>> REBUILDING IRAQ?

Iraqi Currency Exchange Comes Up Millions Short
Cashiers Held Responsible for Missing Funds

By Ariana Eunjung Cha and Omar Fekeiki
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 11, 2004; Page A16
BAGHDAD -- For the past month, Nadhima Hussein and 12 other women have been locked inside a dark, fly-infested room at a police station here. The Iraqi Finance Ministry says Hussein, a bank manager, owes them millions of dollars to compensate for counterfeit or missing money her branch accepted during the currency exchange that ended in mid-January. She says she did nothing wrong.
The cash swap, designed to erase the image of former president Saddam Hussein from Iraqi bills, was among the most visible projects of the U.S.-led reconstruction, and, on the surface, things appeared to go smoothly. The transport trucks were not hijacked, the banks were not held up. The exchange, which took place between Oct. 15 and Jan. 15, was credited with helping to stabilize the economy.
But a Finance Ministry audit that began a few weeks ago turned up a surprise: The amount of new money given out exceeded the amount of old money taken in by more than $22 million. The ministry has accused bank employees, almost all of whom are female cashiers, of stealing the money for themselves or for organized crime groups. It has sent out notices to hundreds of them, demanding that they repay the money or face imprisonment.
The accused say others had access to the money after it had been counted and that the new government, in a rush to judgment, is acting just like the old government, putting the blame for its own mistakes or corruption on rank-and-file workers. Demonstrations this month have called for the release of the cashiers, who are believed to be the largest group of women to be detained since Hussein was toppled last year.
"They took these women as a sacrifice, so that their colleagues will be frightened to pay the money back and that their problem of the shortage will be solved," said Falih Maktuf, a lawyer who has volunteered to represent the women without pay.
Suspects who maintain their innocence are eligible for release on bail, but few can afford it. Maktuf has asked that the women be released without bail pending trial. They will be tried by a special judge with expertise in economic crimes.
Law is still a fluid concept in the new Iraq. On Monday, the Iraqi Governing Council approved an interim constitution with a bill of rights, but it is a legal framework that does not address the nitty-gritty of crime and punishment. Committees are drafting new foreign exchange laws and guidelines for the role of regulatory bodies. In the meantime, most of the laws in effect during Hussein's rule are still being followed.
The banking scandal is one of several examples of alleged government corruption in postwar Iraq that have hampered reconstruction efforts. The Oil Ministry spent months waiting for spare parts for pumping stations and then discovered forged records showing the equipment had been paid for but never shipped from Amman, Jordan. The Interior Ministry has fired border police who took bribes to let people enter the country from Iran without proper identification. Officials at Iraq's five ports have disciplined workers for stealing from humanitarian aid shipments.
The Governing Council and the U.S.-led occupation authority began a crackdown on corruption a few weeks ago, creating commissions with independent authority to investigate possible crimes in government ministries. A new law governing the operations of the Central Bank authorizes the creation of a financial services tribunal, which will determine the fate of the cashiers.
"In the past, employees did not have any respect for laws. We want to teach people this respect," said Sabah Nouri, head of the Finance Ministry's bank audit committee.
One cashier has confessed to accepting counterfeit old dinars and exchanging them for new ones because she pitied the old man who brought them to the bank. Another said she inserted some white papers in place of old bills and paid herself in new Iraqi dinars. But the rest of the accused say they are innocent and that either someone else tampered with the money, they made an honest mistake in counting it or they unknowingly accepted counterfeit currency.
Their attorneys said the women were arrested because they were easy targets. Samir Adel, the head of the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq, accused the new Iraqi ministries of using "the same old Baathist ways."
"They don't have evidence," he said, "but they imprison people."
Nadhima Hussein was summoned to the Finance Ministry in February for what she was told was urgent business. There, she recalled, a government representative laid out several bricks of forged money and told her they had come from the bank she manages -- a branch of Rafidain Bank in Nasiriyah, about 200 miles south of Baghdad. Hussein, 35, said she was called a thief and told to repay $6.9 million.
"This is fiction," she said she replied. She told them she knew nothing about the fake money and therefore could not return it. A few hours later, she was in jail.
The currency exchange followed months of planning by experts from the U.S. Treasury Department and other foreign government agencies. Occupation officials hoped to get rid of dinars with Hussein's portrait and replace them with bills carrying images from Iraq's history.
They devised an elaborate system for security. They flew the new money in on jumbo jets direct from the printers, paid for four armed escort vehicles for each truck carrying the money, and asked U.S.-led military forces to guard storage facilities.
At each bank, a cashier counted and inspected old money, then dipped it in red ink so it couldn't be used again. With a rubber band, the cashier attached to the brick of money a credit card-sized piece of paper with her name on it. The money was sewn up in a bag and taken to be burned. But between the point where the cashiers signed off on their work and the time the money was destroyed, several other people handled the money, according to a description of the process by occupation officials.
Representatives from the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq, Women's Freedom Organization and other workers' rights groups who have reviewed procedures for the cash exchange also said there were several vulnerable points. Maktuf, the lawyer, said the manager and other bank employees had access to the old cash before it was destroyed. Drivers who took the old cash to warehouses for eventual destruction -- and the Central Bank employees who accompanied each driver -- also could have tampered with the money, he said. Because the ink used to mark the obsolete bills could be washed away with special chemicals, he added, the old bills were not worthless.
But Nouri, of the Finance Ministry, said he believed it was impossible that anyone but the cashiers could have inserted forged bills or taken some of the money.
Iraqi Police Col. Wahda Nasrrat, head of the new economic crimes section, said he expected more arrests but that people other than the cashiers may be involved in the forgeries and stealing. The system that was used to transport the money "is not a good system and can be broken," Nasrrat said.
Nadhima Hussein now shares a large, drafty room with a group of other suspects. They sleep on the concrete floor on piles of blankets and spend their time sharing stories about their families and crying. Among Hussein's roommates is Zainab Jabbar, 35, a cashier at a Rasheed Bank branch near the Shaab Stadium in Baghdad. Jabbar has been asked to pay $40,000. With her salary of about $180 a month, she calculated, it would take her 19 years to repay.

? 2004 The Washington Post Company

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>> REBUILDING 2...

Missteps Led to Canceled Iraq Contract
House Panel to Begin Hearings on Procedures; Pentagon Awards 7 New Projects
By Mary Pat Flaherty and Jackie Spinner
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 11, 2004; Page A22
Vague contract language, missing paperwork, staff turnover and general instability on the ground led to such flaws in a $327 million contract to outfit the new Iraqi Army that the work had to be canceled and rebid, according to a senior U.S. Army official involved in the contracting.
U.S. contracting officers working for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad were imprecise in describing the work needed when they sought bids and they did not follow their own procedures for ranking offers, the Army official said.
The hostile setting and a Baghdad staff too small to do the job help explain the failures but there is "no excuse for doing this with a contract of this magnitude," said the Army official, who would speak only on background about the problems his office has uncovered.
The cancellation of what had been the largest non-construction contract yet awarded in the Iraqi rebuilding effort comes as the House Government Reform Committee is set to hold hearings today on contract coordination and management in Iraq. Meanwhile, the Defense Department announced yesterday that it had awarded seven contracts to support the Program Management Office in Baghdad, the entity that will oversee the spending of the $18.6 billion in supplemental reconstruction funding that Congress authorized last fall.
Retired Rear Adm. David Nash, who heads the Program Management Office, said the remaining 10 construction contracts will be awarded within the next 30 days, two months late.
"You can do things expeditiously but you still have to do it correctly," said Nash, who is testifying today before the congressional panel. "There's a balance."
The Iraqi Army contract, funded by U.S. tax dollars, was awarded in January to Nour USA Ltd., a Vienna firm. The firm's bid drew immediate formal protests from several losing companies and prompted U.S. Army lawyers and Pentagon-based officials to begin a review that led to the contract's cancellation Friday. The Washington reviewers could not reconcile the facts presented on the final evaluation sheets for bidders with information in the contract files and noticed missing documents, said the contracting officer, who added that he had not seen anything comparable during his 29 years in Army contracting.
Normally, he said, "the paperwork follows a consistent trail" that leads to the overall rating for bidders. "We couldn't track" the factors for the ranking, he said.
CPA officials in Baghdad declined to talk about the contract and referred all questions to the Army. However, Lt. Col. Joseph M. Yoswa, a Defense Department spokesman based in Washington for the CPA, said yesterday, "We have a much better capability of contracting here in Washington. We have the experience here -- not saying that the CPA and civilians and military in Iraq are doing things wrong. But they have a lot of pressure they are dealing with. Contracting is not a simple process, and this is important. We've got civilians on the ground doing work, and we're still in combat conditions. It's not easy."
The language used to describe the required work was so "ambiguous," the Army contracting official said, that it could have been held against the government by losing firms if the contract moved forward. The vague language, he said, may help explain the wide range of bids on the work made by 19 firms, ranging from Nour's $327 million to a high of more than $1 billion.
The contract's cancellation, the Army stressed, "is not a reflection on Nour or its capabilities."
In interviews, Nour USA said it won the contract based on merit and stood by its proposal. The company has drawn attention because its president, A. Huda Farouki, is a financier and friend of Ahmed Chalabi, chairman of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. Nour spokesman Robert Hoopes has said there is no business relationship between the two men. A Nour press release said any suggestion that politics played a role in the contract is false.
Ongoing hostilities in Iraq make it hard to be as exacting in contract requests as might normally be expected, said the senior Army official, however "we need to be as informative as we can." The original contract, he said, should have been more precise about equipment needs or the number and range of sites in which the work would be done -- factors that can dramatically influence costs.
The problems were exacerbated by staff turnover. The military contracting officer who had handled the bidding in Baghdad was rotated back to the United States on regular duty a week before the contract was awarded, the Army official said.
A new contract to outfit the Iraqis likely will not be awarded for 60 to 90 days, said Mark J. Lumer, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for Iraqi operations, policy and procurement, who spoke at a Pentagon briefing yesterday. The Army could piggyback on several existing government contracts to buy some supplies more quickly, the Army contracting official said -- using an existing law enforcement contract, for example, to purchase some weapons.
But the rebidding of the main contract will set back the establishment of new Iraqi forces as coalition officials race to hand off sovereignty this summer to the Iraqis.
Army contracting officers in Washington will draft and award the new contract.
Delays in equipping the new Iraqi Army and other Iraqi security forces have frustrated U.S. military commanders in the field, said Army Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., commander of the 82nd Airborne Division.
In a press briefing yesterday in Baghdad, he said that "if we had the equipment for these brave young men, we would be much farther along." Swannack said he would have drawn on funds available to him as a commander to buy some equipment earlier had he known the extent of the delays.
Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), who called today's House hearing, said of the canceled contract: "They probably don't have as many contracting officers over there as they need." And, he said, "they need to make a decision on what to do next time on this. What did they learn? When you're making decisions in a war zone you always make mistakes."


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>> REBUILDING 3...

Administration pressed for real estimate of war's cost

By Pauline Jelinek
Associated Press
Pressed to estimate the cost of future operations in Iraq, the Defense Department has repeatedly said it's just too hard to do.
Now the ranks of disbelievers are growing -- in Congress and among private defense analysts. Some say the Bush administration's refusal to estimate costs could erode American support for the Iraq campaign, as well as the credibility of the White House and lawmakers.
"It is crucial that we have every bit of information so we can level with the taxpayer," Democratic Rep. David Obey fumed recently at Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "We don't have that information now."
"The White House plays hide and seek with the costs of the war," said Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.
The object of their ire is President Bush's proposed defense spending for the budget year beginning Oct. 1 -- a $402 billion request that didn't include money for the major military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And it's not just Democrats who disagree with the administration's approach.
Republican chairmen of the House and Senate budget committees penciled in tens of billions of dollars for the two military campaigns in spending plans they began pushing through Congress this week.
Asked at a recent congressional hearing why costs for Iraq were not included in the Bush administration's budget, Pentagon comptroller Dov Zakheim replied: "Because we simply cannot predict them."
Yet many contend the administration at least knows that roughly 100,000 soldiers will remain in Iraq for another year, and could have budgeted an estimate or a placeholder request for that.
"We know it will not be free," said Steve Kosiak of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
Private and congressional analysts, in fact, have done a number of studies and projections of possible costs:
* Daniel Goure of the conservative Lexington Institute said he expects troop levels to gradually drop over five years to one-half or one-third the present deployment -- meaning 30,000 to 50,000 Americans troops could remain in Iraq through 2009.
* The Congressional Budget Office a few months ago estimated the cost to occupy Iraq through 2013 at up to $200 billion, depending on troops levels.
* Casualties could rise to at least 1,000, said a recent report by Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a frequent Pentagon adviser. "One thousand or more dead in Iraq is hardly Vietnam," Cordesman said. "But it must be justified and explained, and explained honestly."
The Council on Foreign Relations, citing polls that show American support for the mission slipping, urged leaders of both parties this week to publicly commit to a multibillion dollar program over at least the next several years, outlining "the magnitude of resources that will be necessary, even if they cannot identify all of the specific requirements."
White House budget chief Joshua Bolten acknowledged in a briefing with reporters last month that the military will need money over and above the defense request -- up to $50 billion the administration will seek in a so-called emergency supplemental budget for Iraq and Afghanistan. It used a similar supplemental last fall to ask for $87 billion for Afghanistan and Iraq
But administration officials don't plan to ask for that supplemental, or specify what it might include, until sometime after Jan. 1, 2005 -- about two months after November's presidential election.
Had Bush included it in the budget proposal sent to Congress in February, the government's surging deficit problem would have looked even worse.

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>> SYRIA WATCH...

Generals say they need help securing Iraqi borders
By John Diamond
USA Today
U.S. military commanders say they are struggling to secure the borders of Iraq, particularly with Syria in the remote western desert, to prevent Islamic militants from crossing into Iraq to set up operations.
The commander of U.S. forces in western Iraq told Pentagon reporters by video-conference Wednesday that field units are pressing for more men and vehicles to cover huge, sparsely populated regions where small terrorist cells of five to eight people each may be infiltrating on their way to Iraqi cities.
"Our biggest fight is in regards to disallowing terrorist organizations to get established out there in the west," Army Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack Jr. told Pentagon reporters from Baghdad. "You must understand the vastness of the border region out there. It's 850 kilometers (527 miles) of desert with a 10-foot, 12-foot berm marking the border."
The problem is much the same in northern Iraq, along the border with Turkey and Iran, according to Brig. Gen. Carter Ham, who spoke to Pentagon reporters in a teleconference Tuesday. Ham said he and other field commanders have been pressing their superiors to provide additional border police units, better training and more equipment.
Swannack, who said he had to order body armor, radios and vehicles out of his own unit's budget because of bureaucratic delays, said Iraqi forces taking over border control need SUVs to cover the many unofficial crossing points into Iraq from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria. These are routes that have been used by smugglers and nomads for 2,000 years.
About 18,000 troops from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division and other Army units under Swannack's command are about to give the Marines responsibility for Al-Anbar province, Iraq's largest, a region that stretches from the edge of Baghdad along the Euphrates River and such hostile cities as Fallujah to the vast western border regions. U.S. intelligence has been watching this area closely, both for terrorists coming in and for Iraqi weapons scientists going out.
"It's a long, porous border," CIA Director George Tenet said in Senate testimony Tuesday. "Syria could do far more than they are today to close off at least major crossing points."
As of last fall, Swannack said, "It was a wide open border," to terrorists, foreign fighters and smugglers. The situation is improving with the establishment of new Iraqi police organizations that are taking up some of the patrol work. But in Swannack's huge area, border police have a few buses and "a couple of small trucks." They still lack the equipment to get to the remote desert crossings.
In Al-Anbar province, Swannack estimated there are between 50 and 80 foreign terrorists operating in eight to 10 cells, mostly in cities such as Fallujah and Ramadi. U.S. forces have been making progress getting tips about the activities and whereabouts of these cells because, Swannack said, "the Iraqis don't want them there."



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>> DULLES WATCH...

Financial Agencies Criticize U.S. for Detaining Spanish IMF Worker at Dulles
By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 11, 2004; Page A12
A Spanish economist working for the International Monetary Fund was handcuffed as he got off a flight at Dulles International Airport last weekend and questioned for three hours, an incident that prompted startled complaints from international financial institutions in Washington.
Alex Segura, 33, who lives in Springfield, said he was detained Saturday by U.S. Homeland Security officials as he returned from a work trip to Senegal. He said the officials questioned him about his travels and passport and searched his luggage before freeing him with no explanation.
A Homeland Security spokeswoman said Segura's name and birth date matched those of a "dangerous individual" listed in federal security databases.
"It was unfortunate. But his name came up as a match when we do our advanced passenger information. Obviously Mr. Segura is not a terrorist," said the spokeswoman, Christiana Halsey, who works for the Customs and Border Protection agency within Homeland Security.
She added that "with the new focus on terrorism . . . these mistakes are going to happen."
Since the incident, e-mails have ricocheted through international financial institutions in Washington, with employees expressing outrage and concern that they, too, could be detained. The agencies employ thousands of people from around the globe, who routinely travel abroad for work.
A spokesman for the IMF, William Murray, said the agency had complained to the U.S. executive director's office at the fund, which represents the U.S. government.
"The management of the IMF is extremely concerned about the development and asked the U.S. executive director's office to raise this with the appropriate authorities," Murray said.
The World Bank also contacted U.S. authorities to see "what can be done to avoid this sort of incident happening in the future," the bank said in a memo to its staff.
Segura said Homeland Security officials boarded his Air France plane shortly after it arrived from Paris and made a beeline for him. He said he showed them his Spanish passport, which carried the G-4 visa given to employees of international organizations, and also handed over his United Nations identification. The officials asked him to leave the plane and promptly handcuffed him, Segura said.
The officers then drove Segura to the main terminal, took off the handcuffs and questioned him. They refused to let him call his wife, who was waiting in the terminal, but eventually sent an officer to contact her, according to Segura and the Customs spokeswoman.
"What's really annoying, when you come to the U.S. . . . you feel like they can do anything to you," Segura said. He added, however, that the officers were polite.
Segura said his previous trip abroad, a visit to Peru in December, occurred without incident.
Halsey, the spokeswoman, said agents have to follow security procedures when they believe a dangerous person is arriving. She said she could not provide details about the person named Segura who was on the government's lookout list.
Segura said he told the U.S. officials that his previous passport had disappeared about five years ago, when he submitted it to the U.S. Embassy in Madrid for a visa. It was not clear whether the person on the lookout list might be using that document.


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>> PENTAGON WATCH...

Nominee to Head Army Withdraws
Roche's Air Force Leadership Criticized
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 11, 2004; Page A04
The Bush administration dropped efforts yesterday to shift James G. Roche from heading the Air Force to heading the Army, acknowledging that his nomination had become so mired in controversy over a cadet sex scandal and a potential deal with Boeing Co. to lease tanker aircraft that Congress was unlikely to act on the appointment this year.
The admission of defeat highlighted the difficulties confronting the administration in trying to put both controversies behind it. Roche's nomination as Army secretary, presented last spring as a way to bring energetic new leadership to that service, instead drew congressional ire at the Pentagon's inattention, questionable judgments and resistance to demands for internal documents.
Although Roche took forceful action early last year to probe reports of sexual assaults at the Air Force Academy, investigations have continued into assault cases stretching back a decade. Calls in Congress have persisted for some Air Force leaders to be held accountable for past lax enforcement.
In the past week, new reports have emerged of flaws in the handling of sexual assault cases by the Air Force's Pacific command, and the Air Force has launched a service-wide review.
Even more problematic for Roche was the Air Force's plan to lease as many as 100 Boeing 767s as refueling tankers. Roche championed the $21 billion proposal as a novel way of bolstering an aging tanker fleet, but critics attacked it as corporate welfare for Boeing that would needlessly raise taxpayer costs. Investigators also are examining alleged improper contacts between the Air Force and Boeing during negotiations on the deal.
Additionally, the matter has grown into a struggle between Congress and the administration over access to internal documents. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a leading congressional opponent of the plan, put a hold on nominations of civilian Pentagon officials to protest the administration's unwillingness to surrender Roche's e-mails and other material related to the tanker deal. McCain said yesterday that removal of Roche's nomination would have no effect on other appointments being held up.
"I still believe we need these documents, and I will continue to fight for them as long as I can hold the nominations," he said in a phone interview.
In a brief statement released by the Pentagon, Roche said he requested that his nomination be withdrawn. "Given the range of issues before the Senate in a busy legislative year, I accept that my nomination is unlikely to be considered this year," he said, adding that he intends to continue as secretary of the Air Force.
An official close to Roche said that months ago, Roche had given Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld a standing offer to remove his name from consideration. Rumsfeld, the source said, accepted the offer this week.
"At several points in the last few months, Roche went to Rumsfeld and said, 'If you want me to back out, I will,' " the official said. "Rumsfeld was all, 'No, you're the choice. Let's go forward with it.' I think there was just a realization by Rumsfeld at this point in the calendar" that time had run out.
Rumsfeld had asked Roche, a 23-year Navy veteran and former Northrop Grumman Corp. executive, to move to the Army last spring, as part of an attempt to bring in new civilian and military leadership that would modernize and restructure the service.
Rumsfeld had dismissed the previous secretary, Thomas E. White, after months of strained relations. He also had summoned Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker from retirement to take over as Army chief of staff. Schoomaker succeeded Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, who like White had clashed with Rumsfeld over the pace and nature of Army modernization.
But Roche's nomination quickly ran into trouble when a congressional commission probing the academy sex scandal concluded that Air Force leaders had not done enough to prevent sexual assaults or respond to reported cases for much of the past decade.
Roche purged the academy's leadership earlier in the year and issued new policies to fortify the school's ability to monitor and respond to sexual misconduct. Nevertheless, the Senate Armed Services Committee made clear it would not act on his nomination until after an investigation by the Air Force's inspector general.
That investigation, due soon, will comment positively on Roche's actions over the past year, according to the official close to him.
The tanker proposal, meanwhile, remains in limbo pending not only resolution of the documents dispute with Congress but also investigations by the Pentagon's inspector general, federal prosecutors and securities regulators into whether the deal was tainted by unethical conduct.
In November, Boeing fired two senior executives -- its chief financial officer, Michael M. Sears, and Darleen A. Druyun, a former Air Force procurement official. The company accused Sears of beginning employment discussions with Druyun while she was still overseeing Boeing contracts at the Air Force. The company's chief executive, Phil Condit, resigned shortly afterward.
Rumsfeld also ordered a review of the condition of the existing tanker fleet and other options for replacing or refurbishing it.
Les Brownlee, the undersecretary of the Army, has been serving as interim secretary, and a senior defense official said yesterday that Bush would likely move to make Brownlee permanent. Brownlee is a former Senate staff member with deep ties to Congress.
In another personnel matter yesterday, the White House said that Bush had picked the FBI's chief financial officer, Tina W. Jonas, to take over as the Pentagon's chief financial officer, succeeding Dov S. Zakheim, who announced his resignation Tuesday. Before joining the FBI in 2002, Jones was deputy undersecretary of defense for financial management. She also worked for the House Appropriations Committee, the White House Office of Management and Budget, and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
Staff writers Renae Merle and R. Jeffrey Smith contributed to this report.

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GAO Urges Better Tests of Missile Defense System
By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 11, 2004; Page A08
The Pentagon has taken some steps toward more realistic testing of the antimissile system that it plans to deploy this year to protect the United States, but many aspects of the system remain to be tested, according to a congressional report.
The report, prepared by the General Accounting Office, expressed concern about a lack of test data showing whether the system can work using all its final parts instead of prototypes, and whether it can adequately identify warheads in a field of decoys. Also still to be demonstrated, the report said, are such actions as multiple launches of interceptors, nighttime intercepts and operations under adverse weather conditions.
The report, a copy of which was made available to The Washington Post ahead of public release today, focused on assessing the Bush administration's efforts against a list of 50 recommendations issued in the final weeks of the Clinton administration by Philip Coyle, then the Pentagon's chief weapons evaluator. President Bill Clinton decided in August 2000 not to proceed with deployment of the antimissile system pending further development and testing.
President Bush has substantially altered the program, expanding the scope of experimentation and committing the country to deploying a rudimentary national antimissile system by the end of 2004. Even so, most of the recommendations put forward by Coyle "are still relevant," the GAO report said, "because the technical challenges and uncertainty with developing, testing, and fielding effective defensive capabilities . . . remain significant."
"The administration hasn't gone through the technical and testing steps the way they've been advised to do by the Pentagon's own operations and testing people," said Rep. John F. Tierney (D-Mass.), who requested the GAO review. "The report very clearly indicates that there's not been enough progress to give us any sense of security and comfort that this system is at a place where it ought to move forward."
The report said construction of a "test bed" facility in Alaska will help bring more realism and complexity to a testing program whose eight flights have been limited to a single scenario -- a target missile has flown out over the Pacific from California and the interceptor has launched from the Marshall Islands. Greater attention also is being paid to improving the system's ability to distinguish enemy warheads from decoys, the report said.
But the report warned that test plans through 2007 do not include sufficiently challenging targets and decoys. It said the first attempt at launching two interceptors against two targets is not scheduled until 2007. And no plans exist to assess the effects of severe weather on the system's performance or to conduct flight tests "under unrehearsed and unscripted conditions," the report said.
The antimissile system, when activated, will rely on tracking data from an old surveillance radar in Alaska, called Cobra Dane. But the report noted that the radar will not have been tested in its new role and will lack the ability, even with software improvements being completed, to provide more than a rudimentary analysis of incoming missile threats.
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>> A OF E...
Alarm Raised Over Quality of Uranium Found in Iran
By CRAIG S. SMITH
VIENNA, March 10 -- United Nations nuclear inspectors have found traces of extremely highly enriched uranium in Iran, of a purity reserved for use in a nuclear bomb, European and American diplomats said Wednesday.
Among traces that inspectors detected last year are some refined to 90 percent of the rare 235 isotope, the diplomats said. While the International Atomic Energy Agency has previously reported finding "weapons grade" traces, it has not revealed that some reached such a high degree of enrichment.
The presence of such traces raises the stakes in the international debate over Iran's nuclear program and increases the urgency of determining the uranium's origin. If the enrichment took place in Iran, it means the country is much further along the road to becoming a nuclear weapons power than even the most aggressive intelligence estimates anticipated.
Iran has said that its nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes, while the United States contends it has secretly tried to produce nuclear weapons. The atomic agency is expected to vote Friday on a resolution criticizing Iran for lack of candor about its nuclear efforts.
Iran has said that all of the highly enriched uranium found on its nuclear facilities was contamination that occurred before imported equipment arrived in the country. Iranian officials said they could not identify the origin of the contamination because the equipment was imported through middlemen in five countries.
I.A.E.A. officials said the contamination may have originated in Pakistan. Abdul Qadeer Khan, a Pakistani nuclear weapons scientist, has admitted secretly supplying uranium enrichment equipment to Iran and other nations. The agency has asked Pakistan for permission to take environmental samples from its enrichment facilities to see if they match the weapons-grade traces in Iran. "Pakistan could let Iran off the I.A.E.A. hook," said a European diplomat here.
American officials argue that traces of such highly enriched uranium, regardless of their origin, are another disturbing clue to what they believe are Iran's hidden ends.
"What it shows is that they have a system that is capable of producing weapons grade uranium," said an American official speaking from Washington. "If it's an assembly that was removed from Pakistan or elsewhere, it's already battle tested," he said.
On Wednesday, Iran's defense minister, Ali Shamkhani, acknowledged for the first time that the Iranian military had produced centrifuges to enrich uranium, the Associated Press reported from Teheran. He said they were manufacturing unsophisticated models for civilian users. The admission came after the I.A.E.A. presented Iran with evidence that some of its nuclear activities were taking place on military bases.
"It's rather strange, don't you think, that the military gets involved in the electric-power generating business?" asked one senior American official. "Or that they forgot to mention this before, when they were `fully disclosing' all details of their program?" American officials are lobbying hard to keep international pressure on Iran.
An I.A.E.A. resolution on Libya, passed by the agency's board of governors on Wednesday, is part of that campaign. The resolution, negotiated by the United States, Britain and Libya in London last week, praises Libya for swiftly dismantling the nuclear weapons program discovered last year. But the resolution's key paragraph calls for the agency to report Libya's past breaches of the Nonproliferation Treaty to the United Nations Security Council.
"The trap is sprung," said a senior American administration official speaking from Washington, saying that the Libyan resolution sets a precedent for future I.A.E.A. resolutions on Iran. "It makes it very hard not to at some point address Iran's breaches by referring them to the Security Council," he said.
The United States has been lobbying since late last year to threaten Iran with Security Council scrutiny if it continued to withhold information on the scope of its nuclear program. Britain, France and Germany have resisted making an explicit threat for fear that it would anger Iran and hinder future cooperation.
Iran warned Wednesday that American-led criticism could "complicate" its relations with the I.A.E.A. "America is taking advantage of any opportunity to put pressure on Iran," Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said in Teheran, the Associated Press reported. "Unfortunately the I.A.E.A. is sometimes influenced in this regard."
Mr. Kharrazi was quoted as saying that Iran would resume enriching uranium for peaceful purposes once its relations with the I.A.E.A. "return to normal."
David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Washington for this article.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company |
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Iran's muffled coup

By Seth Cropsey

Iran's latest coup d'etat did not use guns, but silence. Faced with rising dissent and the prospect of reformists winning more seats in parliament, the country's hard-line mullahs gagged opponents, shut down public debate, and perhaps most important, silenced national media from reporting the facts. Until that silence is broken, people in Iran and around the world will pay the price.
The coup began with February's elections to the nation's parliament, whose incumbent reformist majority, with President Mohammad Khatami, had challenged the hard-liners' control. But under the pseudo-democratic constitution, only candidates approved by the country's repressive Guardian Council could be on the ballot. In January, the council barred thousands of reformists, including more than 80 incumbent lawmakers. After a three-week sit-in, 125 lawmakers resigned in protest, and reform parties urged people not to participate in the farcical balloting. The unsurprising result put hard-liners in control, despite low voter turnout and many blank ballots.
If more than a quarter of the members of the U.S. Congress staged a three-week sit-in on the floor of the Capitol, and then resigned their seats, you can bet American TV coverage would be 24-7. Not in Iran. As world media reported the deepening crisis, official news sources, including the country's only domestic television sources, stood mute.
Iran's official TV news channel, Voice and Vision, imposed a near-blackout on the MPs' sit-in, and even censored President Khatami's own statements, over protests from his office.
There is, in fact, nothing new about the regime's effort to control information. The Islamic Republic of Iran has consistently restricted the information that reaches the public. There is only one official TV broadcaster, although many Iranians risk owning banned satellite dishes to pick up international TV broadcasts. Newspapers must be licensed by the government, which has shut down scores.
Computer-savvy Iranians have turn to the Internet for news; but Internet service providers need government permission to operate, and there is an extensive official blacklist of banned international news sites. After the February elections, even more Web sites were threatened.
This heavy hand is meant to intimidate and control, but brave journalists continue working. There can be harsh consequences. In a special "Press Court," scores of editors and reporters have been tried and sentenced to jail and even floggings for such crimes as "promoting subjects that might damage the foundation of the Islamic Republic."
As 2004 began, 10 journalists were known to be imprisoned, including respected investigative journalist Akbar Gandji, and the ailing, 74-year-old, Siamak Pourzand, held in solitary confinement and reportedly tortured.
Today, new trials are scheduled for journalists who tried to report on the election crisis.
The hard-liners also employ the threat of violence: Militia thugs break up public meetings to silence speakers they oppose, from reform candidates to Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi. Journalists have also been targets of extrajudicial killings. The case of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, murdered last summer by an Iranian intelligence agent, made international news.
What's lost when people lose free speech and a free press? Plenty. Without credible news sources, Iranians can't get the information they need about economic issues like lagging per capita income and corruption; or education, health, and environmental problems; or the fatal unreadiness to respond to catastrophes like the Bam earthquake.
Nor can Iranians get straight answers about their government's military and foreign policies: the extent of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs, Iran's support for terrorism; and the worldwide concern these have engendered. Without information -- without genuine democratic controls -- Iran's secret programs will continue posing a security threat to the U.S. and the Free World.
It is a testament to the Iranian people's love for freedom that, despite the hurdles, they continue to reach for truth, for democracy, for open relations with the world.
In a public-opinion poll sponsored in late 2002 by members of parliament, 75 percent of Iranians supported dialogue with the U.S., and almost half approved of U.S. policy toward their country. The authorities responded by jailing the pollsters.
The Iranian regime's tools of silence speak volumes about the nature of its rule. But Iranians, like captured peoples before them, are trying to search out the information they need.
They deserve our help and are getting it. U.S. broadcasting to Iran includes Radio Farda -- "tomorrow," in Iran's Farsi language -- and, beginning last July, the daily News and Views televised credible news about issues concerning Iranians.
News and Views reaches millions of Farsi-speaking Iranians who aren't fluent in English, and thus can't benefit from global broadcasts like CNN. And, unlike global broadcasts, News and Views focuses on Iran, permitting real depth of coverage. The program is on the air one half-hour daily.
But News and Views could do more; it could cover even more voices and issues, interview more experts on democracy from the U.S. and other free nations, and increase its dialogue with and among the Iranian people.
"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter," said Thomas Jefferson. He went on to explain why.
If ever people lose their knowledge of and involvement in public affairs, then all the officials of government -- "Congress & Assemblies, judges & governors, shall all become wolves."
Today, the Iranian people try to keep their country from the wolves of injustice, repression and corruption. They will not succeed until all Iranians have access to real news and views.

Seth Cropsey is director of the U.S. Government International Broadcasting Bureau.



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Iranians to Resume Enriching Uranium
Minister Discloses Military's Atomic Role
By Ali Akbar Dareini
Associated Press
Thursday, March 11, 2004; Page A22
TEHRAN, March 10 -- Iran said Wednesday that it would resume enriching uranium and warned that it might quit cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which it accused of kowtowing to the United States at a crucial meeting in Vienna.
Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani also said the Iranian military had built nuclear centrifuges for civilian use -- the first time the country has acknowledged that its military was involved in its nuclear program.
The head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, warned that Iran risked undermining its efforts to convince the world that its nuclear intentions were peaceful.
"I think suspension is a good confidence-building measure, and Iran needs to do everything possible right now to create the confidence required," ElBaradei said Wednesday in Vienna, where the U.N. nuclear monitor's board of governors was meeting.
The agency's 35-nation board was preparing for a debate Thursday on whether Iran was living up to its pledge of full transparency on its nuclear program.
The United States, which suspects Iran is building a nuclear weapons program, wants a draft resolution on Iran to take a tough line because of evidence that it was developing this program secretly. But the Europeans want to acknowledge that Iran has made substantial steps toward openness.
The draft of the resolution said the agency noted "with the most serious concern" that Iran's declarations "did not amount to the correct, complete and final picture of Iran's past and present nuclear program." But it also praised Iran for signing an agreement that granted a free hand to IAEA inspectors.
Iran's chief delegate to the IAEA, Pirouz Hosseini, said Iran was unhappy with the draft and accused the United States of putting pressure on the Europeans.
"We have never been involved in any nuclear weapons program . . . and the Americans don't want to accept the fact," Hosseini said.
In Tehran, the Iranian capital, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi accused the IAEA of failing to reciprocate.
"We take steps and expect the other side to take steps," Kharrazi said. "It can't go one-sided."
Kharrazi warned Britain, France and Germany -- whose foreign ministers visited Tehran last year to discuss the nuclear issue -- that Iran would stop cooperating with them if they failed to resist U.S. pressure at the Vienna meeting.
Kharrazi said Iran had a "legitimate right to enrich uranium" to fuel the nuclear reactor it is building to generate electrical power.
"We suspended uranium enrichment voluntarily and temporarily. Later, when our relations with the IAEA return to normal, we will definitely resume enrichment," said Kharrazi, who accused the IAEA of giving in to U.S. pressure.
"Unfortunately, the agency is sometimes influenced by the United States, while it should maintain its technical and professional identity," Kharrazi said.
The Reuters news agency reported from Vienna:
Libya signed an agreement Wednesday allowing the IAEA to conduct more intrusive inspections of nuclear facilities.
"This is a step by Libya to be clean of all nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction," Maatoug Mohammed Maatoug, the scientific research minister, said after signing the accord with ElBaradei.
ElBaradei said, "Libya's decision could be, and should be, a first step towards an Africa and Middle East free from weapons of mass destruction and at peace."
The protocol allows for IAEA inspectors to obtain short-notice access to any declared or undeclared sites where nuclear material may be present, in order to check for evidence of banned weapons activity.
Earlier in the day, the IAEA's governing board passed a resolution praising Libya for dismantling its nuclear weapons program.
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Getting serious about Iran
The Bush administration deserves applause for working tenaciously to focus the international spotlight on the danger posed by Iran's nuclear weapons programs. The compromise reached late Tuesday on a resolution to be considered by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) included language praising Iran's belated cooperation with investigators while criticizing Tehran's failure to resolve questions about its uranium enrichment programs. The question now is what steps the United States should take to reduce the likelihood of an Iranian nuclear breakout.
One person with some sound ideas for dealing with this danger is Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington. Mr. Sokolski would begin by having the administration request that the IAEA's safeguards division spell out how much time and effort would be required to certify that Iran is out of the bomb-making business. Second, in preparation for the IAEA's next board meeting in June, as well as upcoming G-8 and NATO summits, Washington should lobby its European allies to adopt a host of country-neutral nonproliferation rules that would affect Iran and other aspiring nuclear powers. These rules, to put it mildly, could make life very uncomfortable for such regimes.
The allies should declare that nations cannot free themselves from their obligation to abide by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) by announcing their withdrawal unless the IAEA can clearly find them in full compliance and determines that they have dismantled all undeclared nuclear facilities. In addition, all countries should suspend nuclear cooperation with any nation that the IAEA cannot find to be in full compliance with its safeguards agreement until the agency can establish that that country is completely out of the weapons business. Civilian nuclear exports from NPT member nations that the IAEA can't find in full compliance with the NPT should be considered illegitimate.
Mr. Sokolski would ratchet up the pressure on Iran in myriad other ways. For example, the secretary of state should call for help from France, the EU and Japan to declare that they will delay making investments in Iran's oil industry "until and unless the IAEA finds Iran in full compliance or Iran has dismantled the nuclear facilities and materials it forgot to declare from the IAEA as required by its safeguards agreement with the agency."
Washington should work with its allies to prepare against the contingency of Iran using its nuclear capabilities in the future, either to threaten the Straits of Hormuz (through conventional means, including mining) or to use nuclear mines directly.
As we noted yesterday, the United States does not have the luxury of waiting. Iran has become increasingly defiant in recent weeks, demanding that the IAEA end sanctions. Washington and its allies need to confront the danger before it is too late.

