especially in the context of Syria's ties to Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Recall that recent Israeli threats against Damascus came in the form of Syrian government approval of Hamas offices in Syrian territory, operating unfettered and to nearly full capacity. Israel argues it has the right to attack those targets, even if they exist in foreign territory. Young observes, "It's difficult to imagine either the U.S. or Israel agreeing to new Syrian-Israeli talks unless Syria severs its ties with Hezbollah, Hamas, or Islamic Jihad." As long as Syria is tethered to these extremist groups, any negotiations over the Golan territory, and thus the implementation of Resolution 1559 as both Israel and Syria withdraw from occupied territory, remains somewhat of a pipe dream.
In fairness to the complexities of international diplomacy and history, both Israel and Syria maintain that occupation of West Bank and some Lebanese territory, respectively, is necessary to counterbalance the presence of the other.
On Wednesday, September 15 Syria criticized the U.S. Congress resolution that was passed two days earlier, condemning Syria's record on human rights abuses and calls for the U.S. government to combat the problem. The Daily Star reports as follows:
Syria's Information Minister Ahmad Hassan dubbed the resolution "worthless," adding that it bears the clear mark of the Zionist lobby in the U.S. congress.
House Resolution 363 called for the condemnation of the "continuing gross violations of human rights" and demanded support for the "civil liberties of the Syrian people by the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic."
The resolution passed unanimously without hesitation, thus rendering Syria's claim of surreptitious Zionist influence little more than baseless assertions.
In a very telling sign of the state of failure in Arab States, former Lebanese President Amin Gemayal, a member of Christian opposition, told The Daily Star Resolution 1559 "is different from all previous UN resolutions pertaining to Lebanon" and "it is the first time that a UN resolution intervenes in the internal relations among Arab states."
Gemayal added "this shows the failure of Arab states to resolve their problems internally."
So what does all this mean?
If one were to combine Syria's hand wrangling of Lebanese affairs, lobbying of foreign Arab governments for support, repudiating of international criticism, repudiating of domestic and Lebanese concerns, flippant attitude toward UN resolutions, deflecting of attention back to the U.S. and Israel away from its' failures, what we find is the unfortunate, but thoroughly unsurprising reality of politics in the Middle East.
Once again, Arab regimes have failed to come to rescue of fellow Arab nations by shamefully supporting ghastly actions of neighborhood dictators (there is also the gross failure to uphold the much heralded Pan Arabism). Again, this is not surprising. It is in many ways very unreasonable to expect Mubarak to outright condemn Syria while he presides over a police state. In his view, Assad's situation is nearly tantamount to his with respect to attitudes from Washington, although Mubarak is not accussed of having and likely has no ties to terrorism. Regardless, a man whose sole interest is power cannot be expected to exhibit forthcoming behavior on issues of disclosure and morality.
What it will take to alter the climate of Arab politics is unclear, but it unquestionably must involve massive amounts of concessions and negotiations. Given the actions of Egypt and other Arab nations, such a prospect is little more than a glimmer in the eye.
Copyright ? 1997 - 2004 Digital Freedom Network

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China Detains N.Y. Times Researcher
Reuters
Friday, September 24, 2004; Page A22
BEIJING, Sept 23 -- China has detained a researcher working for the New York Times on suspicion that he helped break news that aging leader Jiang Zemin planned to retire from politics this month, sources familiar with the case said Thursday.
Zhao Yan, a former reporter for the magazine China Reform, was arrested by state security agents on Sept. 17. Jiang stepped down from his post as head of the military on Sept. 19, during the annual meeting of the ruling Communist Party's Central Committee.
Earlier this month, the newspaper quoted sources as saying Jiang would hand the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission to Hu Jintao, his successor as president and party chief, at the plenum, completing a leadership transition that began at a party congress in 2002.
Zhao was taken into custody on suspicion of illegally providing state secrets to foreigners, according to a copy of an arrest document issued by the Beijing state security bureau and dated Sept. 21.
State security "suspect him to be the source of the Jiang Zemin story," said a source speaking on condition of anonymity. Zhao has worked for the New York Times since May.
The Times's foreign editor, Susan Chira, denied the charges and said the paper was "deeply concerned" about the case.
? 2004 The Washington Post Company

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U.N.derwhelming Response
The U.N.'s approach to terrorism.
By Anne Bayefsky
In the weeks immediately following 9/11 there is another anniversary -- that of the U.N.'s response to the global threat of terrorism. On September 28, 2001, the Security Council adopted Resolution 1373, which requires states to take steps to combat terrorism.
That resolution has proved, however, to be the high-water mark. Despite Senator Kerry's repeated calls for greater U.N. involvement in the war on terror, the organization's contribution has gone downhill ever since.
Three years after resolution 1373 was passed, the U.N. still can't even define terrorism. Member states are essentially divided into two camps. In one corner is the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) composed of 56 states insisting that terrorism excludes the "armed struggle for liberation and self-determination." More precisely, blowing up Israelis of all ages in cafes, synagogues, buses, and discotheques is considered legitimate. In the other corner is the rest of the world.
For eight years the U.N. has been struggling to adopt a comprehensive convention against terrorism. But it cannot finish the task because the OIC continues to hold out for an Israeli exclusion clause. Another round of bogus negotiations is scheduled for early October. No U.N. member state is prepared to change the rules and insist that a vote be called in the absence of consensus.
The upshot is one line on the U.N. website devoted to the definition of terrorism. It refers interested parties to the ongoing discussion over a terrorism convention that "would include a definition of terrorism if adopted."
The U.N.'s inability to identify a terrorist has real-life implications. In the last month, the Security Council has been faced with terrorist acts in Beslan, Russia, and in Israel. A recent bombing in Beersheva, Israel, claimed 16 lives and wounded 100 from a population of under seven million. The hostage-taking in Russia left 326 dead and 727 wounded out of a population of over 143 million. Proportionally, the trauma was as great in Israel.
The Security Council deadlocked over the Beersheva attacks and no unified presidential statement was possible. Instead there was a statement to the press saying council members (read: some, not all) condemned the bombings along with "all other acts of terrorism" (code for "Israel engages in terrorism too"). During the debate, Security Council members Algeria and Pakistan maintained a position of "principle" -- there should be no double-standards, no singling out of one act, no selective condemnation. That was August 31.
On September 1 the Security Council adopted a presidential statement on behalf of the council as a whole concerning Beslan. It strongly condemned the attack, expressing the deepest sympathy with the people and government of Russia and urging all states to cooperate with Russian authorities in bringing to justice the perpetrators, organizers, and sponsors of the terrorist acts.
Of course the council couldn't mirror such calls when it came to Israeli victims, since the perpetrators, organizers, and sponsors of Palestinian terrorism start with Yasser Arafat and end in the protectorates of Damascus and Tehran. What happened to Resolution 1373?
The resolution's legal requirements are impressive: to "refrain from providing any form of support, active or passive, to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts"; to "take the necessary steps to prevent the commission of terrorist acts"; to "deny safe haven to those who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts"; and to "prevent those who finance, plan, facilitate or commit terrorist acts from using their respective territories for those purposes against other States or their citizens..."
To implement these obligations, 1373 gave birth to a Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC). The CTC then spawned 517 state reports about all the steps being taken to implement the resolution. Among them is the most recent report from Syria -- headquarters of Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and others featured on the State Department list of foreign terrorist organizations. It informs the Security Council about "procedures and measures adopted and in force in the Syrian Arab Republic aimed at the suppression....and prevention of terrorist crimes, and...the denial of safe haven, refuge, assistance or any form of help in the territory of...Syria."
A parallel universe, one in which the U.N.'s chief global response to 9/11 -- the Counter-Terrorism Committee -- has never managed to name a single terrorist organization or individual, or a singe state sponsor of terrorism.
Another U.N. committee was created in 1999 under Security Council Resolution 1267, in response to al Qaeda and the Taliban. This so-called sanctions committee has never agreed about which states have failed to comply with their obligations, nor has it given the council a list of delinquent states for further action.
Meanwhile, almost all of the rest of the world stands paralyzed, intimidated, or furiously giving campaign speeches about U.N. multilateralism as the sensitive way forward in the war against terror.