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Leaker of nuke secrets curbed

By Abraham Rabinovich
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
JERUSALEM -- Nuclear whistleblower Mordecai Vanunu, who will complete his 18-year prison sentence in April for having revealed some of Israel's nuclear secrets, will be denied a passport in order to prevent him from ever leaving the country, Israel Radio reported yesterday.
The decision was said to have been made at a meeting of senior officials called by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon Tuesday night.
Mr. Sharon, however, rejected a request by the head of the Defense Ministry's security department, Yehiel Horev, to keep Vanunu locked up even after completion of his sentence. Mr. Horev asked that Vanunu be placed under administrative detention, which would permit his incarceration indefinitely without trial.
Instead, it was decided to use "certain supervisory means" to keep track of him, according to a statement by the prime minister's office. There have been unconfirmed reports that Vanunu will be kept under semi-house arrest, denied use of telephones and kept under constant guard.
Vanunu, who had worked as a minor technician at the Dimona nuclear plant, left for Australia after his dismissal from the job in 1986 and converted to Christianity. He then flew to London for interviews with the Sunday Times about the nuclear plant, where he had secretly made numerous photographs. The articles and photographs led to estimates that Israel had about 200 nuclear warheads.
The U.S. government does not acknowledge publicly that Israel has a nuclear arsenal. But in his new book, "Rumsfeld's War," Rowan Scarborough, Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Times, reveals a Defense Intelligence Agency report that says Israel has about 82 deployable nuclear bombs and missiles.
A few days before the London Sunday Times story went to press, the Israeli Mossad had a female agent lure Vanunu to Rome where he was kidnapped, sedated and transported to Israel for trial. His confinement was mostly in solitary and the only visitors he has been permitted are first-degree relatives, his lawyer and a clergyman.
Security officials have recently met with Vanunu to sound out his intentions. According to reports in the Israeli media, he refused to answer most of their questions. However, family members have said that he told them he would not leak any more information.
During his interviews with the Sunday Times he had declined to give the names of co-workers, saying he did not want to endanger them and that the information was irrelevant.
A former senior official of the Shin Bet Security Services, Haim Ben-Ami, told Israel Television on Tuesday that Vanunu might be abducted if he left the country and forced to tell all he knew.
Most of Vanunu's family is said to have severed ties with him for having abandoned the Jewish faith. However, two brothers have remained in contact. One of them, Meir, is said to be living in Australia.
Tuesday's meeting on Vanunu, chaired by Mr. Sharon, was attended by senior legal and security officials, as well as a top official of Israel's Atomic Energy Commission.

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>> SO CALLED REVOLUTION WATCH...

From Chavez, Divisive Rhetoric
Embattled Venezuelan's Bluntness Is Fuel for Recall Effort
By Jon Jeter
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, March 11, 2004; Page A23
CARACAS, Venezuela -- When he addresses the nation, President Hugo Chavez sometimes breaks into song. He sermonizes his supporters and taunts his foes. In January he called Condoleezza Rice, the White House national security adviser, "a real illiterate." And last month, he used a profanity to describe President Bush, alleging Bush supported a campaign by Venezuela's political opposition to remove him. Then he issued a challenge.
"We're going to make a bet to see who lasts longer, Mr. George Bush -- you in the White House or Hugo Chavez here in Miraflores," he said, referring to Venezuela's presidential residence. He added that he would make the bet in Venezuelan currency "or in dollars, as you wish."
Chavez's policies, Venezuela's faltering economy and allegations of creeping authoritarianism are ostensibly driving the violent street protests here and the growing efforts to oust the president.
But language also divides this country. Supporters and critics of Chavez have said that the president's salty, earthy and even profane speeches are anything but presidential. While Venezuela's poor, and its black and indigenous minorities, often find Chavez's use of blunt language appealing, wealthy and middle-class Venezuelans find it boorish and embarrassing.
"When Chavez talks, it is like he is one of us," said Pablo Rosales, 53, a black cab driver here. "He is the first president I've seen who talks to the poor and not just the high class. He includes us when he talks."
Said Adriana Ruggiero, 45, a dentist: "He uses such profanity. That is not how a world leader should present himself. He is like a cave man. He makes all Venezuelans look bad."
Class is the principal fault line in Venezuelans' fractured opinion of Chavez. Recent polls indicate that Venezuela's poor, who are nearly 80 percent of the country's 25 million people, are almost evenly split on Chavez. About 41 percent of Venezuelans support Chavez, the vast majority of them poor, said Luis Vicente Leon, executive director of the national polling firm Datanalisis.
But the 59 percent of Venezuelans who disapprove of Chavez include virtually all of the country's most prosperous residents, Leon said.
"There's no doubt that Chavez's strongest support comes from those sectors of Venezuelan society who have typically been the most excluded: blacks, indigenous people and the poor," Leon said.
The son of rural teachers, Chavez has said that he has more support than the polls reflect because researchers avoid the shantytowns and poor neighborhoods where the bulk of his supporters live.
His weekly broadcast program, "Hello President," has a preacher's cadence and is peppered with slang. When the actor Danny Glover visited last month and attended a ceremony to name an elementary school for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., televised news accounts showed Chavez pointing to his curly hair and broad nose and saying that he, like Glover, was of African heritage.
"He speaks the language of the excluded," said Maximilien Arvelaiz, a Chavez adviser. "He doesn't just speak about the poor. He speaks to the poor."
After returning from a state visit abroad, for example, Chavez has spoken on television using a map and pointer. "He will say this is where I was and it takes X number of hours to travel there by plane from Caracas," Arvelaiz said. "For the rich and the middle class, this is all quite boring because of course they know where Spain is on the map. They think it is stupid. But poor people love this. No one has ever taken the time to explain this to them."
Julio Borges, a spokesman for the campaign to recall Chavez, acknowledges that the president has considerable charisma. But Borges said there had not been any substantial improvements in the lives of the poor since Chavez took office five years ago. Inflation is rising, the economy has lost jobs and crime in urban centers has increased, he said. "He's a demagogue," Borges said.
Elections officials last week validated only 1.8 million of the more than 3 million signatures collected by Borges and other opposition leaders in support of a referendum to recall Chavez. Constitutional provisions require that 2.4 million signatures, representing 20 percent of eligible voters, be validated.
Monitors from the Organization of American States and the Atlanta-based Carter Center said they did not see widespread fraud in the referendum process. But the National Electoral Council ruled that many of the forms were improperly completed and that signatures did not match identification numbers. Chavez said many names were of dead people.
On Wednesday, his opponents condemned the electoral council's action, saying that Chavez's allies on the panel were blocking the referendum with a complex and unfair review process, the Reuters news agency reported. The opponents, a coalition of political parties, labor leaders and civic groups, said their analysis showed that they have enough signatures to force a vote.
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>> WHITE HOUSE WATCH

President's Unfunded Mandates Criticized
Group Says States Face Huge Bills
By David S. Broder
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 11, 2004; Page A25
It's a familiar complaint from state officials -- the charge that the federal government passes bills that voters love and then passes the buck on paying for them.
The issue, a hardy perennial in the 1990s, came back with a vengeance yesterday as the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan organization that currently has Republican leadership, assailed the Bush administration and the Republican-controlled Congress for socking the states with at least $29 billion in "unfunded mandates" in the current fiscal year.
President Bush's budget for next year will increase the burden to $34 billion, according to the report made public at a news conference beginning the NCSL's winter leadership meeting in Washington.
Accusing the federal government of "cost-shifting," Utah House Speaker Martin R. Stephens (R), president of the NCSL, said "we have seen an increase" in that practice in recent years "and we're concerned this is going to get worse."
Nine years ago, a concerted campaign by organizations representing state and local governments led to the passage by the first Republican Congress in 30 years of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act -- a measure that ostensibly requires Washington to provide the money needed to carry out the programs it passes. But Stephens and Pennsylvania state Rep. David Steil (R), the head of the NCSL's budgets and revenue committee, said the record in recent years is one of backsliding.
The report fingered two big education programs -- the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act and Bush's landmark No Child Left Behind Act -- as creating a gap of almost $20 billion in state budgets this year.
Another major culprit, the NCSL report said, was the mandate for states to provide prescription drugs for people eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid. It put the shortfall on that program at $6 billion.
The figures are open to dispute. The Congressional Budget Office does not classify either of the big education programs as mandates, because states are not required to participate in them. But Stephens, whose legislature considered not participating in No Child Left Behind, said staying out would have cost Utah $100 million a year it had been receiving to help school low-income children.
"It's kind of a shell game to say states have a right to decide" whether to participate, Stephens said.
NCSL officials said only one piece of legislation -- an immigration bill -- was repealed after Congress determined that it had violated the unfunded-mandates law. On only three other occasions in the past nine years, the report said, has the Congressional Budget Office identified other measures that appeared to violate the statute, and none of the three was altered.
One problem, NCSL officials said, is that the 1995 law does not apply when bills are amended on the floor or changed in a House-Senate conference committee. And it does not apply to appropriations bills, which the report said often fall short of the commitments made in the underlying legislation.
NCSL officials said they hope to highlight the problem by resuming publication of a regular newsletter, the Mandate Monitor, updating the fiscal effects of legislation. They also said they would lobby members of Congress while they are in Washington.
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>> WHITE HOUSE WATCH...2

Behind the gender gap
President Bush makes overtures to women, but is largely solidifying support among men.
By Linda Feldmann | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON - When President Bush addressed a Cleveland forum on women's entrepreneurship this week, the visuals matched the theme - the president standing with women. But the talk's focus on jobs seemed aimed more at Ohio, a central battleground of the 2004 election and a state struggling with massive job losses, than at the female vote.
In a nation where the "gender gap" has become a permanent feature of electoral politics, Bush is finding it as difficult as most other recent GOP presidents to bring women to his side. So far this year, the Gallup Poll gap between male approval and female approval of Bush is above 7 percent - slightly higher than it was in 2001.
Bush can get away with lower support from women as long as he keeps support from men high. And that is exactly what the president seems to be doing in the early phase of the campaign: solidifying and expanding his support among men (see appearances at NASCAR and the Houston rodeo) and saving the "compassionate conservative" theme of 2000 for later in the campaign.
"Each side's in a fight now to expand their base and mobilize their base," says Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, who notes that that's why Bush adviser Karl Rove is talking less about women and more about getting the 4 1/2 million born-again Christians who didn't vote in 2000 to turn out for Bush this time. "That's why we're saying we can get unmarried women, Hispanics, and African Americans."
To be sure, the Bush campaign isn't ignoring women. First lady Laura Bush has stepped up her political activity in recent months, spearheading efforts on women's health and appearing in Bush campaign ads. The Bush administration has pushed through major reforms in education and healthcare, issues that are especially important to women. But the public prefers the Democrats' positions to the Republicans'.
Still, says independent pollster John Zogby, the gender gap under Bush isn't as big as it has been under previous presidents. "The reason is that there's a marriage gap," he says. "Married women and married men tend to see things much more similarly. They're more conservative; they have more traditional family values."
And that is why there's a move afoot to target unmarried women, a segment of the population with a low rate of participation in politics. In the 2000 election, 68 percent of married women voted, while only 52 percent of unmarried women turned out. And those nonvoters would have, on balance, helped the Democrats.
The organization Women's Voices, Women's Votes, sees across the country a vast untapped population - 22 million single women, 16 million of them unregistered - that it wants to mobilize. The group is planning outreach to these women, through television, mail, Internet, and door-to-door canvassing.
Why are these women not voting? "They don't believe the politicians care about what they have to say," says project co-director Chris Desser, her conclusion drawn from focus groups and surveys. "When we respond with, 'Well, do you know there are 22 million of you?' - their minds are blown."
These single female nonvoters are also diverse - young, old, all races, rich, poor, divorced, never-married, widowed. Thus, they are hard to define, or at least to market to the press with a pithy nickname like NASCAR dads or soccer moms. But they share some traits: As unmarried people, they tend to bear their financial burdens alone - often as the sole caretakers for children, aging parents, or both.
"Healthcare is their No. 1 concern," says Ms. Desser. "Second comes employment - job parity, consistent employment, job security. Third is education. They want to make sure their children get a decent education and a shot at the American dream. They also know how important their own education is to job security and a decent salary."
In interviews on the street, women shared concerns as they look ahead to Nov. 2. Hilda DaSilva, a divorced mother of three from Brazil, fits the profile of the unmarried women that Democrats are keen to attract - though this is the first election she's eligible to vote in, as a newly minted US citizen. "I feel like a lot of people lost their jobs," says Ms. DaSilva, who lives in Somerville, Mass. "Healthcare has gone down so badly. I love this country, I see a better life here.... [But] I don't trust [Bush]."
For Susan, a married woman in her 40s who lives in suburban Boston, the issues are the economy, jobs, and healthcare. But national security factors in as well.
"I voted for Bush, but the whole war in Iraq - at first I thought it was a good thing, and then they never found the weapons of mass destruction," she says. "And the economy has tanked. I think back to his father, and the Democrats were saying, 'Are you better off than you were four years ago?' And I don't feel like I'm better off."
* Sara B. Miller contributed to this report

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>> ASHLAND WATCH...

String of alleged terror cases in Northwest
Muslim fundraising efforts in the region draw federal indictments, and a national guardsman is in prison.
By Brad Knickerbocker | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
ASHLAND, ORE. - To his friends, neighbors, and customers, Pete Seda was known for two things: his professional work as an arborist, especially his efforts to save trees that otherwise would be cut down for development, and his dedication to showing the gentle face of Islam. He was active in interfaith groups, visited grade schools, and paraded his camel on the Fourth of July in this quintessential small town.
Now the man known as Pirouz Sedaghaty when he emigrated from Iran some 30 years ago is suspected of helping a Saudi Arabia-based charity raise and launder thousands of dollars used to fund jihad (holy war).
It's part of a recent confluence of terrorism-related events in the Pacific Northwest:
* The arrest of National Guardsman Ryan Anderson, accused of offering to help Al Qaeda by providing information about US weapons and military tactics.
* The conviction of several of the so-called "Portland Seven," Muslims who tried to get to Afghanistan, where they wanted to help fight Americans.
* The investigation of members of the Muslim community associated with the University of Idaho and Washington State University, where Mr. Anderson had been a student and converted to Islam.
* The sentencing of Earnest James Ujaama, a Seattle man charged with conspiring to aid the Taliban, including plans to set up a remote terrorist training camp in the desert of Oregon.
This region has a significant number of potential terrorist targets, including aircraft carriers and ballistic-missile submarines based in Puget Sound, plus 19 major hydropower dams.
But despite occasional concerns about explosives and weapons slipped across the border from Canada, there's nothing in particular that makes the Northwest interesting to federal officials urgently hunting for terrorists and their supporters. If anything, the most radical antigovernment types here tend to be otherwise engaged: white supremacists opposed to anything having to do with other races or religions, and their politically polar opposites - anarchists concerned with economic globalization and the evils of SUVs.
But federal officials, armed with the controversial USA-Patriot Act and other statutes, have brought the antiterrorism aspects of homeland defense to the region nonetheless. Today, Ryan Anderson - who also uses the name Amir Abdul Rashid - is in a military prison at Fort Lewis in Washington State. He was arrested last month shortly before his Army unit was to leave for Iraq, charged with seeking links to Al Qaeda on the Internet, where he told his contacts, "I share your cause." Those contacts turned out to be FBI and military intelligence agents in an online sting operation. He was quickly arrested.
One thing investigators want to know is if Anderson was recruited and trained while he was a student studying Middle Eastern history at Washington State University in Pullman. Washington State and the University of Idaho are less than 10 miles apart, and they share an active Muslim community of about 200 people.
The investigation of possibly illicit fundraising with connections to terrorism began there in 2002, the year Anderson graduated. There have been several arrests since then, and in January the first of those being investigated was indicted on federal charges of fundraising and recruiting on behalf of Saudi clerics and charities allegedly supporting terrorism.
Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, a doctoral student from Saudi Arabia, is charged with providing $300,000 to Islamic charities to support "murder, maiming, kidnapping and the destruction of property." Mr. Al-Hussayen also is alleged to have connections to a member of the "Portland Seven" as well as to a branch of the Al-Haramain charity in Ashland, Ore., started and run by Mr. Seda.
"The indictment alleges that Al-Hussayen operated more than a dozen websites, including some for the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation and two radical Saudi sheikhs," US Attorney General John Ashcroft said last week. "It further alleges that Al-Hussayen knew and intended that his computer services and expertise would be used to recruit and raise funds for violent jihad around the world and that he conspired to conceal the nature of his support for terrorists." Members of the Portland group - who tried but failed to get into Afghanistan through China - reportedly were influenced by a website managed by Al-Hussayen.
In some of these varied cases, those charged appear to have been amateurs.
Many of those donating to charities now considered to have terrorist links thought they were helping fellow Muslims such as Palestinian or Chechnyan refugees. But in the post-9/11 era, that does not lift them above the cloud of suspicion.
"We continue to pursue financiers of terrorist barbarism as aggressively as those that actually perpetrate such horrible crimes," Attorney General Ashcroft has testified before Congress.
Mr. Seda, the Ashland, Ore., arborist, has yet to be charged, although he was placed on an FBI watch list. The IRS alleges that he tried to conceal the transfer of funds, and federal officials recently took computers and video tapes from his home. For the past year, he and his family have been living in the United Arab Emirates. Through his American lawyer he says, "I am certain that once all the facts come out, it will be clear that neither [the charity he represented] nor I have engaged in any criminal activities."
The whole episode has left many here in disbelief, including Rabbi David Zaslow, who told the local newspaper that "Pete is the kind of Muslim we Americans should be standing up applauding."
"The sad irony is that Pete Seda came to the United States as a refugee from Iran in the 1970s and has been promoting peace and understanding of the Islamic faith for many years," says Paul Copeland, co-chair of the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and a long-time friend of Seda.

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>>
Bodies intended for science were used in Army land-mine tests
By Cain Burdeau
Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS -- Seven cadavers donated to Tulane University's medical school were sold to the Army and blown up in land mine experiments, officials said Wednesday. Tulane said it has suspended dealings with a national distributor of donated bodies.
Tulane receives up to 150 cadavers a year from donors but needs only between 40 and 45 for classes, said Mary Bitner Anderson, co-director of the Tulane School of Medicine's Willed Body Program.
The university paid National Anatomical Service, a New York-based company that distributes bodies nationwide, less than $1,000 a body to deliver surplus cadavers, thinking they were going to medical schools in need of corpses.
The anatomical services company sold seven cadavers to the Army for between $25,000 and $30,000, said Chuck Dasey, a spokesman for the Army's Medical Research and Materiel Command in Fort Detrick, Md. The bodies were blown up in tests on protective footwear against land mines at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.
Tulane said it found out about the Army's use of the bodies in January 2003. It suspended its contract with the anatomical services company this month. The company did not immediately return calls for comment.
"There is a legitimate need for medical research and cadavers are one of the models that help medical researchers find out valuable information," Dasey said. "Our position is that it is a regulated process. Obviously it makes some people uncomfortable."
Cadaver remains are routinely cremated, he added.
For years military researchers have bought cadavers to use in research involving explosive devices. In the last five years, that research has been used to help determine safe standoff distances, on how to build the best shelters, and to improve helmets, Dasey said.
Michael Meyer, a philosophy professor at Santa Clara University in California who has written about the ethics of donated bodies, said the military's use is questionable because it knows donors did not expect to end up in land mine tests.
"Imagine if your mother had said all her life that she wanted her body to be used for science, and then her body was used to test land mines. I think that is disturbing, and I think there are some moral problems with deception here," Meyers said.
The market in bodies and body parts is under scrutiny after two men, including the head of the Willed Body Program at the University of California at Los Angeles, were arrested for trafficking in stolen body parts.
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>> FT ENERGY...

El Paso may face probe over reserves
By Sheila McNulty in Houston and Adrian Michaels in New York
Published: March 11 2004 22:12 | Last Updated: March 11 2004 22:12
US regulators are poised to consider a formal inquiry following El Paso's sharp downward revision of its oil and gas reserves and delayed earnings report.
The company said on Thursday that it had been supplying the Securities and Exchange Commission, the US's chief financial regulator, with details of its 41 per cent reduction in reserves.
"We have been providing information to the SEC all along, upon their request," said Aaron Woods, a spokesman. "If we receive notification from the SEC regarding a formal inquiry, we will make that information public."
The SEC does not comment on individual investigations. However, people close to the discussions said the agency was reviewing the latest moves by El Paso and considering its next steps.
Analysts expect the SEC to step up its review to a formal investigation, as it did with Royal Dutch/Shell, which is under SEC scrutiny for a 20 per cent reduction in its proven reserves. Proven reserves are the amount of oil or gas a company estimates will be recovered by a certain date.
Gordon Howald of Credit Lyonnais Securities said he had been expecting an SEC investigation since El Paso surprised the market with its announcment last month.
The revision has forced El Paso to delay the release of its fourth quarter 2003 earnings, scheduled for Thursday, as well as a 10K filing to the SEC. Analysts said that delay breaches its $3bn bank covenant, although they expected the banks to grant a waiver, which could come at a higher cost to El Paso. The company is in the process of unloading a series of assets to reduce its $24bn in debt.
Analysts say El Paso has long been seen as aggressive with its figures, noting it has sold assets that new owners booked for 25-30 per cent less than what they had been on El Paso's books.
Standard & Poor's has pushed El Paso's credit rating down to B-. "S&P considers it to be a highly speculative rating and one that is very much susceptible to default," said Todd Shipman of S&P.
Below the B- category, companies are seen to have substantial risks associated with them or actually be in default. S&P believes that rating is more likely to go down than up.
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Sibneft tycoon seeks to sell 46% stake
By Carola Hoyos and James Politi in New York and Arkady Ostrovsky in Moscow
Published: March 12 2004 0:13 | Last Updated: March 12 2004 0:13
Roman Abramovich, the Russian billionaire and owner of Chelsea football club, is in talks to sell half his 92 per cent stake in Sibneft, the Russian oil company, to a foreign energy group.
Royal Dutch/Shell, the Anglo-Dutch group, ChevronTexaco of the US, and Total of France have had discussions about a possible deal giving them a stake in Sibneft close to 46 per cent, according to oil industry bankers.
Shell is in upheaval after slashing 20 per cent of its oil and gas reserves that had been wrongly listed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Last week, Sir Philip Watts, the company's chairman, and Walter van de Vivjer, its head of exploration and production, were forced out.
Analysts say the possible Sibneft stake sale will be a key test of whether the management reshuffle will handicap Shell in making investment decisions that would be vital to its future growth. Buying Sibneft would help Shell catch up with its peers in Russia - such as BP, its UK rival, which has a joint venture with TNK - and add to its reserves base.
Mr Abramovich is keen to line up a buyer before he completes the unravelling of Sibneft's merger with Yukos, its bigger Russian partner.
However, a firm decision is unlikely to come before that process is complete. Any deal would also require the blessing of Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, who is expected to be re-elected on Sunday for a second term.
Analysts speculate Mr Abramovich does not yet have Mr Putin's blessing to sell a controlling stake.
It is believed that Mr Abramovich started looking for a buyer after a Moscow court ruling paved the way for unwinding the merger with Yukos. He had been trying to offload his Russian assets since last year, at a time of growing pressure on the oligarchs from the Kremlin.
Bankers said ChevronTexaco is particularly keen on acquiring a controlling stake in Sibneft and would probably push for a promise that this would eventually happen.
Total executives have said they would rather move into Russia on a project-by-project basis, but people close to the Paris-based company say they are keeping their options open with Sibneft.

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Assets of Yukos Oil's Shareholders Frozen

By Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, March 11, 2004; 1:00 PM
MOSCOW, March 11 -- Swiss authorities have frozen nearly $5 billion in personal bank accounts belonging to imprisoned Russian tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky and other major shareholders in his embattled Yukos oil company, Russian prosecutors announced here Thursday.
In a statement, the prosecutor general's office said the $5 billion was frozen at Russia's request, in accounts of 20 individuals "implicated in the misappropriation of particularly large amounts of state funds." It gave no details about why such a large amount was involved but said prosecutors have asked a court to allow the seizure of the frozen funds.
One of the targeted Yukos shareholders confirmed the frozen bank accounts in an interview but disputed the sum cited by Russian prosecutors. "There's never been $5 billion in these accounts," said Leonid Nevzlin, a close Khodorkovsky associate who fled prosecution here for exile in Israel.
Nevzlin, a billionaire who said his frozen account contained less than $100,000, said the prosecutors appeared to be making an inflated claim in advance of Russian presidential elections Sunday. "They're just excited before the elections, and they're going to be apologizing after the elections," he said.
President Vladimir Putin, the inevitable winner Sunday, has seen his approval ratings climb since his government launched an all-out legal assault on Yukos shareholders last year and arrested Khodorkovsky on fraud and tax evasion charges last October. Prosecutors have publicly accused Khodorkovsky and Yukos of costing the state $1 billion.
Andrea Sadecky, a spokeswoman for the Swiss attorney general, said she could not confirm or deny how much money was frozen. "We cannot speak for investigations by Russia," she said.
The Russian statement, by spokeswoman Natalya Vishnyakova, named only six of the 20 individuals whose bank accounts were blocked, including Khodorkovsky, Nevzlin and two other Yukos shareholders who have also fled to Israel to avoid prosecution. Khodorkovsky is Russia's richest man, with a net worth estimated at $15 billion by Forbes magazine.
Many investors have feared that the legal assault on Yukos could mark the start of a broader attempt to renationalize the oil company that rose, under Khodorkovsky, to become Russia's largest producer. But Vishnyakova denied that, saying the frozen funds were purely "personal cash deposits by private individuals" and not the result of "a review of privatization."
Nevzlin said that his frozen Swiss account at UBS bank had contained a token sum just for the purposes of paying off credit card bills. He said the Russian request to freeze Yukos shareholders' accounts had been made about six months ago, and that there was no way Khodorkovsky or others had kept billions of dollars there. Khodorkovsky's Swiss account, he said, "cannot exceed several million dollars."
Anton Drel, a lawyer for Khodorkovsky, said he was unaware of the Swiss action but also doubted that his client would have had such a sum in his bank account there. "They've never had close to this amount in the past" in Switzerland, Drel said. "Can you imagine them keeping $5 billion in cash?" He said that as far as he knew, Khodorkovsky had closed his personal Swiss bank account last year.
Swiss authorities revealed last week they had searched offices of several companies and seized documents in Switzerland in connection with the Yukos investigation.


---------------------------------------------

Tough targets set for China's state banks
By Mure Dickie in Beijing
Published: March 11 2004 13:43 | Last Updated: March 11 2004 20:41
China's banking regulator has set tough performance targets for two leading state lenders chosen to spearhead financial sector reform by cleaning up their books and selling shares to international investors.
However, Liu Mingkang, chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission, also highlighted the difficulty of dealing with the bad debt burden weighing down the nation's financial institutions.
"Our fight against non-performing loans will be long and arduous," Mr Liu said. Beijing recently injected $45bn into the Bank of China and the China Construction Bank as part of a reform effort aimed to clear the way for their listings in the next few years in Hong Kong and possibly New York.
Mr Liu said the CBRC had set strict performance targets for the banks, two of China's "big four" lenders, including achieving return on equity of 11 per cent by 2005 and 13 per cent by 2007 and return on assets of close to the "average level of the top 100 banks in the world".
And Mr Liu, a former head of the Bank of China, said efforts this year would concentrate on rooting out those responsible for "policy mistakes that caused losses", underlining Beijing's determination to ensure that senior bank officials focus on financial performance.
The two banks have already made progress in improving their balance sheets, with Bank of China cutting its non-performing loan ratio to under 16 per cent and Construction Bank reducing its NPL ratio to under 12 per cent.
Regulators say the NPL ratio for China's overall banking sector fell by 5.32 percentage points to 17.8 per cent, a dramatic improvement.
However, Mr Liu acknowledged that although the stock of bad loans was reduced, the improvement in the NPL ratio was mainly the result of rapid growth in new loans.
Some economists and officials say enthusiastic lending risks fuelling over-investment in sectors such as automaking and steel, an issue of increasing concern to government planners.
The rapid lending growth also raises the possibility that the new loans will merely add to the NPL burden in the future.
"Of the 5 percentage point fall in the NPL ratio, 4 percentage points were the result of the increase in overall lending," Mr Liu said.
"If banks cannot correctly review, judge, quantify and control the risk involved in expansion of assets, this will be a very dangerous issue," he said.
The success China's banking reform will depend largely on whether managers can adopt more market-oriented lending policies.
Some analysts say change will be difficult as the leading state banks are seen as too big to be allowed to fail, but Mr Liu stressed that Construction Bank and Bank of China should not rely on further injections of public funds.
The banks would be able to raise enough capital by issuing subordinated debts, seeking new investors or selling assets, he said.

-------------------
China vows bank reforms and stable currency
By Richard McGregor in Beijing
Published: March 11 2004 10:09 | Last Updated: March 11 2004 10:09
Zhou Xiaochuan, the governor of the People's Bank of China, said on Thursday that Beijing's efforts to relieve upward pressure on its currency through a series of monetary measures to reduce renminbi demand had begun to take effect.
The central bank head said tighter controls on lending, open market operations to soak up liquidity and allowing Chinese firms to hold greater amounts of foreign currency had helped reduce pressure on the renminbi.
"We have been able to choke the over-supply of the monetary base and the excessive growth of credit," Mr Zhou said.
Mr Zhou, who was speaking at a press conference during the annual meeting of the National People's Congress, warned that there was a "time lag" before the impact of monetary policy could be assessed, which meant that the Bank remained vigilant about the need for further measures.
China has resisted pressure from Washington to begin loosening the longstanding dollar peg for the renimbi, a policy that it believes has been a cornerstone of its economic success in recent years.
Mr Zhou continued to emphasise the benefits of "currency stabilty" on Thursday, saying it was crucial in "promoting economic development."
China's longer-term plan is to allow the renminbi to fluctuate within a wider band than its current Rmb8.3 peg to the dollar but it has given no indication to the timing of such a move.
Some foreign analysts have ambitiously forecast a revaluation as high as 10 to 15 per cent this year, but government officials have suggested that any initial policy change will be slight.
China has witnessed a surge in consumer inflation and wholesale prices recently, mainly caused by rising food and raw materials prices, which may help ease pressure on the currency by reducing the country's export competitiveness. Mr Zhou ruled out an interest rate increase this month to tackle rising prices, as he said inflation was still relatively mild.
"We have yet to adjust the interest rate this month - the reason why is, although there has been some increase of the CPI, the extent of the growth is not large enough for the adjustment," he said.
China last changed deposit and lending rates more than three years ago, in February 2001, reducing the savings rate to 1.98% for single year renminbi deposits and 5.31% for one-year renminbi loans.
---------------------------------------------
China brushes aside Intel's Wapi protest
By Mure Dickie in Beijing
Published: March 11 2004 18:10 | Last Updated: March 11 2004 18:10
The developers of a controversial Chinese standard for wireless data networks on Thursday waved aside a decision by Intel, the world's largest computer chip producer, to shun their technology.
"This could be a critical decision that Intel is making. China is such a strategic market," said an official of the state-backed group promoting China's new standard, known as Wapi. "I think Intel should calm down."
Beijing says Wapi resolves chronic security problems suffered by the popular "Wi-fi" standard for local wireless networks, and has demanded that all manufacturers selling such mobile data products in China adopt the standard by June 1.
However, Intel this week announced it would not support Wapi, saying the standard was backward and poor quality. The move throws into doubt future sales in China of computers that use Intel's wireless-enabled Centrino chips.
"If the Centrino remains what it is today, without any upgrading, it will not comply with the law so it will obviously be banned," the Chinese standards official said. "I don't see any reason why the Chinese government should retreat on this."
The dispute between standards authorities and Intel reflects a gulf in attitudes toward the new standard that may become an increasingly hot issue in trade ties between China and the US. Last week, US officials warned Beijing that Wapi would create a dangerous precedent in using technology as a trade barrier.
US electronics manufacturers fear that Wapi marks an attempt to force them to share their technology with Chinese companies, since Beijing refuses to share encryption methods at the heart of the standard directly with international manufacturers.
They also object to the need to tailor products to the Chinese market, a demand that will raise their costs while handing a competitive advantage to local rivals.
However, Chinese officials and the local companies entrusted with Wapi encryption insist that international wireless equipment manufacturers can easily abide by the new standard by developing simple software or hardware upgrades, and that there is no risk to their intellectual property.
Any halt in Chinese sales of Centrino would also have particular impact for leading local computer manufacturers such as Legend, one of the Chinese companies given access to the Wapi encryption but which uses the Centrino in many of its "Lenovo" brand laptop computers.
Legend on Thursday declined to comment.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

>> SOUTH KOREA WATCH...

S. Korea Parliament Impeaches President
By SANG-HUN CHOE
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -
Parliament voted to impeach President Roh Moo-hyun on illegal electioneering and incompetence charges Friday following hours of scuffles and dramatic protests.
Roh's presidential powers will be suspended while the matter is referred to the Constitutional Court for final approval to unseat the leader. The court has 180 days to rule.
The impeachment passed by a vote of 193 to 2.
The voting took place as pro-Roh lawmakers who earlier tried to block the vote were held outside the chamber by National Assembly security officers.
A shoving match was sparked earlier when pro-Roh Uri Party members tried to stop Assembly Speaker Park Kwan-yong from taking the podium, the only place he can call a vote.
Assembly security officers then moved in to begin removing lawmakers trying to block his progress. Park had warned Thursday that he might exercise his right to have security officials clear the lawmakers.