-- Anne Bayefsky is an international lawyer and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/bayefsky200409240915.asp
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Options for Prosecuting Forgery Exist, but Appear Unlikely
By Robert B. Bluey
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
September 20, 2004
(CNSNews.com) - Tampering with government records is a felony under the Texas Penal Code, but prosecutors in Taylor County said they are not likely to pursue a case, even if the controversial CBS memos on President Bush were sent from a Kinko's fax machine in Abilene.
Prosecuting a forgery in Texas under section 37.10 would be just one of several options available under state, federal or military law. But the likelihood of any criminal charges being brought against an individual or CBS are remote, based on interviews conducted by CNSNews.com.
"I know some documents were faxed from Abilene that were purported to be fraudulent, and that's all I know," said James Eidson, the district attorney for Taylor County, which includes Abilene. "We're not an investigative agency. It would have to be turned over to us by some other agency."
The law enforcement agency most likely to look into the matter - fraud investigations are handled by the Texas Department of Public Safety - has not heard from any Texas prosecutor who might be willing to take the case, according to a spokeswoman.
"On certain things, we won't pursue investigating a case unless we have a letter from whoever the prosecutor would be," said Tela Mange, a spokeswoman for the department. "We don't want to expend investigative resources and time and money on a case that a prosecutor might not pursue."
According to the Texas statute, anyone who "makes, presents, or uses any record, document, or thing with knowledge of its falsity and with intent that it be taken as a genuine governmental record" could be charged with a felony.
Even though CBS has refused to disclose the source of the documents that it aired on the Sept. 8 episode of "60 Minutes II," there are clues that indicate they may have come from Texas. The records were about Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard, and one CBS source, former National Guard officer Robert Strong, said they bore the stamp of the Kinko's in Abilene.
The transmission of forged documents via a fax machine could result in a prosecution under the federal wire fraud statute, according to University of Texas law professor Samuel W. Buell, who worked as a federal prosecutor for 10 years. But he warned that even if that was the case, money would have likely had to be involved.
After researching federal laws that might pertain to the CBS matter, Buell said most statutes applied to forging currency as opposed to falsifying government records.
"There are a set of federal forgery statutes limited to certain matters that are within the jurisdiction of the federal government," Buell said. "For example, currency obligations, treasury certificates, bonds, postage meters and generally things that have monetary value."
Federal statutes referring to military records also make no reference to memorandums like the ones obtained by CBS, Buell said. Penalties would apply, he said, in cases of forged discharge certificates and military identification cards.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas, which covers Abilene, referred CNSNews.com to the Department of Justice. The department declined to comment on the matter.
A third option - besides a state or federal prosecution - involves military law. But it would likely be the most remote choice given the type of crime, said Margaret D. Stock, a law professor at the U.S. Military Academy. Stock offered her personal assessment to CNSNews.com.
"A minor case of someone altering a document might never even go to a court martial," Stock said. "It might be handled administratively with a reprimand."
A military prosecution becomes complicated, Stock explained, because it could involve bringing a retired military officer onto active duty.
The Uniform Code of Military Justice, which applies to the National Guard as well as other military branches, has a provision on forgery that punishes anyone who "utters, offers, issues, or transfers such a writing, known by him to be so made or altered."
Any active duty officer today could lodge a complaint if the source of the documents turned out to be associated with the military, Stock said. But the chance of anything materializing would be slim in her opinion.
"It would be more likely that the [U.S. attorney] would prosecute than the military because it's easier for them to get jurisdiction," she said. "I would think it would be easier for the federal civilian prosecutor to handle the case rather than a military prosecutor."
And while an individual may face little threat of prosecution, according to legal sources, CBS has far greater protection under the First Amendment, said media law professor Rick J. Peltz, who teaches at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He said he wasn't aware of any legal precedent involving a media organization charged with criminal fraud.
"Even besides actual malice, the constitutionality of criminal defamation laws is highly suspect," Peltz added. "I'm not sure I can see a theory for criminal liability."
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Pentagon think tank sees Iran nukes by 2005
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Friday, September 24, 2004
A leading Pentagon-funded think tank has determined that Iran could be as little as a year away from producing its first nuclear bomb.
The report by the Washington-based Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy Education Center provided the harshest assessment yet of Iran's nuclear weapons program. The report, partly funded by the Pentagon, also reviewed U.S. responses to Iran's program, but ruled out a military strike.
On Tuesday, Iran said it has begun converting 37 tons of raw yellowcake uranium for enrichment by gas centrifuges, Middle East Newsline reported. U.S. officials said the announcement reflected Teheran's intention to accelerate its nuclear weapons program.
"Iran is now no more than 12 to 48 months from acquiring a nuclear bomb, lacks for nothing technologically or materially to produce it, and seems dead set on securing an option to do so," the report, released on Sept. 13, said.
The assessment by the center came only weeks after the intelligence communities in Israel and the United States concluded that Iran sustained a setback in its race to achieve nuclear capability. In August, Israel's intelligence community asserted that International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of Iranian nuclear facilities prompted a suspension of uranium enrichment and the transfer of such equipment from civilian to military bases.
Iranian engineers need between one to four years to develop nuclear warheads, the report said. The think tank said Iran has the equipment to produce nuclear weapons fuel, the expertise to assemble bombs and the missile delivery systems.
The study was drafted with the help of leading U.S. experts on Iran, the Middle East, and nuclear weapons. The experts warned that a nuclear Iran would increase its support for organizations deemed terrorist, boost the price of oil and spark an arms race in the region.
"With Hamas in decline, Iran has already been seen to be increasing its support to groups like Hizbullah in Israel and Lebanon who want to liberate Palestine from 'Israeli occupation,'" the report said. "Increasing this aid certainly would help Iran take the lead in the Islamic crusade to rid the region of Zionist and American forces and thereby become worthy of tribute and consideration by other Islamic states. Also, bolstering such terrorist activity would help Teheran deter Israel and the U.S. from striking it militarily."
The report said U.S. and allied policy-makers have been drafting plans to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The think tank said the two most widely-examined choices were to bomb or bribe Iran.
"Neither, however, is likely to succeed and could easily make matters worse," the report said. "Certainly, targeting Iran's nuclear facilities risks leaving other covert facilities and Iran's nuclear cadre of technicians untouched."
"As for eliminating Iran's nuclear capabilities militarily, the U.S. and Israel lack sufficient targeting intelligence to do this," the report added.
"As it is, Iran could have already hidden all it needs to reconstitute a bomb program assuming its known declared nuclear plants are hit."
Instead, the report recommended that the United States lead naval exercises throughout the Persian Gulf. The exercises should seek to improve allied capability to clear mines, protect merchant ships, seize nuclear cargo and ensure traffic in the Straits of Hormuz.
Another recommendation was that the United States offer missile defense systems to allies in the Middle East. The think tank warned that such an offer must ensure that recipient states could not use these systems for offensive purposes.
The study warned that a nuclear Iran would spark similar programs in a range of Middle East states. Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey -- all signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty -- were the most likely to seek nuclear weapons, the study said.
In early 2004, the report said, senior Saudi officials announced they were studying the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons from China or Pakistan. At the same time, Egypt announced plans to develop a large nuclear desalinization plant and could have received sensitive nuclear technology from Libya.
"Egypt, Algeria, Syria, and Saudi Arabia will all claim that they too need to pursue nuclear research and development to the point of having nuclear weapons options and, as a further slap in Washington's face -- and Tel Aviv's -- will point to Iran's 'peaceful' nuclear program and Israel's undeclared nuclear weapons arsenal to help justify their own 'civil' nuclear activities," the report said.
The report said Israel's role was crucial to any U.S. response to a nuclear Iran. The think tank recommended that the United States and its allies -- prior to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference in May 2005 -- persuade Israel to take unilateral steps meant to dampen the prospect of a nuclear arms race throughout the Middle East.
"Israel should announce how much weapons usable material it has produced and that it will unilaterally mothball -- but not yet dismantle -- Dimona, and place the reactor's mothballing under IAEA monitoring," the report said. "At the same time, Israel should announce that it will dismantle Dimona and place the special nuclear material it has produced in 'escrow' in Israel with a third trusted declared nuclear state, e.g., the U.S."
"It should make clear, however, that Israel will only take this additional step when at least two of three Middle Eastern nations -- Algeria, Egypt or Iran -- follow Israel's lead by mothballing their own declared nuclear facilities that are capable of producing at least one bomb's worth of weapons usable material in one to three years," the report said.
Copyright ? 2004 East West Services, Inc.

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Europe loses patience with Iran over arms
(Filed: 25/09/2004)
France's foreign minister, Michel Barnier, insisted yesterday that Iran must assure the world that it does not plan to acquire atomic weapons as European nations lost patience with Teheran over its nuclear programme.
Diplomats close to negotiations in which Britain, France, and Germany are trying to persuade Iran to abandon its uranium enrichment programme said the Europeans might soon be ready to support American demands to refer it to the United Nations Security Council.
Iran said this week it had begun processing raw uranium to prepare it for enrichment, a process that can be used to develop nuclear bombs.
Mr Barnier said Iran urgently needed to reassure the world about its nuclear programme, which Teheran says is purely for nuclear energy.
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Iran, Impossible?
Nope. The mullahs will go the way of the Evil Empire.
After years of baffling silence, George Will has finally written about Iran. His guide is the justly celebrated Azar Nafisi, but her one-liner Will used to portray contemporary Iran -- "What differentiated this revolution from the other totalitarian revolutions of the twentieth century was that it came in the name of the past" -- demonstrates a serious misunderstanding of the past (the F?hrer's movement was every bit as anti-modern as Khomeini's) and thus of the future (both forms of fascism being quite capable of asserting a terrible revolutionary claim on the destiny of all mankind and unleashing their murderous hatred on a global scale).
Worse, Mr. Will tosses off a dismissive pronunciamento so absolute and categorical that he implies it is writ in the very nature of things: "There is no plausible path to achieving (regime change in Iran)." Why? Because "the regime-changers have their hands full with the unfinished project next door to Iran."
He'd have done better to concentrate his great talent and energy on preventing major-league baseball from reaching Washington, D.C. The claim that the United States cannot possibly bring about the fall of clerical fascism in Tehran is as silly as similar claims directed at Ronald Reagan when he set about bringing an end to the evil Soviet Empire. Indeed, skepticism about our determination to defeat Soviet Communism was far more justifiable than doubts about the thoroughly plausible path to end the Iranian mullahcracy. For only a small minority of the oppressed peoples of the Soviet Empire were ever willing to openly challenge the Kremlin -- as, for that matter, were the people in the Philippines under the Marcos kleptocracy, or in Yugoslavia under the mad Milosevic. Yet all came crashing down, defeated by their own people, who were inspired and supported by Americans.
In Iran today, upwards of 70 percent of the population is openly hostile to the regime, vocally desirous of freedom and democracy, and bravely supportive of the Bush Doctrine to bring democratic revolution to the entire region.
If we could bring down the Soviet Empire by inspiring and supporting a small percentage of the people, surely the chances of successful revolution in Iran are more likely. By orders of magnitude. "No plausible path," my derriere! (as Senateur Kerry might put it). Ask Comrade Gorbachev about the power of democratic revolution before you write off the Iranian people.
I think that Mr. Will got it wrong because he assumes that regime change implies military conquest. But we don't need armies of fighting American men and women to liberate Tehran; the foot soldiers are Iranians, and they are already on the ground, awaiting good leadership with a clear battle plan. The war against the Iranian terror masters will be political, not military. The weapons that will end the dreadful tyranny -- so well described by Mr. Will and Mrs. Nafisi -- are ideas and passions, not missiles and bullets. To our great shame, we have failed to support the Iranians' battle against their hated regime, but that is a failure of will, not a failure of means.
Mr. Will believes it inevitable that Iran will become a nuclear power in the near future, and this may well be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Surely the United Nations, the British, and the Europeans are doing everything possible to bring it to fulfillment. But this is a fallacy of "static" thinking in a rapidly changing world. South Africa and Ukraine were members of the nuclear club when they were oppressive tyrannies, but scrapped their nukes when they became free. It is certainly true that the current Iranian regime will stop at nothing until they have atomic bombs, but a free Iran might well make a different choice.
Most importantly, there is a huge difference between atomic bombs in the hands of fanatical mullahs, and atomic bombs controlled by a pro-Western and democratic country. Mr. Will says it is "surreal" for Condoleezza Rice to discuss the Iranian nuclear program in terms of what we can "allow" Iran to do, I suppose because he is convinced we have no plausible path to prevent it. That may or may not be true; I don't know if there is a politically acceptable military option, and I agree that diplomacy cannot possibly derail the mullahs' mad atomic march. But it is at least equally "surreal" to dismiss the prospects of democratic revolution in Iran, and thereby join the ranks of the appeasers.
If Reagan had listened to this sort of criticism -- and there was no shortage of it in the early '80s -- Gorbachev would still be managing the gulags and funding Communist movements all over the world. If Bush accepts George Will's view of Iran, we will soon see the world's primary sponsor of terror armed with atomic bombs.
It is not inevitable. We can beat them. Delay costs lives, both ours and those of the brave Iranians who challenge clerical fascism.
Faster, please.
-- Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. Ledeen is Resident Scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute.

http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200409240934.asp

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Zarqawi's Jordanian roots
By Jon Leyne
BBC Amman correspondent
Zarqa is a dusty, dirty city. The houses sprawl over a series of brown, sun-blasted hillsides. It has a reputation for being the home to the car trade, and for crime.
It is also home to Iraq's most wanted man - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The name means, "the man from Zarqa".
Zarqawi himself has been on the run for years. But his wife and four children still live in a two-storey house on the edge of town. His brother-in-law Saleh al-Hami also lives across the road.
'Thug'
He was eager to put the record straight about his notorious relative.
Zarqawi is a good man, he insisted, a good Muslim, who has gone to Iraq out of principle to fight the American-led occupation.
He is a leader, he is strong, straight to the point, with a very strong personality
Leith Shubeilat, Islamic activist
This rough town provided inauspicious roots for a man the Americans credit with leading a large part of the Iraqi resistance.
When he was in his teens, it seemed that Zarqawi was destined for a life of petty crime. He was known as a bit of a thug, a lowlife.
But while few claim Zarqawi is a great intellectual, it appears he does have the ability to lead: the ability to persuade, or to bully, others to follow him.
"He is a leader, he is strong, straight to the point, with a very strong personality," says Leith Shubeilat, an Islamic activist imprisoned with Zarqawi in the 1990s.
Iraq opportunity
What sounds like an obsessive personality gradually turned Zarqawi from crime to the more dangerous pursuit of radical Islam, with its fiery mix of religion and politics.
He travelled to Pakistan and Afghanistan, although his relationship with Osama Bin Laden is disputed.
In 1993, Zarqawi was arrested in Jordan, after the authorities discovered rifles and bombs stashed in his house.
In the next years in prison, he turned to learning the Koran by heart.
Then in 1999, he was released by the Jordanians as part of a general amnesty.
The war in Iraq was just the opportunity he was looking for to harness his fanatical beliefs.
He is now believed personally to have carried out several of the recent, brutal, videotaped executions.
Though Zarqawi has become a mystery figure, unseen except in those gruesome videos.
Supporters
Zarqawi's brother-in-law, Saleh al-Hami, had no apologies for the recent violence or kidnappings, such as the holding of the British man Ken Bigley.
"Why are the British worried about this one man, and not about the thousands of Iraqis who have been killed or injured?" asked Mr al-Hami.
Most ordinary Jordanians I spoke to in Zarqa insisted they did not support the current wave of kidnappings.
But they did point to that same double standard.
"All the people here in Jordan and the Middle East are against kidnapping the foreigners," said one man I spoke to outside a newspaper shop in Zarqa.
"Our religion does not want these things to happen in Iraq."
"But all the people want to dismiss Americans and British from Iraq, because Iraq is an Arabic country.
"The foreigners, they killed more people than the kidnappers. The American jets killed 200 or 300 daily."
Zarqawi cannot claim many followers in Jordan, though government buildings here are heavily fortified against any possible attacks from him or other Muslim militants.
But people here do understand what drives him, and most ordinary people I spoke to shared his hatred for America's occupation of Iraq and support for Israel.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/3691548.stm
Published: 2004/09/27 00:16:05 GMT
? BBC MMIV

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U.S. military intelligence: Saddam transferred WMD to Syria
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Friday, September 24, 2004
The U.S. military continues to back its estimate that the former Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq transferred much of its weapons of mass destruction arsenal to neighboring Syria.