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Fmr. Daewoo Head Kills Himself Following Roh's Comments
119 rescue forces search for the body of Nam Sang-guk, former head of Daewoo Construction. Nam committed suicide Thursday in the southern end of Hannam Bridge, after being investigated by prosecutors for allegedly giving bribes to President Roh Moo-hyun's older brother Geon-pyeong. / Yonhap
Nam Sang-guk, former Daewoo Construction head, committed suicide Thursday by jumping into the Han River. The act was committed at 12:30 p.m. near the southern end of Hannam Bridge, leading to the Olympic Expressway. Nam had recently been undergoing investigations by prosecutorssp and was charged with passing W30 million to Roh's older brother Geon-pyeong, in a request that he be reappointed as the head of Daewoo Construction last September.
President Roh said in a morning press conference at Cheong Wa Dae that Roh's older brother Geon-pyeong had approached the president with a request from Nam that he be re-appointed head of the company, but Roh had ordered Civil Affairs and the personnel office to reject the reappointment of Nam as head of the company, and made sure that Nam was not hired for the job.
Roh added, "I hope that people like the former head of Daewoo Construction, who have attended good schools and have greatly succeeded, will no longer go to small people in the countryside and pass them money for their own interests."
Before committing suicide, Nam called Mr. Shin, Daewoo Construction Judicial Affairs Manager, at 12:09 p.m. On the phone, Nam said, "I will bear everything and go. My car is parked at the southern end of the Han River, so take it later," reports Chae Dong-wook, Director of the Special Investigations 2nd Unit at the Seoul District Public Prosecutors' Office.
Shin repeated the conversation to Nam's lawyer Shin Man-seong, who called the prosecutors' office, and reported the incident to police.
The police found a gray Leganza sedan with the license plate "Seoul 30 Ma 1343," a car owned by Nam's wife, at the southern end of Hannam Bridge at 1:20 p.m. Police also found Nam's cellular phone floating in the water between the 12th and 13th piers, but were unable to find Nam's body. Search operations still continue.
Choi Jong-chang, a witness of the act, said, "I was driving my car around 12:30 p.m. when a person suddenly got out from the car in front of me and went on to the railing. I had a strange feeling and stopped for a moment. When the man jumped down, I immediately called the police."
Nam was a graduate of Seoul National University and Kyunggi High School, and entered Daewoo in 1974. A former engineer of an introvert character who spent much of the next 19 years on construction sites, Nam was promoted to executive director in 1997. As Nam did not appear to conduct public relations activities when his reappointment as head was being decided, Daewoo employees have been showing surprise at recent investigations into Nam's political lobbying activities. Daewoo Construction workers say that they "cannot believe that quiet Nam Sang-guk would give money to Roh Geon-pyeong to ensure his reappointment."
One Daewoo Construction employee who wishes to remain anonymous says that Nam was a person of "great pride and responsibility." Although the employee claims to be unsure of whether Nam, who "attended a good school and greatly succeeded," actually "went to small people in the country to pass them money for his own interests," in the words of President Roh Moo-hyun, the employee says that Nam certainly felt deeply insulted by the president's remarks.
(Youm Kang-su, ksyoum@chosun.com )