U.S. officials said that U.S. Army Intelligence does not share the conclusion that Saddam had abandoned his WMD program before the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 2003. They said military intelligence has attributed the U.S. failure to find Iraqi WMD platforms or munitions to Saddam's transfer of these systems to Syria in late 2002 and early 2003.
Over the last year, U.S. Central Command has helped the Iraqi Survey Group in the search for WMD in Iraq. The group has wound down its activities in Iraq without any success.
"The Iraqi Survey Group has yet to submit its final report," Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, deputy chief of U.S. Central Command, said. "Besides, who knows what we will find in two years, who knows what was moved to countries like Syria. What we know for certain is that Saddam Hussein had carried out research into an array of weapons of mass destruction."
Smith said Syria was a major ally of Saddam before and after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He told a briefing in Qatar on Sept. 5 that Syria helped fuel the current insurgency war in Iraq by enabling the flow of combatants and weapons into Iraq to fight U.S. and allied forces.
The military's assessment that Syria has received Iraqi WMD has been shared by the Defense Department, officials said. They said U.S. reconnaissance satellites had detected the entry of Iraqi convoys of suspected WMD and missile cargo into Syria and Lebanon's Bekaa Valley in early 2003.
"It's a clear fact that the deposits of weapons of mass destruction have not been found since the end of the major combat operations," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. "Another possibility is they gave them to some other country or hid them in some other country."
Officials said Saddam agents have sought to kill Iraqis with knowledge of the former regime's nuclear weapons program. They cited the assassination of Iraqi nuclear scientist Mohammed Toki Hussein Al Talakani on Sept. 4 in the Sunni city of Mahmudiya.
In contrast, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission for Iraq said it failed to find evidence that Saddam had developed unmanned air vehicles capable of deliverying biological or chemical weapons. The agency said the UAVs found in Iraq did not violate UN restrictions.
"The information available to us doesn't indicate Iraq had these drones for the delivery of chemical or biological weapons agents, nor had they gone beyond the 150 kilometer range," UN commission spokesman Ewen Buchanan said. "But we're open to new information and looking forward to the Iraq Survey Group's findings."
Copyright ? 2004 East West Services, Inc.


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Too much democracy - a mandarin's lament
(Filed: 25/09/2004)
Pity the sincere Europhiles. For many years, these well-bred, well-meaning and in some ways visionary people waged their lonely campaign against public opinion. Then, to their unfeigned delight, Tony Blair was elected, the first prime minister since Edward Heath who seemed willing to advance their agenda.
Mr Blair had an unassailable majority and a clear mandate: in his first speech as Labour leader, he promised: "Britain will never be isolated or left behind in Europe." For a short while, everything seemed possible. But, nearly eight years on, Mr Blair's majority has been squandered, his promise broken. No wonder the pro-Europeans sound so crotchety these days: they can see things slipping away from them.
Nowhere is this frustration more keenly felt than in Whitehall - or, to be precise, King Charles Street. For 40 years, our Foreign Office mandarins have seen themselves as almost sacerdotal figures, guardians of the sacred flame of Britain's European vocation. If you doubt this, read the late Hugo Young's history, This Blessed Plot. Written from a Europhile perspective, the book lays bare the way in which successive generations of FCO bureaucrats maintained a policy of closer European integration regardless of the declared will of their elected bosses.
Sir Stephen Wall, whom we interview today, was for a time the supreme inheritor and exemplar of this tradition. An erudite and respected man, he did his best to pursue a European policy that was wholly at odds with British public opinion. For a while, he saw Mr Blair as a natural ally; but he soon became disenchanted. Not that there was a hint of this while Sir Stephen was in his post: he was a proper and discreet civil servant to the last. Now, though, freed from the constraints of office, he has let rip.
Mr Blair, he says, played politics when he should have been making the case for the EU - and his Chancellor, Gordon Brown, even more so. Here is the authentic voice of the British ?narque: listen closely and you can catch that slight tetchiness at what diplomats think of as populism, but the rest of us would call democracy.
The issue over which Sir Stephen and Mr Blair fell out was the referendum on the EU constitution. Sir Stephen, true to the values of his caste, vigorously opposed the idea of consulting the public. He well understands that the EU would never have got where it is today if each new treaty had been referred to the voters for approval. He can see that people will probably vote "no" to the constitution - not only because of what they read in that document, but also as a surrogate verdict on 30 years of transfers of power to Brussels. For him, as for other Euro-enthusiasts, that is reason enough for not asking them. The EU, as it exists, is the creation of men like Sir Stephen: a bureaucratic construct with little room for democracy. That has been the objection all along.

? Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004

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Aspiring powers fight for seat at UN top table
By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor
(Filed: 25/09/2004)
The quest by the United Nations to reform the Security Council has turned into a public brawl between aspiring powers seeking a permanent seat and a larger number of jealous neighbours seeking to keep them out.
The battle has been waged all week in New York, where world leaders and ministers are meeting for the annual opening of the UN General Assembly.
India, Germany, Japan and Brazil are united
India, Germany, Japan and Brazil have banded together to promote each other's membership. They have won support from Britain and France - which already hold permanent seats - but they are also facing determined opposition.
Pakistan opposes the entry of India, its nuclear rival. Italy has led the campaign against Germany's membership, while Argentina and Mexico are trying to prevent Brazil gaining a seat.
Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt have also made a case for a permanent seat.
The giants of the Security Council - the United States, China and Russia - have kept largely silent, apparently unwilling to support any attempt at reform, though China was scathing about Japan's ambitions for a permanent seat.
Iraq, terrorism, weapons proliferation, world poverty, climate change are all major issues for this year's General Assembly meeting. But for many at UN headquarters, the question which really animated diplomats was reform.
Almost everybody agrees that the present composition of the Security Council is outdated, reflecting the balance of power at the end of the Second World War.
The council has five permanent members with the power of veto - the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia - together with 10 countries elected for two-year terms.
All attempts to overhaul the membership in the past decade have failed. But Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general, is now making a fresh attempt. Seeking to re-unite the UN after the deep rift caused by the war in Iraq, he has set up "high level panel" of international figures that will present its proposals in December.
The hope is that reforms will be approved by the General Assembly next year.
The panel will be trying to reconcile two opposing aims: to make the Security Council more legitimate in the eyes of the world by making its membership more representative; and to make it more effective in the eyes of America, which has shown its willingness to turn its back on the UN, by drafting new rules to deal with issues such as terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
The move has provoked frenzied lobbying and counter-pressure in the corridors of the UN.
President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, said on Thursday: "Africa, whose issues occupy a substantial part of the Security Council's time, ought to be accorded priority consideration for permanent membership.
"And Nigeria, I strongly believe, is a well-qualified candidate."
The Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, said the inclusion of India as a permanent member would be "a first step in the process of making the UN a truly representative body".
But Pakistan made plain its opposition to India's entry. "The overwhelming majority of states are against the creation of new centres of privilege," said President Pervaiz Musharraf.
Italy's foreign minister, Franco Frattini, argued that creating new permanent members would "sow division".
Instead, he backed proposals to create a layer of semi-permanent members which would serve five-year terms.
Britain has said that any new permanent members of the Security Council should not have the power of veto.


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Chernobyl Comes of Age
Melting Myths
By Roger Bate
Posted: Thursday, September 23, 2004
ARTICLES
National Review Online
Publication Date: September 23, 2004
Eighteen years ago, the world's worst nuclear accident occurred. Newspaper reports at the time reflected the near-universal public hysteria: the Daily Mail filled half its front page with the words "2000 DEAD"; the New York Post claimed that 15,000 bodies had been bulldozed into nuclear waste pits. But the overreaction to the accident caused far more harm than the meltdown itself, as it mistakenly led to the halting of nuclear programs in most Western countries, including the United States.
As Chernobyl comes of age, now seems like a good time to take an adult assessment of the whole affair. UNSCEAR's (the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation) website tells a surprising story: At 1:21 a.m. on April 25, 1986, the reactor crew at Chernobyl's number four reactor ran a test to see how long the turbines would spin following a power cut. It was known that this type of reactor was very unstable at low power, and automatic shutdown mechanisms had been disabled before the test. The flow of coolant water diminished, power output increased, and when the operator tried to shut down the reactor from its unstable condition arising from previous errors, a peculiarity in the design caused a dramatic power surge. The fuel elements ruptured and the resultant explosive force of steam lifted the cover plate off of the reactor, releasing fission products into the atmosphere. A second explosion threw out fragments of burning fuel and graphite from the core and allowed air to rush in, causing the graphite moderator to burst into flames. The graphite burned for nine days, releasing a total of about 12 x 1018 becquerels of radioactivity--about 30 to 40 times that of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
It just could not be any worse: Corners had been cut from the very inception of the reactor's design, right through construction, operation, and maintenance. Training and safety procedures were negligible. The Supreme Soviet that routinely disregarded human life was as negligent in nuclear-reactor policy as it was in everything else. Even The Simpsons's woeful nuclear power-plant owner, Mr. Burns, would have been ashamed of it.
The complete destruction of the reactor killed 31 people, including 28 from radiation exposure, most of whom were firefighters working on the roof. A further 209 people on site were treated for acute radiation poisoning and 134 cases were confirmed (all of whom recovered). Since then, an increase in childhood thyroid cancer has been reported, although it is not certain that this is not due to increased surveillance. There has been no other increase in radiation-induced disease, congenital abnormalities, or adverse pregnancy outcomes.
If this had been an ordinary industrial accident, safety standards would have been improved, and that would have been the end of the story. For instance, who (apart from those directly affected) remembers the explosion at a fertilizer plant in Toulouse, France, in September 2001? It killed 30 people, injured more than 2000, and damaged or destroyed 3000 buildings.
No, the biggest tragedy of Chernobyl was that radioactivity was governed by preposterous safety regulations that forced the authorities to take extreme and damaging action against the very people they were trying to protect. Until very recently, radiological protection (and chemical regulations) depended on the linear no-threshold (LNT) theory. This says that, because high levels of exposure can cause death, there is no safe lower limit. If this sounds like a reasonable level of precaution, consider this: 750? F will cause fatal burns, while 75? F is a lovely summer's day. Vitamin A is an essential trace chemical in our diet but is toxic at high levels. The dose makes the poison, for chemicals and for radiation.
On the basis of this false assumption, nearly 400,000 people were forcibly evacuated from areas around Chernobyl where radiation was actually lower than the normal background levels in Cornwall and five times lower than at Grand Central Station in New York. To these poor unfortunates, there was damage done. Psycho-social effects among the evacuees are emerging as a major problem. Zbigniew Jaworowski, a medical adviser to the U.N. on the effects of radiation, estimates that nearly five million people in the former Soviet Union have been affected by severe psychological stress, leading to psychosomatic diseases. These include gastrointestinal and endocrinological disorders and are similar to those arising from those that accompany other major disasters such as earthquakes, floods, and fires. Perhaps saddest of all is that as many as 200,000 "wanted" pregnancies ended in abortion, in order to avoid non-existent radiation damage to the fetuses.
It may seem crass to talk about money in this context, but according to the UNDP and UNICEF, over $100 billion was spent just in the Ukraine on post-Chernobyl "public health" measures. Just imagine how much real good could have been done with that much money. Furthermore, Jaworowksi says that the cost to Belarus was about $86 billion. These are astonishing sums for relatively poor former Communist countries.
Apportioning blame between the media and the Supreme Soviet is a difficult task. But unfounded Western fears based on the LNT hypothesis undoubtedly encouraged the Soviet mass evacuation program. Yet that inaccurate LNT hypothesis still forms the basis of radiation thinking--and it's past time that was changed. Nuclear power has dangers, which are less in terms of actual deaths per unit energy produced than most other forms of energy generation. But as long as this exaggerated image of Chernobyl endures, people will continue to imagine the costs of nuclear energy to be far higher than they really are.
Roger Bate is a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

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Iraq War Takes Toll on GIs' Mental Health
Friday, September 24, 2004
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
WASHINGTON -- Early studies of the emotional ravages of the Iraq war on combat soldiers have spurred some veterans' health advocates to question whether Americans and the U.S. government are truly prepared for the devastating and far-reaching mental health effects of war.
"We are not prepared for the body count we are seeing, mental health or otherwise," said Sue Bailey, former assistant secretary of defense for health affairs during the Clinton administration. "America's mood is not prepared for this."
"The [Veterans Administration] is not geared up and the [Department of Defense] is not geared up," said Rick Weidman, spokesman for Vietnam Veterans of America (search). "That's why some of us have been talking, and you are going to see a major front of veterans saying we need this fixed and we need this fixed now."
According to a study published July 1 in the New England Journal of Medicine (search), 15- 17 percent of combat soldiers surveyed upon their return from Iraq exhibited signs of anxiety, major depression or other mental health problems.
These numbers are significantly higher than in the Persian Gulf War (search), point out mental health and veterans experts. They attribute the lower numbers in 1991 to a shorter war -- 42 days -- and enemy engagement that came mostly from strategic air assaults, not urban warfare (search).
"Because of the nature of this war, there will be more people with mental problems than in the Persian Gulf War - it will be more like the Vietnam War (search)," said Lawrence J. Korb, former assistant secretary of defense under President Reagan and senior fellow for the Center for American Progress (search).
Government officials and some experts say that between the new mental health teams available to troops in Iraq, and a more proactive outreach to soldiers when they get home, the government is better prepared than ever.
"There have been real advances in having the capability to deal with things in real time, in combat," said Bailey.
"I can tell you we have been anticipating, or monitoring very closely, what we think the influx will be," said Alfonso Batres, chief officer for readjustment counseling services at the Veterans Administration (search). "What is different today is that we are really being proactive in trying to reach this group."
According to the NEJM study, during the war in Iraq, 95 percent of Marines and Army soldiers surveyed had been shot at, 56 percent had killed an enemy combatant and 94 percent had seen bodies and human remains.
"There are no clear enemy lines, non-stop pace, the war surrounds the soldier 360 degrees. The enemy can be man, woman or child. This is an extremely stressful situation," said Stephen Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center (search).
Robinson said men and women who in the past would have died in the field have survived thanks to advanced body armor, but in many cases the soldiers are living with severe, life-altering injuries or are watching their friends grapple with them. In other cases, many of the less injured are National Guard and Reservists who are being sent back to the theater two and three times.
According to the Pentagon figures on Monday, 1,032 men and women have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom and 7,245 have been wounded. Of those latter figures, more than half could not return to duty within 72 hours and many resulted in one or more amputations and head injuries due to roadside bombs and patrol ambushes, according to reports.
Several experts gathered in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 14 to discuss what they call the "hidden toll" of the war -- men and women suffering from symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder (search). Symptoms can range from chronic fatigue and confusion to violent mood swings and serious depression.
Though PTSD is as old as war itself - as recently as World War I it was called "shell shock" - veterans' advocates blame the government for not learning its lessons, particularly after Vietnam.
"When we start seeing homeless veterans on the streets, self-medicating, families starting to break up - the toll - you won't be able to hide that. It will be felt by families across America," said Robinson.
"The military and the Veterans Administration are there and ready to support the veterans coming home and we will continue to do so," said Dr. Thomas Burke, an Army colonel and head of mental health policy under the assistant secretary of defense for health affairs.
Batres added that the VA starts seeing soldiers when they are still convalescing in the military hospitals and even have former Iraq and Afghanistan soldiers conducting outreach services in new peer-to-peer counseling.
He said the VA has met with 10,262 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. Of that number, 4,314 came to them through local VA centers, and of that number, 25 percent had symptoms of PTSD.
Kaye Baron, a clinical psychologist who has worked with about 75 returning Iraq veterans through her private practice outside of Ft. Carson Army Base in Colorado, said she fears a stigma is still attached to mental health care, and therefore, an unwillingness remains to make mental health services more accessible.
"I have some very significant concerns about us being prepared, or more importantly, being aware or honest as a society to acknowledge that these soldiers are going to have problems, whether they admit it or not," she said.
Baron and others said the NEJM report underestimates the numbers of soldiers affected by the war and the traumatic experiences they've been through. They also complain that despite claims otherwise, the military and VA are not effectively reaching out to soldiers. And without such efforts, most soldiers will not seek help, but will turn to other more destructive outlets.
"The military wants to deny that war hurts people and the society wants to deny that war hurts people," Weidman said.