The Mixed Blessing of
Israel's Nuclear Policy
Zeev Maoz
related to Arab decisions to make peace with the Jewish state. Moreover, the policy has had two major adverse side effects, the magnitude of which is only now becoming clear in light of developments in the Middle East in the last decade. First, the policy has been instrumental in fueling a nonconventional arms race in the region. Second, it has had negative implications for Israel?s democracy and political control of national security affairs. Given these Žndings, I argue that Israel should refocus its nuclear policy to explore ways to leverage its nuclear capability to bring about regional agreement on a weapons of mass destruction-free zone in the Middle East. This study is organized as follows: First, I review the major arguments suggesting the continued success of Israel?s nuclear policy. I present the evidence on which these arguments are based and show why it is tautological, nonexistent, weak, or only marginally relevant. Second, I examine the policy?s antidemocratic implications. Finally, I derive policy implications for the future of Israeli nuclear deterrence and arms control policy.
Israel?s Nuclear Policy: Arguments, Data, and Problems
Any policy evaluation must begin with a clear conception of the underlying goals of that policy. In light of these goals, it is then possible to assess whether and to what extent the policy has achieved its stated objectives. It is also necessary, however, to consider the policy?s side effects--that is, outcomes other than the policy?s declared aims.1 A key problem in analyzing a state?s strategic decisionmaking involves efforts to determine the impact of a counterfactual policy on a given historical process.2 Despite this difŽculty, once the goals and side effects of a policy are speciŽed, an evaluation becomes more feasible (although a deŽnitive assessment may remain beyond reach). Finally, as with administering medicine to a patient, an assessment of whether the medicine is doing more harm than good is essential.
In evaluating Israel?s nuclear program, it is useful to discuss its political origins. Following the Sinai/Suez War of 1956, the French government agreed
The Mixed Blessing of Israel?s Nuclear Policy 45
1. Frans L. Leeuw, "Policy Theories, Knowledge Utilization, and Evaluation," in Ray C. Rist, ed., Policy Evaluation: Linking Theory to Practice (Aldershot, U.K.: Edward Elgar, 1995), pp. 19-37; Lawrence B. Mohr, Impact Analysis for Program Evaluation (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1995); and David Nachmias, Public Policy Evaluation: Approaches and Methods (New York: St. Martin?s, 1979).
2. Mohr, Impact Analysis for Program Evaluation, chap. 1. The methodological and theoretical problems connected with the analysis of counterfactuals in international politics are too elaborate to consider here. For more on the issue, see James D. Fearon, "Counterfactuals and Hypothesis-Testing in Political Science," World Politics, Vol. 43, No. 2 (January 1991), pp. 169-195; and Richard Ned Lebow, "What?s So Different about a Counterfactual?" World Politics, Vol. 52, No. 4 (July 2000), pp. 550-573.
to supply Israel with a nuclear reactor and natural uranium. The reactor was built secretly near the city of Dimona in southern Israel. Initial details of its existence were revealed in 1961,when the Israeli government announced that the facility would focus on nonmilitary nuclear research. Meanwhile, Israeli policymakers debated the pros and cons of developing a nuclear weapons program. Heading the pronuclear weapons group were David Ben-Gurion, Israel ?s Žrst prime minister;Moshe Dayan, a former chief of staff and minister of agriculture; and Shimon Peres, director-general of the Israeli defense ministry. Leading opponents included Ministers Yigal Allon and Israel Gallili, as well as key members of the general staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) such as Chief of Staff Zvi Zur and Yitzhak Rabin, head of the operations branch.3 The timing of Israel?s decision to develop nuclear weapons is unclear, but indications suggest that it was in late 1962 or early 1963.4
Israel?s drive for a nuclear weapons capability originated with a doomsday scenario Žrst put forward in the 1950s. The scenario brought together three major Israeli concerns: (1) the prospect of a uniŽed Arab coalition starting an all-out war aimed at the total destruction of the Jewish state; (2) the military advantage in both quantitative terms (e.g., size of armed forces and number of basic weapons systems) and qualitative terms (especially in the realm of weapon systems capability) that such a coalition would enjoy; and (3) the widespread international support (including from the Soviet Union) that this coalition would likely face--compared with the political isolation that Israel could anticipate.5
Yet contrary to the conventional wisdom, which holds that the possession of nuclear weapons cannot be kept secret if they are to be an effective deterrent, Israel?s policymakers decided on a policy of nuclear ambiguity. This policy has
International Security 28:2 46
3. Opponents argued that Israel possessed sufŽcient conventional capability to deter an attack by an Arab coalition or to launch its own attack against such a coalition. See Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998); and Yair Evron, "Israel and the Atom: The Uses and Misuses of Ambiguity," Orbis, Vol. 17, No. 4 (Winter 1974), pp. 1326-1343.
4. Detailed accounts of the history of Israel?s nuclear project include Cohen, Israel and the Bomb; Evron, "Israel and the Atom"; Shlomo Aronson with Oded Brosh, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East: Opacity, Theory, and Reality, 1960-1991 (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992); Yair Evron, Israel?s Nuclear Dilemma (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994); Seymour M. Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel?s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy (New York: Random House, 1991); andWarner D. Farr, "The Third Temple Holy of Holies: Israel?s Nuclear Weapons," Counterproliferation Papers, Future Warfare Series No. 2 (Maxwell, Ala.: U.S. Air War College, September 1999), http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/farr.htm.
5. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, pp. 11-14; Michael Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion, Vol. 3 (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Zmora-Bitan, 1987), pp. 1550-1553; Avner Yaniv, Politics and Strategy in Israel (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim, 1994), pp. 13-19; and Yigal Allon, A Curtain of Sand (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Ha?Kibbutz Ha?Meuchad, 1968), pp. 13-165.
two major components. The Žrst is secrecy: Israel would develop nuclear weapons but refrain from either testing them openly or formally announcing their existence. The second involves signaling: Through a series of leaks and veiled statements, the spread of rumors, and other political actions (e.g., refusal to sign the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT), Israel would bolster its nuclear image--an image comprising indirect evidence of an existing nuclear capability and hints of a deterrence doctrine. In Israel?s case, the doctrine of nuclear ambiguity is embodied in the "Samson option"--namely, the use of nuclear weapons only as weapons of last resort. Adherents of this policy argue that Israeli nuclear ambiguity not only fosters deterrence but also allows the government to minimize the adverse political, military, and diplomatic ramiŽcations of Israel?s regional nuclear monopoly.6 From the beginning, the government has rigidly adhered to a policy of nuclear ambiguity while continuing to oversee the production of nuclear weapons and delivery systems. According to some sources, by the mid-1990s Israel possessed 100-200 nuclear weapons, including surface-to-surface missiles (SSMs) and submarinelaunched ballistic missiles.7
Below I discuss and then evaluate the arguments and evidence that Israeli strategists have marshaled to support the government?s policy of nuclear ambiguity.
the ambiguous performance of israeli nuclear deterrence The majority of Israeli strategists contend that Israel?s nuclear policy has accomplished its principal objective of deterring an all-out Arab attack aimed at the annihilation of the Jewish state.8 Support for this argument rests on the nonoccurrence of such an attack. Since evidence of Israel?s nuclear capability The Mixed Blessing of Israel?s Nuclear Policy 47
6. Israel?s posture of nuclear ambiguity was not borne out of military strategic considerations, but rather out of a need to fend off U.S. pressure to join the NPT and to open nuclear installations to outside inspection. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, pp. 142-147, 205-217; and Hersh, The Samson Option, pp. 59-70.
7. Sources on Israel?s nuclear arsenal include Russian Federation intelligence estimates released on April 19, 1995. See Aluf Ben, "Soviet Intelligence Reveals Israel?s Nuclear Capability," Ha?aretz, April 20, 1995, p. 2; and semiofŽcial estimates by nongovernmental organizations, including Jane?s Intelligence Review, September 1997, and the American Federation of Scientists, http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/index.html. For data resources on these issues, see http://Žrst.sipri.org/. On nuclear cruise missiles launchable from Israeli submarines, see Nathan Guttman, "Report: Israeli Submarines Possess Nuclear Cruise Missiles," Ha?aretz, June 16, 2002, p. 3.
8. The extent to which nuclear ambiguity was a key to this success is the subject of much debate. For an argument against ambiguity, see Shai Feldman, Israel?s Nuclear Deterrence: A Strategy for the 1980s (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982). For a pro-ambiguity argument, see Evron, Israel ?s Nuclear Dilemma. See also interviews with Shai Feldman and Shlomo Aronson, in Bob Levin with Milan J. Kubic, "Should Israel Build a Nuclear Bomb?" Newsweek, May 4, 1981, p. 42. Žrst surfaced in the late 1960s, however, there has been no indication of either the political buildup or operational planning for an all-out Arab assault, though there have been at least two instances of Arab states forming ad hoc coalitions to attack Israel: in May-June 1967 and October 1973. In both cases, the Arabs formulated limited operational plans to achieve limited territorial and political objectives.
Over the years, many Israeli decisionmakers have viewed the vehement anti-Israeli--and sometimes anti-Semitic--rhetoric of Arab leaders, journalists, intellectuals, and others as signiŽcant evidence of an overall intent to destroy the Jewish state.9 Before 1967, direct and indirect references to this objective were particularly common. Although still employed by extremist groups, this rhetoric is no longer integral to the political discourse of most Arab regimes, even those still in a declared state of war with Israel.10 Goals such as the reoccupation of the territories captured by Israel in 1967 and the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state have assumed greater importance. Moreover, even after the outbreak of the second intifada (uprising) in September 2000, there has been little evidence that the Arab states--or for that matter most Palestinian leaders--seek to revive the notion of eliminating the state of Israel.11 This evidence seems to support the argument of Israeli strategists that Israel?s nuclear policy has essentially accomplished its principal aim: shifting the strategic objectives of Arab states to re?ect a growing awareness of the futility of trying to destroy Israel. Although a number of other reasons may account for the absence of an all-out Arab attack, perceptual evidence suggests a meaningful change in Arab rhetoric that largely parallels developments in Israel?s nuclear capabilities. By association, Israeli strategists conclude that the
International Security 28:2 48
9. See Yehoshafat Harkabi, Arab Attitudes to Israel (London: Vallentine, Mitchell, 1972).
10. Compare Yehoshafat Harkabi?s discussion of Arab rhetoric in his Arab Attitudes to Israel (originally published in Hebrew in 1968) to his discussion of Arab rhetoric in the post-Six Day War period, in Harkabi, Arab Attitudes and Israel?s Response (New York: Free Press, 1975).
11. In this regard, the most recent and dramatic shift is the Arab League?s resolution of March 28, 2002, to adopt the Saudi initiative. According to this resolution, in return for full Israeli withdrawal to the June 4, 1967, lines and the establishment of a Palestinian state, the Arab states would (1) agree to end the Arab-Israeli con?ict, enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all states in the region; and (2) establish normal relations with Israel. See Associated Press report in New York Times, March 29, 2002, p. A14. This initiative was incorporated in President George W. Bush?s "road map" of September 17, 2002. See http://www.mideastweb.org/quartetrm2.htm. The most comprehensive account of Israel?s nuclear image in Arab eyes is Ariel Levite and Emily Landau, Israel?s Nuclear Image: Arab Perceptions of Israel?s Nuclear Posture (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Pappyrus, Tel Aviv University Press, 1994).
government?s nuclear doctrine has greatly in?uenced the shift toward Arab moderation. A fundamental assumption of the doctrine of deterrence is the presence of a threat to some aspect of a state?s national security. The threat may consist of one or more observable enemies with hostile intent and the capabilities to carry out their objectives. Deterrence rests on the defender?s belief that, in the absence of a credible deterrent threat, the challenger will seek to alter the status quo by force.12 The threat assessment of Ben-Gurion and his associates, for example, was based on four realities: (1) the all-out Arab attempt to unmake the new state of Israel in 1948, followed by numerous inŽltrations into Israel from Egypt and Jordan prior to the 1956 Sinai War; (2) the hostile rhetoric of Arab political elites, which established the intent element in the threat perception; (3) the demographic and territorial asymmetry between Israel and its Arab neighbors that made the threat seem very real; and (4) the simultaneous existence of at least three, and possibly as many as seven, hostile Arab states, illustrating the need to take the capabilities of these states into account when calculating the balance of forces in the region.13
Given these realities, the basic rationale of Ben-Gurion and his colleagues for developing a nuclear insurance policy would appear to have been fundamentally sound. There is one problem, however: Israeli scholars? evaluation of the performance of the doctrine of deterrence has historically assumed that this perception accurately re?ected the objective reality, thus treating it as the factual foundation of their analyses.14 As a result, instead of performing independent strategic analyses grounded in classical principles of threat assessment, these scholars have bought into the rhetoric of Israeli advocates of nuclear deterrence.
The Mixed Blessing of Israel?s Nuclear Policy 49
12. Zeev Maoz, Paradoxes of War: On the Art of National Self-Entrapment (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990), pp. 66-67.
13. David Ben-Gurion, The Renewed State of Israel, Vol. 1 (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1969), pp. 518-526; Bar-Zohar, Ben-Gurion, Vol. 3, pp. 1359-1363; Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, pp. 9-14; Avner Yaniv, Deterrence without the Bomb: The Politics of Israeli Strategy (Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath, 1987), pp. 12-19; Yaniv, Politics and Strategy in Israel, pp. 14-21; Evron, Israel?s Nuclear Dilemma, pp. 5-10; Hersh, The Samson Option, pp. 22-23; and Shai Feldman, Nuclear Proliferation and Arms Control in the Middle East (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997), pp. 95-96.
14. Writings on Israeli conventional deterrence have this same tendency. See, for example, Yaniv, Deterrence without the Bomb; Jonathan Shimshoni, Israel and Conventional Deterrence: Border Warfare from 1953 to 1970 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1988); John J. Mearsheimer, Conventional Deterrence (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983); and Yoav Ben-Horin and Barry R. Posen, Israel?s Strategic Doctrine (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1981).
Israeli threat perceptions in the 1950s were only partly accurate. For the doomsday scenario to have had a basis in fact, evidence of two related processes was essential: (1) multilateral political cooperation among Arab states, and (2) a sustained Arab military mobilization effort. An examination of inter-Arab politics and of the military policies of key Arab states strongly suggests that neither of these processes was evident in the second half of the 1950s and Žrst half of the 1960s, a critical period in Israeli nuclear decisionmaking. Instead, from 1957 to 1973, inter-Arab relations were characterized primarily by political and military strife.15
Following the 1956 Sinai War, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser adopted a radical pan-Arab policy aimed at creating a uniŽed Arab camp. To some observers, the radical uprising in Iraq and the multiple attempts to overthrow King Hussein in Jordan--not to mention the 1958-61 union between Egypt and Syria--were clear indications that Nasser?s brand of pan-Arabism was gaining widespread support. With the 1962 outbreak of civil war in Yemen, however, Nasser?s allegiance to pan-Arabism was exposed as a sham.16 The Yemeni civil war split the Arab world, with the South Yemenis and Egyptian forces on one side and the North Yemenis and their Saudi ally on the other.17 Later, during the May-June 1967 crisis, Arab unity seemed to reemerge, with Arab states rallying to support Nasser?s campaign against Israel. The evidence suggests, however, that the rhetoric of Arab unity was not matched by a commitment to act. The governments of Syria and Jordan did the minimum to help Egypt during the war.18 Between the 1967 and 1973 wars, Arab states increasingly disagreed over how to deal with Israel. Egypt, for
International Security 28:2 50
15. On inter-Arab politics during this era, see Eli Podeh, The Quest for Hegemony in the Arab World: The Struggle over the Baghdad Pact (New York: E.J. Brill, 1995);Malcolm H. Kerr, The Arab Cold War: Gamal Abd al-Nasir and His Rivals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971); Patrick Seale, The Struggle for Syria: A Study of Post-War Arab Politics, 1945-1958 (London: I.B. Tauris, 1986); Peter Snow, Hussein (London: Barrie and Jenkins, 1972); and Anthony Nutting, Nasser (London: Constable, 1972), pp. 196-293.
16. Kerr, The Arab Cold War, pp. 27-43; and Abraham Sela, The Decline of the Arab-Israeli Con?ict: Middle East Politics and the Quest for Regional Order (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998), pp. 41-54.
17. Another episode suggesting the divisive role that the Israeli factor played in inter-Arab politics is the effort to develop a joint Arab policy with respect to the Israeli Kinneret-Negev irrigation project during the January and September 1964 Arab summits. See Sela, The Decline of the Arab-Israeli Con?ict, pp. 61-67.
18. For documentation of Syrian inactivity during the 1967 con?ict, see Maoz, Paradoxes of War, pp. 209-212; and Patrick Seale, Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 137-140. On Jordan, see Ephraim Kam, ed., Hussein Starts a War (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Ma?arachot, 1974), pp. 25-108.
example, repeatedly indicated interest in reaching a separate deal that would allow it to regain control over the Sinai Peninsula. Syria, meanwhile, led the rejectionist front.19
The human and material effort that Egypt and Syria expended on their military forces during this period was clearly inconsistent with the Israelis? threat perception.20 Around the time the government was deciding to build the Dimona nuclear reactor, the investment in military manpower and hardware by the Arab confrontation states was at best marginal. Egypt, Israel?s primary opponent, was ruled by a military regime that relied on the armed forces for its political survival. In 1957 Egypt had approximately 95,000 soldiers, less than 0.5 percent of its population of about 24 million. Defense spending for that year was $224 million, or about 6 percent of the country?s gross domestic product (GDP).21 Meanwhile, Syria had an armed force of some 60,000 troops and a defense budget of about $39 million (2.8 percent of Syrian GDP). Defense spending Žgures for other Arab states that could have potentially posed an existential threat to Israel were even lower.
Evidence of Arab weakness is also illuminated in the writings of key Arab military and political analysts, as well as in the speeches of Nasser himself.Writing in the Egyptian daily al-Ahram on September 25, 1964, Mohammed Hassanin Heikal (a Nasser conŽdant) stated that for the Egyptian leader, a successful Arab strike against Israel had three preconditions: (1) the concentration of superior Arab military force, (2) Arab unity, and (3) the diplomatic isolation of Israel. Nasser admitted on several occasions during the 1960s, however, that the Žrst condition was far from being fulŽlled, and that a premature provoca- The Mixed Blessing of Israel?s Nuclear Policy 51
19. Yoram Meital, Egypt?s Struggle for Peace: Continuity and Change, 1967-1977 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997), pp. 41-76; Seale, Asad, pp. 185-194; and Sela, The Decline of the Arab-Israeli Con?ict, pp. 97-132. For a discussion of the extent of disagreement among Arab leaders in the wake of the 1967 war, see AbdelMagid Farid, Nasser: The Final Years (Reading, Berkshire: Ithaca Press, 1994), especially pp. 51-67, 109-122.
20. Sources for these Žgures include the Project on the Quantitative History of the Arab-Israeli Con?ict and the Peace Process, Tel Aviv University, http://spirit.tau.ac.il/poli/faculty/maoz/con?ict/introduct.html; and COW Military Capability Dataset (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Correlates of War Project, 1997), http://cow2.la.psu.edu/. In late 1962, during debate over whether to convert the Dimona reactor into a nuclear weapons facility, the members of the IDF general staff argued that the conventional balance of forces was becoming increasingly important both in a deterrence sense and in terms of its effect on war outcomes. See Evron, Israel?s Nuclear Dilemma, pp. 6-7; and Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, pp. 148-151.
21. The government?s efforts to increase Egypt?s military capabilities were a response to the Israeli raid in Gaza on February 28, 1955. The raid convinced Nasser that his army was weak and badly equipped, and could not withstand an Israeli attack. See Mohammed Hassanin Heikal, The Sphinx and the Commissar: The Rise and Fall of Soviet In?uence in the Arab World (London: Collins, 1978), p. 58; and Nutting, Nasser, p. 97.
tion of war against Israel would betray the Arab cause.22 It also seemed that individual Arab states were more interested in Žnding ways to catch up with Israel?s growing conventional and nonconventional power than in cooperating with each other. As for the third precondition, Israel was brie?y gripped by a sense of fear and desperation following the Soviet Union?s decision in the fall of 1955 to provide Egypt with top-of-the-line military hardware. At the time, Israel was still subject to a weapons embargo imposed by Britain, France, and the United States in 1950.23 By the summer of 1956, however, and even more so after the October Sinai War, this fear had largely dissipated, as Israel started to receive shipments of French military hardware whose quality and quantity matched or surpassed the weapons systems being supplied to the Egyptians by the Soviets.24
Following Israel?s 1957 withdrawal from the Sinai, Israeli decisionmakers believed that they had secured a Žrm U.S. commitment for direct intervention in the event Egypt should try to blockade the Tiran Strait, Israel?s southern sea route.25 By the time of the construction of the Dimona reactor, Israeli negotiations with the United States on direct and indirect (through Germany) arms transfers were well under way.26 Thus, although one could argue in the mid- 1950s that Israel?s perception of international isolation may have seemed realistic, by the late 1950s this was no longer the case.
In sum, just as Israel?s nuclear project was taking a military turn in the early 1960s, the gravity of the threat it was supposed to address had signiŽcantly receded. Israel?s strategic and international position continued to improve, while the threat of an Arab coalition bent on destroying the Israeli state had become less realistic. Most important, the balance of conventional military forces had started to tilt heavily in Israel?s favor--all of which suggests that, to a large extent, the Israeli nuclear project was not only super?uous but also dangerous in terms of its potentially destabilizing effect on regional politics.
International Security 28:2 52
22. See Ben D. Mor, Decision and Interaction in Crisis (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1993), pp. 116-119; Sela, The Decline of the Arab-Israeli Con?ict, pp. 69-70; Nutting, Nasser, pp. 367-368; and Mahmoud Riad, The Struggle for Peace in the Middle East (London: Quartet, 1981), pp. 1-17.
23. For Israeli perceptions following the Egyptian-Soviet weapons deal, see Michael Brecher, Decisions in Israel?s Foreign Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 232-254; and Moshe Dayan, Diary of the Sinai Campaign (New York: Schocken, 1967), pp. 4-5.
24. For the balance of forces between Israel and Egypt on the eve of the Sinai War, see Trevor Dupuy, Elusive Victory: The Arab-Israeli Wars, 1947-1974 (New York: Harper and Row, 1978), p. 212; Dayan, Diary of the Sinai Campaign, pp. 183-197, and Maoz, Paradoxes of War, p. 55.
25. Brecher, Decisions in Israel?s Foreign Policy, pp. 378-379.
26. Abraham Ben-Zvi, Decade of Transition: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Origins of the American-Israeli Alliance (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), pp. 59-129. Since the beginning of its nuclear project, Israel has faced a number of crises in which it perceived speciŽc Arab military threats to both its conventional and nuclear deterrence postures. According to some sources, Israel has armed its nuclear weapons on three occasions: early June 1967, October 1973, and in 1991 during the Persian Gulf War.27 Below I examine the nature of these military threats and the effectiveness of Israel?s deterrence response. From the Israeli perspective, the May-June 1967 crisis represented a colossal deterrence failure, as Egypt violated all of the casus belli that the Israeli government had articulated following the 1956 Sinai War. Yet a closer examination reveals that Israel?s key political leaders and the Israeli military elite may have had very different perceptions of the Arab threat. Many Israeli politicians considered Egyptian troop movements in the Sinai before the outbreak of hostilities to be a major existential threat.28 On the other hand, most Israeli military commanders viewed them primarily as a challenge to Israeli deterrence.29 In addition, reports of Egyptian Mig-21 jets ?ying over Israel?s Dimona nuclear reactor heightened concern among Israeli politicians that the facility might become a target of attack.30
It seems implausible that Israel?s decision to arm its nuclear weapons during the crisis would not have been accompanied by a--possibly secret--threat to Nasser that an all-out Egyptian attack might provoke nuclear retaliation. Otherwise,
arming the weapons would have been meaningless.31 Assuming that
The Mixed Blessing of Israel?s Nuclear Policy 53
27. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, pp. 259-276; Hersh, The Samson Option, pp. 225-240; Farr, "The Third Temple Holy of Holies"; Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, pp. 139-149; and Laura Zittrain Eisenberg, "Passive Belligerency: Israel and the 1991 Gulf War," Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 15, No. 3 (September 1992), p. 307. Eisenberg mentions an Israeli Jericho missile test on the eve of the Gulf War.
28. See Yitzhak Rabin, Personal Service File (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Yediot Aharonot, 1978), pp. 150-151, 156-159; and Brecher, Decisions in Israel?s Foreign Policy, pp. 331-355.
29. See Rabin, Personal Service File, pp. 157-158; Moshe Dayan, Story of My Life (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976), pp. 322-323, 331; Ezer Weizman, Yours Is the Sky, Yours Is the Land (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Yediot Aharonot, 1975), p. 260; and Yaniv, Deterrence without the Bomb, pp. 115-123.
30. Michael Brecher, Decisions in Crisis: Israel, 1967 and 1973 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), pp. 230-231. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, pp. 266-276, argues that Israeli decisionmakers believed that the potentially negative consequences of revealing Israel?s nuclear capability outweighed any strategic beneŽts. He also states that "by May of 1967, Israel was a nuclear weapon state." Ibid., p. 275. It is unclear what purpose the crash project leading to the assembly of two crude atomic devices could have served other than to provide Israel with a credible deterrence capability at the peak of the crisis.
31. Shimon Peres, Battling for Peace: A Memoir (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 145, alludes to his role during the crisis: "My contribution during that dramatic period was something I still cannot write about openly, for reasons of state security. After Dayan was appointed defense minister, I submitted to him a certain proposal that in my opinion then--and in my opinion today, nearly Israel did indeed communicate its position to Nasser, the threat had failed to accomplish its goal. The Egyptians not only raised the level of rhetoric; they also escalated their violations of the casus belli.
Around May 26-27, 1967, Nasser apparently agreed with the Syrians to launch a limited offensive against Israel, known as Operation Dawn, on May 28.32 There is fairly solid evidence, however, that he had no immediate intention of participating in an all-out attack,33 though not because of Israeli threats. Whether he was caught up in his own rhetoric, as some analysts suggest, or engaged in a calculated game of diplomatic brinkmanship, as others argue, is of marginal importance.34 Nasser?s rhetoric and Egyptian troop movements continued to escalate until Israel seized the initiative by launching a conventional attack; the doctrine of deterrence, it seems, had failed. The 1973 Egyptian-Syrian attack on October 6 caught the Israeli leadership completely by surprise. Following Israel?s abortive counteroffensive along the Suez front two days later, the prospect of an Israeli military defeat became all too real, as Syrian forward units reached the edge of the Golan Heights overlooking northern Israel.35 The situation had become critical,with several Israeli ministers proposing a cease-Žre in place. Israel?s purpose in arming its nuclear warheads on October 9, however, remains unclear. Some accounts suggest that, rather than to deter the Arabs, the goal was to blackmail Washington into launching an airlift to supply Israel with weapons and munitions.36 But, again, International Security 28:2 54
three decades later--would have deterred the Arabs and prevented the war. My proposal . . . was considered--and rejected." It seems that Peres proposed either communicating an explicit nuclear threat to Nasser or conducting a nuclear test. It is conceivable that the Egyptians detected heightened activity at Dimona and that Nasser considered the possibility that Israel did indeed possess a nuclear device.
32. See Michael B. Oren, Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), pp. 92-97, 118-121. The operation would have included an aerial attack on the Dimona reactor. Oren argues that last-minute intervention by the Soviet Union resulted in the cancellation of this operation.
33. Muhammad Abd al-Ghani Gamassy, The Ramadan War: Memoirs of Field Marshal El-Gamassy of Egypt (Cairo: American University in Cairo Press, 1993), pp. 21-50, offers a penetrating analysis of the political and military confusion in Egypt prior to and during the crisis.
34. For proponents of the Žrst view, see Nutting, Nasser, pp. 395-417; and Richard Ned Lebow, Between Peace and War: The Nature of International Crisis (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1981), pp. 242-244. For advocates of the second view, see Mor, Decision and Interaction in Crisis; and Ben D. Mor, "Nasser?s Decision Making in the 1967 Middle East Crisis: A Rational Choice Explanation," Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 28, No. 4 (November 1991), pp. 359-375.
35. Haim Herzog, The War of Atonement (Boston: Little, Brown, 1975), p. 122; and Maoz, Paradoxes of War, p. 187.
36. Hersh, The Samson Option, pp. 225-239; Avner Cohen, "Nuclear Arms in Crisis under Secrecy: Israel and the Lessons of the 1967 and 1973 Wars," in Peter R. Lavoy, Scott D. Sagan, and James J. Wirtz, eds., Planning the Unthinkable: How New Powers Will Use Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical the arming of Israel?s nuclear warheads would have been meaningless unless this fact was conveyed to Nasser and Syria?s president, HaŽz al-Asad. Even if this information had not been communicated directly, it is likely that Soviet satellites would have picked up some of the details and that ofŽcials in Moscow would have then passed them along to the Iraqis.37
Israel?s arming of its nuclear warheads did not deter the Egyptians from launching a massive armored attack on October 14, aimed at capturing the Mitla and Gidi Passes in the Sinai. Nor did it deter the Syrians from Žring Frog missiles at an Israeli air force base in Ramat David that also hit civilian targets. Nuclear deterrence failed yet again when Israel responded with conventionalforce.38 (Interestingly, the secret nature of the 1967 and 1973 nuclear alerts allowed Israel to back down without signiŽcantly damaging its reputation.) Perhaps the most critical test of Israel?s nuclear deterrence occurred in January 1991. Some months before, on April 2, 1990 (four months before Iraqinvaded Kuwait), President Saddam Hussein made a speech in which he threatened to hit Israel with binary chemical weapons. Despite debate within the Israeli intelligence community regarding the potential scope of the Iraqi threat, it was well known that Iraq possessed missiles capable of hitting Israeli population centers.39
Most observers concur that Iraq?s launching of Scud missiles against Israel during the 1991 Gulf War represents a deterrence failure, at least on the conventional level. On the other hand, many claim that Saddam?s decision not to Žre chemical missiles testiŽes to the spectacular effectiveness of Israeli nuclear deterrence. According to Gerald Steinberg, "Israeli strategy did not prevent the
The Mixed Blessing of Israel?s Nuclear Policy 55
Weapons (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2000), pp. 104-124; Avner Cohen, Israel?s Last Taboo (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: ZABAM, forthcoming); and Avner Cohen, "The Last Nuclear Moment," New York Times, October 6, 2003. Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, pp. 139-149, maintains that the Israelis acted out of panic; he also argues that, after the war, Dayan?s critics claimed that he had planned to use nuclear weapons against Damascus if Syrian forces had moved into the Galilee.
37. Cohen, "Nuclear Arms in Crisis under Secrecy."
38. Uri Bar-Joseph, "The Hidden Debate: The Formation of Nuclear Doctrines in the Middle East," Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 5, No. 2 (June 1982), p. 216, argues that the arming of Israel?s nuclear warheads may have provoked the Soviets into sending a military supply vessel carrying nuclearwarheads to Port Said on October 25, 1973. Bar-Joseph adds, "If the Soviets did bring these arms in reaction to an Israeli nuclear alert, they disproved the conceptions of Dayan?s pro-nuclear group.This demonstrated that even under the threat of an Israeli `bomb in the basement,? the Arab side could ignore the threat, embark upon a war, and even receive nuclear guarantees from the Soviet Union." Ibid.
39. Moshe Arens, War and Peace in the Middle East (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Yediot Aharonot, 1995), pp. 146-235.
conventionally armed Scud missile attack, marking the Žrst time since 1948 that Israeli cities had been subject to attack. . . . For Israel this was a failure of deterrence, in a narrow sense, but not one that exacted an intolerable price or endangered national survival." Amatzia Baram?s view re?ects the near consensus among Israeli scholars on the success of Israeli deterrence: "Once the allied air force had attacked Iraq, the latter could not be deterred from launching a conventional attack on Israel. But Saddam stopped short of using nonconventional weapons, and thus, while Israel?s conventional deterrence suffered a certain setback, its nonconventional [i.e., nuclear] deterrence remained intact."40
Given the lack of reliable information about Iraq?s decisionmaking process, assessing the performance of Israeli nuclear deterrence during the Gulf War remains a difŽcult task. There are several reasons, however, to question its supposed success. Between April 2, 1990, and January 17, 1991 (the start of the U.S.-led coalition war against Iraq), virtually every Israeli political and military leader vowed the use of extremely destructive power if Iraq struck at Israel. In most of their statements, the pledge was attached to any kind of attack, not only to a chemical weapons attack.41 As Laura Eisenberg writes: "Top-ranking Israelis repeatedly warned that any Iraqi attack, regardless of scope, would provoke an immediate and devastating response."42
Nevertheless, the Gulf War represents a deterrence failure, at least in the conventional sense, for three reasons. First, despite the explicit and public nature of Israel?s deterrent threats, which may have been accompanied by additional secret threats of massive retaliation, Iraq chose to launch Scud missiles at Israeli military installations and urban centers.43 Second, Iraq?s violation of the status quo was fundamental and persistent. Third, Israel had no effective defense against the Scuds.
Israeli scholars? assessment of the effectiveness of deterrence in the Gulf War may be biased by the relatively minor damage caused by the missiles. At the time, however, nobody knew when or where the next missile would hit, its
International Security 28:2 56
40. Gerald Steinberg, "Parameters of Stable Deterrence in a Proliferated Middle East: Lessons from the 1991 Gulf War," Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Fall/Winter 2000), p. 57; and Amatzia Baram, "Israeli Deterrence, Iraqi Responses," Orbis, Vol. 36, No. 3 (Summer 1992), p. 399.
41. For examples, see Shai Feldman, "Israeli Deterrence: The Test of the Gulf War," in Joseph Alpher, ed., War in the Gulf: Implications for Israel (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, 1991), pp. 170-189; and Barak Mendelsohn, "Israeli Deterrence in the Gulf War," M.A. thesis, Tel Aviv University, 1999, especially pp. 120-155.
42. Eisenberg, "Passive Belligerency," p. 307.
43. Cohen, Israel?s Last Taboo; and Eisenberg, "Passive Belligerency," p. 307, n. 8. payload, or its destructive potential. Moreover, even though the lack of fatalities may have facilitated Israeli restraint, it does not diminish the deterrence failure. It is difŽcult to believe that the Israeli government would have taken the same course had there been a large number of fatalities, whether from conventional or chemical missiles.
Israeli recognition of the possibility--indeed the likelihood--of a nonconventional attack is one of the best indications of the government?s de factoadmission of the failure of nuclear deterrence during the Gulf War. The supporting evidence is compelling. First, statements by Israeli decisionmakers immediately before the war sought to diminish the signiŽcance of the Iraqi missile threat, including the threat of chemical weapons.44 This may have been a defensive mechanism to justify the possibility of Israeli inaction in the event of such an attack. In reality, it indicates an Israeli belief that nuclear deterrence would fail, despite Israel?s explicit threats of massive retaliation. Second, in anticipation of a gas attack, the government instructed Israelis to move into specially prepared rooms (usually in their houses or apartments) in which the windows and doors had been covered earlier with plastic sheets and taped for minimal outside ventilation. This precaution (in addition to keeping gas masks and atropine injections within reach) remains the most effective passive defense measure that civilians could take against a gas attack. Such action would have been useless against conventional warheads--and indeed could have been dangerous for Israelis who had been told to take cover in these rooms. Thus the call to take protective measures implied only one thing: The government believed that a chemical attack was imminent.45 Third, since the Gulf War the Israeli government has devoted considerable Žnancial, technological, and human resources to the development of a wide array of offensive and defensive measures, including the establishment of the Home Front Command within the IDF; the creation of an aggressive missile defense program, with the Arrow missile as its ?agship project; and the reŽnement of offensive measures, especially in the Israeli air force, to deal with
The Mixed Blessing of Israel?s Nuclear Policy 57
44. For example, in a television interview on December 24, 1990, Defense Minister Moshe Arens stated: "We have no way of intercepting incoming missiles, . . . but the physical damage such missiles would cause is limited." Quoted in Ha?aretz, December 25, 1990. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir stated that even if chemical weapons were used against Israel, "this is not an existential threat." Quoted in Ha?aretz, January 10, 1991. Both cited in Mendelsohn, "Israeli Deterrence in the Gulf War," pp. 144-145. 45. For protective measures in the event of a conventional attack or a chemical attack, see, for example, the instructions provided in the IDF Home Front Command?s website at http:// www.idf.il/hebrew/organization/homefront/index1.stm. both short-range and long-range missile threats. In addition, Israel has launched several spy satellites designed to detect nonconventional threats at long range. Combined, these measures re?ect a strategic admission that nuclear deterrence cannot be relied on to guarantee Israel?s security. Some observers might argue that these are the kind of measures that any responsible government must take to protect its citizens against a grave threat, even if the likelihood of a state carrying out such a threat seems very low. Yet similar conditions had existed in the Middle East in the mid-1970s, when Arab countries in possession of SSMs (including Egypt) were still in a state of war with Israel. Earlier, Egypt had used chemical weapons during the Yemeni civil war. Later, in the 1980s, Iraq employed similar weapons against Iran. In the latter con?ict, Iraq also Žred hundreds of conventional missiles at the Iranian capital, Tehran. Thus, even though Arab states had both the capability and the will to use nonconventional weapons and ballistic missiles for some time, only after the Gulf War did Israel begin to invest in an aggressive missile defense program.
There are two common explanations for this shift. The Žrst is that until the Gulf War Israeli intelligence had been unaware of the gravity of the Arab missile threat.46 The second is that Israel?s prevailing assumption was that its nuclear deterrent negated the need for defensive measures against Arab missile and chemical weapons capability. There is no direct evidence to support the latter explanation, although multiple Israeli threats against Iraq from April 1990 to January 1991 may serve as indirect evidence of Israeli decisionmakers? conŽdence in the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence.47 In this context, it is useful to consider Israel?s preparations for the 2003 U.S. war against Iraq. In mid-2002, Israeli authorities took steps to increase the
International Security 28:2 58
46. For this argument, see Shlomo Nakdimon, "Black Hole: Israel, the United States, and Iraq, 1981-1991," Tel Aviv, 1996; and Shlomo Nakdimon, "Saddam Is Still Here," Yediot Aharont, January 14, 2001. A number of prominent Israelis, including Moshe Arens, War and Peace in theMiddle East, p. 160, corroborate this argument, although (as noted above) Israeli intelligence did know that Iraq
possessed al-Hussein missiles capable of reaching Israel.
47. Until the Gulf War, Israel confronted strategic challenges such as Arab SSMs or nonconventional weapons primarily with offensive measures (e.g., developing the Jericho missile, producing nuclear weapons, and investing in the Israeli air force). The increasing emphasis on defensive measures and the bolstering of home front infrastructure since the Gulf War suggest a growing belief among some Israelis that deterrence is no longer the iron-clad guarantee against attack that they once thought it was. One of the leading proponents of this shift was Yitzhak Rabin, who drew two principal conclusions from the Gulf War: (1) Israel needed to develop a wide array of defensive and offensive weapons to counter the proliferation of missiles in the region, because deterrence was not enough, and (2) the most effective way to increase Israeli security was to sign peace treaties with as many Arab states as possible. See Ephraim Inbar, Rabin and Israel?s National Security (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), pp. 119-122. country?s preparedness for a nonconventional Iraqi attack. Among these were the inoculation of 15,000 emergency personnel against smallpox and a nationwide effort to check, and if necessary replace, the emergency gas kits of the entire Israeli population. At the start of the war in March, Israelis were once again ordered to prepare sealed rooms and get their gas kits ready. The activation of measures based on a worst-case scenario suggests a growing belief among Israeli leaders that a nonconventional weapons attack had become adistinct possibility.
the effect of israeli nuclear policy on the scope of arab attacks Since the start of its nuclear project, Israel has been involved in four wars, two of which Arab states initiated: the 1969-70 War of Attrition and the 1973 war.48 The military scope of both wars was extremely limited,49 as Arab leaders hoped to create conditions that would force the superpowers to pressure Israel into making territorial concessions.50 Even when the Žrst stage of the 1973 war went better than expected, Egypt and Syria did not expand their territorial objectives. Once their early success began to exceed the ambitions of their original strategy, the tide of war shifted in favor of Israel.51
At the height of the May-June 1967 crisis, Egyptian rhetoric threatened the annihilation of the state of Israel.52 Yet on the ground, a number of military and political indicators suggested that Egypt had no intention of attacking Israel,
The Mixed Blessing of Israel?s Nuclear Policy 59
48. For similar arguments, see Evron, Israel?s Nuclear Dilemma, pp. 62-75, 202-214.
49. Shlomo Aronson, "The Nuclear Dimension of the Arab-Israeli Con?ict: The Case of the Yom Kippur War, Jerusalem Journal of International Relations, Vol. 7, Nos. 1-2 (July 1984), pp. 107-141; and Levite and Landau, Israel?s Nuclear Image, pp. 42-43, as well as references therein.
50. On Nasser?s objectives in the War of Attrition, see Lawrence Whetten, The Canal War (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1974), p. 141; Yaacov Bar-Simantov, The Israeli-Egyptian War of Attrition, 1969-1970 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), pp. 43-71; Dan Schueftan, Attrition: Egypt?s Postwar Political Strategy, 1967-1970 (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Ma?arachot, 1989), pp. 39-147; Janice Gross Stein, "The View from Cairo," in Robert Jervis, Richard Ned Lebow, and Janice Gross Stein, Psychology and Deterrence (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985), pp. 38-49; and David A. Korn, Stalemate: The War of Attrition and Great Power Diplomacy in the Middle East, 1967-1970 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1992). For Egypt?s objectives during the 1973 war, see Gamassy, The Ramadan War; Sa?ad Shazly, The Crossing of the Canal (San Francisco, Calif.: American Mideast Research, 1980), pp. 172-181; Anwar Sadat, In Search of Identity: An Autobiography (New York: Harper and Row, 1977), pp. 234-237; Raphael Israeli, Man of DeŽance: The Political Biography of Anwar Sadat (London:Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1985), p. 29; and Meital, Egypt?s Struggle for Peace,
pp. 111-112.
51. On the relationship between the lack of operational planning for expanding the war and its consequences, see Maoz, Paradoxes of War, pp. 186-190.
52. The combination of Egyptian military escalation and hostile rhetoric threw the Israeli nuclear project into crash mode on the eve of the war. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, pp. 259-276, argues that between May 15 and the outbreak of war on June 5, the Israelis built two crude nuclear devices that were ready to launch had Israel determined that the doomsday scenario was about to unfold. let alone engaging in all-out war.53 Moreover, according to several Egyptian sources, Nasser hoped that outside diplomatic intervention could defuse the crisis before it escalated any further.54 Thus Egypt?s defensive deployment of its forces, Nasser?s crisis diplomacy, and in?ammatory rhetoric designed for domestic and inter-Arab consumption would suggest that Israel?s nuclear potential had deterred the Egyptians if not from Žghting, then certainly from a na?ve belief that they could destroy the Israeli state in a war. Indeed proponents of Israel?s nuclear policy blame the failure of Israeli conventional deterrence for the Arab attacks/escalation, while crediting Israeli nuclear deterrence with limiting both. The 1967 case is not relevant here because, at the start of the escalation, the Arabs did not yet suspect Israel of possessing nuclear weapons. Israeli scholars do, however, consider the 1973 war and the 1991 Gulf War as con?icts whose scope was limited due to Israel?s nuclear threat.
Available evidence suggests that two principal factors constrained the scope of the 1973 Egyptian and Syrian attacks: (1) the limited political aims of both countries, and (2) Israel?s conventional military capability. The nuclear factor was not instrumental in restricting the scope of the war, insofar as there is no evidence that it played an explicit role in the decisionmaking processes of either the Egyptian or Syrian leadership.55 From the Egyptian perspective, the crucial date for the 1973war was October 24, 1972,when the Egyptian National Security Council made the key decisions on the military strategy vis-?-vis Israel. At least two Egyptian sources have published verbatim transcripts from this meeting,56 and others have provided details from it.57 In the meeting, Pres-
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53. The IDF knew that the Egyptian army in the Sinai was defensively deployed. At the same time, Israeli generals argued that the longer the government waited to act, the more difŽcult it would be to draw the Egyptian forces out of their trenches. In addition, the continued concentration of Egyptian forces in the Sinai would force Israel to maintain a large-scale mobilization of reserves beyond its economic capacity. See Rabin, Personal Service File, pp. 157-158; Dayan, Story of My Life, p. 331; and Weizman, Yours Is the Sky, Yours Is the Land, pp. 258, 260.
54. Riad, The Struggle for Peace in theMiddle East, pp. 14-23; Gamassy, The Ramadan War, pp. 31-33; Nutting, Nasser, pp. 406-408; and Mor, "Nasser?s Decision Making in the 1967 Middle East Crisis," pp. 359-375.
55. Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, p. 143, notes that the Syrian army stopped short of entering Israel proper in the Žrst days of the war because Asad believed that a limited offensive would minimize (or even neutralize) the risk of Israeli nuclear retaliation. Aronson does not provide sources for this claim, however. For an analysis of Asad?s military calculus, see Seale, Asad, pp. 194-200. This biographical volume, which is based on interviews with the Syrian leader, does not mention the nuclear issue. See also Levite and Landau, Israel?s Nuclear Image, pp. 42-43.
56. This was the so-called Giza meeting. Gamassy, The Ramadan War, pp. 149-152; and Shazly, The Crossing of the Canal, pp. 176-181.
57. Mohammed Hassanin Heikal, The Road to Ramadan (New York: Penguin, 1975), pp. 183-184;
Sadat, In Search of Identity, pp. 234-236; Moshe Maoz, Syria and Israel: From War to Peacemaking? ident Anwar al-Sadat stated that the principal aim of the war was to break the diplomatic impasse in the Middle East and reignite the peace process. The discussion focused on the operational contours of the war. At no time did Israel?s nuclear capability come up as a factor. On the other hand, the meeting?s participants repeatedly mentioned Israeli conventional capability as a constraint on Egypt?s ability to achieve military success.
The modus operandi of Egypt?s attack plan says more about the principal concerns of Egyptian strategists than does their silence on the nuclear issue. The plan called for two armies to capture and hold on to a limited stretch of land east of the Suez Canal. Surface-to-air missile (SAM) batteries stationed along the west bank of the canal would shield the Egyptian troops from the Israeli air force, and Sager missiles would protect them from Israeli armored attacks. Because the Egyptians considered the SAM missile shield essential, the original plan had been to refrain from moving beyond its range. This suggests that what most concerned Egyptian strategists, and what deterred them from launching an all-out attack, was not Israel?s nuclear capability but its conventional air force and armored forces.58
As argued above, most Israeli scholars believe that Iraq refrained from Žring chemical warheads at Israel during the Gulf War for fear of nuclear retaliation. 59 As Baram argues: "If, as pointed out by the Iraqi sources, it is Israel?s nuclear force that has for so long `paralyzed the Arab will [to eliminate Israel],?then there is no reason why, until the Arabs themselves have similar weapons, that it should not continue to paralyze it."60 As noted earlier, the lack of any direct evidence on Baghdad?s decisionmaking process prior to or during the Gulf War allows only cautious remarks on Iraqi behavior. What is known is that (1) Iraq launched forty-four Scud missiles at Israel, some of them targeted at the Dimona nuclear reactor, but none getting close,61 and (2) Iraq refrained
The Mixed Blessing of Israel?s Nuclear Policy 61
(London: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 122-123; and Uri Bar-Joseph, The Watchman Fell Asleep: The Surprise of Yom Kippur and Its Sources (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Zmora Bitan, 2001), pp. 121-126.
58. Gamassy, The Ramadan War, pp. 185-202, especially pp. 185-186, 192-193; and Shazly, The Crossing of the Canal. During the Giza meeting, Sadat debated with several military commanders their claim that Egypt even lacked the capability for a limited attack and that it needed more modern weapons from the Soviet Union. Sadat?s decision to dismiss the minister of war, Muhammad Sadeq, re?ects his disagreement with this assessment. See Bar-Joseph, The Watchman Fell Asleep, pp. 127-139.
59. Feldman, "Israeli Deterrence"; Eisenberg, "Passive Belligerency"; Steinberg, "Parameters of Stable Deterrence in a Proliferated Middle East"; and Baram, "Israeli Deterrence, Iraqi Responses." Perhaps the most ardent support for this notion appears in Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, especially pp. 131-137, 143.
60. Baram, "Israeli Deterrence, Iraqi Response," p. 399 (quotes and brackets in original).
61. Mohammad-Mahmoud Muhamedou, Iraq and the Second Gulf War: State Building and Regime Sefrom launching chemical weapons against either Israel or Saudi Arabia, a coalition ally. The aim of Iraq?s decision to Žre Scud missiles, some argue, was to prompt Israeli retaliation, in the hopes of splitting the U.S.-led coalition.
62 Proponents point to the second fact as evidence of the effectiveness of Israeli nuclear deterrence.
This explanation of Iraqi motives and the effectiveness of Israeli deterrence has two major ?aws. First, Israeli statements in 1990 threatened massive retaliationagainst any kind of attack. The contention that Israeli nuclear threats limited the scope of the Iraqi assault assumes that Israeli decisionmakers made an explicit distinction between a conventional missile attack and a chemical attack. The evidence does not support this assumption. As shown earlier, moststatements suggest that Israel would respond regardless of the nature of the Iraqi attack. This applies to Israel?s secretly communicated threats as well: It is unreasonable to suppose that Israel would have made such a distinction between its public and private statements, because doing so would have given de facto legitimacy to Iraq?s Žring of conventional warheads.63 Second, this explanation incorrectly assumes that Israeli decisionmakers interpreted deterrence success or failure as hinging on the potential lethality of the weapons themselves. This is also unsupported by the evidence. If Israeli fatalities had been signiŽcant, public and political pressure to act would have been enormous. Although Saddam Hussein could not have known just how much damage the missiles would in?ict, by instructing that the Scuds be targeted at Israel?s largest population centers, he was obviously hoping for as many fatalities as possible.
Saddam?s decision not to use chemical weapons against Israel may have another explanation. Following the con?ict, UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) inspectors discovered that Iraq?s chemical warheads were quite primitive. In addition, most of the chemical warheads carried sarin nerve gas,64 which is International Security 28:2 62
curity (San Francisco, Calif.: Austin andWinŽeld, 1998), p. 159, claims that Iraq Žred six missiles at the Dimona reactor in retribution for the 1981 Israeli attack on the Osirak reactor.
62. See Majid Khadduri and Edmund Ghareeb, War in the Gulf, 1990-91: The Iraq-Kuwait Con?ict and Its Implications (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 171-172; Bernard Reich, "Israel and the Persian Gulf Crisis," in Ibrahim Ibrahim, ed., The Gulf Crisis: Background and Consequences (Washington, D.C.: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, 1992), p. 234; Feldman, "Israeli Deterrence," p. 174-176; and Mohamedou, Iraq and the Second GulfWar, p. 159.
63. See sources on Israeli statements in note 41.
64. Arens, War and Peace in the Middle East, p. 160; Baram, "Israeli Deterrence, Iraqi Responses," p. 400; and Steinberg, "Parameters of Stable Deterrence in a Proliferated Middle East," p. 55. For numbers and types of warheads, see UNSCOM, "Comprehensive Review on Iraq," January 25, 1999, http://cns.miis.edu/research/iraq/ucreport/index.htm. Annex C of the review acknowlgenerally ineffective against populations equipped with emergency gas kits such as those in the possession of the Israelis. The destructive potential of a missile packed with 500 kilograms of TNT (such as the al-Hussein missile) is far greater than that of a chemical warhead against a protected population. Thus, if the missiles targeted at Israel had carried chemical warheads, the most signiŽcant effect would probably have been psychological, not physical. Because Saddam?s main objective in this regard appears to have been to draw Israel into the con?ict by producing a large number of Israeli fatalities, his greatest chance for success was the use of conventional warheads. To support the argument that Israeli nuclear deterrence was a causal factor in shaping Iraq?s military calculus in the Gulf War, two facts must be determined: (1) that Israel--not the United States--deterred Iraq from using chemical weapons, and (2) that Israel?s nuclear deterrent, and not some other factor, compelled Iraq to rely solely on conventional warheads. No Israeli scholar who argues that Israeli nuclear deterrence was successful provides evidence to support either of these claims. Yet even if nuclear deterrence did prevent Iraq from using chemical (or biological) weapons, there is sufŽcient evidence to cast doubt on both the uniqueness of the source of deterrence (i.e., Israel, not the United States) and the uniqueness of the type of retaliation (i.e., Israel?s nuclear, not conventional, capability).
The key evidence against the uniqueness of the source argument is that Iraq did not use chemical (or biological) weapons during the Gulf War--either against the coalition forces or against other Arab states. Moreover, it refrained from using chemical (or biological) weapons even when coalition ground forces entered Iraq, and when for several days it was unclear whether these forces would stop short of Baghdad.65 Indeed it is more plausible that the U.S. threat of retaliation exerted the greater in?uence over Saddam because, unlike Israel, the United States did not have the same constraints.66
The Mixed Blessing of Israel?s Nuclear Policy 63
edges that far less is known about Iraq?s biological weapons capabilities. In addition, the UNSCOM teams were unable to verify most of the Iraqi reports or to develop independent assessments of Iraq?s bioweapons capabilities. The discrepancies between the Iraqi reports and UNSCOM veriŽcation statements are especially signiŽcant in this area. The reports found no evidence, however, that Iraq had conducted Želd tests of its biomissiles.
65. On the course of the Gulf War, see Lawrence L. Friedman and Ephraim Karsh, The Gulf Con?ict: Diplomacy and War in the New World (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993); and Dilip Hiro, Desert Shield to Desert Storm: The Second Gulf War (London: HarperCollins, 1992). 66. An important source of confusion is the statement by then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney that Israel would retaliate to a chemical weapons attack with nuclear weapons. Cheney interview with Wolf Blitzer, CNN?s Evans and Novak, January 2, 1991. This also ignores, however, the more obvious threats by the United States that it would retaliate with brute force if Iraq used Second, it is unclear whether a nuclear retaliatory strike would have been Israel ?s only option had Iraq launched chemical (or biological) weapons. In fact, given Israel?s successful air strike on Iraq?s Osirak nuclear reactor on June 7, 1981, the Iraqis were well aware of the broad range of military options available to the Israelis, most of which did not involve nuclear weapons.67 Moreover, in none of the writings on this issue is there evidence to suggest that Israel?s nuclear threat was responsible for Iraq?s decision not to employ chemical weapons. Thus the argument that Israeli nuclear deterrence proved effective in the Gulf War is not only seriously ?awed, but is also based on weak and inconsistent evidence.
a nuclear peace?
The widely held belief among Israeli scholars, journalists, and politicians that Israel?s nuclear policy was instrumental in bringing the Arabs to the negotiating table is based not on citations of actual Arab statements, but on statements attributed to Arab leaders and spokespeople.68 It also appears in arguments that Israel?s nuclear capability decreases the likelihood of the Israeli- Palestinian con?ict ever expanding into a regional con?agration or even seriously threatening the peace between either Israel and Egypt or Israel and Jordan.69
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chemical weapons against anybody, not just Israel. It is more likely that Saddam knew that U.S. stakes in the con?ict would have increased tenfold if he used such weapons.
67. For example, the Begin Doctrine, announced following the 1981 attack, stated, "Under no circumstances would [Israel] allow the enemy to develop weapons of mass destruction against our nation." Quoted in Feldman, Nuclear Proliferation and Arms Control in the Middle East, p. 109. Since then, virtually all of Israel?s enemies have developed weapons of mass destruction. Evron, Israel?s Nuclear Dilemma, pp. 211-212, argues that technological and operational problems, rather than Israeli threats of nuclear retaliation, prevented Saddam from using chemical weapons. Khadduri and Ghareeb, in War in the Gulf, p. 171, make a similar case: "The Scud missiles, however, are known for being highly inaccurate and quite an ineffective weapon . . . nor do they contain very powerful warheads; indeed, in one case it was found that an Iraqi warhead was made of cement." Evron suggests that Saddam saw Iraq?s chemical weapons more as a deterrent against threats to his regime.
68. Levite and Landau, Israel?s Nuclear Image, pp. 44-45. This text is the most extensive study of Arab perceptions of Israel?s nuclear policy. The evidence the authors provide for this argument consists of indirect references to the "terrible alternative to peace" and comments by Israeli politicians (Yigael Yadin and Shimon Peres) that Sadat had told them: "Dimona was also a factor in his decision to visit Jerusalem in 1977." Ibid., pp. 66-67. Levite and Landau also seem to accept the notion that Israel?s nuclear image had a signiŽcant effect on the turn toward peace in the Arab world. Ibid., pp. 170-172. See also Levin, "Should Israel Build a Nuclear Bomb?" In a lecture at Tel Aviv University on January 14, 2002, Zeev Schiff, the military analyst at the Israeli daily Ha?aretz, alsosuggested the Arab shift as a possible side effect of Israel?s nuclear policy.
69. Unnamed "experts," for example, are quoted as saying: "Their [Israelis?] renewed regional isolation will strengthen their case, should they want to join the European Union, and they can always keep the Arabs at bay by shaking the nuclear stick and the Masada Complex which the The key event in the Arab-Israeli peace process was Sadat?s visit to Jerusalem in November 1977, which led to the signing of an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty on March 27, 1979. These momentous events were followed by the signing of the Oslo accord between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in September 1993 and the Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty of July 1994. In addition, since the Madrid conference of November 1991, Israel and Syria have continued to engage in direct negotiations. More recent events that mark a dramatic shift in Israeli-Arab relations include Israel?s establishment of diplomatic relations with Morocco, Oman, Qatar, and Tunisia, as well as discussions on a framework for multilateral talks on economic issues, the environment, and arms control and regional security. These events also suggest a fundamental change in Arab attitudes toward Israel that is unlikely to reverse itself despite the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian con?ict and fallout from the 2003 U.S. war in Iraq. If, as its adherents suggest, Israel?s nuclear policy was a key factor in producing this shift, then it has had unintended consequences that may have even surpassed the intended objective of deterring an all-out Arab attack.70 A hidden assumption in the argument that Israel?s nuclear policy has helped to bring Arab leaders to the negotiating table is that Arab states had resisted serious negotiations with Israel until its development of a nuclear capability. However, a close review of the public and secret diplomacy over the last halfcentury or so reveals a number of Arab peace initiatives, including the 1949 Husni Za?im peace proposal,71 secret talks between Israel and Syria in the early 1950s,72 and secret negotiations between Moshe Sharett (Israeli foreign minister and prime minister) and President Nasser from 1953 to 1955.73 There are
The Mixed Blessing of Israel?s Nuclear Policy 65
Arabs know is a very ominous combination." "Mideast Brinkmanship: The Masada Complex and the Camel That Roared," Deutsche Presse Agentur, October 13, 2000. Also, in discussing the publication of Shai Feldman and Yiftah Shapir, eds., The Middle East Military Balance, 2000-2001 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2002), Feldman, head of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, noted: "Israel?s deterrent power remained robust, serving as a barrier against escalation to a regional war." He also stated that "in addition to its superior conventional weapons, . . . Israel had an edge because of Arab assessments that Israel possesses nuclear weapons." Quoted in "Israel?s Military Might Prevents Intifada Escalating to Regional Con?ict: Study," Agence France-Presse, June 11, 2001.
70. Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in theMiddle East, pp. 160-164, argues that Sadat was not only convinced of the futility of pursuing the destruction of Israel, but was also concerned with the possibly destructive implications of a future war in the Middle East.
71. Itamar Rabinovich, The Road Not Taken: Early Arab-Israeli Negotiations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991); Aryeh Shalev, The Israel-Syria Armistice Regime, 1949-1955 (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1994); and Maoz, Syria and Israel, pp. 21-26.
72. Maoz, Syria and Israel, pp. 29-37; and Shalev, The Israel-Syria Armistice Regime, pp. 99-161.
73. Gabriel Sheffer, Moshe Sharett: Biography of a Political Moderate (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 654-655, 667. Haim Handweker, "Twenty-four Years before Sadat," Ha?aretz, February 1, 2002, reports on top secret documents found in the West German foreign ministry that inmany reasons why none of these peace initiatives advanced very far, not the least of which was their rejection by Israeli decisionmakers.74 In addition, Israeli military operations supported by hard-liners such as Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan proved successful in derailing the diplomatic efforts of moderates such as Sharett.75
Actions such as the Gaza raid of February 28, 1955, the military escalation along the Israeli-Jordanian border in 1955, the 1956 Sinai War, Israel?s 1957-67 periphery policy (which included military and intelligence interventions in the internal affairs of Arab and Muslim states),76 and possible leaks about the development of the Israeli nuclear project posed signiŽcant challenges to Arab-Israeli diplomacy in the late 1950s and Žrst half of the 1960s. These did not, however, preclude a number of secret exchanges between Israeli and Egyptian diplomats, as well as between Israeli ofŽcials and Jordan?s King Hussein.77 Moreover, following the 1967 war, Arab and Israeli diplomats chose to renew their negotiations. In contrast to the prevailing Israeli perception at the time, the Egyptians saw the Khartoum Resolution of September 1967 as a signal to Israel of a possible agreement on the basis of the pre-1967 war boundaries. 78 Other examples of Arab willingness to work toward a peaceful settlement include Nasser?s positive response to the Rogers peace initiative of 1969, the terms of the August 1970 cease-Žre agreement that ended the War of Attrition, and Sadat?s initiative of February 4, 1971, aimed at a limited agreement with Israel.79
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cluded a July 1953 request by Nasser for assistance from German diplomats on mediating between Egypt and Israel.
74. See Rabinovich, The Road Not Taken, p. 68; Maoz, Syria and Israel, pp. 24-26, 29-31; Shalev, The Israel-Syria Armistice Regime, p. 35; and Sheffer, Moshe Sharett, pp. 789-790.
75. Sheffer, Moshe Sharett, pp. 760-761; Benny Morris, Israel?s Border Wars, 1949-1956: Arab InŽltrations, Israeli Retaliation, and the Countdown to the Suez War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 335; and Zeev Maoz, "Israeli Intervention in Intra-Arab Affairs," in AbrahamBen-Zvi and Aharon Klieman, eds., World Politics: Essays in Honor of David Vital (London: Frank Cass, 2001), pp. 141-143.
76. Maoz, "Israeli Intervention in Intra-Arab Affairs," pp. 142-143.
77. Avi Shlaim, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (New York:W.W. Norton, 2000), provides an extensive survey of many of these diplomatic exchanges, including the secret diplomacy of the early 1950s. Shlaim discusses an Egyptian initiative by Marshall Amer, the minister of war, to invite Meir Amit, head of the Mossad (Israel?s intelligence agency), to Cairo in 1965. He also discusses meetings between King Hussein and Yaacov Herzog, director-general of the prime minister ?s ofŽce in 1963, and with Golda Meir in 1965. The meetings resulted in several important agreements on intelligence cooperation and water sharing. See ibid., especially pp. 226-228.
78. Meital, Egypt?s Struggle for Peace, pp. 41-46; and Riad, The Struggle for Peace in the Middle East, p. 57.
79. Meital, Egypt?s Struggle for Peace, pp. 86-97; Riad, The Struggle for Peace in theMiddle East; Sadat, In Search of Identity, pp. 259-260; and Gad Yaacobi, On the Razor?s Edge (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Yediot Aharonot, 1990).
A growing amount of documentary and secondary evidence involving numerous secret meetings between King Hussein and various Israeli policymakers, as well as extensive intelligence cooperation on a range of issues, suggest that Israel and Jordan have been in a de facto state of peace since the late 1960s.80 None of this evidence indicates that the nuclear issue was ever a subject of these discussions. Indeed the factors that explain this de facto peace seem unrelated to the nuclear issue, as do those explaining the absence of a peace treaty between the two countries. Rather, most of the factors that contributed to peace between Tel Aviv and Amman involved changes in the two countries? policies toward the West Bank and the Palestinians.81 Overall, the evidence suggests a pattern of Israeli hesitation--and, on occasion, intransigence--that was rooted in mistrust of the opponent as well as in a reluctance to make the necessary territorial concessions.82 In addition, Israeli leaders? self-conŽdence in their ability either to dictate better peace terms or to prosper without peace caused them to consistently assume uncompromising positions.83 Israel?s nuclear policy may have been a factor here, but there is no evidence thus far linking Israeli-Arab diplomacy and Israel?s nuclear policy.
Israel became an undeclared nuclear weapons state in 1967, the same year as another watershed event: Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip during the Six Day War. These territories have provided Israel with a valuable bargaining chip in the land-for-peace formula that continues to be the basis for negotiations.84 The roots of the peace process before and after the 1973 war are found in Israeli policy toward these territories, rather than in the effect of Israel?s nuclear program on the Arab states.
The Mixed Blessing of Israel?s Nuclear Policy 67
80. Shlaim, The Iron Wall. On September 20, 1973, Golda Meir met King Hussein who warned her of an impending Egyptian-Syrian attack on Israel. The Israelis discounted or ignored this information, viewing it as unreliable. See Bar-Joseph, The Watchman Fell Asleep, pp. 243-244.
81. Shlaim, The Iron Wall; Moshe Zak, Hussein Makes Peace: Forty Years and Another Year on the Road to Peace (Hebrew) (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1996); and Mark Tessler, A History of the Israeli-Palestinian Con?ict (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994).
82. On Israeli attitudes and responses to these initiatives, see Yaacobi, On the Razor?s Edge, pp. 80-
86, 101-143; Mordechai Gazit, The Middle East Peace Process, 1969-73 (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv:
Ha?Kibbutz Ha?Meuchad, 1984); and Meron Medzini, The Proud Jewess: Golda Meir and the Vision of Israel (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Edanim, 1991), pp. 397-402. See also the sources in note 81.
83. The key expression to this attitude is re?ected in Dayan?s statement: "We [the Israelis] would rather have Sharm a-Sheikh without peace, than peace without Sharm a-Sheikh." Shlaim, Israel and the Arab World, especially pp. 283-318, provides a penetrating insight into Israel?s policy during this period.
84. The centrality of this agenda is perhaps best illustrated by the fact that all peace negotiations are based on UN resolutions 242 and (after the 1973 war) 338, which adopt the land-for-peace formula. The subscription of all actors in the region to these resolutions suggests that the willingness to make the land-for-peace trade-off helped to create the shift toward peace in the post-1973 era. There is also no explicit admission in any of the Arab documents, memoirs, studies, or media reports on Sadat?s peace initiative or on other states? decisions to enter the peace process that Israel?s nuclear status was a factor. On the other hand, there are clear indications that Israel?s conventional capabilities in?uenced Egyptian and subsequent Syrian decisions to enter into negotiations.
The outcome of the 1973 war created a twofold incentive for peace. First, it enabled the Egyptians to depict the outcome as a major victory, thereby removing the banner of shame from their armed forces. In addition, Sadat could portray Egypt?s military accomplishments as evidence of the destruction of the myth of the Israeli army?s invincibility and the reassertion of Egyptian selfcon Ždence. In effect, these successes allowed Sadat to negotiate from a position of honor.85
Second, and more important, the Egyptians and Syrians realized that despite their militaries? favorable starting positions, the costs of the 1973 war had been substantial. Together, the two countries lost more than 13,000 soldiers, 2,500 tanks, and 500 planes.86 In addition, Israeli forces succeeded in penetrating deep into Egyptian and Syrian territory. Indeed, had it not been for the U.S.-Soviet imposition of a cease-Žre, substantial segments of Egypt?s and Syria?s armed forces would have likely been destroyed. Ultimately, the leaders in Cairo and Damascus reasoned that the chances of recapturing the occupied territories by force were slim. Their only viable option therefore was to regain them through peace. Israel?s nuclear capability was irrelevant to this calculus.87
The 1973 war also forced a fundamental shift among Israelis, as they came to realize the limits of their state?s military power and the costs of continued con?ict. The war also shook their conŽdence. Indeed, if the nuclear option had any impact, it is because it convinced already-skeptical leaders such as Prime
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85. Sadat, In Search of Identity, p. 289; Meital, Egypt?s Struggle for Peace, pp. 125-126; Gamassy, The Ramadan War, p. 150; and Heikal, The Road to Ramadan, pp. 208-210.
86. Dupuy, Elusive Victory; Anthony H. Cordesman, After the Storm: The Changing Military Balance in the Middle East (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1993), pp. 5-6; and Michael N. Barnett, Confronting the Costs of War: Military Power, State, and Society in Egypt and Israel (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992), pp. 128-152.
87. Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, pp. 162-163, bases this argument on Egyptian demands that Israel sign the NPT as a condition of a peace settlement. The failure to accomplish the latter objective formed the basis for criticism of Sadat?s initiative. Among the critics were Ismail Fahmy, a prominent Egyptian diplomat, and Gen. Sa?ad Shazly. Ibid., p. 163. The fact remains, however, that the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty survived Israeli refusal to join the NPT regime.
Minister Yitzhak Rabin that nuclear deterrence was irrelevant to issues of war and peace. (This is why Rabin sought interim agreements with Egypt.88) In sum, it is more likely that Israeli conventional deterrence--or what some observers have called Israel?s "cumulative deterrence"--was instrumental in changing Arab attitudes toward reaching a peaceful settlement. Contributing, perhaps decisively, to this shift were the following factors: repeated Arab military defeats in major wars; the cumulative impact of human, material, and territorial losses in?icted by these wars and short-of-war confrontations; and the growing image of Israeli resolve and superior conventional capabilities.89 Moreover, the willingness of the Israeli leadership to pay a territorial price for peace, much more so than the Arab willingness to negotiate, may have been a decisive factor in contributing to the 1973 postwar peace process. Israel?s nuclear policy was, at best, marginally relevant in this respect.
Domestic Implications of Israel?s Nuclear Policy
The Israeli security establishment may try to seek comfort in the belief that the doctrine of nuclear ambiguity is secure, having supposedly allowed Israel to develop and maintain its nuclear arsenal while resisting international pressures either to disarm or to allow inspection of its nuclear facilities.90 Israel, however, is not an ambiguous nuclear power, but rather an undeclared nuclear power. Apart from ample evidence based on publicized intelligence estimates, as well as statements by Arab and Western ofŽcials, the Israeli public has been overwhelmingly convinced of this fact. In a 1986 survey, 92 percent of respondents were either certain or "pretty sure" that Israel possessed nuclear weapons.91
Although the Israeli public has generally supported its country?s nuclear posture, this support has eroded over time. In a 1987 poll, 80 percent of respon-
The Mixed Blessing of Israel?s Nuclear Policy 69
88. Inbar, Rabin and Israel?s National Security, pp. 119-122.
89. See Doron Almog, "The Israeli Strategy of Deterrence as a Model of Accumulated Deterrence," M.A. thesis, University of Haifa, 1995; and Uri Bar-Joseph, "Variations on a Theme: The Conceptualization of Deterrence in Israeli Strategic Thinking," Security Studies, Vol. 7, No. 3 (Spring 1998), pp. 145-181.
90. In a television program entitled "A Bomb in the Basement," aired on November 11, 2001, Shimon Peres stated: "Had Israel performed a nuclear test, it would have invited tremendous [international] pressure. You know, there is some pleasure in the [nuclear] ambiguity, just as there is deterrence in the ambiguity. We have chosen ambiguity--deterrence towards the Arabs, and pleasure towards friends."
91. Asher Arian, Security Threatened: Surveying Israeli Opinion on War and Peace (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 71.
dents backed Israeli nuclear ambiguity, whereas in 2002 only 61 percent did.92 Israeli opinions varied, however, on scenarios that would justify the use of nuclear weapons. For example, in a 1999 survey, 26 percent of respondents opposed the use of nuclear weapons in the event of a chemical or biological attack on Israel; nearly 56 percent rejected the use of nuclear weapons even if Israel were facing a potentially overwhelming conventional military threat; more than 80 percent would not support the use of nuclear weapons if the Golan Heights were taken by force; more than 83 percent would not want Israel to use nuclear weapons "to save many lives"; and 90 percent opposed using nuclear weapons "instead of the regular army."93
These Žgures strongly suggest that most Israelis would justify the use of nuclear weapons only as a last resort. The secrecy surrounding the development and deployment of nuclear weapons, however--especially in light of the deliberate (as well as unintended) leaks regarding Israel?s nuclear capability--suggests a potential disconnect between the public?s perception of the purpose of Israel?s nuclear weapons and their purpose as understood by the Israeli leadership.
This difference in perception raises three questions. First, are the quantity and types of Israel?s nuclear weapons consistent with the public image of them as weapons of last resort, which in turn helps to legitimize the policy of ambiguity? Second, is there effective political control over both the doctrine and development of these weapons? Third, is the Israeli public aware of the potentially destabilizing effects of offensive nuclear weapons, and would they support the development of such weapons?
Some sources indicate that Israel?s nuclear arsenal includes both a signiŽcant overkill capacity as well as tactical nuclear weapons.94 Given that the Israeli
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92. Asher Arian, Israeli Public Opinion on National Security, Memorandum No. 49 (Tel Aviv: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University 1998), p. 31; and Asher Arian, Israeli Public Opinion on National Security, Memorandum No. 61 (Tel Aviv: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, 2002), p. 34.
93. Asher Arian, Israeli Public Opinion on National Security, Memorandum No. 53 (Tel Aviv: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University 1999). For a distribution of such opinions over the 1986-93 period, see Arian, Security Threatened, pp. 72-73. In the 2002 survey, only 16.75 percent favored nuclear retaliation to a chemical or biological missile attack. Arian, Israeli Public Opinion on National Security, Memorandum No. 61, p. 34.
94. See Hersh, The Samson Option, pp. 199-200; and Farr, "The Third Temple?s Holy of Holies." See also the Federation of Atomic Scientists, http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/index.html; the Monterey Institute of International Studies Report on Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East, http://cns.miis.edu/research/wmdme/israel.htm#2; and the related sources on which these reports rely. On the possible use of tactical weapons on the battleŽeld, see Timothy Garden, Can Deterrence Last? Peace through a Nuclear Strategy (London: Buchan and Enright, 1984), chaps. 8-9. Garden describes Israel?s current posture as "deterrence by denial of victory." public opposes the use of tactical nuclear weapons, how does the government justify their production? What are the doctrinal requirements for which these weapons were produced?
The possibility that Israel possesses a wide range of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons grossly distorts the notion of the "Samson option" that the government has disseminated to the Israeli public. The regime of secrecy surrounding Israel?s nuclear policy makes this distinction possible. Nuclear ambiguity may not only keep the Arabs guessing; it may also foster public support for the policy in the na?ve belief that a logical consistency exists between the deterrent role of these weapons and the quantity and types of weapons produced.
There are two possible explanations for the discrepancy between the professed aims of Israel?s nuclear policy and the quantity and types of weapons systems that Israel has produced. The Žrst explanation is that Israel has shifted from a deterrence-oriented nuclear policy to one that is more offensively oriented, with perhaps even an imperialist strand.95 This explanation adds another rationale to Israel?s policy of nuclear ambiguity: It is presumably designed to mask not only the weapons but also the doctrine of nuclear deployment and use. An examination of Israel?s foreign policy since the 1973 war indicates, however, that this explanation is inconsistent with Israel?s demonstrated willingness--regardless of the party in power--to make territorial concessions on all fronts. Indeed, the tactical nuclear weapons attributed to Israel are not in keeping with the willingness or ability of Israel to hold on to the territories it has occupied in 1967.96
The second explanation asserts that technological considerations and bureaucratic inertia, rather than an overarching strategic logic, have driven Israeli research, development, and production of nuclear weapons. In other words, Israeli scientists set out to develop the most sophisticated weapons systems that their technological capabilities could afford, while the bureaucrats in the defense establishment sought to maximize their budgets. As in other types of
The Mixed Blessing of Israel?s Nuclear Policy 71
95. See Levite and Landau, Israel?s Nuclear Image, pp. 24, 52-53, 56; Emily Landau, Egypt and Israel in ACRS: Bilateral Concerns in an Arms Control Process, Memorandum No. 55 (Tel Aviv: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, 2001), p. 23; and Yair Evron, Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East (Washington, D.C: Henry L. Stimson Center, 1998), p. 18.
96. In fact, several scholars as well as left-wing politicians strongly support Israel?s nuclear posture as a means for ensuring the peace once the occupied territories are returned. See Feldman, Israeli Nuclear Deterrence, pp. 237-243. See also the statement by Shimon Peres in a press conference on July 13, 1998, in which he said that Israel "built a nuclear option not in order to have a Hiroshima but an Oslo." Cited in Michael Barletta and Christina Ellington, Israel?s Nuclear Posture Review, CNS Issue Brief on WMD in the Middle East (Monterey, Calif.: Monterey Institute of International Studies, December 1998), http://cns.miis.edu/research/wmdme/israelnc.htm. military-industrial complexes, this coalition exaggerated the threat, "romanticized" the weapons and delivery systems, and used other ploys to create a reality that was inconsistent with or even contradicted the strategic logic of deterrence and the use of nuclear weapons only as a last resort.97 Yet unlike many other military-industrial complexes, the Israeli nuclear community enjoyed almost absolute freedom of operation, for three reasons: (1) the secrecy surrounding the project, (2) the almost nonexistent doctrinal discussion in political and academic forums, and (3) the lack of political control and oversight. Furthermore, some of the politicians responsible for Israel?s nuclear policy were themselves infatuated with the technology. As a result, they may have been tempted by the scientists and weapons developers into supporting efforts to explore the frontiers of weapons development. Others may have had more political motivations.98
The disconnect between the public image of Israel?s nuclear capabilities and the government?s nuclear doctrine requires more elaboration than is possible here. Nevertheless, the public should be aware of the potentially destabilizing implications of Israel?s possession of nuclear weapons other than as weapons of last resort--especially given that Israel?s strategic competitors may already have this knowledge. If Arab leaders believe that Israel possesses tactical nuclear weapons, and if they believe that Israel would use them on the battle Želd, then their incentive to target these weapons at the outset of a confrontation would be very high. The escalatory potential of such weapons runs contrary to the professed aim of deterrence. The Israeli public and their political institutions may nonetheless decide to support the development and possession of tactical nuclear weapons. Such support must be the result of open
International Security 28:2 72
97. Given the secrecy that surrounds this issue, direct evidence on this point is difŽcult to obtain. Indirect evidence, however, is available. See, for example, Munya Mardor?s Rafael (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Defense Ministry Publishing House, 1981). Mardor, a former director-general of the Israeli Weapons Development Authority, lists a large number of "initiatives from below" regarding the development of sophisticated weapons systems. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, especially pp. 223-235, and Hersh, The Samson Option, pp. 216-218, also mention several bureaucratic struggles and initiatives that suggest that efforts to miniaturize weapons and diversify delivery systems were not necessarily consistent with the logic of deterrence.
98. Rabin, Personal Service File, p. 526, recounts an episode in 1976 when Defense Minister Peres was seeking to increase the defense budget, stating that the IDF could not be held responsible for any consequences resulting from a cut in the budget. In Battling for Peace, p. 149, Peres noted that "every defense minister Žghts for [a] higher budget," and that he did not intend to subvert Rabin?s authority. It is not inconceivable that nuclear weapons production and delivery systems were among the items being debated. Cohen, Israel?s Last Taboo, notes that when Benjamin Netanyahu was prime minister, he too was taken with nuclear weapons-related technology and gave a broad mandate to experts in the nuclear research and development community. discussion, however, not a bureaucratic fait accompli made in secrecy with little or no governmental, parliamentary, or public oversight. Israel?s nuclear policy has never been subject to a comprehensive evaluation. As a result, some of the major implications of this policy, such as its effect on the nonconventional arms race in the Middle East, have been all but ignored.99 Most Israeli studies of nonconventional weapons in the region depict the development and acquisition of such weapons as almost independent of Israel?s other capabilities.Moreover, Israeli strategists often minimize or ignore the impact of Israel?s nuclear capability on Egyptian and Syrian nonconventional weapons development.
Israeli scholars typically interpret the desire of Arab states to acquire weapons of mass destruction as being motivated by considerations other than concern about Israel?s nuclear status.100 One Israeli analyst views Egyptian concerns in this regard as "not entirely born of the direct threat that these presumed weapons pose to Egypt." According to Emily Landau, "Egypt?s quest for a nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East may be grounded in its interest in leading the Arab world on the nuclear issue, i.e., using the nuclear issue as a means of consolidating its leadership position in the Arab world. . . . [as well as] Egypt?s interest in the nature of the Middle East once peace agreements have been achieved--in this future Middle East, Israel would most likely be Egypt?s foremost rival for regional power, and Egypt was reluctant to reach this stage with Israel as a nuclear power."101 Other accounts suggest that the ultimate goal of Egypt?s NWFZ proposal is to force Israeli nuclear disarmament, thereby freeing the Egyptians to renew hostilities without fear of nuclear retaliation. These notions are driven by the assumption that Israel?s nuclear policy has been phenomenally successful, and hence any effort to change it would severely threaten the country?s security. In sum, Israel?s policy of ambiguity and the cloud of secrecy surrounding it pre-
The Mixed Blessing of Israel?s Nuclear Policy 73
99. In 1998, Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai authorized a comprehensive study of Israel?s security doctrine. Public sources suggest that the study?s participants concluded that Israel?s nuclear policy--including the issue of ambiguity--did not require fundamental changes. See Barletta and Ellington, "Israel?s Nuclear Posture Review." The study ended in February 1999, when Mordechai resigned from the defense ministry.
100. See, for example, Feldman, Nuclear Proliferation and Arms Control in the Middle East; and Danny Shoham, Chemical and Biological Weapons in the Arab Countries and Iran: An Existential Threat to Israel? (Hebrew) (Shaarei Tikva: Ariel Center for Policy Research, 2001). Two exceptions that consider Israeli nuclear weapons as part of the threat perceptions of both Egypt and Syria are Evron, Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East; and Evron, Israel?s Nuclear Dilemma.
101. Landau, Egypt and Israel in ACRS, p. 24.
vent any serious discussion of the relationship between the strategic logic of Israel?s nuclear strategy and its actual capabilities.102
Conclusions and Policy Implications
Israel?s nuclear policy is fraught with paradoxes, one of which is particularly noteworthy. From the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, when Israel?s nuclear option was still only an option, there was considerable debate in the Israeli policy and security communities regarding the advisability of developing a nuclear deterrent and its potential implications for the Arab-Israeli con?ict. A number of prominent Israeli strategists--including Yigal Allon, Yitzhak Rabin, and possibly Ariel Sharon--opposed the investment in nuclear weapons on both Žnancial and strategic grounds. This debate occurred when the conventional military balance was only slightly in Israel?s favor. A key argument of the opponents of the nuclear option was that Israel?s conventional capabilities were sufŽcient to deter an Arab attack, and if deterrence failed, to decide the war in Israel?s favor.103 Four decades later, when Israel possesses a signiŽcant conventional edge over any possible Arab coalition--in both quantitative and qualitative terms--there is virtually no debate in Israel concerning the wisdom of maintaining its nuclear capability.104
There is, however, an even more perplexing paradox. One possible reason for the decline in the substantive discussion of Israel?s nuclear policy is that the Israeli policy establishment, the Israeli academic community, and the Israeli public have by and large come to consider Israel?s nuclear policy as an
International Security 28:2 74
102. Other domestic implications of the ambiguity surrounding Israel?s nuclear status involve questions of morality, legality, and the potential effects on the environment and public health. For a provocative and comprehensive discussion of the policy of ambiguity, both in the nuclear realm and in the realm of Israeli chemical and biological weapons programs, see Cohen, Israel?s Last Taboo.
103. For the key arguments in this debate, see Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, pp. 148-151; Evron, Israel?s Nuclear Dilemma, pp. 5-7; and Evron, "Israel and the Atom." Hersh, The Samson Option, p. 65, also mentions Levi Eshkol and Pinhas Sapir as opposing the nuclear project on Žnancial grounds.
104. On the military balance, see Shai Feldman and Yiftah Shapir, The Middle East Military Balance, 2000-2001 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2001); and Shmuel Gordon, The Military Capability Project, presentation at the annual Herzeliyah conference, "The New Strategic Landscape," December 2, 2002. For the Hebrew PowerPoint presentation, see http://www1.idc.ac.il/ips/content/2002m1Gordonheb_Žles/frame.htm. The only debate in recent years regarding the nuclear issue is if, when, and under what circumstances Israel should abandon its nuclear ambiguity posture. See Barletta and Ellington, "Israel?s Nuclear Posture Review"; and Zeev Schiff, "How Long Can Nuclear Ambiguity Last?" Ha?aretz, August 24, 2000, http://www.fas.org/news/israel/000824- israel.htm. I thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this paradox. unqualiŽed success.105 Nevertheless, on the eve of the 2003 U.S. attack on Iraq, the Israeli public as well as many in Israel?s security community saw an Iraqi missile strike, perhaps with chemical or biological warheads, as a real possibility. So, nuclear deterrence is believed to be second to none when it comes to security, except when it is put to the test. Then there is general agreement that Israel?s nuclear capability cannot deter a committed adversary.106 Several conclusions ?ow from this analysis. First, the notion that Israel?s nuclear policy has provided an effective deterrent against an all-out attack by an Arab coalition is tenuous. There is no evidence that any of the likely members of such a coalition has expended the human and material resources required for such an attack. This lack of evidence suggests that Ben-Gurion and his followers overplayed the potential threat and that skeptics such as Allon, Gallili, and Rabin were correct in their belief that Israel?s conventional capability was a sufŽcient deterrent.
Second, there is no direct evidence that Israel?s nuclear capability worked to limit Arab operational plans. Nor did the arming of Israeli nuclear weapons have a noticeable effect on Arab actions at times of war. Available evidence suggests, however, that political objectives and Israel?s conventional capability were prime considerations in the Egyptian and Syrian calculations in the 1973 war. It also indicates that technical considerations or U.S. deterrence (or perhaps both) possibly had a more pronounced effect than Israeli threats of nuclear retaliation on the Iraqi decision to refrain from Žring chemical warheads at Israel during the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Third, there is no direct evidence connecting Israel?s nuclear capability to the willingness of the Arab states and the Palestinians to negotiate with Israel. Numerous peace initiatives had their origins in either Syria or Egypt prior to the The Mixed Blessing of Israel?s Nuclear Policy 75
105. Avner Cohen, Israel?s Last Taboo, cites journalist Zeev Schiff as having said: "If I had to choose a single idea that deserves the Israel Prize [a prestigious prize given by the Israeli government to individuals and institutions for their contribution to science, society, and security], I would choose whoever invented the policy of nuclear ambiguity without hesitation." In a survey conducted in the spring of 2002, the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot asked readers to rank order the Žfty most successful decisions in Israel?s history. The decision to build the Dimona reactor came Žrst with a large margin from the second most successful decision.
106. Iraq did not Žre any missiles at Israel during the 2003 engagement. At the time this article went to press, however, there was no evidence that Iraq possessed long-range missiles capable of hitting Israel. Nor is there evidence that Iraq possessed meaningful stockpiles of chemical and biological warheads for long-rangemissiles. I do not have sufŽcient information to discuss this war in terms of Israeli nuclear policy. Israeli preparations for the war do indicate, however, a lack of conŽdence among the public and the government in the deterrent potential of Israel?s nuclear arsenal.
inception of the nuclear project, during the initial phases of this project, or after the project had reached operational status. The holdout in many of these cases was Israel, not the Arab states. What brought about not only direct negotiations but also a series of agreements was the eventual willingness of Israeli leaders to trade territory for peace, a result due in part to the realization that neither the occupied territories nor Israel?s nuclear weapons bolster security. Fourth, the regime of secrecy surrounding Israel?s "ambiguous" or "undeclared" nuclear status precludes balanced and open debate about this policy. Furthermore, most scholarly work in this area has been uncritical and selfserving, championing the establishment?s view of the decidedly positive balance sheet of this policy and discounting calls for nuclear disarmament. Fifth, this lack of self-examination has prevented open and frank discussion of the logical and operational pitfalls of Israel?s nuclear policy. Even if one supports a nuclear deterrence posture, there are many ways to go about implementing such a policy. It is far from clear whether the contours of Israel?s nuclear policy and its doctrinal and operational components are consistent with the goals of nuclear deterrence.
So what are the policy implications of this analysis? Should Israel renounce nuclear weapons? The answer I suggest is yes, but for a price. In return for greater regional security, Israel must give up its nuclear weapons.107 To explain this thesis, it is useful to consider Israel?s policy vis-?-vis the occupation of Arab territories following the 1967 Six Day War. Since the occupation, many Israelis have developed a cult-like devotion to these territories. Followers adhere to the belief that the territories have signiŽcantly enhanced Israeli security: Not only do they prevent or limit the likelihood of war, but they increase the prospects for a peaceful settlement to the dispute.108 Since the
International Security 28:2 76
107. Only a few members of Israel?s security community have called for reconsideration of Israel?s approach to disarmament. See, for example, Shmuel Gordon, "The Iranian Threat," Yediot Aharonot, May 28, 2002, http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/1,7340,L-1914319,00.html; Oded Balaban, "A Recipe to Regional Con?agration," Ha?aretz, June 6, 2002, p. 82; and Meir Pa?il, "Israel?s Wars: Toward the 50th Anniversary of the State of Israel," in Sara Aharoni andMeir Aharoni, eds., People and Deeds in Israel (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Miksam, 1998). These voices represent a small minority within Israel?s security community.
108. The Israeli right?s notion of continued occupation of the territories as a foundation for peace is based not on the land-for-peace formula, but on the peace-for-peace formula, wherein Israel agrees not to attack the Arab states or defeat them in war in exchange for peace treaties, diplomatic relations, and open borders. For an example of this vision, see Benjamin Netanyahu, A Durable Peace (New York:Warner Books, 1993), pp. 321-352. See also Shlaim?s discussion of this conception in his historical survey of Israeli policy toward the Arab world, The Iron Wall, especially pp. 447- 457, 564-575.
1973 Yom Kippur War, however, this has not been the prevailing view. A growing conviction has developed among Israelis that the occupation has not contributed to Israel?s security; it has not prevented war; and it has not made war less costly. Indeed Israelis are increasingly concluding that (1) the occupation is decreasing Israel?s security, and (2) it is having a corrupting in?uence on Israeli society and its value system.
As a security asset, the territories are a tradable commodity. Indeed, since the Sadat peace initiative, most Israelis have come to embrace the land-forpeace formula, despite a variety of setbacks--including, most recently, the second intifada, which began in September 2000.109 In the end, trading territories for peace will increase Israel?s security, its international standing, and its wellbeing. Once the link between nuclear capability and security is broken, Israel should be willing to use its nuclear card as leverage to achieve veriŽable conventional and nonconventional arms control and disarmament agreements with its Arab neighbors as well as Iran and states in North Africa. These agreements should be part of a regional security regime that would not only guarantee a weapons of mass destruction-free zone, but would also include a number of institutions and arrangements that would enable the peaceful resolution ofdisputes, ensure transparency, and guarantee the security and territorial integrity of all members. The regime should be comprehensive and involve as manystates as possible.
Paradoxically, just as Israel?s nuclear policy paved the way for a massive arms race in the region, it can be used as the trump card in a regional agreement on arms control and disarmament. If there is a lesson to be learned from the peace process thus far, it is that Israel would be better off to engage in this kind of trade now, rather than being forced into it later, perhaps after these weapons have been used in combat.
The Mixed Blessing of Israel?s Nuclear Policy 77
109. See the Peace Index, Ha?aretz, March 5, 2002, p. B3; Asher Arian, Israeli Public Opinion on National Security, 2001, Memorandum No. 60 (Tel Aviv: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, 2001), p. 12. In the wake of the most recent wave of terrorist suicide attacks against Israeli citizens, however, many Israelis have begun to seriously question the land-for-peace formula.

China's New Rulers: The Secret Files
Richard B Khoe. SAIS Review. Washington: Summer 2003. Vol. 23, Iss. 2; pg. 239, 5 pgs
Abstract (Article Summary)
Khoe reviews "China's New Rulers: The Secret Files" by Andrew J. Nathan and Bruce Gilley.

Full Text (1632 words)
Copyright Johns Hopkins University Press Summer 2003



China's New Rulers: The Secret Files, by Andrew J. Nathan and Bruce Gilley. (New York: The New York Review of Books, 2002). 237 pp. $22.

China long has conjured up a sense of mystery and intrigue among Western observers. Just thirty-five years ago during the Cultural Revolution, Western intelligence analysts were starved for knowledge about the insular country and reportedly relied on Hong Kong's market stalls as a vital information source. They eagerly scoured through trash piles to retrieve the newspapers wrapped around vegetables grown nearby in China's Guangdong Province, hoping to find precious bits of information about that country's basic living conditions, government policies, and political leadership. Of course, China has been fundamentally transformed since that time. Communism as an economic system now exists in name only, replaced by a rapidly expanding market-based system. Information about China and its people is now plentiful, perhaps to the extent of analytical paralysis.

One thing that has not changed, however, is the relative lack of information about China's political system and its leaders. At the Sixteenth Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Congress in November 2002, an entire bloc of younger cadres known as the "fourth generation" was elevated to the party's highest leadership positions. At the head of this group is Hu Jintao, who now holds two of the three key leadership positions-President and CCP General Secretary-that constitute supreme power in China. Hu is expected eventually to assume the third main position as Chairman of the Central Military Commission from Jiang Zemin. Remarkably little is known about Hu and his fourth generation peers, such as Wen Jiabao, Zeng Qinghong, and Wu Bangguo, who have assumed greater prominence in this era of increased collective leadership. Thus, China's New Rulers: The Secret Files, by Andrew J.. Nathan and Bruce Gilley, is a significant contribution to understanding who these new leaders are and how they think. The book thought-- fully removes the aura of mystery that surrounds the fourth generation, which many observers believe will initiate some degree of political reform over time.

Nathan and Gilley's book is similar, in many respects, to the newspapers found in Hong Kong markets thirty-five years ago. Both fill a need for basic yet critical information, and both give their readers a perspective that is at once voyeuristic and genuine. China's New Rulers draws heavily upon the Chinese-language book Disidai ("The Fourth Generation"), whose author, writing under the pseudonym Zong Hairen, obtained secret documents compiled by the CCP's Organization Department.' These documents are the personnel files used by the CCP itself to evaluate candidates for top party posts and are the product of meticulous research and interviews by party investigators. This is not the first time Nathan has relied on so-called secret files to expose the arcane workings of Chinese politics. He is known most famously for The Tiananmen Papers,2 which documents, through internal party memos and notes, the tragic sequence of events that led to the CCP's decision to use force against its own people in June 1989. Nathan is banned from visiting China to this day, and the government has denied the authenticity of both Disidai and China's New Rulers, albeit with little conviction. Nathan's fellow collaborator is former Far Eastern Economic Review reporter Bruce Gilley, who has authored a wellreceived biography of Jiang Zemin.3

The book's most valuable contribution is its insight into the mysterious Hu-probably the least known of the world's important leaders. Throughout his career, Hu has built an impressive resume that reveals surprisingly little about him. It is tempting, but ultimately imprudent, to infer in Hu personal qualities that could lead to prospective actions (e.g., political reforms) based on the positions he has held. For example, many believe Hu to be sympathetic to the concerns of China's rural population-such as the growing disparity with the rich urban coast-because of his service as party secretary in three of China's most impoverished provinces, including Tibet. According to party files, however, his provincial tenure was not marked with distinction, nor is there evidence of any great concern on his part for rural development. Because Hu headed the school that grooms the CCP's most promising cadres for leadership positions when it taught courses on social democracy, some believe he may favor political reform. However, nothing Hu has actually said verifies these supposed liberal tendencies, and there is no confirmation he had directed or was even authorized to approve the school's curriculum. In fact, there is stronger evidence that Hu's tendencies are more authoritarian. As Tibet's provincial governor in 1989, Hu declared martial law in the face of social unrest, setting an important precedent for the events that unfolded in Beijing just three months later. Notably, Hu was the first provincial leader to congratulate Beijing after the Tiananmen crackdown.

Hu leaves an indelible impression of "ordinariness" that leads the reader to question how he rose to power in the first place. Powerful patrons, good fortune, and, indeed, the non-threatening nature of his ordinariness seem to be the deciding factors. The authors highlight that Hu's friendship with CCP elder Song Ping proved instrumental to his rapid rise, and when Song retired from his post on the powerful Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) in 1992, he lobbied hard for his protege to succeed him. Hu subsequently overtook peers with more substantive records of accomplishment when party elders decided the new PBSC member should be younger than fifty years old at the time of the 1992 Party Congress. (Hu was just three months shy.) As a result, Hu became the youngest PBSC member and was labeled the "core of the fourth generation of leadership." The PBSC slot effectively designated him as Jiang's eventual successor and led to official postings that were second in rank to Jiang, though largely of symbolic power. "What Hu did accomplish during his decade as heir apparent was to retain that status by staying out of the limelight," Nathan and Gilley write. He succeeded mainly by assuring a complex network of party factions that he did not threaten their interests, and, given that a high political position in China frequently leads to personal power and wealth, one cannot overstate the potency of these interests. Thus, Hu has demonstrated skillful political maneuvering, but he has shown little in the way of true leadership or consensus building.

The fourth generation figure that stands in contrast to Hu is Zeng Qinghong, Jiang's protege, who currently ranks fifth in the CCP hierarchy. China's New Rulers shows that unlike Hu, Zeng achieved a considerable amount in the last decade. He helped engineer the fall of three powerful rivals to Jiang, who rewarded him with a place in the CCP's inner circle. As head of the Organization Department, Zeng was responsible for making key personnel decisions and building up a loyal base of support to Jiang and himself, while Hu could only rubber-stamp these decisions. Zeng also played a leading role in crafting the "Three Represents" theory, which codifies the CCP's groundbreaking effort to admit capitalists into the party. Also in contrast to Hu, there is real evidence that Zeng may be a "closet reformer." His files describe him as "an ideological omnivore" who "feeds freely on whatever theory or idea seems to him the most practical way to make China a strong and respected nation." He has told friends he would be willing to reverse the official condemnation of 1989, increase competitive elections, and allow independent parties and media. Ironically, it is these liberal tendencies and his connection to Jiang that now obstruct his political ambitions. Zeng threatens the same vested interests that Hu successfully attracted. He received the largest numbers of "no" votes among current Politburo members and was limited to the fifth-- ranking position in the party despite his stellar record. Nevertheless, Zeng is a politician to watch closely and someone to whom the party may turn for strong and bold leadership.

China's New Rulers is not an impartial "who's who" of Chinese leadership. The authors inject a great deal of useful interpretive analysis with which readers may or may not agree. Also, because the book draws upon documents from the CCP itself, the source files themselves are "tainted." There is much to learn from the party's biases however, as the authors point out: "Most fascinating, the files tell us what the CCP sees when it looks in the mirror." By and large, the reflection is a reassuring one to Western readers. It reveals a party in the hands of younger and technically capable leaders who are well-intentioned and hold forward-looking views. Further, their stated foreign policy goals are rather benign and tend to disavow hegemonic ambitions.

As progressive as some of its stances are, however, the party remains ignorant of its glaring weaknesses. It seems little troubled that the domination of personal interests has potentially planted the seeds of its own undoing in the form of rampant corruption and weak leadership. The party also seems overly confident in its ability to shape people and events at will. Ironically, the explosion of economic dynamism that has strengthened China has inextricably tied the country's fortunes to global forces, for better or worse, and weakened the party's reach. The CCP response to problems within the scope of party control-rampant corruption and the weakness of stateowned industries and financial institutions-has been either feeble or ineffective. Thus, the best intentions of the party may matter little if internal weaknesses reach crisis conditions or are ignited by an external shock.

[Footnote]
Notes

[Footnote]
1 Zong Hairen, Disidai (New York: Mirror Books, 2002).
2 Zhang Liang, Andrew J. Nathan and Perry Link, eds., The Tiananmen Papers (New York: Public Affairs, 2001).
3 Bruce Gilley, Tiger on the Brink: Jiang Zemin and China's New Elite (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998).

[Author Affiliation]
Reviewed by Richard B. Khoe, M.I.P.P Johns Hopkins University, SAIS, 2003.

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"Avalanching" Bin Laden

By Stephen Brown
FrontPageMagazine.com | March 10, 2004

They are smoking the rats out of their holes.

The joint American-Pakistani military offensive, launched recently in the rugged Afghan-Pakistani border region, is making life difficult for Islamist forces. About 2,000 of the 12,000 American troops stationed in Afghanistan are involved in the action, dubbed "Operation Avalanche," to eliminate the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and other armed Islamist groups, and to capture their leaders. The American soldiers are positioned on the Afghan side of the border in what is termed a "hammer and anvil" operation: about 70,000 Pakistani troops are acting as the hammer to drive the Islamists across the border into the waiting American anvil.

At one point it was claimed that the allied forces had surrounded Osama bin Laden, however this turned out to be premature. Nevertheless, the military offensive has already achieved some successes. Besides the jihadists forced from their Pakistani refuge back across the Afghan border, the Pakistanis claim to have captured more than 20 foreigners, including nationals from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Yemen. As well, among their number was Khalid al-Zawahiri, son of Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who recently released a taped message that threatened more terrorist strikes against the United States. The Pakistanis have also arrested 15 people for aiding the Taliban.

The first phase of Operation Avalanche is taking place in the tribal areas of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. Created by the British as a buffer between pre-partition India and Afghanistan, the North-West Frontier Province is made up of seven different tribal areas and contains a population of about six million. The Pakistani government exercises little control in the province where, besides a safe haven, the Islamist groups find support and recruits among the mostly Pashtun population.

And with its long (2,400 kilometers), porous border with Afghanistan, the region has long been a thorn in the side of the American military and the Afghan government, as it was for the Soviets in the 1980s. Taliban and al-Qaeda adherents fled there after the American invasion of Afghanistan more than two years ago, where they continue to stage attacks against allied forces and UN aid workers. One hundred US soldiers alone have died in Afghanistan since the invasion.

Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf is cooperating in the hunt for bin Laden as well as in the battle against the new jihad forming against coalition troops in Afghanistan. Since 9/11, Pakistan has been an important ally of the United States in the War on Terror, having captured more than 550 suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives. Pakistani authorities have also allowed the FBI to set up office in their country where its officials interrogate captured terrorists, listen in on the communications network and conduct other intelligence gathering operations.

After 9/11, Pakistan pretty much had to join the American side in the War on Terror or suffer such consequences as aid reduction, refused loans, and a ban on weapons sales. America granted $395 million in aid to its ally last January, while another $3 billion has been promised to the South Asian country over the next five years. In addition, America will not sanction Pakistan for its role in the recently revealed nuclear proliferation scandal involving that country, receiving instead permission for American troops to operate on Pakistani territory in the spring.

The Pakistani army, often accused of hindering efforts against the Taliban due to Islamist sympathizers in its ranks, appears to be taking Operation Avalanche seriously. It has cut off all access into and out of the region and has ordered the tribes in the affected areas to cooperate or face such punishments as home demolitions. One observer says the tribesmen now cannot even drive around with tinted windows or they face three years in jail, confiscation of their vehicles and a $1,200 fine.

The strategy of the Islamist forces under attack is simply to lie low until the spring when they can launch their own offensive, possibly against Afghan cities. They will also continue their suicide bombing campaign. The Islamists have gained ground in Afghanistan in recent months, especially in the rural, southern Pashtun areas, and are threatening to undo all the gains made since the invasion.

The American-Pakistani offensive was launched at this time due to this worsening security situation in Afghanistan, which has caused a postponement of the Afghan elections, a step regarded as crucial in the rebuilding of the country. The campaign is meant to preempt any Islamist spring attack, as well. Besides, after two years in the country American forces believe they are much better prepared, intelligence- and military-wise, for such a large operation that is expected to last many months with the destruction of the Islamist forces as its ultimate goal. The capture of Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden, while a very welcome bonus, are of secondary importance.

Concurrent with military operations, efforts are also being made to split the Islamist resistance by offering certain leaders a roll in the Afghan political process if they cease their attacks. Nevertheless the current offensive, unlike others in the past, still has as its goal the complete destruction of all Islamist forces. This, it is realized, is an important prerequisite for any peaceful political solution in Afghanistan, something which that unfortunate country has long desperately needed.


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Stephen Brown is a journalist based in Toronto. He has an M.A. in Russian and Eastern European Studies. Email him at alsolzh@hotmail.com.

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Afghanistan: The spring trap is sprung
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - In a clear indication that the spring offensive against suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border will be launched soon, United States Secretary of State Colin Powell is scheduled to arrive in Pakistan on March 17, a visit that comes on the heels of British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's own journey to Islamabad last week. After Powell's trip, US Chief of Central Command General John Abizaid will also make his way to Pakistan.

These visits are all in preparation for the upcoming "game", one that will have broad consequences for the region. At a time when rebellious feelings are quickly taking root in the Pakistani tribal regions of South and North Waziristan - tribal leaders have unanimously demanded the withdrawal of Pakistani forces from the tribal areas - plans for the new operation are nearing their final stages.

An operation outline
The scope of the upcoming operation is far broader in both Afghanistan and Pakistan than it has been in the past, and is likely to be launched in April, according to high-level sources that spoke to Asia Times Online. An important development has already taken place on the Afghan front: access to Tora Bora has been restricted by international and Afghan military forces. While this piece of information made news around the globe, what is little known is that there is a truce between local Afghan military bosses in Jalalabad and local warlords associated with Hezb-i-Islami, the Afghanistan rebel group led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar that is spearheading the Afghan resistance movement.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the border in Pakistan's Khyber agency and surrounding areas, it is alleged that Osama bin Laden built bunkers and tunnels, echoing the path he took in the Tora Bora mountains, from where he escaped advancing US-led troops in early 2002 after the fall of the Taliban. Sources maintain that if bin Laden is not arrested in Khyber agency, it is unlikely he will be located as it is the only static refuge besides Tora. At the same time, the region is where guerrilla fighters take refuge for longer periods to plan their next guerrilla attack. This information is very much known to US authorities, which is why Khyber agency is one of the next targets for the operation against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

It is also believed that the spring operations will cover not only Afghan and the Pakistani tribal areas, but the city centers of both countries. The high-level sources say that the US is working to paralyze all possible support systems to the Taliban and al-Qaeda from cities in Pakistan.

In the next sweep, the US is expected to play an active role within Pakistan; however, the mission has been kept secret as this is a very sensitive issue in the country. The owners of major Pakistani press organizations have already been warned against coverage of events showing US involvement in Pakistan. And for foreign media correspondents, new proposals are under review to restrict their movements, as well as monitor their writing.

Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf, who faces significant domestic political pressure against US deployments in Pakistan, has repeatedly denied the presence of US troops.

Putting on the pressure
The US has already pressured Pakistan to take all the necessary steps to ensure the spring operation will be a success. In an extraordinary development highlighting the intricacies of the operation, the Corps Commander in Peshawar, Lieutenant-General Ali Jan Orakzai, has retired a month prematurely. Major General Safdar Hussain will take his place. Sources from Peshawar maintain that Orakzai will be installed as governor of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province in compensation for his premature retirement.

Orakzai has been in Washington's bad books since last year, when he visited the US and openly condemned the behavior of US authorities towards Pakistanis. Orakzai was an official guest, but was forced to go through a plethora of screenings and checks at the immigration counter on his arrival. As well as complaining about this particular incident, Orakzai spoke against what he felt was discriminatory behavior against Pakistanis at functions hosted by the Pakistani embassy in the US.

These changes in command come amid word that US authorities have made a special request: in the next phase of operations, all Pashtun officers should be separated from those officers actually involved in the spring offensive, whose names would be vetted by US authorities. (Pashtuns are generally sympathetic to the ethnic Pashtun Taliban.)

Orakzai is a Pashtun. Meanwhile, the new corps commander, Hussain, is from Punjab and enjoys good relations with US authorities. Previously posted in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) , where he coordinated with US forces, Hussain is highly knowledgeable about the north western Pakistani region. Traditionally, the Pakistan army has been dominated by Punjabi and Pashtun officers, but for the past two years Pashtun officers have been greatly cut to size. In recent promotions, 18 brigadiers were elevated to the position of major-general, while only one Pashtun was given the same title.

Elsewhere, a list of Pakistan's most-wanted terrorists has been compiled by a newly formed group called the Special Investigation Cell. This group is headed by a Federal Investigation Agency director from the Pakistani side and by a Central Intelligence Agency official from the US side. As per the list, several top jihadis were recently picked up and interrogated. These events were not reported in the media.

This correspondent spoke with one of the men picked up, who once belonged to the banned Lashkar-i-Taiba and who is now an inactive office bearer. He was previously picked up by ISI and US Federal Bureau of Investigation officials and jointly and separately interrogated by these agencies, which wanted to know the whereabouts of Arab fighters hiding in the port city of Karachi.

The man was given clearance after several days of interrogation, but was picked up again for the same reason, and once again set free after he went through several stages of screenings and investigations. He has been told that since he is on the US's most-wanted list, he will be in contact with these agencies in the future.

Under the new operation, many big names associated with the Jamaat-i-Islami, the Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam (Fazalur Rehman) , Jaish-i-Mohammed and the Lashkar-i-Taiba are expected to be interrogated. The names include Maulana Masood Azhar and Abdullah Shah Mazhar, two top-ranking jihadis.

At the same time, all those who previously fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan, since released from Afghan jails, will be required to report weekly to their local Afghan police stations and will occasionally be picked up by intelligence agencies for screening. Those Pakistanis released from Afghan jails will not be set free by Pakistani authorities and will be dealt with under a stringent legal clause.

From Kabul to Jalalabad and from Khyber agency to Karachi, an infrastructure is being put in place, all of which is being supervised by US authorities, to make the spring operations a success. The depth of these plans suggests that the battlefields will heat up in the near future, on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border. But whether these steps will actually help the US catch Osama remains the million-dollar question.

(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)



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Iran demands entry to nuclear club
By Safa Haeri

PARIS - Iran on Sunday surprised the international community, and above all the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), by seeking to join the world's atomic club, calling on its members for a prompt entry.

"We want Iran to be recognized as a member of the nuclear club, that means Iran be recognized as a country having the nuclear fuel cycle, and enriching uranium. This is very difficult for the world to accept," Hassan Rohani, the secretary of the Supreme Council for National Security (SCNS), announced ahead of an important meeting this week of the IAEA. Five countries are officially inside that club - the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France.

The UN agency meets in Vienna to tackle Iran's and Libya's nuclear programs, which have been fed by a global black market linked to the father of Pakistan's atom bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan. The governing board will consider two resolutions during the meeting, expected to last until Friday.

The first is Libya's long-secret atomic-weapons program, which Tripoli has agreed to dismantle under the supervision of the IAEA. The second issue is Iran, long accused by Washington, among others, of using its atomic-energy program as a front to build a bomb.

Tehran insists that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and has called on the IAEA to leave it alone. "The case concerning Iran's peaceful nuclear activities should be completely closed at the IAEA board of governors and removed from its agenda," Rohani said on state television on Sunday.

He added that it was time for the IAEA, which launched an intensive investigation into Iran's nuclear program 13 months ago, to confirm the Islamic Republic's innocence.

The "request" for membership to the atomic club by Rohani, who handles the complicated, complex and controversial issue of Iranian nuclear activities and who conducts the difficult and tortuous talks with the IAEA, means that Iran has the capacity of making nuclear weapons, a potential that most US and European experts and intelligence services put at between three and five years to achieve.

Whatever the reasons that motivated Tehran's move, diplomats and experts say that Rohani's declaration not only will not appease international concerns about Iran's determination to set up a nuclear arsenal, but also convince the United States and the European Union to increase pressures on the Islamic Republic to stop all its atomic projects, or face drastic international sanctions.

In a report to be published at the end of this month, David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a US-based non-profit research organization specializing in nuclear matters, will disclose that Iran has the capacity to produce enough enriched uranium to build some 30 nuclear warheads a year.

In Tehran on Sunday, Rohani told the inaugural session of the Assembly of Experts, a body made up of 82 senior clerics that has the power to elect or dismiss the leader of the regime: "We have two goals ahead of us that we must achieve. One is closing Iran's nuclear dossier with the IAEA and bringing the board of governors to take it out of their agenda, and the other is to have Iran recognized globally as a nuclear country."

As Rohani was briefing the Experts, a hardline newspaper warned the IAEA to be "more realistic in its dealings with Iran or the whole game would be jeopardized", and an unidentified Iranian diplomat in Vienna threatened that Iran would resume uranium enrichment and revise its agreement to cooperate with the international nuclear watchdog if the dispute is not resolved in line with last October's agreement.

The envoy was referring to an accord signed on October 21 in Tehran between Rohani with the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany under which Iran agreed to sign the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and suspend enriching uranium in return for getting access to advanced nuclear technologies for peaceful purposes, like the construction of nuclear-powered electrical plants.

"Iran will not wait forever to restore its legitimate national right to pursue peaceful nuclear activities and will not accept that the IAEA continue its double-standard policies toward Iran," the diplomat added, quoted by Mehr, a news agency close to the ruling conservatives.

At the same time, and in an obvious coordinated campaign aimed at intimidating the IAEA's board of governors, Mohsen Rezai, the secretary of the powerful Expediency Council that is chaired by former president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, said cooperation with the IAEA would become more difficult if the IAEA decided to limit Iran's peaceful and civilian nuclear activities.

Rohani, in his lengthy and detailed report to the Assembly of Experts, explained why he had to bow to the IAEA's demand to sign the Additional Protocol, revealing that in the event that Iran did not obey, "it would face the same fate as Iraq", meaning a possible military invasion of the country authorized by the UN Security Council.

"The pressures applied on Iran were so great that most of the world's leading industrial nations conditioned trading with us to the signing of the protocol, as seen in the Azadegan oilfields that the Japanese refused to develop," the SCNS influential secretary told a bewildered assembly. (See Japan, Iran sign major oil deal, US dismayed , February 20.)

However, Rohani expressed the hope that because of Iran's "clear-cut and full" cooperation with the IAEA, the board would not take the case to the Security Council for economic sanctions. "Even the Americans have indicated that they would not insist on the matter," he added.

Diplomats in Vienna said a draft resolution prepared by the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand does not mention the Security Council and balances criticism of Iran with praise for granting the IAEA access to sites and agreeing to suspend all activities linked to the enrichment of uranium.

The IAEA will also discuss technology and equipment for enriching uranium sold to Iran by Pakistan's Khan. According to a report by Malaysian police based on the apparent confession of a wealthy Sri Lankan who serves as a middleman, Khan sold Iran a number of centrifuges for US$3 million. But Tehran has constantly denied the accusations, saying that it obtained second-hand material on the black market, with no information about its origin.

IAEA inspectors who found traces of aluminum enriched with new equipment known as P-2 say Iran concealed this equipment from them, but the radical daily Keyhan on Sunday accused the agency of "gross lies and total dishonesty", reiterating that Iran had told inspectors about all of its activities and installations.

In a sharp-tongued comment, Hoseyn Shariatmadari, a high-ranking intelligence officer appointed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as editor, said that although the October 21 agreement with the foreign affairs ministers of Europe's big three was a choice between bad and worse, the IAEA, under pressure from the "US and Zionist circles has gone far beyond honesty in dealing with the Islamic Republic".

Quoting Khamenei as having warned the IAEA and the leading powers "not to try to challenge Islamic Iran's right to possess nuclear technology", Shariatmadari called on the authorities to be ready for "the big showdown" and urged lawmakers elected to the next Iranian parliament not to approve the protocol if the IAEA failed to accommodate Iran.

The additional protocol, which allows IAEA inspectors to carry out "instant" and unrestricted inspections of all Iranian nuclear installations and projects, has not yet been approved by the outgoing Iranian majlis (parliament).

According to Mehr, continuing accusations against Iran, despite its cooperation with IAEA inspectors, has irked the Iranian delegation, which has accused the agency of dealing with Iran in an "illogical manner ... There is nothing permanent. We signed the additional protocol ... and when to resume is in the hands of our system [the ruling Islamic establishment]," Rohani said at the assembly on Sunday, reiterating that Iran's atomic projects, like an electric plant that is under construction at the Persian Gulf port of Booshehr, with assistance from Russia, are for civilian purposes.

But Washington insists that Iran's ruling ayatollahs want to use atomic installations, and Booshehr, for advancing military aims.

The IAEA's latest report on Iran said that agency inspectors had unearthed designs and parts for the advanced P2 uranium enrichment centrifuge, capable of producing bomb-grade uranium at twice the speed of Iran's first generation P1 centrifuges. The agency also uncovered experiments in the creation of plutonium, which can also be used as the explosive in nuclear weapons, and polonium, which can spark a chain reaction in a nuclear weapon.

(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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Iran threatens to end cooperation with IAEA

TEHRAN: Iran will halt its cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog if European states fail to counter US pressure on the Islamic republic over its atomic programme, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi threatened on Wednesday.

Iran's decision to resume uranium enrichment, a possible material for making nuclear weapons, would not be constructive, Kenneth Brill, US ambassador to the Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog, said. He was reacting at a press briefing to comments by Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi that Iran intended to end its suspension of uranium enrichment once relations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were "normalized".