Burke told FOXNews.com that multiple levels of mental health services are available before, during and after a soldier is deployed overseas, which not only take into consideration the myriad war-related effects on a soldier, but the need to reach out to those who might be hesitant to seek help.
Thus, a new program that allows soldiers to seek help online and through a toll-free hotline number.
"We strongly encourage soldiers to take advantage of the resources available to them," said Burke, who called the NEJM study important, but "not surprising" given the level of combat exposure cited.
Baron said the report suggested that about 25 percent of returned soldiers were drinking excessively. "I know from walking and talking to people that more like 75 percent are indulging in excessive alcohol to self-medicate, to escape," she said.
Barbara Critchfield, a long-time counselor at Shoemaker High School, where nearly 80 percent of the student body has parents deployed overseas through nearby Fort Hood, Texas, said students have begun to talk about returning parents' behavior.
"Some talk about fathers, who all they want to do is drink and sleep -- we know there is PTSD," she said. "I don't know how far-reaching it is, they might be isolated incidents, I don't know."
She said community mental health services are scrambling to hire more personnel and do more. "I think no one was expecting it to be what it is," she said.
FOXNews.com and FOX News Radio

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The Big Mahatma
From the October 4, 2004 issue: Laurence Tribe and the problem of borrowed scholarship
by Joseph Bottum
10/04/2004, Volume 010, Issue 04
SUPPOSE you were doing a little research into the history of Supreme Court nominations, and you learned from one book that Grover Cleveland "bested Benjamin Harrison by almost 100,000 votes in the election of 1888, but the vagaries of the electoral college caused him to lose the election" (p. 130).
And then, browsing through a later book on the topic, you read that Harrison is remembered for "losing the popular election in 1888 by 100,000 votes and still managing to take the Oval Office from incumbent President Grover Cleveland through the vagaries of the Electoral College" (p. 63).
Perhaps you'd think it merely a matter of curious--but not impossible--chance that both authors had used the same, memorable phrase: "vagaries of the Electoral College."
Suppose, however, more curiously, that further along in the newer book was the following description of the controversy surrounding Harry Truman's 1949 nomination of Sherman Minton to the High Court: "several Senators called on Minton to appear before the Judiciary Committee. Minton declined the 'invitation' and said that he would stand on his record as a Senator and a federal appellate judge" (p. 84).
Those ironic quotation marks around the word "invitation" might seem familiar. And, sure enough, there they are--and then some--in the earlier book, as well: "Republican Senators Homer Ferguson of Michigan and Forrest C. Donnell of Missouri requested that Judge Minton appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to respond to questions. He declined the 'invitation,' noting that he would stand on his record as a Judge and Senator" (p. 231).
By now, of course, your radar would be fully active, and you'd be scouring both books for telltale, otherwise inexplicable parallels. Like the phrase "Holmes mold," which appears in the later book as: "The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Senator George Norris, immediately made it clear to President Hoover that he and his fellow committee members, mostly Democrats and Progressive Republicans, would insist upon a liberal jurist in the Holmes mold" (p. 80).
In the earlier book, the same sentence can be found almost verbatim: "But almost at once the Chairman of the Senate's Judiciary Committee, George W. Norris, made it plain to the President that he and his fellow committeemen, largely Democrats and Progressive Republicans, would insist on a judicial liberal in the Holmes mold" (p. 191).
It would no longer seem just a coincidence that both books refer to Truman's "buddies" benefitting from a "crony appointment" (p. 224 in the older book and p. 68 in the newer)--followed by "Truman . . . liked them; he liked their politics" in one, and "Harry liked his friends, and he liked their politics" in the other (p. 224 and p. 69).
Or that the earlier book recounts how "Others were rather more specific" when they "urged Hoover to nominate Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals"--since, after all, the later book recounts much the same thing, in much the same language: "Others were more specific" when they "urged Hoover to nominate Chief Judge Benjamin Cardozo of the New York Court of Appeals" in the newer (p. 191 and pp. 80-81).
And what if, finally, you were to discover an identical nineteen-word passage in both books: "Taft publicly pronounced Pitney to be a 'weak member' of the Court to whom he could 'not assign cases'"? (p. 164 and p. 83). The conclusion would then seem unavoidable: The later book is doing wholesale borrowing from the earlier.
Or, to make things rather more specific: In 1985, Harvard University's Laurence H. Tribe, the most famous and widely cited constitutional law professor in the United States, signed his name to a book called God Save This Honorable Court that now appears--how shall we say it?--perhaps "uncomfortably reliant" on a 1974 book called Justices and Presidents by the University of Virginia's Henry J. Abraham.
POOR HARVARD seems to be going through a spate of such incidents. A national news cycle was generated in 2002 when THE WEEKLY STANDARD broke the story that Doris Kearns Goodwin--a member of Harvard's Board of Overseers and a former professor of government at the school--had done some serious copying for her 1987 book, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys, and then bought off one of the authors from whom she lifted her material.
Next, in a more complicated case, Harvard law school's Alan Dershowitz was accused of overusing a single secondary source for his 2003 book, The Case for Israel.
Finally, just a few weeks ago, on September 3, Charles J. Ogletree, Harvard's Jesse Climenko Professor of Law, admitted on the university's website that the assistants who'd actually prepared his new All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown v. Board of Education lifted six consecutive paragraphs from a 2001 book by Yale's Jack M. Balkin.
ODDLY ENOUGH, Laurence Tribe plays a role in two of these stories. (And peripherally touches the third, if one counts the thanks he offers Dershowitz, his "friend and colleague," in the preface to God Save This Honorable Court.)
When the Goodwin incident prompted Harvard's undergraduate newspaper, the Crimson, to call for her scalp--"Goodwin's plagiarism of sentences, nearly verbatim, from source materials is inexcusable. . . . [S]he should recognize that her action is unbecoming an Overseer and resign her post immediately"--Tribe wrote a letter in the next issue expressing "great sadness" at how "mindlessly" the students' editorial had attacked her.
Goodwin "had not the slightest intention to deceive, to claim originality for thoughts that were unoriginal, or to appropriate another's deathless prose in hopes that she might be credited with a literary gift that belongs in truth to someone else," Tribe insisted. Oh, he admitted, she had "erred in following her own paraphrased handwritten notes without checking back in every last one of the 300 or so books she cited." But Goodwin's work was "documented with something like 3,500 footnotes," which according to Tribe proved both her commitment to scholarship and her "personal integrity."
Then, this year, Tribe initially appeared willing to excuse Charles Ogletree's plagiarism altogether, telling the Boston Globe: "It clearly represents the fact that because he so often says yes to the many people all over the country who ask for his help on all kinds of things, he has extended himself even farther than someone with all that energy can safely do."
Challenged about this apparent absolution, however, he later offered a rather different analysis. In an email posted on a blog about legal topics run by Lawrence R. Velvel, dean of the Massachusetts School of Law, Tribe wrote, "What I told the Boston Globe about the way in which [Ogletree] has overextended himself was not intended to be a complete explanation or justification." And there is more to say, he allowed: "The larger problem"--the "problem of writers, political office-seekers, judges and other high government officials passing off the work of others as their own"--is "a phenomenon of some significance" and worth exploring.
THAT SEEMED a little rich for one reader of THE WEEKLY STANDARD, a law professor who suggested we take a look at Tribe's own God Save This Honorable Court if we wanted to explore the "problem of writers . . . passing off the work of others as their own."
And so we did, and the result is . . . well, what? It's awkward to name what Laurence Tribe has done in God Save This Honorable Court. In his letter to the Crimson about Doris Kearns Goodwin, Tribe proudly called himself a "scholar who values his own integrity and reputation for meticulous attribution as much as anyone could."
But even Goodwin's discredited book, by Tribe's own account, contained "something like 3,500 footnotes" citing "300 or so" other works; God Save This Honorable Court, by unflattering contrast, contains no footnotes at all--nor any other sort of "meticulous attribution." Instead, at the end of God Save This Honorable Court, we find a two-page "Mini-Guide to the Background Literature," which lists Henry Abraham's Justices and Presidents as merely the twelfth of fifteen books (including two of Tribe's own previous works) that "an interested reader might wish to consult."
And against even this tiny hint of Tribe's use--the only appearance of Abraham in the book--one must set Tribe's preface, which explains the lack of footnotes by claiming: "much of what this book contains represents the culmination of more years of research and reflection about the Supreme Court and its role than I care to confess. Thus I cannot hope to trace here all the roots of the ideas that appear in these chapters--or to allocate credit or blame among the many who share indirect responsibility for the thoughts I have expressed."