The Iranian minister also said Iran intended to end its suspension of uranium enrichment -- a key step in producing both nuclear weapons and atomic energy -- once relations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) were "normalised." "Unfortunately, the agency allows itself to be influenced by the Americans," Kharazi told reporters here after a cabinet meeting. --Agencies



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Japan to shift aid focus from China to India
By Purnendra Jain

ADELAIDE - Japan is set to make a historic economic and political policy decision, shifting its foreign aid focus away from China - and to India.

For many years China has been the top recipient of Japan's Official Development Assistance (ODA) that symbolized Japan's economic commitment and political and diplomatic closeness to its powerful Asian neighbor. As recently as 2000, China received some 214 billion yen (US$2 billion) in loans as part of Japan's ODA, while India remained on the periphery of Japan's foreign-aid program; at that time Tokyo had just resumed its yen loans to New Delhi, which had been suspended to demonstrate strong disapproval of India's nuclear tests in 1998.

But this equation is changing fast. If proposed changes in Japan's ODA budget allocations are approved at the political level, China is certain to slip into the No 2 position and India will emerge as the leading recipient of Japan's ODA loans in 2004. China is likely to receive only 100 billion yen in 2004, about 20 billion less than last year - the total loan will be less than half the amount Beijing received in 2000. This is a steep decline. On the other hand, India is certain to receive an amount similar to what it received last year, or even a little more, which will be in excess of 111 billion yen.

An announcement is expected by the end of the month.

Why this shift?
Criticism of Japan's aid policy as being devoid of a philosophy, the misappropriation of aid money in recipient countries, and political scandals within Japan forced policymakers to address these issues through policy change. Moreover, cuts in the ODA budget every year since 2000 - the total budget in fiscal 2002 was $9.1 billion - have also prompted Japan to review its aid policy and set new priorities both in aid-funded projects and country focus. To this end, the government has established several commissions and advisory panels consisting of politicians, officials, business leaders and academics that have proposed numerous recommendations. A better balance between China and India is one of the aims of Japan's new direction in its aid policy.

The shift is no doubt an important milestone in Japan's foreign-aid policy. India was the first recipient of Japan's yen loans when this policy was implemented in 1958. But slowly, India's position declined over the years and countries such as Indonesia and China became the leading recipients of Japan's ODA in Asia. Cold War conditions saw Japan's and India's strategic interests drift apart, and led to a consequent fall-off in economic and diplomatic relations between Tokyo and New Delhi. On the other hand, China continued to rise in prominence in Japan's overall economic, diplomatic and strategic considerations after Beijing and Tokyo signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation in 1978.

With India's recent sustained economic growth, its technical preeminence globally, especially in the information-technology sector, and its diplomatic activism, particularly as a key player in the Group of 20 developing countries, and its push to secure a place as a permanent member of the United National Security Council in recent years, many countries are forced to sit up and take notice of India. Japan is no exception. One way to win back India's heart, hurt deeply in 1998 by Japan's policy response after the nuclear tests, is via its aid policy. Policymakers in Tokyo are convinced it's high time to strengthen diplomatic ties with India.

While China will undoubtedly feel a little disappointed with the continuous decline in Japan's flow of yen loans for infrastructure and other national projects and, more important, because of its status change from No 1 to No 2, Beijing is aware that it commands an overwhelming position in the minds of Tokyo's policymakers. China is a key player in Japan's recent economic recovery, and it is unlikely that Tokyo will intentionally make any policy that would upset the Chinese leadership.

Indeed, Beijing should take this development as a compliment. Japan's aid reductions to China are based on the assessment that China no longer requires Japan's financial assistance as much as it once did. In Japan's analytical framework, China's economy has matured and the country is now able to fund many of its infrastructure projects without support from Japan. Of course, China is not the first country to have seen this transition. There are other cases in Asia, such as South Korea and Singapore, which initially received development aid from Japan but with the growth in their economies they no longer required Japan's aid. Indeed, some of them are now members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and aid donors in their own right.

The ODA priority shift from China to India does not reflect Japan's policy shift in other areas. Japanese investment in China continues to rise and two-way trade is increasing, reaching a level last year never seen before. India still languishes both in trade and investment areas. It will be decades before the level of Japanese investment and trade with India is as high as with China. Indeed it may not reach that level at all.

The subnational factor
It is not just the national government and business leaders who regard China as a key and influential player for many years to come, Japan's subnational governments and local leaders have also realized the importance of China for their industries and future economic well-being.

In recent years, a large number of Japanese prefectural and city governments have opened their offices in Chinese provinces and cities. Their numbers are ever rising and some Japanese local governments are even closing their offices in countries such as Singapore and Thailand and relocating them to Chinese cities and provinces.

More than just in the area of economic linkages, subnational governments of Japan and China are forging strong ties in educational, cultural and scientific fields through sister-city agreements, whose numbers are increasing by the year.

While currently there are some 256 official sister-city agreements between Japanese and Chinese subnational governments, there is only one between India and Japan, formed as far back as in 1965. The first sister-city link between a Japanese and a Chinese subnational government was formed as late as 1973, and that number has now gone above 250. The Council of Local Authorities for International Relations - a national body in charge of promoting international linkages at the grassroots level - has offices in Beijing and Singapore, but none in South Asia. India appears nowhere on its radar screen.

Moreover, there are close to 40 offices of Japan's local governments in different locations in China, seeking business for their local companies, facilitating investment and coordinating cooperative projects. But there are no such activities in India.

The national government's ODA program should not be regarded as the only indicator of government aid and assistance in a bilateral relationship. Japan's subnational governments now offer a range of assistance to their Chinese counterparts, what can be easily regarded as a "local ODA" program. Japan's local governments have knowledge and expertise in areas such as city planning, transportation, the curbing of industrial pollution, environment management, garbage disposal, sewage and water supply, all of which can be highly useful to Chinese localities. Japan's localities are willing to transfer these skills and know-how, and their Chinese counterparts are embracing them. The Indian side neither courts such assistance nor do Japanese local officials have any such proposal for Indian cities.

A strong bilateral relationship in the future will not just be based on how much money a country doles out to another, but long-lasting friendly relations even in times of stresses and strains will be those whose foundations are based on solid ties at the grassroots and popular level. On this measure, China by far leads others in Asia in its relations with Japan.

While India may take some comfort in becoming the No 1 destination of Japanese yen loans, this does not necessarily signal a close and intimate relationship between the two.

But change, even if small and symbolic, does matter in international relations.

Purnendra Jain is a professor in the Center for Asian Studies at Australia's Adelaide University and president of the Japanese Studies Association of Australia.

(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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`US forcing North Korea to increase nuclear deterrent'

LONDON: North Korea said on Wednesday the US stance in talks on its nuclear programme was forcing it to "further increase its nuclear deterrent force".

The state-run KCNA news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as dismissing as unfounded statements by US officials that six-way talks in Beijing last month had been a success.

"The recent talks could not yield any results due to the fundamental difference between the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea - North Korea) and the US in their stands," it added.

Washington repeated its demand at the Beijing talks for the "complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement" of the North's nuclear programme.

The North Korean spokesman called that a "demand that can be forced on criminals only..., embarrassing and disgusting to hear," the news agency said in a report monitored in London.

Instead, the United States "should commit itself to completely drop its hostile policy towards the DPRK in a verifiable and irreversible manner," it added.

The spokesman repeated Pyongyang's denial of US allegations that it is pursuing a uranium enrichment programme to make nuclear weapons.

"The far-fetched US assertion about this programme is intended to attack the DPRK under that pretext just as it did against Iraq," the news agency quoted him as saying.

"The reckless US stance only pushes the DPRK to further increase its nuclear deterrent force."

The impasse in talks "does nothing bad to the DPRK as it will have time to take more necessary steps with increased pace", the spokesman added.

US officials say they believe North Korea already possesses one or two nuclear weapons.

In October the United States said the North had admitted to developing nuclear arms. Pyongyang later ejected UN nuclear inspectors and removed inspectors' seals from a mothballed reactor.

North Korea is viewed by Washington as one of the states at the heart of a network responsible for the spread of nuclear weapons technology. --Reuters
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KCNA...
Kim Jong Il's Great Personality Praised
Pyongyang, March 10 (KCNA) -- Members of the State Academy Ensemble of the Ministry of Interior of Russia on a performance tour of the DPRK expressed deep impressions of the noble traits of leader Kim Jong Il as a great man who is possessed of distinguished political capacity, extraordinary leadership ability and warm love for the country and the nation. Igor Shustikov, deputy head of the ensemble, after visiting the Revolutionary Museum of the Ministry of Culture, said the literature and art of Korea have reached a high phase under the wise guidance of Kim Jong Il. He is a genius of art who has brought a great turn in the development of Korean literature and art, he added.
Actress Natalia Kurganskaya, who is well known to the Korean people for her successful presentation of the immortal famous song "Dear General, Where Are You", said she liked this song loved by the Korean people and its melody is immensely expressive as befits the most famous song.
She said she was struck with wonders when she learned that it was created by Kim Jong Il. Seeing the audience overwhelmed with deepest longing for him while hearing this song reverberating from the stage, I could keenly feel their boundless trust in their leader.
Anatoli Lazhuk, general director of dance, said there are many famous generals in the world but he had not heard a story that the head of state of a country went out to the front and planted a tree. Kim Jong Il inspected a unit of the Korean People's Army and planted a tree and I can hardly repress admiration at his ardent patriotism, he added.
The world has never seen such a peerless patriot loving the country and the nation as Kim Jong Il does, he said, adding: I was deeply impressed by his great personality.

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EU and NATO at Odds on Peacekeeping Duties
Mar 09, 2004
NATO and EU officials are set to meet on March 10 in Brussels to hash out details surrounding the EU's December takeover of peacekeeping operations in Bosnia. NATO has said it will turn over the peacekeeping reins to the EU, but it wants to maintain command and control of ongoing counterterrorism operations. This signals more discord within the European Union -- Italy and the United Kingdom seem to support NATO -- and highlights suspicions about the effectiveness of fledgling EU defense capabilities. The NATO pressure also reveals a lack of confidence and a desire to stunt the EU force's operational development.

Musharraf Cursed if He Does, Ousted if He Doesn't?
Mar 09, 2004
Despite the media hype and fresh military operations on both sides of Pakistan's northwestern border, Osama bin Laden and the top leadership of al Qaeda are nowhere to be found. Certain elements within the Pakistani state and society are known to sympathize with the group, and it is likely that certain rogue elements within the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment are helping al Qaeda members evade capture.

Colombia: Who Isn't Out To Kill Castano?
Mar 10, 2004
Someone is trying to kill Colombian paramilitary chief Carlos Castano -- and U.S. intelligence might unwittingly be involved.
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Who "Misled" Whom?

By Steven C. Baker
FrontPageMagazine.com | March 10, 2004

When listening to one of his filibusters, it's hard to tell just what Senator John Kerry really thinks about many things, including Iraq. President Bush recently highlighted the inconsistencies that are inherent in Senator Kerry's legislative record and campaign rhetoric as they relate to Iraq. Summarizing precisely what will become clear to most Americans in November, he said about Senator Kerry that he is "in favor of liberating Iraq, and opposed to it."

The President's retort came after months of relentless assaults from the prospective Democratic presidential nominee. For example, Kerry rarely misses an opportunity to eschew personal responsibility for his October 2002 vote to authorize the use of force in Iraq; a vote that ultimately enabled President Bush to remove Saddam Hussein from power. The liberal Democrat from Massachusetts maintains that he voted in favor of "the process the president promised." According to the Senator, there was a "right way" to hold Saddam Hussein accountable and there was a "wrong way" to do it, and he charges President Bush chose to do it the wrong way.

But anyone with access to the internet can observe that the senator's 2002 vote authorized President Bush "to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to: (1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq." Contrary to the Kerry's accusations, Public Law 107-243 had nothing to do with a "process" but everything to do with granting the president the authority to execute foreign policy "as he determines."



Furthermore, Secretary of State Colin Powell clarified the Bush Administration's Iraq policy (i.e. "the process" the administration would pursue vis-?-vis the Iraq problem) before the United States Senate during a hearing on September 26, 2002, concerning "U.S. Policy Toward Iraq." In fact, Senator Kerry's exchange with Secretary Powell should dispel the notion that the Senator was "misled" - at any time - by President Bush, or that any so-called promises were broken.



For instance, Secretary Powell informed Senator Kerry: "It's certainly the case that I am making, and the president is making, to our colleagues in the Security Council: Don't go down this road unless you are prepared to take action if there is continued violation of the kind that we have seen in the past with respect to a new resolution." Secretary Powell even went so far as to warn Kerry, "if for one reason or another the United Nations does not wish to take that action... then the president reserves the right to take the action with like-minded nations, just as was done in Kosovo." The Kerry's response: "Fair enough."



Then, in an attempt to assuage the senator's continued concerns regarding the Bush Administration's rationale for seeking a congressional authorization to use force in Iraq, Secretary Powell reiterated that President Bush would use the authority granted to him by Congress "to act as part of a multilateral effort, but also, in the event that the president sees that the UN will not be able to act and decides that it is in our interest to act with like-minded nations. And we believe there would be like-nations at the time..." Kerry's response: "I understand."



Senator Kerry also likes to claim that President Bush "misled" the American people about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Weapons of Mass Destruction. But again, Secretary Powell's testimony on September 26, 2002, reveals the duplicity of this accusation. Secretary Powell told Senator Kerry: "I think the president has made it clear in all his conversations with members of Congress, in his presentations to the American people and his presentation to the United Nations that Iraq has to be disarmed. That is the major problem." The senator's response: "I agree. I agree completely."



Senator Kerry added: "I don't want any misinterpretation about my position. I really want none whatsoever. The issue, to me, is not whether Saddam Hussein should be held accountable. Of course he should. The issue is not whether or not these weapons are a threat. Yes, they are. The issue is: how do we go about this?"



At the time of this debate, Senator Kerry acknowledged that Saddam Hussein's WMDs and were "real" threats in "the capacity of those weapons to slide off to a surrogate terrorist group." Yet he fumed that the authorization to use force in Iraq - in order to protect the American people from these threats - was an "extraordinary broad overreach" in terms of the mandate that it provided the Commander-in-Chief. This is the most significant difference between candidate Kerry and President Bush; a distinction that the President emphasized recently: "It's a choice between an America that leads the world with strength and confidence or an America that is uncertain in the face of danger...Our opponents say they approve of bold action in the world, but only if no other government disagrees." The bottom line is that Kerry is willing to endanger the United States in deference to the "authority" of the United Nations and its preferred statecraft. In contrast, President Bush is determined to do what is necessary to confront America's enemies, with or without the UN's blessing.



In March 2003, President Bush commenced Operation Iraqi Freedom after years of Bill Clinton's feckless diplomacy. When it became clear that the United Nations would not act to enforce its own resolutions, including Resolution 1441, which granted Saddam Hussein "a final opportunity to comply" with his disarmament obligations, the President acted "with like-minded nations." This is exactly what Secretary Powell had forewarned five months earlier. This eventuality should not have surprised Senator Kerry, and if it did, which is the only conclusion he wishes to promote when he says that he was "misled" by the President, then he is not only unfit to be the Commander-in-Chief, but he's unfit to be a senator, as well.

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Deploying the full arsenal: Fighting hunger with biotechnology
Peter G Lacy. SAIS Review. Washington: Winter 2003. Vol. 23, Iss. 1; pg. 181, 22 pgs
Abstract (Article Summary)
One of the most important issues in the debate over biotechnology today is its potential to combat hunger in the developing world. This question is especially relevant as biotechnology struggles to find acceptance while countries in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world face famine. This paper reviews modern efforts to fight hunger and the projected future of the problem. What does biotechnology have to offer in response to this situation and what are the major obstacles to its deployment? The paper then explores ways to overcome these obstacles, arguing that while traditional efforts should be continued, biotechnology's potential to make a safe, meaningful contribution to fighting hunger is too significant to be overlooked.

Full Text (7450 words)
Copyright Johns Hopkins University Press Winter 2003


[Headnote]
One of the most important issues in the debate over biotechnology today is its potential to combat hunger in the developing world. This question is especially relevant as biotechnology struggles to find acceptance while countries in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world face famine. This paper reviews modern efforts to fight hunger and the projected future of the problem. What does biotechnology have to offer in response to this situation and what are the major obstacles to its deployment? The paper then explores ways to overcome these obstacles, arguing that while traditional efforts should be continued, biotechnology's potential to make a safe, meaningful contribution to fighting hunger is too significant to be overlooked.


Introduction

Among the many hotly contested issues in the debate over biotechnolor today is its potential to combat hun er in the developing world. This question is especially relevant as biotechnology struggles to find acceptance while countries in Africa and elsewhere in the developing world face famine. Proponents of biotechnology argue for the immense possibilities that it offers in the fight to end hunger, while opponents say that hunger can be combated successfully without dependence on what they consider dangerous genetically modified (GM) products. Anti-biotech activists often make the case that the inability to end hunger is due to failure in other areas. In a world awash with agricultural surpluses, they argue, we do not need biotechnology. Instead, we should redouble or refine our efforts to relieve distribution bottlenecks, open markets to exports from less developed countries (LDCs), increase investments in yield-enhancing hybridization techniques, boost foreign assistance budgets and medical aid programs, and focus on other areas where the record of success in combating hunger is characterized by less than satisfactory results or outright failure.

This paper reviews modern efforts to fight hunger and the projected future of the problem. It looks at what biotechnology has to offer and the debate surrounding it, and then explores ways to overcome the obstacles to realizing its potential to help wage a successful war on hunger. While traditional efforts should be continued, biotechnology's potential to make a safe, meaningful contribution to fighting hunger is too significant to be overlooked, and is in fact reason alone to embrace it.

Hunger Today in the Developing World

There are about 840 million undernourished people in the world today, about 30 percent of the world's population. Some 777 million of these people live in the developing world, and of these, 177 million are children under ten years of age.1 Hunger is linked to poverty, and vice versa. Hunger and malnourishment impede productivity, thereby dooming people to poverty. The poor, meanwhile, cannot afford food. Hunger, therefore, often becomes a selfperpetuating cycle.

More than two billion people worldwide suffer from malnutrition,2 meaning they live below the per capita daily caloric intake threshold of 2,350 calories that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) defines as necessary for an adequate diet. This manifests itself in many ways. For example, almost two billion people in the developing world suffer from iron deficiency, 140 million people experience iodine deficiency, and 140 million children experience vitamin A deficiency. Today, fiftyfour countries are estimated to fall below the 2,350 average minimum calorie level.3

Hunger and malnutrition are particularly acute in sub-Saharan Africa. Three-fifths of Africa is unsuited to sustained yields in grain production and suffers from locust plagues and other scourges that restrain food production.4 Regional food production has dropped 23 percent in the past twenty-five years.- Today, 46.7 percent of the population lives on less than $1 per day, and 194 million people go to bed hungry, including 31 million children under five years of age, one in three of whom suffer from mental retardation, blindness, and other illnesses brought on by malnutrition.6 In 2002, drought, poor governance, and the ravages of HIV/AIDS meant that an estimated 14.4 million people in six southern African countries faced famine.

Hunger and Poverty in the Developing World


A Review of Modern-Day Efforts at Fighting Hunger

Despite the grim numbers, there has been significant success in the post-war era in combating hunger. The percentage of hungry people in the developing world has dropped by about one-half since 1970, from over 30 percent of 3 billion people in 1970 to 16 percent of 4.7 billion today.7 The world's undernourished population has also dropped in absolute terms, from 959 million to 777 million. Major victories have been achieved in China (where the number of hungry people has fallen by 74 million since 1990), Indonesia, Vietnam, Peru, and Nigeria. Across the developing world, the almost 30,000 children who die daily from hunger today is down from the 40,000 in 1985.8

This record of success is due to a variety of efforts carried out on many fronts. The most effective means of reducing hunger rates are general measures such as good governance, avoidance of war and political conflict, strong and stable economies, and social programs that protect the weakest in society. Specific efforts targeted at fighting hunger fall into five basic categories: technological advancements, foreign aid, expanded trade, financial investment, and multilateral cooperation.

Technological advancements

The Worldwatch Institute points out that while the output from fisheries and rangelands has increased five- and three-fold, respectively, since 1950, production in these two food systems has now hit a plateau. Future food growth must therefore come from the third system, croplands. Technological advances raised cropland productivity three-fold in the twentieth century, through irrigation, chemical fertilizers, hybridization, the development of shortstrawed wheat and rice varieties, and, most recently, genetics. The Green Revolution, launched in the 1960s and 1970s, used these techniques to double and triple the yields of rice, wheat, and corn in Asia, saving hundreds of millions of lives. Largely because of these advances, world grain yield per hectare increased from 1.06 tons to 2.73 tons per hectare between 1950 and 1998, and world grain consumption per capita rose from 247 kg to 319 kg over the same period.9 This increased food productivity has greatly contributed to the 50 percent drop in the percentage of undernourished people since 1970, and there is plenty of potential in LDCs for continued growth in yields through technological extension.

Foreign assistance

Overseas development assistance (ODA) was conceived after World War II as a means of helping LDCs to modernize and reduce hunger rates. In the early 1970s, the UN called on all Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries to dedicate at least 0.7 percent of their GDP to ODA; very few countries, however, have met that threshold. Total global ODA today stands at about $53 billion, down from $69 billion ten years ago,10 reflecting the global trend in declining aid ratios in the post-Cold War era.ll In particular, the U.S. contribution to total OECD aid fell from 60 percent in the mid-1960s to only 13 percent by the mid-1990s,12 and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) now contribute more resources to aid in aggregate than the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Official aid targeted specifically at expanding LDC agriculture is experiencing an alarming decline. In 2001, USAID's funding for agriculture dropped to 11 percent of total U.S. aid, while agriculture represented only 10 percent of World Bank lending, the lowest level ever.13

After fifty years of experience, many donor countries are unwilling to keep pumping development aid into LDCs because they see no correlation between aid and economic growth, and thus limited impact on reducing hunger. Experts blame the failure of aid on flawed policies and applications in the North and South, including an overemphasis on industrialization at the expense of agriculture-based development, corruption in recipient countries, and the influence of strategic and commercial self-interest on donor country aid allocation. With many LDCs experiencing aid dependency and skyrocketing debt, there is much debate over alternatives to traditional aid methods, such as pursuing growth through partnerships or identifying grassroots development approaches better suited to local needs.

Trade liberalization

In the 1980s, efforts to fight hunger shifted away from government action to a reliance on open markets, with mixed results. A World Bank study found that countries that increased their share of exports and imports to GDP and reduced their tariff levels (e.g., China, Malaysia, Mexico, India, Thailand, Chile, Argentina, and Hungary) saw average economic growth rates increase from 2.9 percent in the 1970s to 5.0 percent in the 1990s.14 Hunger figures in these countries have seen some of the most dramatic declines anywhere. Those countries that decreased their share of trade to GDP and lowered their tariff rates the least (e.g., Burma, Pakistan, Honduras, and most sub-Saharan African countries) saw average economic growth rates drop from 3.3 percent in the 1970s to 1.4 percent in the 1990s. Hunger rates in these countries have remained some of the worst in the world.

However, embracing free trade is a necessary but insufficient element of national development strategies. Free trade is not an "easy" answer to the question of hunger either; its effectiveness depends on the underlying institutional and policy conditions in individual countries. To be successful, countries must support integration into the global economy with good governance measures such as putting the right institutions in place, reducing corruption, and improving infrastructure and public health systems.

Investment

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is another major tool to generate economic development and reduce hunger levels in LDCs. Industrialized countries in 2002 invested about $166 billion in LDCs through bonds, loans, and company ownership.ls An Institute for International Economics study of 183 FDI projects carried out in thirty countries since the mid-1980s found the majority (SS to 75 percent) to have a positive impact on host country income levels. The study suggested that most of the negative effects could be addressed through reforming host country policies and laws.16 Coupling these changes with new location incentives, rules of origin, and antidumping regulations in investing countries improves the chances for growth through FDI significantly.17

Microcredit is a particularly important tool in fighting hunger since it targets the rural poor, typically the poorest members of society. The Grameen Bank, which pioneered the concept in Bangladesh in 1976, has disbursed almost $3 billion in loans of less than $150 to individual entrepreneurs in LDCs. A typical borrower might be an impoverished mother who uses the funds to purchase a sewing machine, a cell phone, or even a cow-a small investment that enables her to produce a good or provide a service that meets a need in her community. One benchmark of the Bank's success is its impressive payback rate of over 90 percent. Today, Grameen Bank serves 2.35 million clients throughout Bangladesh, almost all women. The World Bank found that extreme poverty in these Bangladeshi villages where people had access to microcredit fell by 70 percent within five years. As of early 2002, there were about 30 million microcredit borrowers worldwide, 19 million of whom were once among the world's poorest people.18

Since well-structured FDI projects and microcredit can directly boost economic development in LDCs, they are some of the most successful tools for fighting hunger.

Multilateral cooperation

From the World Bank, to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), FAO, World Food Programme, and the World Trade Organization (WTO), the world's nations have demonstrated their intent to work together to confront poverty, hunger, and other problems that threaten global peace and stability. Several NGOs aiming to eliminate hunger have also emerged, including Bread for the World, Food First, and the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa. Numerous international conferences, most recently the World Food Summits in 1996 and 2002, have helped bring resources and attention to this continuing problem. All of this cooperation has had an inestimable effect, yet more is clearly required to eliminate hunger.

Future Projections of World Hunger

Hunger continues to be an immense foreign policy challenge, and will likely remain so for many years to come. At the 1996 FAO World Food Summit, 190 nations set a goal of reducing the number of hungry people in the world by half in twenty years. The follow-up Summit in June 2002 reviewed studies showing that the number of undernourished people is falling at an annual rate of about 6 million, well below the 22 million per year average required to meet the FAO's goal.19 In certain countries, the hunger problem will remain especially acute. India will have one-third of the world's undernourished children. Sixteen million African farm workers (i.e., food providers) are expected to die from HIV/AIDS in the next twenty years, and hunger rates in some sub-Saharan African countries are actually expected to rise.20

Projected population growth rates threaten to overwhelm future efforts to feed the world. The FAO expects world population will expand to as many as 10-12 billion by 2050, with the vast majority of the increase occurring in the developing world.21 Because of the expected population boom, the absolute numbers of people going hungry will increase, even though the percentage may continue to decline. Countries facing dramatic population increases include China, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Ethiopia.22 Water scarcity is also emerging as an important constraint. Water tables fell on every continent in the 1990s, with particularly serious declines in North America, North Africa, the Middle East, India, and China.23 Given modern agriculture's heavy reliance on irrigation, water scarcity will be a major obstacle to increasing crop yields.

There is widespread agreement that the world's demand for food will double by 2025. Some observers believe the world's farmers and food industries can, with appropriate changes to policies and resource allocation, meet this increased demand. But with cultivable grain area reaching a plateau, population exploding, and water scarcity constraining production, there is no doubt that feeding the world will be one of the most important challenges governments and policymakers face in the coming decades.

Opponents of biotechnology argue that if foreign aid has failed to end hunger, then ODA budgets must be increased and refocused on grassroots development; if trade liberalization has not solved the problem, then more is required, or it must go hand in hand with better governance; where investment has come up short, then it must be replaced by better-structured investment projects; and if multilateral cooperation has failed, then these efforts must be redoubled. If governments around the world addressed distribution bottlenecks, corruption, bad domestic policies, and internal strife, etc. vigorously and creatively, then hunger would be a thing of the past.

All of this may be true. But can we afford to wait for such ideal results, which have yet to, and may never, be realized? If current methods have failed to feed six billion, we must use all available tools-deploy the full arsenal-if we are somehow to feed almost twice that number. Agricultural biotechnology is one of the most promising new weapons for successfully combating hunger, yet widespread controversy has created major obstacles to its deployment. What is the nature of this controversy and how can the obstacles be overcome?

Biotechnology Products on the Market and in the Pipeline

Modern biotechnology is essentially the introduction into organisms-often across species boundaries-of specific genes with the intention of fostering desirable new traits. It is superior to conventional cross-breeding in that it allows for a quicker, more precise, and more reliable transfer of traits, and draws on a wider variety of genetic material.

Since the introduction of GM crops in the mid-1990s, their share of planted acreage has steadily increased. As of 2001, the total area planted with GM crops was 52.6 million hectares (1.3 percent of total cropland area). More than 99 percent of this planting is in the United States, Canada, Australia, Argentina, and China, where more than five million farmers now grow GM crops.24 In all, sixteen countries currently grow GM crops and fifty varieties of GM foods are on the market today in the United States and elsewhere. Most traits commercialized so far address herbicide tolerance (77 percent of planted GM crops) and insect and disease resistance (20 percent). These products include herbicide- and insect-resistant cotton (Bt cotton), insect-resistant corn (Bt corn), herbicide-resistant soybeans, and fungal-resistant wheat. GM potatoes, tomatoes, sugar beets, and apples are also being marketed.

The United States is by far the leader in GM production, growing 70 percent of all GM crops. Two-thirds of food products on U.S. shelves contain GM ingredients, and one-third of all corn, three-fourths of all soybeans, and 40 percent of cotton are now GM.25 Herbicide-tolerant crops have reduced the need to plow, thus decreasing soil erosion (and resulting in less carbon dioxide escaping into the air). Pesticide use in the United States has decreased by 46 million pounds since the introduction of insect-resistant GM technology in 1995,26 while corn and cotton yields have increased by 5-10 percent. Because of lower chemical and other input costs, U.S. farmers improved their bottom line by $1.4 billion in 2001 using GM corn, cotton, canola, and soybeans.27

Since today's biotechnology products serve largely to boost production in developed countries, they increase total supplies and lower world market prices. For the moment, therefore, biotechnology is not benefiting income levels or efforts to fight hunger in LDCs. Only once scientists and policymakers adapt biotechnology to enhance local production and target specific needs in LDCs, can it begin to have a real impact on hunger.

Currently available GM products could be leveraged on a case-by-case basis to enhance some crop yields in LDCs. But the coming "second generation" of GM crops and foods is of even greater relevance and may provide significant benefits for poor farmers. "Golden rice"-rice genetically modified to contain high levels of Vitamin A-should be commercialized in Asia by 2006 and is expected to make a significant contribution to fighting Vitamin A deficiency, a major cause of blindness and death. The company that developed golden rice, Syngenta Corp., has offered it royalty-free to the world's poorest farmers. Unfortunately, concerns over biotechnology have led some Asian rice growers to postpone plans to plant golden rice. If fully adopted, golden rice could have a major impact on malnutrition in Asia, as rice is already a staple, and rice dependence is expected to double by 2025.28 Other products five to ten years down the pipeline include crops designed to tolerate cold, drought, and salt, and plants that can flourish in acidic soil.

Some LDCs are experimenting to produce foods that will help target their specific hunger problems. The Philippines is developing GM rice that resists bacterial blithe,29 while India is developing GM groundnuts that survive Indian peanut clump virus, as well as GM pigeon peas, chickpeas, and sorghum.30 China-a country with 33 million acres of saline soil-has experimented with salt-resistant tomatoes, soybeans, and rice.31 Kenya is developing virus- and drought-resistant sweet potatoes, and in South Africa, Bt cotton has already helped poor farmers reap financial gains due to higher yields.12

In the realm of pharmaceutical biotechnology, private sector researchers are developing about 400 plant-based drugs that promise significant benefits for fighting health problems and combating hunger. These include allergy-free soybeans, cancer-fighting tomatoes and tomatoes with vaccines for Hepatitis B and diarrhea, bananas with vaccines against diarrhea and cholera, spinach with rabies vaccine, a corn that treats cystic fibrosis, and potatoes, pearl millet, corn, cassava, and other vegetables with enhanced nutritional value. These products are also expected to become available in five to ten years and, because of their cost benefits as domestically-grown medical alternatives, they could have a significant impact on health care in LDCs.

The Debate over Biotechnology

Despite its demonstrated benefits and immense potential, biotechnology has met strong resistance in many countries and from many quarters. Concerns center around its perceived threats to human health and the environment, the role of the corporations involved in its production, and ethical and moral considerations connected with its creation. Myths and misinformation fuel many of these concerns. The following discussion attempts to respond to these concerns, and assess the origins and ramifications of anti-biotechnology resistance.

Dangers to health

Concerns over the health effects of biotechnology are widespread. One of the most common is that genetic material introduced into new foods could cause unexpected allergic reactions in consumers. Yet, regulatory authorities worldwide pay strict attention to allergenicity when assessing the safety of foods produced using biotechnology. Since GM foods first hit the market in 1996, there have been no known cases of allergy, illness, or death from consuming GM products. In the mid-1990s, regulatory action forestalled the introduction of genes from Brazil nuts into other foodstuffs on the possibility they would cause allergic reactions. In 2000, a number of corn products were pulled from shelves when they were found to contain GM StarLink corn intended only for cattle feed, producing much controversy but no apparent ill effects in terms of human health.33

The fact is that more safety tests have been conducted on GM foods than on any food products in history. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, and Department of Agriculture have approved every GM food available on the U.S. market today, and a broad, international consensus has emerged on the safety of GM crops for human consumption and the environment. This consensus includes the OECD, World Food Programme, World Health Organization, Third World Academy of Science, American Medical Association, American Dietetic Association, Swiss Association for Research and Nutrition, American Society of Toxicology, six national science academies, and nineteen Nobel Prize-winning scientists.34 At the 2002 World Food Summit, the FAO came out in support of biotechnology products as being as safe for human consumption as their traditional counterparts.31 Even the European Commission recently declared that "the use of more precise technology and greater scrutiny probably make GM foods even safer than conventional plants and foods."36

Nevertheless, since the potential for human health risks exists, continued regulatory scrutiny will be necessary to ensure that only those products suitable for human consumption enter the market.

Environmental damage

Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and other NGOs have warned about the possible emergence of environmentally hazardous "superweeds," new plants that draw unexpectedly on traits introduced through biotechnology. This is essentially a matter of gene flow, a phenomenon common in agricultural production, and one which scientists have experience at containing. Some critics worry about the possible side effects of GM crops on other species, such as the monarch butterfly; however, any negative impact on such species remains, for now, theoretical. What we do know is that examination of environmental impacts is taking place in every country that produces or consumes biotechnology, as well as through several of the international bodies mentioned above, significantly enhancing the risk control process. As with the question of risks to human health, the scrutiny of environmental impacts should, and in all likelihood will, remain intense.

The risks of biotechnology for both human health and the environment are being exaggerated. On the other hand, the proven and potential environmental benefits of biotechnology must be recognized, particularly the reduced reliance on dangerous chemicals that it makes possible. In Australia, for example, the use of Bt cotton has cut the country's pesticide use in half.37 In South America, biotechnology has the potential to help preserve rainforests by increasing yields on existing farmland, lessening the need to clear more land by felling trees.

Corporate control

Monsanto and other leading food science companies led the charge to develop agricultural biotechnology. Both these companies and their critics now recognize the error of introducing biotechnology to the public in ways that benefited corporate bottom lines more than they addressed consumer needs. This did not help the acceptance of a controversial technology. Company requirements that farmers re-purchase new GM seeds yearly, instead of allowing for replanting in the time-honored tradition, have also raised concerns over corporate control, as have plans to insert genes that would prevent such replanting (the so-called "terminator genes"). In addition, some companies are engaging in a mad rush to patent plant gene strains around the world, enraging LDC farmers who developed these strains over generations and who consider them "public goods."

Clearly, corporate behavior has contributed to the resistance these products have encountered, and companies are now trying to repair their image. Syngenta's offer to provide golden rice royalty-free to LDCs is one example, as is Monsanto's decision to make its sequence of the rice genome freely available (LDC research facilities should eventually benefit from this access). Biotechnology's proponents expect the pending "second generation" of GM products, with its potential for more direct benefits to farmers in LDCs and consumers everywhere, to improve the technology's acceptance.

Biotechnology is also seen as a production tool that, because of economies of scale and purchase costs, benefits only corporate and other large-scale producers. However, evidence is beginning to show that it can deliver benefits to smaller farm operations as well. For example, a study on the adoption of Bt cotton in South Africa concluded that "both large-scale and small-scale farmers enjoy financial benefits due to higher yields and despite higher seed CoStS."38

Ethical objections

Some opponents object to biotechnology on moral or ethical grounds, saying that human beings should not interfere with the "natural order" by modifying genes or crossing species boundaries. However, humanity has always made use of science in order to improve living conditions. Traditional plant and animal improvement processes such as cross-breeding and hybridization are obvious examples, and genetic engineering is essentially a refinement of such methods.39

Reflecting these various concerns, resistance to biotechnology is at a high level today, particularly in Europe. Fueled by pressure from the environmental lobby and other NGO sources, as well as genuine consumer preferences for conventional foodstuffs, Europeans have opposed the introduction of GM products into their food system. Although the European Union does not officially ban foods with GM ingredients, a de facto ban on approvals of GM products has existed in the EU since 1998.

There are recent signs, however, of a shift to a more accommodating European position. The European Commission in 2002 cited eighty-one separate studies supporting the view that GM foods on the market are as safe to eat as their traditional counterparts.40 Spain, France, and Portugal are currently growing GM crops, and Spain has reported benefits from Bt corn that include environmental improvements, higher yields, better quality, and increased income.41 In addition, dozens of European companies are developing products like GM beans, grapes, wheat, and bananas-but for now they are intended only for sale in LDCs or the United States, not in Europe.42 Finally, the new European Food Safety Authority is expected to lift the de facto ban in the EU.

Other industrialized countries have been slow to accept biotechnology as well. Switzerland and New Zealand remain biotechfree today, the latter taking a long look before approving any GM products for market entry. This is also the approach in some Asian countries. The resistance of some industrialized countries to biotechnology has even begun to dampen U.S. farmers' enthusiasm for planting GM crops and stifle the development of new products by biotechnology companies.

However, it is EU resistance to biotechnology that is the major obstacle to poor countries' development and use of biotechnology. Africa needs biotechnology more than any other region, yet the EU's position has made some African countries reluctant to take up this technology. Last year, Zambian President Levy Patrick Mwanawasa refused 17,000 tons of U.S. grain intended to forestall the famine facing 2.9 million Zambians out of fear the country would lose its export markets in Europe. Four other African countries facing similar food shortages-Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, and Lesotho-accepted GM corn, but only if the grain was first milled into flour (to prevent it from affecting the region's exports). European resistance could also affect Africa's livestock exports if they become GM-fed.