GOD SAVE THIS HONORABLE COURT appeared in 1985 from Random House, selling well and receiving generally laudatory notices--and when the Wall Street Journal ran a less-praising review, Tribe took issue in a letter to the editor. A reviewer in the Los Angeles Times, Dennis J. Mahoney (author of this year's Politics and Progress, an interesting history of the academic discipline of political science in America), seemed to hint at the reliance on Abraham's book, "from which Tribe apparently borrowed most of his examples," but at the time, no one took particular notice.
No one, that is, but Henry J. Abraham himself. Abraham's Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court first appeared from Oxford University Press in 1974. A second edition followed in 1985, a third in 1992, and Rowman & Littlefield brought out a fourth edition in 1999, retitled Justices, Presidents, and Senators.
(In his "Mini-Guide," Tribe refers to Abraham's second edition, published in 1985, the same year as Tribe's book. Did Tribe have the second edition while he was actually writing God Save This Honorable Court? His preface is dated January 1985, which makes it at least questionable. Thus, all references here are to Abraham's 1974 first edition instead. For those with later editions, Abraham's discussions appear roughly ten pages later in the second edition and about forty pages earlier in the oversized paperback of Rowman & Littlefield's "new and revised" edition.)
CALLING HENRY ABRAHAM a venerable historian of the courts hardly does justice to his stature. Now retired as an emeritus professor of government at the University of Virginia, the eighty-three-year-old scholar is the author of such standard works as 1962's The Judicial Process: An Introductory Analysis of the Courts of the United States, England, and France, 1965's The Judiciary: The Supreme Court in the Governmental Process, and 1967's Freedom and the Court: Civil Rights and Liberties in the United States.
Gary McDowell--a professor of political science at the University of Richmond who was Abraham's research assistant from 1977 to 1979--is thanked along for his help with Justices and Presidents in the 1985 edition. But when I asked him about the phenomenon of professors like Charles Ogletree pushing their assistants to write their manuscripts, he pointed to the hundreds of endnotes in Justices and Presidents and said that research assistants "never wrote passages" for the author: "One of the things that distinguishes Henry Abraham is that he's always done his own work."
Colgate's Stanley Brubaker, another former assistant thanked in the preface, laughs and says, "There's not a word in that book that didn't come from Henry's pen."
Abraham himself understands the lure. "The temptation of busy people, big deals, to turn the material over to assistants is very strong," he told me when we spoke last week. But the "annoying" practice must be stopped, he said--partly because the assistants lack the judgment that the professor is supposed to have, but mostly because it's wrong: unscholarly and unprofessional.
Discussing the dependence of God Save This Honorable Court on Justices and Presidents, Abraham is less than forgiving. "I was aware of what Tribe was doing when I first read his book," he said. "But I chose not to do anything at the time. I've never confronted him--and I was wrong in not following it up. I should have done something about it." Tribe's work probably derived from "a combination of being lazy and making a little money. I'm sure his book sold better than mine," Abraham added. But "he's a big mahatma and thinks he can get away with this sort of thing."
INDEED, the now over sixty-year-old Tribe is the big mahatma of American law as well as the great legal champion of the Democratic party. He's argued thirty-six cases before the Supreme Court, an astonishing number, and they include such landmark cases as the 2000 Bush v. Gore. He just represented the losing side before the Florida Supreme Court in John Kerry's effort to keep Ralph Nader off the ballot. He's produced the bestselling textbook American Constitutional Law, now in its third edition. He's written such books as the 1985 Constitutional Choices and the 1991 Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes. In addition to holding his chair at the law school, Tribe was recently named one of Harvard's rare "University Professors," replacing Archibald Cox, who died this spring.
From providing the talking points with which Senator Edward Kennedy went after William Rehnquist when he was nominated to be chief justice in 1986 to being named counsel for the team on call should John Kerry need lawyers to represent him during a recount this year, Tribe has clearly been a dominant figure for some while.
He was the big mahatma back in 1985, for that matter. The preface to God Save This Honorable Court thanks the powerful Democratic campaign specialist Bob Shrum, "my good friend," for suggesting that the book be written, and praises the assistance given by future Democratic party legal talents such as Ronald Klain. (Interestingly, Klain, who would go on to work in the White House as Vice President Gore's chief of staff, was then only a first-year student at Harvard law.)
SO WHY WOULD Tribe bother producing such a book--and introduce his young assistants to this kind of academic practice?
Part of the answer was the public purpose the book served. Thoughtful observers in the early 1980s could see what Tribe labeled the "greying of the Court," as the sitting members grew old together and potential replacements could be caught in battles between Republican presidents and Democratic senators.
In 2001 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Tribe himself described the 1985 God Save This Honorable Court as "defending an active role for the Senate in the appointment of Supreme Court Justices" and setting in place the argument that burst into public view two years later: "it wasn't until the 1987 resignation of Lewis Powell and the confirmation battle later that year over Robert Bork that the concrete stakes in this otherwise abstract controversy came to life for the great majority of the American public."
This judgment about the book seems nearly universal. "Tribe's arguments provided the intellectual blueprint for the anti-Bork forces," the New York Times explained in 1987. "And, as the hearings approached, he played the role of the nominee in mock question-and-answer sessions held in the living room of Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee."
"Klain spent most of his time with Tribe working on Tribe's book God Save This Honorable Court," the Legal Times added in 1993. "The book, which was published in 1985, became a kind of intellectual road map for Democrats as they worked to defeat Robert Bork's Supreme Court nomination two years later. Many of Klain's friends and former colleagues say that he wrote large sections of the book, a claim that Tribe disputes."
BUT THERE SEEMS more to the production of Tribe's book than its public purpose. We enter here into what the novelist (and sometime WEEKLY STANDARD contributor) Thomas Mallon calls the "peculiar psychology" of famous people who want also to be authors.
Mallon has written, in addition to his novels, the 1989 Stolen Words: Forays into the Origins and Ravages of Plagiarism, declared "the definitive book on the subject" by the New York Times. And so I telephoned him to ask what he thought of the kind of systematic paraphrasing that God Save This Honorable Court uses.
But he seemed interestingly unwilling to subsume the practice entirely under the genus of plagiarism. Of Tribe's particular case, Mallon rightly said he didn't know the details. But even of the general form, he thought a distinction might need to be made in some cases. Still, Mallon concluded, "authors do not have a license to paraphrase forever." And pushed to decide, he offered this formulation as a good rule: "Constant paraphrasing without at least semi-regular attribution constitutes a form of plagiarism."
THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION'S Guidelines for Documentation proves a little sterner, condemning the practice as "plagiaphrasing" and likening it to the dishonesty of plagiarism: "Plagiarism (the unacknowledged borrowing of words or ideas) is a serious violation of academic honesty. So is 'plagiaphrasing': rewording a quote without putting the idea in your 'voice.'"
Mallon's gentler definition might conceivably let off Doris Kearns Goodwin. But not Tribe, whose noteless text provides nothing resembling "semi-regular attribution." So perhaps the MLA's ugly coinage "plagiaphrase" is the best term to describe what Tribe and his assistants did with God Save This Honorable Court.
The historical sections of the book typically consist of a long passage from Abraham crunched down by rephrasing and the elimination of detail--as one might expect when Abraham's 298 pages of material are made to provide the facts around which Tribe builds his own thesis in 143 pages of text. The repetition of "Taft publicly pronounced Pitney to be a 'weak member' of the Court to whom he could 'not assign cases'" (Tribe, p. 83; Abraham, p. 164) is straightforward copying. But more often, the reader will find the kind of plagiaphrasing that the MLA condemns.
SO, FOR EXAMPLE, on page 64, Tribe writes: "Although he rose to the Presidency in 1908 as Teddy Roosevelt's handpicked prot?g?, Taft was far more conservative and much less decisive than his political mentor."
Abraham rendered it as: "Although he was elected to and embarked upon the Presidency as Roosevelt's handpicked prot?g?, William Howard Taft's conception of the office differed dramatically from his predecessor's in style as well as substance"--and then, after two hundred words of detail, adds: "Taft was far more conservative than T.R., cautious and at home with the G.O.P.'s conservative leadership" (pp. 154-155).
The repetition of "handpicked prot?g?" and "far more conservative" make the source clear. Tribe has simply eliminated the intervening detail and lightly rephrased (improving it, in fact, by correcting Abraham's dangling modifier).
In the next paragraph, Tribe continues: "Taft made a record six Supreme Court appointments in his single term in office. He put five new men on the Court and elevated Justice White to the position of Chief Justice. Although he was not as dogmatic in his conservatism as the late nineteenth-century Presidents, Taft was determined to avoid nominees of the liberal stamp of Learned Hand, Louis Brandeis, or Benjamin Cardozo. Taft regarded these potential candidates as nothing less than 'destroyers of the Constitution'" (p. 65).
Abraham continues in his own next paragraph, "In his single term Taft appointed six Justices to the Court, including one Chief Justice--at the time more than any President since George Washington." And then, after perhaps seventy-five words of further detail, he concludes that Taft "wanted no 'liberals' of the stamp of Learned Hand, Louis Brandeis, or Benjamin Cardozo, potential candidates whom he regarded as 'destroyers of the Constitution'" (p. 155).
THE RELIANCE rolls and rolls along. Abraham has it that Caleb Cushing was "unquestionably highly qualified and possessed of a superb mind" (p. 121). Tribe inverts the clauses to say that Cushing was "possessed of a fine mind and undoubtedly highly qualified" (p. 88).
Abraham writes, "Hoover continued to demur. . . . Now, however, the powerful Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican William E. Borah of Idaho, whose support Hoover needed on other fronts, got into the act" (pp. 191-192). Tribe renders it: "When Hoover demurred, the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator William Borah--whose support Hoover needed on other matters--paid a visit to the White House" (p. 81).
ONE OF THE BEST PLACES to spot this kind of systematic cribbing is in quotations. A perfect match in ellipses and stripping almost always means the author hasn't gone to look at the original source but is merely copying.
Thus, Tribe tells us that "One periodical characterized [Tom] Clark as a 'second-rate political hack who has known what backs to slap and when,' and sarcastically concluded that it was appropriate that 'the least able of Attorneys General of the United States should, as a result of raw political favoritism, become the least able of the members of the Supreme Court'" (p. 83).
Abraham identified the author and magazine--Harold Ickes in the New Republic--and says the article contended that "Truman was under no obligation whatsoever to this 'second-rate political hack who has known what backs to slap and when'; concluding that 'perhaps it was in keeping that the least able of Attorneys General of the United States should, as a result of raw political favoritism, become the least able of the members of the Supreme Court'" (p. 229).
Similarly, the repetition of mistakes in quotations is good proof of reliance. Abraham notes, "In Mr. Justice Cardozo's words: 'Marshall gave to the constitution of the United States the impress of his own mind'" (p. 75), while Tribe says, "As Justice Benjamin Cardozo wrote more than a century later, 'Marshall gave to the Constitution of the United States the impress of his own mind'" (p. 56).
But Abraham had it slightly wrong. In his 1921 Nature of the Judicial Process, Cardozo wrote, "He gave to the constitution the impress of his own mind." And once Abraham has mistakenly replaced the pronoun, Tribe followed along.
OCCASIONALLY, Tribe's plagiaphrasing leads him into difficulties. On page 83 in God Save This Honorable Court, he writes, "President Chester Arthur pioneered the merit system in national government appointments and authored the Civil Service Reform Act of 1883. But he had a relapse in 1882 and nominated his mentor and former boss, arch political spoilsman Roscoe Conkling, to the Court."
On pages 128 and 129 of Justices and Presidents, Abraham notes, "In 1881 on Garfield's death, Chester A. Arthur of New York came to the Presidency with almost everyone predicting doom and failure: his selection as Vice President had been steeped in political hacksmanship and spoilsmanship, nurtured by the nether Roscoe Conkling wing of New York's Republican party."
Abraham adds a long sentence of examples of Arthur's participation in corrupt politics, then continues, "Yet in what was one of the most dramatic character reversals in the country's history, President Arthur not only turned his back on his spoilsmen-cronies but authored the great Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883." After nearly a page of discussion about Arthur's good behavior as president, Justices and Presidents concludes, "But to the consternation of most observers, Arthur had a 'relapse' [in 1882] and offered the spot to his one-time political mentor and boss, Senator Roscoe Conkling."
Without Abraham's examples of bad behavior before and good behavior after, Tribe's noun "relapse" doesn't make much sense--unless you realize that it's actually Abraham's word and Tribe merely forgot to change it.
MEANWHILE, Abraham claims that under Cleveland and Harrison the Supreme Court became "a veritable bastion of economic laissez-faire" (p. 133), and Tribe has the Court become "the last bastion of laissez-faire capitalism" (p. 64).
Abraham explains that Harrison "was content to let the Republican party hierarchy dominate the affairs of state during his four years in office" as "an economic conservative" (p. 137), while Tribe thinks Harrison was "devoted to large business interests and willing to allow the party hierarchy to run his administration" (p. 63).
Abraham: "Before he was finally confirmed six weeks later by a vote of 46-9, Bradley came under heavy fire from Eastern 'hard money' interests who quite correctly regarded him as dedicated to a 'soft money' economic philosophy" (p. 119). Tribe: "Grant nominee Joseph Bradley's dedication to 'soft money' or greenbacks came under fire from Eastern 'hard currency' business interests before Bradley was confirmed in 1870" (p. 89).
Abraham: "Andrew Jackson's Democratic supporters in the Senate were not about to award the Supreme Court plum to a Clay Whig, and by a vote of 23:17 'postponed' the nomination in February 1[8]29, thus consigning it to oblivion" (p. 85). Tribe: "Crittenden's nomination, despite his alumnus status, was postponed--and thereby consigned to oblivion--in February of 1829, a few weeks before Andrew Jackson's inauguration" (p. 86).
Abraham: Cleveland was an "economic conservative of such intensity that Wilson had cause, if only half jokingly, to regard himself as the first President of the Democratic party since 1860" (p. 130). Tribe: Cleveland "was such a dogmatic economic conservative that President Wilson regarded himself as the first real Democrat to occupy the White House since 1860" (p. 63).
THE EXAMPLES go on and on, too numerous to count. Laurence Tribe is in some ways a better writer than Henry J. Abraham. God Save This Honorable Court snaps along as popular prose in a way that Justices and Presidents doesn't--which is why the mainstream Random House published Tribe and the scholarly arm of Oxford University Press published Abraham. But how exactly does that give the popularizing Tribe and his assistants the right to plunder a scholar like Abraham?
In fact, it's worse than the typical example of a popularizing author's reliance on other people's scholarship, for Laurence Tribe is supposed to be a scholar himself. A phone call to Tribe's Harvard office has not yet been returned. But his credentials are well known. He's the Tyler Professor of Constitutional Law and a University Professor at Harvard. If these aren't scholars' posts, what are? He's written over a hundred books and articles, according to a blurb on the Harvard website, and "helped draft the Constitutions for South Africa, Russia, the Czech Republic, and the Marshall Islands." His American Constitutional Law is "the legal text most frequently cited in the second half of the 20th century," Harvard declares--and quotes the Northwestern Law Review, which gushed: "Never before in American history has an individual simultaneously achieved Tribe's preeminence both as a practitioner and as a scholar of constitutional law."
IN OTHER WORDS, he didn't have to do this. He is a self-described "scholar who values his own integrity and reputation for meticulous attribution as much as anyone could." But the historians Stephen Ambrose and Doris Kearns Goodwin did much the same thing and were pilloried mercilessly.
So what shall we say of Laurence H. Tribe when he does it--without the footnotes that he so condescendingly told the Harvard undergraduates exonerated Goodwin? If she deserves excuse because she "had not the slightest intention to deceive, to claim originality for thoughts that were unoriginal, or to appropriate another's deathless prose in hopes that she might be credited with a literary gift that belongs in truth to someone else," what excuse is deserved by Professor Tribe?
Perhaps the explanation for the whole thing is simply vanity, Tom Mallon's "peculiar psychology" by which the famous need constant reaffirmation of their fame. Or perhaps it's merely what Henry J. Abraham supposes: "He's a big mahatma and thinks he can get away with this sort of thing."
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Joseph Bottum is Books & Arts editor of The Weekly Standard.
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