In some cases, concerns about the risks associated with biotechnology are preventing the establishment of national regulatory regimes that could facilitate the commercial importation or development of biotechnology in LDCs. In others, they are leading to the establishment of regimes that interfere with the technology's development and importation. China, for instance, recently reversed course on biotechnology and imposed restrictions on domestic varieties of GM rice, soybeans, vegetables, and tobacco, while requiring stringent safety tests and labeling for GM imports. Critics consider these constraints protectionist measures designed to shield China's huge domestic farming sector from further pain while it restructures to meet its WTO commitments.43

Pressure from NGOs also contributes to LDC resistance to biotechnology. The environmental lobby has targeted LDCs in a $175 million campaign to convince them to reject biotechnology.44 Greenpeace warned the Philippine government that there would be "millions of dead bodies and disease" if it accepted GM foods.41 The Sierra Club has called for a moratorium on all planting of GM crops,46 while the Earth Liberation Front has caused $40 million of damage to GM farms and laboratories around the world.47 Former Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore and others have questioned the honesty of the environmental lobby's arguments on biotechnology, denouncing them as scare tactics designed to raise funds in order to stay solvent.

Finally, some individual anti-GM activists play a prominent role internationally. India's Vandana Shiva opposes all forms of high-tech agriculture, which she says will destroy the land and "traditional farming." The ecologist-activist has opposed golden rice, attempted to block U.S. food donations to Indian cyclone victims that contained GM ingredients, and argued in favor of organic production as the "wave of the future."48 Partly as a result of Shiva's activism, India-a country with significant hunger challenges-has banned the domestic marketing of all GM food crops for supposed human health and rural employment reasons.49

Overcoming Obstacles to the Use of Biotechnology

Enough opposition to biotechnology could stall or defeat breakthroughs in important areas. Opposition could also result in GM products, once developed, going unused, left, as the saying goes, to "wither on the vine." Indeed, many approved GM foods are going unplanted in industrialized countries for fear of attracting NGO-inspired demonstrations or violence. For LDCs, the story is the same. Out of fifty-four African countries, only South Africa and Kenya have plans for developing GM products, and these plans are small scale and limited. The restricted availability and adoption of biotechnology in LDCs is due to several factors, including:

* Fear of lost export sales to Europe and elsewhere

* Intellectual property rights constraints

* Health and environmental concerns

* Inadequate scientific and research capacity in LDCs

* Absence of government regulatory mechanisms to oversee testing and regulation

* A general inability to assess biotechnology's potential and risks

These obstacles must be overcome before LDCs can take full advantage of biotechnology in addressing their nutrition needs. Let us review each in turn.

When coupled with appropriate domestic policies, trade liberalization can be one of the most important engines for growth in LDCs. Two-thirds of the developing world labor force is employed in agriculture. In Africa, rural small-holder farms provide over 80 percent of agricultural exports.50 It follows, therefore, that developing the export potential of LDC agriculture can generate significant growth and combat hunger. However, European export subsidies deny LDC producers their due market share, and EU opposition to GM products creates negative incentives for LDCs to invest in production-enhancing biotechnology and the supporting regulatory mechanisms, with disastrous consequences for economic growth and hunger levels in LDCs.

Many believe that if today's large food surpluses could find their way overseas, we could adequately feed the world. But, while channeling those surpluses to LDCs would feed people today, it would also undercut local agricultural sectors. Such a strategy would, in fact, have a dampening effect on efforts to raise local agricultural production, which is one of the best long-term solutions to hunger. Biotechnology can deliver these much needed production increases, and help people help themselves to break out of the poverty-hunger cycle. Although only four LDCs worldwide currently grow GM products, the initial results for productivity are positive (e.g., South Africa).

One way to resolve the biotechnology standoff is to establish a global system for setting safety standards that rely on scientific evaluation and risk assessment procedures. Such a system could include a labeling regime that facilitates the acceptance of uniform, science-based standards and common regulatory procedures. The ongoing negotiations in the WTO Doha Round are not the appropriate avenue for addressing this issue. Instead, efforts must be made to establish such a global system through alternative fora like the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which sets international food standards and guidelines. In the meantime, the concept of "substantial equivalence," in which GM products are tested to determine whether they are substantially different from their traditional counterparts, is already employed in many countries and can help smooth the way for approval in new countries. Mutual recognition agreements, in which countries agree to recognize each other's approval processes, can also help facilitate trade in GM products today.

Second, the international community needs to develop a shared vision of the role of GM crops that gets beyond current intellectual property rights issues such as the corporate patenting of gene strains. Consideration should be given to creating an international commission, perhaps under UN auspices, that could promote a broad public consultation that balances the corporate need to pursue profits with local needs in the battle against hunger.

As for the risks to human health and the environment, strengthened regulatory scrutiny and transparency will be essential to achieving broader public acceptance of GM products in Europe, LDCs, and elsewhere. A case-by-case assessment of risks will be required, with due attention paid to the effects on human health and the environment in each country concerned. As David Victor and Ford Runge have noted, "A failure in regulating biotechnology anywhere will harm the industry everywhere."51

Although private sector investment in biotechnology rose by $100 billion in the 1990s, greater governmental investment in research will be necessary to disperse the benefits of biotechnology more widely. In particular, increased U.S. government support for foreign agricultural research offers the best potential to raise income and lower hunger levels directly in the developing world. Yet governments in the developing world must invest more as well. In 1995, for every $100 of agricultural GDP, developed countries invested $2.70 in public research and development, while LDCs invested only $0.62.12 Public-private partnerships can help bridge this investment gap. A promising example is the case of South Africa, where the government is cooperating with industry on a $30 million research project to develop drought-resistant crops by 2003.53

LDCs are not currently in a position to invest substantially in the science of biotechnology, nor are they capable of creating the necessary regulatory institutions to govern its adoption and application. They must therefore work with developed countries not only to build their scientific capacity, but also to exchange information that will enhance their ability to construct and enforce regulations and institutions that will facilitate biotechnology's adoption in their own countries.

Last, any assessment of biotechnology's potential and risks in LDCs must take into account the specific and varied needs, conditions, and circumstances of these countries if hunger is to be eliminated there. This means that governments, businesses, and scientists operating in places such as New Delhi, Beijing, Capetown, and Sao Paolo should have a hand in their development. At the very least, it is essential for LDCs to stay abreast of the latest developments in biotechnology in order to make informed decisions.

Biotechnology's Role in Combating Hunger

The need to increase future food production is clear. Over 840 million people go hungry today, and hundreds of millions are expected to go hungry in the decades to come. With cultivable grain area plateauing, feeding tomorrow's global community will require making a choice: either we harvest remaining forests and plant crops on available marginal lands, or we find ways of boosting the yields of existing croplands in both developed and developing countries in ways that circumvent impending water shortages. These demands and constraints highlight biotechnology's potential.

World leaders agree on the production-enhancing benefits of biotechnology. FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf has said that since global food production must increase by 60 percent in coming decades, it makes sense to take advantage of the productivity benefits that biotechnology offers.54 To get around the current stalemate, Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Director of UNDP, has called for the development of a "third way," one that involves strengthened measures to address the risks associated with biotechnology, accompanied by a focus on harnessing its potential to tackle the pressing need to improve the productivity of poor farmers.ss

There is no time to waste. Half of the world's poorest people live in uncertain climates, dependent on staple crops such as cassava and sorghum for survival.56 Africa in particular requires advances in food technology-and fast. Most Africans farm small plots of less than four acres, cultivating crops such as corn, sweet potatoes, cassava, and millet. Few have the capital to invest in agricultural improvements, and their harvests are vulnerable to the ravages of plant and animal diseases, pests, soil toxicity, floods, and droughts.57 These are some of the very problems that bio-engineers are tackling in today's laboratories.

However, biotechnology should not be considered a panacea, but rather a complement to traditional agricultural methods. Farmers in Africa and other LDCs could benefit from the application, where feasible, of existing herbicide-tolerant, disease-resistant, and insect-resistant crops (managing pest infestations in poor rural areas for example is a major problem), and particularly the promising new drought-, cold-, and saline-tolerant crops under development (one-fourth of the Earth's landmass is saline soil). From drought-resistant sweet potatoes in Africa to salt-resistant crops in China to golden rice in Indonesia and Bangladesh, biotechnology must be used to target specific problems in specific locations.

Deploying the Full Arsenal

The question of accepting or banning products made using modern biotechnology is an important issue that cuts across social, economic, and political boundaries. The battle lines in the debate are being drawn, and opponents of biotechnology are out in force. Fortunately, GM products have been well received in many countries. Recent polls show that 71 percent of U.S. consumers are willing to embrace products with GM ingredients.51 And a poll of 600 consumers in Thailand, China, and the Philippines suggests that most Asians do not mind buying or eating GM products either.59 The battle for public acceptance must be fought principally in Europe and increasingly in Africa and other developing countries that are concerned about their trade relations.

Developing countries need many things: improvements in infrastructure, credit for small farmers, development that targets women, stable societies and economic policies, anti-corruption policies, medical assistance, technology transfers, and greater and better aid, trade, investment, and cooperation from developed countries. Eradicating hunger will require fighting on all of these fronts simultaneously.

Agricultural biotechnology is an essential tool with immense potential to help developing countries improve crop yields and productivity, safely provide a broader array of more nutritious foods at lower costs, reduce harvest losses, and create higher and more stable rural incomes. And it can do this while also using less land and less water in production, improving pest control methods, reducing dependence on chemical fertilizers, and providing other environmental benefits. With such a powerful array of proven and potential benefits, biotechnology, if deployed, could lead to an agricultural revolution more dramatic than the Green Revolution, and potentially make the difference in waging a successful war on hunger.

[Footnote]
Notes

[Footnote]
1 Bread for the World, Hunger Basics, (11 December 2002).
2 John Mason, "Hunger Reduction Slows to Dismal Level," Financial Times, 16 October 2002.
3 Bread for the World, Hunger Basics.
4 Anthony J. Covington, "What's So Terribly Wrong with GM Food?" Asia Intelligence Wire, 18 September 2002.
5 Bread for the World, Hunger 2001: Foreign Aid to End Hunger (Silver Spring, MD: Bread for the Word Institute, 2002).
6 Sebastian Mallaby, "Phoney Fears Fan Famine in Africa," East African Standard, 16 September 2002.
7 FAO, The State of Food and Agriculture 2000 (Rome: FAO, 2000), 306.
8 RESULTS, Global Action, Worksheet, October 2002.
9 Lester R. Brown, "Feeding Nine Billion," in State of the World 1999 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999), 115-132.

[Footnote]
10 Worldwatch Institute, State of the World: More Connected, Less Stable, Press Release, January 2002, < http://www.worldwatch.org/alerts/0200 10.html> (11 December 2002).
11 Anders Narman, "Reconstructing Development Assistance and Co-operation," in David Simon and Anders Narman, eds., Development as Theory and Practice (Harlow, England: Addison Wesley Longman, 1999), 171.
12 Ibid., 159.
13 Bread for the World, Hunger 2002: A Future with Hope (Silver Spring, MD: Bread for the World Institute, 2002), 83.
14 David Dollar, "Globalization, Inequality and Poverty Since 1980," World Bank, September, 2001.
15 Institute of International Finance, as quoted in "A Helping Hand," The Globalist, 27 November 2001.
16 Theodore H. Moran, Foreign Direct Investment and Development: The New Policy Agenda for Developing Countries and Economies in Transition (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1998), 24-25.
17 Ibid., 163-168.

[Footnote]
18 RESULTS, "Microcredit," (21 December 2002).
19 Jacques Diouf, Press Release, United Nations FAO, 21 January 1999.
20 Bread for the World, Hunger 2002, 71-91.
21 FAO, The State of Food and Agriculture 2000, Rome 2000.
22 The UN expects China's population to grow from 1.3 billion today to 1.6 billion by 2050; India's from 1 billion to 1.6 billion; Pakistan's from 148 million to 357 million; Nigeria's from 122 million to 339 million; and Ethiopia's from 62 million to 213 million. Iran, Indonesia, Sudan, Egypt, and Bangladesh will also likely have trouble feeding their growing populations in coming decades.
23 Brown, 120.
24 Joel I. Cohen and Robert Paarlberg, "Explaining Restricted Approval and Availability of GM Crops in Developing Countries," AgBiotechNet 4 (October 2002).

[Footnote]
25 "Why Africans Are Starving," Wall Street Journal, 17 September 2002.
26 Judy Aita, "Developing Countries Should Adopt Biotech, UN Panelists Urge," U.S. Department of State International Information Programs, 24 September 2002.
27 Rachel Melcer, "Altered Crops Have Farmers Walking a Tightrope of Acceptance," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 25 September 2002.
28 Reuters, "Asian Farmers Seen Sowing `Super Rice' in 2-3 Years," 19 September 2002.

[Footnote]
29 Carmelo Q. Francisco, "Philrice to Commercialize Genetically Modified Rice," Business World, 16 September 2002.
30 "GM Peanut a Field Trial Stage," Hindu Business Line, 14 September 2002.
31 "China Cultivates Salt-Resistant Cloned Tomatoes, Rice, Soya, Poplars," Asia Intelligence Wire, 15 September 2002.
31 Johann Kirsten and Marnus Gouse, "Bt Cotton in South Africa: Adoption and Impact on Farm Incomes Amongst Small- and Large-Scale Farmers," ISB News Report, October 2002.
33 New Scientist, "Much Ado About Nothing," 18 May 2002.
34 Marc Morano, "Green Activist Accused of Promoting Famine Wins Time Magazine Honor," CNSNews.com, 17 September 2002, (12 December 2002).

[Footnote]
31 "Irrational Fears of Frankenfood," Las Vegas Review-journal, 16 September 2002. 36 Francisco, "Philrice to Commercialize Genetically Modified Rice."
37 Denis Dutton, "Fear-Mongering Greens Doom Children to Death," New Zealand Herald, 28 September 2002.
38 Johann Kirsten and Marnus Gouse, "Bt Cotton in South Africa: Adoption and Impact on Farm Incomes Amongst Small- and Large-Scale Farmers."
39 International Policy Council on Agriculture, Food and Trade, Plant Biotechnology and Global Food Production: Trade Implications, Position Paper No. 7 (Washington, DC, October, 1998).
40 James Morris, "Biotech Food Can Save Millions of African Lives," International Herald Tribune, 19 September 2002.
41 "The Farm Level Impact of Using Bt Maize in Spain," Brookes West Consultancy, 27 September 2002 (21 December 2002).
42 Brandon Mitchener, "Politics Hamstring Europe's FDA," Wall Street Journal, 17 September 2002.
43 Joseph Kahn, "The Science and Politics of Super Rice," New York Times, 22 October 2002.

[Footnote]
44 "Why Africans Are Starving," Wall Street Journal. as Murray Lyons, September 19, 2002.
46 Why Africans Are Starving," Wall StreetJournal.
47 Michael Rodemeyer, "Ratcheting Down the Debate Over Biotechnology," Newark Star-Ledger, 24 June 2001.
48 Norman Borlaug estimates that organic production could feed only about 4 billion out of today's 6.1 billion people.
49 Morano, "Green Activist Accused of Promoting Famine Wins Time Magazine Honor."

[Footnote]
50 Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa, (12 December 2002).
51 David G. Victor and C. Ford Runge, "Farming the Genetic Frontier," Foreign Affairs 81, no. 3 (May/June 2002).
-12 Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, "Making New Technologies Work for Human Development," United Nations Development Programme, 6 September 2002. -13 Ibid.
-14 Jacques Diouf, Press Release, FAO, 21 January 1999.
551 Sakiko Fukuda-Parr,"Making New Technologies Work for Human Development."
56 Ibid.
57 Bread for the World, Hunger 2002, 81.
58 Institute of Food Technologies, "Survey: Consumers Support Food Biotechnology," 30 September 2002.
-19 Jason Leow, "Asians Are Game to Try GM Foods," Straits Times (Singapore), 22 September 2002.

[Author Affiliation]
Peter G. Lacy is the former Executive Director of the International Policy Council on Agriculture, Food, and Trade, a think tank in Washington, DC. Mr. Lacy is currently Director of International Research at Bryant Christie Inc., a consultancy headquartered in Seattle. He is an alumnus of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.

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BEHIND THE HEADLINES
U.S., Israel find that details
of Gaza withdrawal take time
By Ron Kampeas
WASHINGTON, March 9 (JTA) -- It's become "my-place-or-yours" diplomacy.
A group of three top U.S. Middle East advisers was to return to Israel this week to discuss Israel's plans for withdrawing from the Gaza Strip and possibly parts of the West Bank. A week ago, Israeli advisers were in Washington. Two weeks before that, the Americans were in Jerusalem.
On Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz was due in Washington, where he was to discuss the withdrawal plan with Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice.
Underlying all the back-and-forth is U.S. frustration with a lack of clear Israeli ideas on how the withdrawal will take shape without Palestinian cooperation.
"We're not even sure if the Israelis are clear about what they want," one American official said ahead of the visit to Israel by Steven Hadley, Bush's deputy national security adviser; Elliott Abrams, his top Middle East adviser; and William Burns, the top State Department envoy to the region.
U.S. Jewish officials say Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's vagueness about his withdrawal proposal is at the heart of the confusion. Giora Eiland, Sharon's national security adviser, is eager to push ahead with a plan, they say, but Sharon is hanging back for now.
Why Sharon is playing his cards so close to his chest is anyone's guess.
"Everyone gives you different information," said Steven Spiegel, a scholar at the Israel Policy Forum, a group that backs U.S. prodding of Middle East parties to get back to the peace table. "A lot of people are scratching their heads."
Representatives of the four bodies behind the "road map" peace plan -- the United States, United Nations, European Union and Russia -- were due to meet in Washington on Wednesday.
Powell has joined his European counterparts in calling on the Israeli and Palestinian prime ministers to meet as soon as possible. He also wants Israel to explain its withdrawal plans.
"There are many other questions that we want to pose to our Israeli colleagues to make sure we have a good understanding of their plans for Gaza, and plans for the West Bank as well," Powell said Tuesday after meeting with Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher.
Powell and Muasher had discussed the Sharon proposal but wanted more details.
"I think that if this is done in the context of the road map, if this is done in coordination with the Palestinians, then this might present an opportunity," Muasher said. "But it is important before we pass final judgment to talk to the Israelis and understand exactly what their intentions are regarding this issue."
When the Americans initially embraced Sharon's proposal for unilateral withdrawal last month, each side suggested it would take no time to get it into shape: a U.S. mission to Israel, an Israeli visit to Washington and then Bush and Sharon would wrap it up at a summit.
However, this week's round is at least the fourth such visit, and the Sharon-Bush summit -- originally set for sometime this week -- has been bumped at least until next month.
Reports in Israeli newspapers quote unnamed Israeli security officials as saying that the Bush administration is behind the delay, worried that a withdrawal could precipitate violence and adversely affect Bush's reelection chances in November.
"They're doing what they can to keep a lid on, maybe because they feel that doing something now is likely to lead to instability," Spiegel said. "If the administration wanted more, they'd be more active, they'd have someone on the scene day after day working with Eiland."
U.S. and Israeli officials insist the November elections have not played a role in delaying the presentation of a plan. U.S. officials have gone out of their way to praise the proposal as one that could entice the Palestinians to crack down on terrorism and rejoin the broader U.S.-led road map.
In the next few weeks, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said, "What you can expect is continuing engagement by the United States with both parties to really help facilitate progress."
The White House's National Security Council issued a rare on-the-record endorsement of the Sharon proposal.
"The prime minister's ideas are promising and the discussions are very useful to examine the details and many ramifications," NSC spokesman Shawn McCormack told JTA. "The prime minister's proposals have the potential to be historic. We are all working within the framework of the road map and the vision outlined by President Bush."
U.S. officials say details of the pullout have been more daunting than U.S. and Israeli negotiators originally realized. They hearken back to Israel's last unilateral withdrawal, from southern Lebanon in May 2000.
Israel negotiated that move with the United Nations, getting U.N. approval for the exact contours of the withdrawal. Even so, Hezbollah seized on the unresolved status of the Shebaa Farms, a tiny patch of land in the Golan foothills that Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War, as a pretext to keep attacking Israel.
The lesson: If a crucial party has absented itself from the table, make sure everything is wrapped up tightly enough that provocateurs can't reignite a conflict.
"They're making sure a lot of details are sorted out so as not to end up with another Shebaa Farms-type of thing," another administration official said. "They're making progress, but a lot more remains to be done."
Another factor might be Israel's failure to anticipate the degree to which the Palestinian Authority lacks control in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas, the Al-Aksa Brigade and other terrorist groups have asserted control in some of the main refugee camps in the center of the strip.
Avi Dichter, head of Israel's Shin Bet security service, was in Washington this week, where he said that a withdrawal now was not likely to end terrorism, according to reports in Israeli newspapers.
Bush administration officials say another factor has been Sharon's attempt to work a tradeoff into any withdrawal: Gaza for parts of the West Bank. Israel wants U.S. recognition of its permanent control over Ma'aleh Adumim, Ariel and the Gush Etzion settlement bloc -- areas the Palestinians effectively ceded in 2000-2001 peace talks.
Sharon might need such a tradeoff to sell the package to hard-liners in his Cabinet -- support he is seeking this week. But he's unlikely to get administration backing for such a trade, the Americans say, because the idea is to get the Palestinians back to the table, not give them an excuse to keep away.
Israel also is seeking Egyptian agreement to secure the Gaza-Egypt border once Israel leaves. The border is a main route for Palestinians to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip.
Nabil Fahmy, Egypt's ambassador to Washington, told JTA that Egypt would withhold a decision until it was certain Israel's actions were designed to lead to the resumption of peace talks.
"We need to understand the details as far of the package and as far as the proposal," he said. "We're not aware of the full details of the position because much of it has not been resolved in Israel itself."
In any case, he said, "It has to be in the context of resolving the conflict on the basis of a two-state solution and ending the occupation."




? JTA. Reproduction of material without written permission is strictly prohibited.

Czech Jewish official brings
Kerry news of his Holocaust dead
By Magnus Bennett
PRAGUE, March 9 (JTA) -- It hasn't been long since Sen. John Kerry learned that he had relatives who were killed in the Holocaust.
Now Kerry, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, is getting documents about the last days of his paternal grandmother's brother and sister.
During a visit to New York on Sunday, the chairman of Prague's Jewish community, Tomas Jelinek, presented the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research with copies of the original transport lists for Otto and Jenny Loewe -- Kerry's paternal grandmother's brother and sister, who were sent to their deaths on Nazi transports.
Jelinek said he decided to track down the records in Prague after learning about Kerry's Jewish roots from American media reports.
"I presented copies of the records to YIVO as a gift and asked them to pass them on to Sen. Kerry," Jelinek told JTA. "We know how touching this kind of information is for Jewish communities in Europe and thought it would be of interest to Sen. Kerry's family."
The records show that Otto, who was born in Budapest, was transported from Vienna to Terezin transit camp -- Theresienstadt -- in August 1942. He died at Theresienstadt on June 29, 1943.
His sister, Jenny, was transported later from Vienna to Theresienstadt. On Sept. 26, 1942, she was sent from Theresienstadt to the Maly Trostinec concentration camp in Belarus, where she subsequently was killed.
Jelinek presented the records at the launch of an exhibition of the works of the late Czech artist Alfred Kantor, who depicted scenes of everyday Nazi brutality during the Holocaust.
Kantor, who survived Theresienstadt, produced 127 drawings and sketches from memory after the originals had been lost. Kantor emigrated to the United States after the war and died last year in Maine.
Jelinek also was in New York to launch a fund-raising drive for a new $6 million senior home for Holocaust survivors in Prague, called Project Hagibor. The planned 60-bed facility aims to provide round-the-clock care for some of Prague's estimated 1,500 Holocaust survivors.
Former Czech President Vaclav Havel is behind the project.
"In the history of our country, the biggest killing of Czech citizens in one day happened in Auschwitz-Birkenau on March 8, 60 years ago," Havel wrote in a letter of support for the project. "Entire families, including children, were killed. The only thing that made them guilty was being Jewish."
Havel said he is afraid that there remains a lot of indifference in Czech society to the Holocaust.
"I am afraid -- something only a very few people admit -- that our present indifference towards this and other tragedies of the past and present makes us accomplices," he wrote.
"I am very happy that you are meeting today to honor the memory of those who are deceased and at the same time to support a project that should help to lessen the life hardships of those who used to be prisoners in the concentration camps and ghettos, at least in their twilight years," he wrote.




? JTA. Reproduction of material without written permission is strictly prohibited.


PM adviser: no plans for `eastern fence' in West Bank
By Amnon Barzilai, Haaretz Correspondent
Israel does not plan to build a separation fence in the eastern part of the West Bank because of the likely negative political fallout in the international arena, the man who heads the team plotting the route of the fence told Haaretz on Tuesday.
"The State of Israel will not build a separation fence in the eastern part of the West Bank because of the diplomatic damage it is likely to endure as a result," said Colonel (res.) Dan Tirza, who is considered the most senior professional adviser to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on the issue of the fence.
"Legally and publicly, the building of the separation fence in the eastern sector is likely to cause serious damage to the state," he said. "So we shouldn't invest money in it."
Tirza also revealed that there will be a 2.3-kilometer hole in the eastern section of the separation fence being built around Jerusalem. The section where no fence or wall will be built is in the area of the Jerusalem-Ma'aleh Adumim road. It is still not clear what type of obstacle will be placed in the area. The Israel Defense Forces has prepared three alternatives that will soon be presented to Sharon and Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, and will then be brought to the government for approval.
The inclination is not to completely seal off Jerusalem so as not to leave Ma'aleh Adumim, which has some 32,000 residents, outside of the separation fence. Tirza said that Kfar Adumim, which is home to 350 families and is east of Ma'aleh Adumim, will not be inside the fence.
Tirza's team, which meets once a week, includes members of the Defense Ministry, the IDF, and representatives of all the relevant planning and legal authorities in the country. The state prosecutor's office has barred the addition of settlers to the committee, despite such requests. Nevertheless, members of the committee, including Tirza, meet with settler representatives to hear their opinions about the route of the fence.
Tirza said his committee has tried to limit the damage wrought by the fence, and that they did not ignore the Green Line. "But one has to remember that the Green Line is not a defensive line," he said. "In places where I can, I move the route of the fence so as not to destroy olive groves and hot houses. Not a single home has been destroyed as a result of the route of the fence. Except for some homes built illegally in the area of Baka al-Garbiyeh."
So far, 26 petitions have been submitted to the High Court of Justice on the issue of the fence. Fifteen were either rejected or a settlement was reached between the sides. Eleven are still being considered by the court. Of these, eight have led to a delay in construction of the fence.
"The reason we haven't lost until now on these petitions is because we tried to take as many considerations into account as possible during the planning phase. We tried to find solutions with the local residents or their lawyers."
Tirza also said a number of Israeli lawyers, who represent Palestinians who own land along the route of the separation fence, are trying to "stir things up" and prevent their clients from reaching understandings or deals with the Israeli government over financial compensation for the seizing of their land.

The Folly of Dialogue Diplomacy
Simplicity, naivety, and deceitful complexity.
By Elio Bonazzi
In every aspect of human life, new ideas, designs, and concepts usually go through three distinct phases. A good dose of naivety characterizes the initial phase of every project, intellectual enterprise, or model; the intrinsic novelty of the subject-matter forces engineers, politicians, and intellectuals to make na?ve assumptions, which are progressively refined and adjusted, and new layers of complexity are added to the model, design, or political doctrine in order to better equip it to deal with complex realities.
Adding complexity, however, is only an intermediate phase. According to Antoine de Saint-Exupery, "Perfection (in design) is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away."
The best models, designs, and political doctrines are simple. But their simplicity is the fruit of a complex process, which started with naivety, grew through complexity and achieved a level of harmony and integrity possible only after redundancy was eliminated, internal coherence realized, and unnecessary entanglement discarded, all the while striving to capture the true essence of the problem under analysis.
Experience teaches that it is very rarely, if ever, that a successful engineering design, or political or economical doctrine, deviates from common sense, or is counterintuitive. If somebody tried to convince us that in order to achieve an egalitarian society we need to stop taxing the rich and tax more heavily blue-collar workers, we would smell the proverbial rat. A sophism is a plausible but fallacious argument. Unnecessary complexity is deceitful, and often used to muddy the waters and to erect smokescreens that allow unfounded theories to appear logical and coherent.
Which is exactly what certain diplomats and State Department officials are doing when they call for a dialogue with the Iranian mullahs. Their intent is to normalize relations with Tehran in order to seek an understanding -- and possibly a deal -- with the theocratic regime in exchange for the Islamic republic's cessation of its nuclear program.
According to this foreign-policy school of thought, which for lack of a better term we call "realist," the recent outcome of the Iranian national elections, which marked the defeat of the reformists and the triumph of the Islamic hardliners, is good news. The sophists of the State Department would like to convince us that now that the excruciating internal debate between the Leftist mullahs and the conservative establishment is over, the "pragmatic conservatives" are ready to cut a deal with the West over Tehran's WMD programs.
If we leave for a moment the realm of sophisms, and revert to simplicity and common sense, we realize that the analysis of the Iranian situation is straightforward. One doesn't need a Ph.D in political science to realize that the Iranians feel encircled -- American and allied troops are in Afghanistan and in Iraq -- and only the nuclear bomb would make the mullahs feel invincible. We are discovering almost daily that the Iranians are more advanced than originally thought in their nuclear plans. On several occasions, they deceived the European Union and the international nuclear watchdog about their true intentions to buy time and continue pursuing their covert nuclear program.
A common trick is to have one theocrat announce Iran's strict adherence to the nonproliferation protocols; and then, a day later, have a different top cleric state exactly the opposite. This happened, for example, last week: Hassan Rohani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, openly announced that an unspecified number of nuclear installations remain undeclared and that the Iranian authorities don't see the need to disclose all aspects of their nuclear program to the IAEA. But, only a few days earlier, the foreign minister of Germany, France, and Britain signed a last-minute deal in Vienna with Iranian representatives that once again stated Tehran's willingness to comply with the IAEA directives.
Why should we care what happens in Iran? Well, for starters, Iran directly sponsors Hezbollah terrorists in Israel, through Syria. Iranian killers are sent into Iraq to foment anti-American feelings. Iran represents today the single most dangerous threat to world stability. It represents an immediate threat to Israel and to the American troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The natural conclusion is that Iran cannot be "fixed." The only possible way out is a regime change. Anybody claiming that "engagement" with the theocratic fascists in Tehran could produce positive results is following the Yellow Brick Road, and is either a genuine victim of the mullah-orchestrated game of deception, or has ulterior motives.
To justify their willingness to continue a hopeless dialogue with the Islamist leaders in Tehran, foreign-policy realists use convoluted and abstract scenarios, which are inevitably counterintuitive. A typical example is their claim that the outcome of the latest Iranian elections is positive because, now that the "pragmatic conservative clerics" finally got rid of their internal opposition, it clears the way to important diplomatic breakthroughs. It is yet another example of deceitful and unnecessary complexity.
Occam's Razor is a logical principle attributed to the medieval philosopher William of Occam. Scientific knowledge is based on experience and self-evident truths, and on logical propositions resulting from those two sources. Occam stressed the Aristotelian principle that entities must not be multiplied beyond what is necessary. In science, the simplest theory that fits the facts of a problem is the one that should be selected.
The basic facts are that the mullahs are developing the nuclear bomb and nothing will stop them. Hitler should have been stopped in 1936, as soon as he remilitarized the Rhineland in blatant breach of the Versailles treaty. The European nations failed to do so, and the end-result was World War II.
If the West doesn't stop Iran today, the consequences will be dire. The only way to prevent a potentially catastrophic outcome in the Middle East is to provoke regime change in Iran. The good news is that to achieve this goal no direct military intervention is required. No more American troops will have to die in a distant land. And the American taxpayers won't have to bear the costs of another expensive military campaign.
Simply declaring that the only U.S. policy towards Iran is regime change, and enforcing it at every level in the administration, would provoke shock waves in Tehran. A resolute and determined U.S. administration could release part of Iran's frozen assets, seized during the hostage crisis of 1979, and use them to fund the Iranian opposition movement, inside and outside of the country. The Islamic regime has lost popular support, and survives only thanks to a very efficient repressive apparatus, exactly like the Communist regimes in eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Imposing sanctions and isolating the regime would provide the final blow needed to overthrow the mullahs.
The strategy explained above is simple but not na?ve. It follows the principle of Occam's Razor, is internally coherent, and is based on common sense, historical facts, and the will of the people of Iran. If today we miss this historical opportunity to bring peace and long-term stability to the Middle East, we will have to achieve the same goal in a few years, when it will be much more difficult, expensive, and onerous. If we let the sophists of the State Department have their way, the inevitable showdown with the Islamist regime will only be postponed, but not avoided.

-- Elio Bonazzi is an Italian-born political scientist.
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/bonazzi200403090852.asp
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U.S. Softens Its Rebuke on Iran Nuclear Issue, Appeasing Allies
By CRAIG S. SMITH
VIENNA, March 9 -- The United States agreed Tuesday to tone down its criticism of Iran in order to win European support for a demand that Tehran divulge more about its nuclear program, according to European diplomats here.
Washington dropped threatening language from a draft resolution being prepared at a meeting of the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, and agreed to insert a paragraph praising Iran's cooperation so far. The board's 10 European members signed off Tuesday on the revised draft, and the United States will present it to remaining board members on Wednesday.
The resolution, which board members are expected to approve later this week, will be the third on Iran issued by the agency since the country was discovered last year to have a far more extensive nuclear program than was previously known. And it will be the second in which the United States has agreed to a weaker rebuke against Iran than it would like because of European fears of alienating the country.
Last November, the United States dropped its demand that an agency resolution threaten Security Council action if Iran again failed to disclose details of its nuclear program, which Tehran insists is for purely peaceful uses.
The resolution instead said that if any further serious failures came to light, the board would "consider all options at its disposal." The United States repeated that language in its initial draft this time but agreed Tuesday to remove the threat in favor of a simple reference to the previous resolutions.
The debate carries unsettling echoes of the controversy that preceded the war with Iraq, when European allies argued to give Iraq more time to prove it had no weapons of mass destruction. In Iran's case, France, Germany and Britain reached an agreement with Iran last year under which Iran would suspend its uranium enrichment program in return for easier access to technology and trade.
The Associated Press reported Tuesday that John R. Bolton, a United States under secretary of state, complained in a letter to the French, German and British governments that their stance was hurting the effort to get Iran to comply with its promises for full nuclear disclosure.
Iran gave the energy agency a detailed account of its nuclear program in October. But the country was later found to possess a more advanced design for uranium enriching centrifuges than it had declared, as well as other undisclosed equipment and plans.
The most pressing question remaining is the origin of traces of highly enriched uranium found on some of the equipment in Iran. Iran told the agency that the traces were on the equipment when it arrived in the country, and that since it had been bought through various middlemen, there was no way to identify its source.
But it is possible that Iran enriched the uranium itself, which would constitute clear evidence of Iran's intent to develop nuclear weapons and represent a major breach of its commitments to the agency.
The draft resolution calls for Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the energy agency, to report on Iran's progress in May before its next board of governor's meeting in June, deferring the question of how to respond to Iran's omissions in its October declaration until June.



Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
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>> OUR FRIENDS IN ISRAEL GET READY?

Mossad Cuts down Spying Functions
From DEBKA-Net-Weekly 147 Feb. 27
March 8, 2004, 1:03 PM (GMT+02:00)
Here come the A-teams
In the last five months, Israel's central intelligence agency has undergone a metamorphosis in typically deep hush. Once fabled for planting its agents anywhere and everywhere where important military or diplomatic happenings were played out, the Israeli Mossad has retired from the business of espionage and turned itself into a body devoted to special operations.
Many Mossad overseas stations have been shut down or re-staffed according to the new guidelines.
According to DEBKA-Net-Weekly 's exclusive intelligence sources, Mossad aspires to match its past excellence as a gatherer of intelligence by providing equally first-rate operations units, possibly unique in scale, whose broad mission is to secure and protect Israel's vital interests around the world and preserve the Jewish state against existential perils, which are currently defined as Iran's potential nuclear weapons and major al Qaeda terrorism. It is in the process of manufacturing a special operations infrastructure for serving such national security goals at the behest of government policy-makers.
Just as Israel's armed forces crack units are trained for operations behind enemy lines in the immediate region, Mossad's special operations units are to be programmed for operations over the horizon. Its intelligence-gathering resources have been cut down and adjusted to meet the needs of these operations; the remainder transferred to Aman, Military Intelligence.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly 's intelligence experts report that last summer, prime minister Ariel Sharon approved this Mossad reform program submitted by its director, Res. Maj.Gen. Meir Dagan. It went into effect in September 2003.
The Dagan plan is based on six arguments:
1. Israel's special operations units are tailored for action inside Israel and within the limited orbit of the neighboring Arab states.
2. A changed world has confronted Israel with fresh existential threats: Iran's nuclear weapons and fundamentalist Islamic terror spearheaded by al Qaeda, which is actively plotting 9/11 scale and unconventional weapons attacks - nuclear, chemical and biological - on the Jewish state. The traditional special operations units of the armed forces are not equal to these threats; they are not trained to fight them or equipped for long-distance action in remote arenas.
3. Hitherto, Israel lacked a force capable of operating at any point on the globe. But now, should an Al Qaeda team be discovered training in the Ferghana Valley of Central Asia for a dirty bomb attack on Tel Aviv, the Mossad will have an A-team ready and able to wipe out this faraway al Qaeda base. A similar team must be capable of dealing with Iran's secret nuclear weapons facilities and its long-range missile systems.
4. Mossad will retain only one intelligence resource, the ability to reconnoiter the operational targets assigned by the responsible government authority, namely the prime minister. It will be geared purely to such missions.
5. The new mode of operation must necessarily cut Mossad off from its traditional relationships with foreign intelligence bodies as well its domestic ties. This seclusion will enhance its ability to function in total secrecy.
6. The new undercover units will be equipped with the finest secret electronic gear and weapons Israel has developed.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly reports that some of the intelligence experts Sharon consulted before approving the transformation of Mossad were highly critical. They had no argument with the creation of an undercover operational structure for long-distance missions, but held that the loss of an experienced and esteemed resource for gathering political or even industrial intelligence around the world would be seriously detrimental to Israel's international standing.
According to sources familiar with his mind-set, Sharon's overriding motivation in approving the Mossad's overhaul was his acute sense of peril emanating most of all from the nuclear threat. This sense can be summed up in a word: We may find it interesting and even useful to discover who really pulls the wires in some country or other. But what use will this intelligence be if Israel is under nuclear attack?

>> CONVERSATION AS PROOF THE PROCESS NEEDS RALPH?
http://www.moretothepoint.com/
Anybody but Bush listen
All through the Democratic primaries, the dominant theme in the exit polls has been "anybody but Bush." In state after state, it's not the issues that are propelling John Kerry toward nomination but his so-called "electablility." That may be enough to bring anti-Bush Democrats to the polls, but will it be enough to win in November? With America politically divided as never before, will that give Independents and swing voters the final say? We hear more about partisan politics and the evolution of the 2004 presidential campaign from political scientists and reporters, and Democratic and Republican strategists.

>> OH TERESA?

The "Mother" of All House Parties
The East Bay for Kerry/MoveOn House party on December 7th combined the forces of two grass-roots organizations based in San Francisco East Bay Area. We had 200 guests eating, drinking, and watching the MoveOn Documentary "Uncovered" featuring Joseph Wilson and Rand Beers from the Kerry campaign.

When Teresa Heinz-Kerry arrived, she handed me a pin that read in the center: "Asses of Evil" with "Bush", "Cheney", "Rumsfeld" and "Ashcroft" surrounding it. She met, greeted and talked to a jam-packed room of Kerry supporters and others who came for the MoveOn documentary. Many were curious, others undecided, or belonging to other candidate camps.

Teresa talked about her life as the daughter of a physician in Africa, about life during a repressive regime, to life inside Washington DC, and a brief intimate glimpse into her courtship with John. She told a rapt crowd about how they met and their first date, and that he did not call again for six months, adding, "He was slow on the uptake". Just as she was about to add more to the story, the phone rang. It was the Senator.



The synchronicity of this call was not lost on the crowd. We all laughed. John then spoke about the Medicare Bill recently signed by the president that effectively forces people into expensive HMO plans and prevents Medicare from using its formidable consumer base to drive the bulk purchase of expensive prescription drugs down. He also spoke about the recent Bush Thanksgiving visit to our military in Iraq, carrying a platter laden down with a fake turkey, smiling for a photo op.

People were hungry for the food we had prepared, but more so, hungry for John's message of hope. After the call, Teresa took questions from the crowd. One of the questions was about grass-roots organizing, and the effect it had on the current presidential campaigns. Teresa responded that grass-roots has to happen at EVERY level, from the Internet, to canvassing and meeting people, to letter writing and phone calling. She reminded us that this was the way to connect with others and to get the message out.

A PBS producer working on a documentary on MoveOn interviewed Teresa. He asked, "Just as radio was for Roosevelt, and television was for Kennedy, the Internet has been defined as the new political grass-roots organizing tool for this era. What is your reaction to that?"

Teresa said, "The Internet is a great grass-roots organizing and political tool; but it is still an adjunct." The producer asked her to clarify. Teresa responded, "Until EVERYONE has access to a computer and knows how to access the Internet, it will still be an adjunct political grassroots organizing tool".

It was hard for Teresa to stay on schedule. The lovely voice of opera singer, Susan Gundunas was on hand to sing a few tunes, and that kept Teresa with us a while longer than expected. Before saying goodbye, she took with her some "Condoleezza Rice Crispies Bars" and "No Child Left Behind Chocolate Chip Cookies", sold to generate donations to the cause. She left with a lilt to her step, a warm smile, and some new converts, some of whom were uncommitted and undecided, and some who were definitely committed, but came over to our camp. Because of her.

She gave us a bit of what she does best, connecting us as a community with her heart, compassion, and willingness to fight throughout all her life for the good of all of us. As her husband, John Kerry has throughout his life. Teresa completed the picture many people had unfinished about John Kerry. Now they know they have a "Real Deal". From baking cookies, gathering food donations, staying up late cooking chicken wings, putting up artwork, and decorating that beautiful rambling modern home in the Oakland Hills, we at East Bay for Kerry did our job because we believe grass roots efforts include all of these finer, human details. We brought in more than 80 people to John's birthday party the next night, bringing the room to capacity at 350 the following night

Thanks to Teresa, we kept the party going on, and she helped us here at East Bay for Kerry, throw the Mother of All House Parties.

Fe Bongolan - December 11, 2003
East Bay for Kerry - Berkeley, CA



OFFICIAL 'KERRY FOR PRESIDENT' WEBSITE RIDDLED WITH OBSCENITIES

**Exclusive**
Sen. John Kerry's official election website is riddled with obscenities, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal.
The Democrat nominee-in-waiting recently said radio stations are within their right to pull Howard Stern off the air if they object to the shock jock's racy show.
But an investigation reveals Kerry's own website is filled expletives, setting the standard for a new wave of 21st Century campaigning!
MORE
A sampling of web pages featured on Kerry's official site reveal:
"Bush f**ked up Afghanistan... Did I expect George Bush to f**k it up as badly as he did... cutting all your f**king legs off at the knees... Where the f**k is he?... scare the living s**t out of me... He has a pig-in-s**t grin on his face, he wanted to get into the s**t... doesn't play s**t in my book..."
In fact, typing in the terms "F**k" or "S**t" in the search box of the official Kerry For President site directly links the reader to the action!
A campaign source tells the DRUDGE REPORT that "John Kerry For President" online simply contains published material, and the senator was simply unaware on Sunday that the expletives were being carried on his own Internet server. [A search on the official Bush/Cheney re-election revealed no such curse words.]
"I think you'll see the offensive words removed," the top campaign source said.
Unlike over the air broadcast, there are no known foul language rules for official campaign websites.
Developing...

Filed By Matt Drudge
Reports are moved when circumstances warrant
http://www.drudgereport.com for updates
(c)DRUDGE REPORT 2004
Not for reproduction without permission of the author



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>> CONVERSATION WITH A KNOWING IRAQI...
http://www.speakingoffaith.org/programs/2004/03/04_islaminiraq/
Ahmed H. al-Rahim teaches Arabic language and literature at Harvard University. He's also a founding member of the American Islamic Congress, and has served as an advisor to American forces in Iraq.
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THE UNITED STATES, in Iraq and elsewhere, should cease promoting a secular civil society as the only alternative to a Taliban-like Shia theocracy. We cannot quell the religious yearnings of millions of Iraqis (and many others elsewhere) merely by fostering strong political and economic institutions and the sound values they embody -- to wit, democracy and capitalism. The most effective way to counter a theocracy is to include moderate, liberal religious elements in the civil society we are helping to erect.

The First Amendment's disestablishment clause is not a foreign policy tool, but a peculiarly American conception. Just because the American government is banned from promoting religion within the United States does not mean that the State Department and the Pentagon cannot promote religion overseas in societies that are undergoing profound societal changes. This last point is crucial: Overseas we are participating as a key architect and builder of new institutions; we are in what social scientists call "the design business." This is quite distinct from what we do at home: shoring up a solid social structure designed two centuries ago, careful not to rock the foundations or undermine the pillars on which it stands. In Iraq, Afghanistan, and many other Third World countries, we participate in the ground-breaking, foundation-laying stage, one in which elements we can take for granted at home -- such as a thriving religious life within civil society -- must be provided.

The current U.S. position reflects, whether deliberately or unwittingly, the "end of history" conception that all ideologies are on their last legs as the world embraces the American (or Western) ideals of democracy, human rights, and free markets. This notion, in turn, is but an extension of the Enlightenment conceit that modernity is based on rational thinking, which religion is not, and hence religion is "history" while secularism (reason, science) is the future. Accordingly, societies in which religion is "still" playing a key role are considered behind the times, underdeveloped. As we are learning, however, all over the world people have spiritual needs that cannot be addressed, let alone satisfied, by Enlightenment ideals.

We are witnessing an explosive growth of Christianity in East Asia (in 2000, China had 3.5 million Catholics, up from less than half a million in the mid-1980s); on the Korean peninsula, where nearly a quarter of the population is Christian, a 4,000 percent increase from the early part of the twentieth century; and in Africa (360 million Christians in 2000, compared to 10 million in 1900). We find an "outpouring of pent-up religious [fervor]," as sociologist Alan Aldridge put it, in Russia (which nearly doubled the number of adherents to the Russian Orthodox Church from 1970 to 2000) and other former communist nations in Eastern Europe. And there has been a rise in Islam not only in countries that were never modernized, but even in those that have had extensive secular, modern periods -- such as, most tellingly, Turkey. In the United States, although there are continuous debates over the depth of American religious commitments and the possibility of a religious revival, no one doubts that religion is a major force in American life and that important elements of our civil society are faith-based. We should export to Iraq -- and to other countries challenged by fundamentalism -- our mixed secular and religious civil society.

The reason religion cannot be suppressed, why religion is reasserting itself where it was formerly stifled or thriving where it was never held back, is that it speaks to profound questions to which many millions of people seek answers. These are transcendental questions such as why we are cast into this world, why we are born to die, and what life's purpose might be. In addition, there are moral questions such as what we owe to our children, to our elderly parents, and to our friends, communities, and nations. Neither democracy nor capitalism speaks to these issues. Secular humanism does provide some answers, but not ones all find compelling; the answers deal largely with moral issues but much less with the truly transcendent ones.

The quest for spiritual answers of one kind or another is evident both in former communist countries and in Islamic countries in which the theocracy is breaking down (such as Iran) or has been ended (e.g., Afghanistan). In all these countries, the breakdown of tyranny precedes an explosive growth of new kinds of anti-social behavior. (I write new kinds of anti-social behavior because other kinds -- corruption or spying on one's friends, co-workers, and neighbors, for instance -- were, of course, quite common in the pre-liberation days.) These countries experience sharp rises in drug abuse, HIV, divorce, and crime. The New York Times Magazine published a particularly distressing account of the reemergence of pedophiles in Kabul, who did not dare act out during the Taliban days.

The reason is obvious: Once police terror as the source of social order is removed, it must be replaced by some other source or else moral and social anarchy will arise. Order in a free society rests primarily on people choosing to refrain from anti-social behavior because of their moral upbringing and the informal enforcement of social norms. No free society can make police the mainstay of its social order; law enforcement's proper place is as a backup to an order largely undergirded by morality. Sending the military police into newly freed countries and training local cops are of course necessary, but they will not curb anti-social behavior unless accompanied by a new moral code. Religion has been and very much still is one major source of such mores. The religion we should promote is compatible with democracy and not oppressive in its own terms and institutions. Call it a "soft" religion.



I KNOW A BIT about how receptive Shiites are to a non-Wahhabi, moderate, soft Islam because they laid out their position during a three-day meeting in Iran that I attended a year ago. It ended just as the holiday commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hossein began. Although the reformers -- headed by Dr. Seyyed Ataollah Mohajerani of the International Centre for Dialogue Among Civilizations -- organized the meeting, several hardliners also participated. The main point, repeatedly stressed during the meeting, was that both Shia camps -- the hardliners and the reformers -- want to live in an Islamic society. The main difference between them is that the prevailing hardliners are committed to enforcing the religious code through morality squads, secret police, and jails -- in short, the government -- while the reformers favor encouraging people to be devout rather than forcing them to abide by the Prophet's dictates. The line most often repeated was: "If you do not force people to come, they will want to come."

A similar approach was laid out by professor Muqtedar Khan of Adrian College in Michigan, who writes:

Moderate Muslims aspire for a society -- a city of virtue -- that will treat all people with dignity and respect. There will be no room for political or normative intimidation. Individuals will aspire to live an ethical life because they recognize its desirability. Communities will compete in doing good and politics will seek to encourage good and forbid evil. They believe that the internalization of the message of Islam can bring about the social transformation necessary for the establishment of the virtuous city. The only arena in which moderate Muslims permit excess is in idealism.

Many have attempted to outline the features of a soft Islam in recent years, resulting in several typologies of liberal, modest, modern, and Euro-Islam that are contrasted with militant, virulent, and fundamentalist Islam. Naturally, there is no agreement about the interpretation of relevant texts and traditions. Nor is it possible (or necessary) to review this large body of literature here. Rather, I seek to list several key features of the sort of Islam the United States should support in those parts of the world where it must counter Muslim fundamentalism.

Soft Islam, as the Islamic legal theorist Khaled Abou El Fadl has described it, differs from the fundamentalist version in that it draws on the members of the community for consultations (sharia) rather than relying on rulings from the mullahs. The concept of sharia has been traced to the pre-Islamic era, when tribal councils decided important public issues through consultation. Professor Forough Jahanbakhish of Queen's University in Canada adds that most modern scholars hold that such consultative bodies should be composed of representatives of the whole community, and not just elites.

In 2001, President Mohammad Khatami of Iran, the leader of the reformers, stated that "the constitution [of Iran] states that the rule is Allah's... but it also states that this Divine rule is based on people's opinions. Man is Allah's representative on earth and the right to rule does not refer to any specific person. Rather, it refers to all those who participate in elections and set the government's agenda." Another principle discussed by some -- including Abou El Fadl in his book And God Knows the Soldiers: The Authoritative and Authoritarian in Islamic Discourse (University Press of America, 2001) -- is one attributed to the Prophet: that "every mujtahid [the person exerting effort in deducing the law] is correct." This means, according to Abou El Fadl, that "one must search for the law without fear of failure" and that while humans strive to discover the Divine Will, "no one has the authority to lay an exclusive claim to it."

Others have stressed that the Koran is open to different interpretations rather than commanding one strict, rigid, by-the-book line. As Khan writes in his essay "Who Are Moderate Muslims?":

Ijtihad narrowly understood is a juristic tool that allows independent reasoning to articulate Islamic law on issues where textual sources are silent. The unstated assumption being when texts have spoken reason must be silent. But increasingly moderate Muslim intellectuals see Ijtihad as the spirit of Islamic thought that is necessary for the vitality of Islamic ideas and Islamic civilization.... For moderate Muslims, Ijtihad is a way of life, which simultaneously allows Islam to reign supreme in the heart and the mind to experience unfettered freedom of thought. A moderate Muslim is therefore one who cherishes freedom of thought while recognizing the existential necessity of faith.

Abou El Fadl, a professor at UCLA, provides examples of conflicting Koranic interpretations in And God Knows the Soldiers. The Koran, he explains, commands believers, "Do not take a life which God has forbidden unless for some just cause." Yet what constitutes "just cause" is susceptible to debate. The Koran also instructs, "And do not kill yourselves." But whether smoking, for example, is a form of killing oneself is also a matter of debate. Regarding the veil or headscarf (hijab) worn by many Muslim women, Abou El Fadl writes:

Most importantly, the historical setting and the complexity of the early context do suggest that the inquiries into the juristic basis of the hijab cannot be considered heretical. In this sense, labeling the hijab as a part of the usul [the foundations of the faith upon which disagreement is not tolerated], and using that label as an excuse to end the discussion in the matter, is obscenely despotic. It might very well be that this is yet another legal issue where the law of God is pursuant to the convictions of the pious adherent.

That last comment is particularly important. When religions are moderated, whether the reforms include praying in the vernacular or allowing men and women to worship together, there is a common fear that the whole construction will unravel. Hence, drawing a distinction between an inviolate core and the other elements is crucial to fostering the sense that one can reinterpret the various religious dictates while maintaining the religion's essence. Soft Islam builds on this difference between the core and the rest; rigid Islam denies the existence of such a distinction. Thus, the Iranian historian and reformer Hashem Aghajari has addressed the question of the mullah's religious authority in this way:

The Protestant movement wanted to rescue Christianity from the clergy and the Church hierarchy -- [Christians] must save religion from the pope. We [Muslims] do not need mediators between us and God. We do not need mediators to understand God's holy books. The Prophet [Jesus] spoke to the people directly.... We don't need to go to the clergy; each person is his own clergy.

A particularly important case of divergent interpretations of Islam, one antithetical to a civil global society and one very supportive of it, is found in the debate over the meaning of "jihad." Some Muslims interpret jihad to mean "holy war." A group of sheikhs in Cairo, expressing this view, has determined that, "According to Islamic law, if the enemy steps on Muslims' land, jihad becomes a duty of every male and female Muslim." Before the recent conflict, Iraqi Imam Omar Hussein Asengawy issued a fatwa -- an authoritative religious ruling -- holding that all Muslims were obligated to wage war against the United States in the event of an attack on Iraq. "Let's wage jihad together," he told his coreligionists last December, "to face the enemy and the infidel." At the heart of the "holy war" viewpoint is the presumption that all nonbelievers are lower-grade human beings, contemptuously referred to as kaffir.

In other, civil interpretations, jihad is conceived as a solely spiritual struggle. Abou El Fadl writes, "Jihad-- means to strive, to apply oneself, to struggle, and persevere. In many ways, jihad connotes a strong spiritual and material work ethic in Islam." Islamic scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr explains in The Heart of Islam (Harper San Francisco, 2002) that "jihad is therefore the inner battle to purify the soul of its imperfections, to empty the vessel of the soul of the pungent water of forgetfulness, negligence, and the tendency of evil and to prepare it for the reception of the Divine Elixir of Remembrance, Light, and Knowledge."

These writings represent a small sample of a huge body of literature, yet they illustrate the basic character of a soft Islam. Such an Islam seeks to educate and encourage good conduct rather than coerce it, is open to reinterpretation on all matters but its core, welcomes participation by the members of the community rather than dictates from the mullahs, and spreads spiritually rather than by the sword.



ISLAM, LIKE JUDAISM but unlike Protestantism, is much more a behavioral and less a theological religion. Promoting soft Islam in Iraq and elsewhere cannot be accomplished solely through scholarly symposia on the meaning of moderate Islam or by creating anthologies and delivering lectures, although these activities all have their place. We must turn to policy. The most effective way to develop such a conception is to embody it in new institutions for the whole world to see. Moreover, as we remain knee-deep in rebuilding Iraq, concrete questions -- not just matters of theory -- must be faced.

Schools provide an especially suitable environment in which to start to examine the third way between theocracy and a secular civil society. Education in several Islamic countries is carried out in madrasas. These are the places where young people are drilled in Wahhabi Islam and anti-Western principles and pumped full of rigid interpretations of religious texts, learning by rote, with next to no exposure to science and the liberal arts. Madrasas are common in theocracies such as the Taliban's Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and northern Pakistan. If the dominant Shiites in Iraq have their way, these schools will be introduced in that country as well. In place of the madrasas, Delaware Senator Joseph Biden has suggested that we should promote secular, American-public-school-like institutions.

Another alternative is to provide two tracks of education within public schools. One track would be essentially secular (although children would learn about religion), and the other would dedicate a significant proportion of the teaching -- say, 20 percent -- to religious subjects. (We may not wish to advertise to Iraqis that this approach is followed in Israel, but that example shows that the approach is feasible.) In Malaysia, in which there is a large Muslim population but a relatively moderate one, both secular and religious education are provided: Muslim children can attend secular school in the morning and religious classes in the afternoon.

To ensure that the religious part of public schooling is used for soft religious teachings rather than for fundamentalist indoctrination, the teachers, although as a rule from a given religious group (Shiites in southern Iraq, for example), need to be qualified and selected by the school rather than by religious groups, and the teaching material must be approved by the ministry of education.

This is a sound educational system for several reasons: It prevents fundamentalist education; ensures that all children will acquire the rudiments of modern education; allows those parents who seek it to secure a significant amount of religious schooling for their children with the costs covered by the state; and ensures that children of different backgrounds -- secular and religious -- will mix, an outcome that is prevented when some of the children go to segregated religious schools. Above all, such a two-track system allows a government to promote moderate religions without preventing anyone who (or whose parent) wishes to have secular education from gaining it. Thus, it is a prime example of how a government can promote religion and still ensure that it will be liberal.

The institutionalization of a civil society with religious elements may also proceed through the provision of social services. In several parts of the Islamic world (in southern Iraq, for instance), various religious bodies provide social services. In France, social services -- including health care, welfare, and child care -- are provided largely by the secular arms of the government. A third way would be to continue to utilize whatever governmental and secular voluntary social services are available and to expand them while also drawing on religious services -- the way it is done in the United States. Despite America's uncommonly strong commitment to disestablishment, the U.S. government relies to a significant extent on voluntary religious groups to provide many social services. This is done either by contracting with various religious groups for the provision of social services or by allowing religious institutions -- Catholic or Jewish hospitals, for example -- to receive Medicare and Medicaid payments via individuals who choose to be served by them. As of 2001, 75 percent of the funding for the Jewish Board of Family and Children Services came from government sources. Catholic Charities' programs receive about 66 percent of their funding from government grants and contracts, and Lutheran Services in America receives more than 33 percent of its annual budget from government funds. Indeed, the United States is expanding its reliance on faith-based institutions following the Charitable Choice Act of 1996 and the Bush administration's faith-based initiative. All this could be applied to Iraq, relying on what amounts to two-track social services -- those provided by government agencies and those provided by faith-based institutions. Here too the government would impose some limitations on the ways in which religious groups can use public funds. Specifically, it would require that the funds be used fully for social services and not for political action or fundamentalist indoctrination.

Finally, a government keen on promoting a two-track civil society might pay the salaries of the Muslim clergy and the maintenance costs of mosques. To Americans this may seem highly controversial and a gross violation of the separation of church and state, but it is a common practice in many democracies: In Catholic countries such as Spain and Italy, for instance, as well as in Scandinavia and Germany. (In some countries, this is done indirectly; in some cases, the government collects a special church tax from those who attend church, but the net effect is that the clergy are publicly supported and not dependent on passing the plate.) Once the government pays for clergy, it is free to determine who qualifies as such. Fundamentalist preachers will surely not be banned from practicing, but they will not do so on public dollars. A group of moderate clergy may advise the government on who is qualified to serve in the public religious sector.

One may ask, "But what about Christians and other religious groups?" The same arrangements would apply to them. Social services could be delivered by these religious communities, their clergy compensated, and two-track teaching provided. Lest this sound too abstract, one should note that despite our insistence on the separation of state and church, we in effect are a two-track society; this reality is well illustrated by the fact that we allow various religious authorities to conduct marriages that are recognized by the state and also enable people to be married in a civil ceremony without any religious trappings.

The trouble is that so far, we have been approaching Iraq as if we favor only secular institutions. The 13 points released by the U.S. Central Command headquarters in Qatar in mid-April state that Iraq must be a democracy, that the rule of law must be paramount, and that the role of women must be respected -- all of which are fine, but all speak to the secular elements of the future Iraq. A two-track approach to constructing a civil society in Iraq, one that provides ample room both for soft Islam and for secular institutions, not only would serve better in countering fundamentalism than sheer secularism, but also would respond to a wider array of human needs.

MUCH OF THE recent literature on Islam focuses on the question of whether Islam is or can be made compatible with a democratic regime, an inquiry closely related but not identical to the question of whether there is a soft Islam that can serve as an antidote to Islamic fundamentalism. Can Islam live with free elections, tolerate a free press, grant equal rights to women, tolerate secular authorities, and the rest? Although there is little agreement on this subject, one of the earmarks of soft Islam is that it can coexist with democratic political institutions.

To provide but one example: Treating women as men's equals in moderate Islamic societies, instead of in the demeaning and abusive way of Islamic fundamentalism, draws on two rather different principles. One is respect for the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other more general, secular liberal political theories, which extol the virtues of individual dignity and individual rights. Another is a soft interpretation of Islam based on arguments such as those made by Forough Jahanbakhish in Islam, Democracy, and Religious Modernism in Iran, 1953-2000 (Leiden, Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill, 2001): Previous generations have misinterpreted Islamic sources, and the inferior status of women is a product of the social conditions at the time of the Koran, not the moral teachings of it. In Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women (Anchor Books, 1995), Geraldine Brooks questions whether rules that were clearly meant to apply only to the Prophet's wives, such as seclusion, should have been extended to all Muslim women.

The significance of the difference between these approaches is that if one draws, for political legitimacy, merely on respect for the U.N. Declaration and the ideals associated with it -- that is, on Locke and Kant, the Founders, and the Federalist Papers -- one in effect presumes that support for democracy must be secular. If one also draws on soft interpretations of Islam, one finds that Islam can be made compatible with democracy so that promoting religion as an essential element of civil society will not hinder the development of a liberal democracy. As Daniel Pipes, a scholar of the Middle East, has put it, "militant Islam is the problem, and moderate Islam is the solution."

It follows that by promoting soft Islam we get two for the price of one: We promote a religion that is compatible with liberal democracy as well as one that can serve as an effective antidote to the fundamentalists. I take it for granted that Iraq should have a democratic form of government. But it should be one that does not treat religion per se as a threat but, potentially, as a mainstay of civil society, and hence as something that should be promoted -- that is, to be sure, in its soft, moderate forms.

This article first appeared in the October-November 2003 issue of Policy Review. Reprinted with the permission of the journal and the author. Amitai Etzioni is a University Professor at George Washington University and author of the autobiography My Brother's Keeper: A Memoir and a Message (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003). Amitai Etzioni's book From Empire to Community: A New Approach to International Relations, in which a version of this essay appears, will be published by Palgrave Press in April, 2004.

-------------------------------------------------------

IAEA to meet on Iran, Libya nuclear programs
www.chinaview.cn 2004-03-08 13:11:10

VIENNA, March 8 (Xinhuanet) -- The governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will start a five-day meeting on the nuclear programs of Iran and Libya on Monday, during which two resolutions will be discussed.
Libya has agreed to dismantle its program under the supervision of the IAEA. But Iran, though claiming its innocence, has long been accused by the United States of using its atomic energy program as an excuse to build a bomb.
According to the IAEA's recent report on Iran, its inspectors had unearthed designs and parts for the advanced "P2" uranium enrichment centrifuge, capable of producing bomb-grade uranium, and uncovered experiments process in the creation of plutonium andpolonium, which can be used in nuclear weapons.
As to the report, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid RezaAsefi denied the existence of the advanced nuclear equipment, describing those reports as "unfounded." He stressed that Iran's nuclear activities are intended for peaceful purposes and the country has not pursued and still does not pursue any nuclear weapons program.
On Sunday, Iranian Supreme National Security Council secretary Hassan Rohani said through state television that it was time for the IAEA to close the 13-month investigation into Iran's unclear program.
In an effort to dispel suspicion over its nuclear program, Iransigned an additional protocol to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) last December, allowing unfettered UN inspections to its nuclear facilities. Enditem
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saudi Arabia, China sign natural gas deal
www.chinaview.cn 2004-03-08 11:38:53
BEIJING, Mar. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- The Saudi government signed on Sunday morning a deal on natural gas drilling and production with the China National Petrochemical Corp (SINOPEC), according to a SINOPEC official.
The deal was inked by Saudi Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Bin Ibrahim Al-N'aimi and chief of SINOPEC Wang Jiming.
The agreement, covering an area of 40 square kms in the south of Saudi Arabia's Rub Al Khali Province, was also signed by the chairman of the leading Saudi Arabia oil provider, Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO), Wang told reporters after the signing ceremony.
Wang said the project was a landmark in the Sino-Saudi ties in general and in the bilateral economic and trade co-operation in particular.
He hailed the deal as a strong link which further cements the full-fledged relations between China and Saudi Arabia, saying he is confidence in the success of the deal and the project would hopefully bear fruits for both sides when it goes into operation.
He disclosed the total spending in the first phase of the project was set to be US$300 million, adding that SINOPEC has already made contacts with several banks over the funding of the scheme and some Saudi banks showed willingness to step in.
He said on January 27, SINOPEC secured an international tender staged by the Saudi government for gas excavation and production at the contracted zone.
Under the deal, SINOPEC and ARAMCO will launch a company for drilling and production at the contracted zone with ARAMCO holding a 20 percent quota.
Meanwhile, Al-N'aimi is also expected to sign two similar deals here in the day with the Russian Lock Oil on one hand and the Italian Iny and the Spanish Ribsol on the other.
Lock Oil will drill and produce natural gas at the A zone which covers 30,000 sq m and the two European partners will work at the 52,000 square km C zone, both at Rub Al Khali.
Last November, Saudi Arabia clinched deals for natural gas drilling and production with the international Shell and Total and the national ARAMCO groups. The three companies were offered concession terms up to 25 years and concession area of 210,000 square kms at Rub Al Khali too.
The projects were part of the Saudi government's reform and opening up policies in the economic field. Enditem
--------------------------------------------------
Saudis deny political motive in gas deals
Riyadh |By A Staff Reporter | 08-03-2004
Print friendly format | Email to Friend
Saudi Arabia yesterday ruled out any political motive in its choice of partners as it put the final seal on a series of groundbreaking gas deals with foreign companies.
The kingdom, which has the world's fourth largest deposits of gas, put pen to paper on contracts with Russia's Lukoil, China's Sinopec and an Italian/Spanish consortium.
The agreements marked Saudi Arabia's first invitation to foreign groups to make competitive bids for rights to explore for its gas.
Equally surprising was its choice of partners. None of the four winning bids came from an American company. But Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al Naimi played down any significance in that. "We actually chose the best bidders, and we are in fact very pleased at this diversification," he said yesterday in Riyadh.
Saudi Aramco took a 20 per cent share in each of the three contracts awarded. Although it announced the awards in late January, the deals did not become official until now.
The kingdom wants to use its undeveloped gas as fuel for an ambitious range of planned industries, including plants to treat and desalinate water and factories to make petrochemicals, steel and cement.
Despite Naimi's denials Martin Purvis of Edinburgh consultancy Wood Mackenzie said the auction's outcome appeared to be "a political play" concerning Russia and China.
Russia is Saudi Arabia's main oil rival. China, meanwhile, is a major buyer of Saudi crude. Its rapid economic growth will make it a still bigger market in the future.
Saudi Arabia hopes to build closer ties with both countries. There is, Naimi said: "No question in my mind that strengthening the economic relations will strengthen other areas of cooperation."
Sinopec's vice chairman Wang Jiming agreed, saying his company's involvement in the Saudi gas business would "help further to promote the country-to-country political relationship" between China and Saudi Arabia.
To find gas, Saudi Aramco's foreign partners must each explore an area larger than Kuwait.
Lukoil president Vagit Alekperov said his company was prepared to invest $3 billion over the life of its contract, and Sinopec suggested that it would consider investing a similar sum.
---------------------------------------------------------------
>> AAAHH THE UMMAH...

Two private enterprises have signed an agreement to transport some 250,000 cubic metres of liquefied natural gas (LNG) daily in tanks from Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to the southern coastal city starting in June.
The project will save tens of millions of yuan a year for power plants and some industrial companies in the city's suburban Bao'an District, which will continue to use diesel as a major source of fuel before the LNG pipelines reach the area in 2006.
Shenzhen Tianmin Ltd, a privately funded company involving LNG trade and transportation, said its partner, Xinjiang Guanghui Group Ltd, will provide 60 million cubic metres of LNG annually in the beginning.
The first phase of Guanghui's LNG project, which is located in Tuha in Xinjiang, is expected to reach a daily output of 1.5 million cubic metres, or an annual production of about 500 million cubic metres.
Tianmin has invested 100 million yuan (US$12.0 million) to enable and ensure the safe transportation of 250,000 cubic metres of LNG from Xinjiang to Shenzhen - a 4,300 kilometre trek, said Wu Yihao, deputy general manager of Tianmin. He said this would be done with the use of advanced professional vehicles equipped with a container for cryogenic liquid as well as a Global Position Satellite system (GPS).
The company's annual transportation capacity will reach 300 million cubic metres, or about 820,000 cubic metres daily, by the end of this year, he added.
In 2005-06, China's first two LNG terminals are expected to be employed in Guangdong and Fujian, carrying liquefied natural gas from Australia and Indonesia.
Source: China Daily
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Japan, S.Korea Agree to Cooperate on N.Korea Issue
Sun Mar 7, 2004 09:06 AM ET
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan and South Korea agreed on Sunday to work closely to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear arms ambitions, but gave only a passing attention to thorny bilateral issues.
Visiting South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon held talks with his Japanese counterpart Yoriko Kawaguchi in which they stressed that their countries should cooperate on the North Korean issue, a Japanese official said.
The discussions followed six-country talks in Beijing last month on ending North Korea's nuclear weapons programs.
"At the last round of the six-party talks, Japan, the United States and South Korea worked well in closer cooperation with one another and moved a step forward," the official quoted Kawaguchi as telling Ban.
The February talks involving the United States, North and South Korea, Japan, Russia and China ended only with an agreement to set up a working group and hold a third round of discussions in the Chinese capital before the end of June.
But there was little evidence that those talks had narrowed the gulf between North Korea and the United States.
Washington has accused North Korea of pursuing a uranium enrichment program to make nuclear weapons.
North Korea repeated in Beijing its denial that it had a clandestine enriched uranium weapons program in addition to the plutonium-based bomb-making project it is offering to freeze in exchange for energy aid and diplomatic concessions.
"It is important for us to continue to urge North Korea to accept the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of its nuclear weapons programs," the Japanese official quoted Ban as telling Kawaguchi.
Ban flew to Tokyo only days after a row flared between Japan and South Korea over postage stamps showing a group of islets claimed by both states in a long-standing territorial dispute.
A group of Japanese lawmakers applied Friday to be allowed to buy customized stamps showing the group of islets, under a system where customers can have stamps made with their favorite images.
The row over the rocky outcrops, known as Takeshima in Japan and Tokto in South Korea, flared in January when Seoul issued stamps featuring the flora and fauna of the islands, despite protests from Tokyo.
The dispute over the islets, uninhabited except for a garrison of South Korean soldiers, has run since the end of World War II.
During Sunday's meetings, the Japanese and South Korean foreign ministers did not discuss the stamp issue, the Japanese official said.
The official also said the two ministers did not touch on another thorny issue -- visits by Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to Tokyo's Yasukuni shrine, which honors war criminals as well as ordinary war dead.
Since taking office in 2001, Koizumi has outraged Japan's Asian neighbors four times with visits to the shrine, seen as a symbol of the militarist regime that led Japan into war.
Kawaguchi and Ban stressed that the two Asian neighbors should deal with bilateral issues "sensibly" to prevent the feelings of the peoples from running high, the official said.
Many Koreans still harbour bitter memories of Japan's colonial rule of the Korean peninsula from 1910 to 1945.


? Copyright Reuters 2004. All rights reserved.
----------------------------------------------------------
>> PENTAGON WATCH...
>> NOT THAT ABRUPT? CONVERSATIONS....
Abrupt Climate Change
PART 1: Severe storms in the Netherlands and a prolonged drought in Europe leading to unprecedented human migration -- these are some of the scenarios laid out in "Imagining the Unthinkable," a report recently issued to the U.S. Department of Defense on the possible worst-case effects of abrupt climate change. Host Steve Curwood talks with Peter Schwartz, one of the co-authors of the report, about the human consequences of such a scenario.
PART 2: Living on Earth continues the conversation on abrupt climate change, as host Steve Curwood talks with Leon Fuerth, former national security advisor to Vice President Al Gore, about the military and economic implications in the event of a rapid shift in global climate.
PART 3: National security and politics aside, the paleo-record of climate change shows strong evidence that an abrupt shift in climate could be headed our way. Host Steve Curwood talks with Daniel Schrag, professor of earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University, about the science behind abrupt climate change.

CURWOOD: From the Jennifer and Ted Stanley studios in Somerville, Massachusetts, welcome to Living on Earth. I'm Steve Curwood.

[MOVIE TRAILER MUSIC]

CURWOOD: For moviegoers across the country, Memorial Day marks the release of a film based on a concept of abrupt climate change. It's Mother Nature gone wild, in the much-anticipated disaster flick, "The Day After Tomorrow."

[SHRIEKS OF PANICKING PEOPLE]

MALE 1: [LIVE NEWSCAST] Lower Manhattan is literally inaccessible.

[ROAR OF TERRIFIED CROWD]

MALE 2: [LIVE NEWSCAST] There's a wall of water coming towards New York City...

CURWOOD: Tornadoes dismantle Los Angeles, hail the size of grapefruit pummel Tokyo, and Manhattan freezes over in a single day as abrupt climate change makes its debut on the big screen.

MALE: Save as many as you can.


New York City gets hit hard in a global ecological catastrophe
in the movie "The Day After Tomorrow."
(? and ? 2003 Twentieth Century Fox)


CURWOOD: This Hollywood scenario may seem far-fetched, and the science of the flick is a bit wobbly. But a recent report to the Pentagon, based on an assessment from the National Academy of Sciences, points out abrupt climate change may be a very real threat to national and international security. "Imagining the Unthinkable," as it's called, outlines a worst-case-scenario in the event of a massive and abrupt shift in global climate - shifts that have happened in the relatively recent past.

One of the authors of the Pentagon report is Peter Schwartz, a future scenario planner. He frequently consults for the Defense Department. Peter Schwartz, welcome to Living on Earth.

SCHWARTZ: Thank you. Glad to be here.

CURWOOD: Now, your work makes you no stranger to the Defense Department, but - I have to ask you - you've been a consultant for Hollywood, right?

SCHWARTZ: Yes.

CURWOOD: What are some of the movie projects you've worked on?

SCHWARTZ: Well, the first one was a film called "War Games" back in 1981, then another one called "Sneakers," both computer hacker movies. Then another one called "Deep Impact," also a kind of worst case scenario, if you will, given what we're going to talk about, of a comet coming toward the earth and how you might respond to it. I worked with a good friend Walter Parks on all three of those, and then with Steven Spielberg on "Minority Report."

CURWOOD: And I can't help but ask you then, what's your take on this upcoming movie "The Day After Tomorrow"? And were you involved in its production in any way?

SCHWARTZ: I wasn't, but I was asked to be. I chose not to be, mainly because this is pure entertainment. They weren't really interested in making a realistic view. I think they were enamored of a number of the images that turn up in the movie. And that's okay, this is pure entertainment.

CURWOOD: Now, you and some of your partners at your office recently drafted a report for the Pentagon entitled "Imagining the Unthinkable," which is a worst case scenario for abrupt climate change. Why paint such a scenario in the first place? Why is climate change a military concern?

SCHWARTZ: Well, this begins, first of all, with the National Research Council report called "Abrupt Climate Change," which looked at the possibilities for a scenario of abrupt climate change. The Pentagon, not surprisingly, read that report, the senior staff there, and said `we should consider whether this might have some national security implications.' That's what triggered our study.

And so it was an exercise in thinking the unthinkable. And from their point of view, the unthinkable means `could this happen soon, and could it be much more severe than most climatologists would say?' So, if you think back to just only a few years ago, you might have wished that somebody had thought about what might happen if terrorists would send airplanes into tall buildings and buildings in Washington. It's in that spirit. It isn't trying to predict the future, it was trying to say `what if?'

CURWOOD: Now, there's a lot of information in the 22 pages you put together here, Peter Schwartz. Can you give us the bullet points of what you found?

SCHWARTZ: Well, most significantly, it is this: what we're saying is that, while it is unlikely, the most extreme case would be a scenario of fairly rapid warming in the near future - the next, say, decade or so - that would in turn trigger rapid cooling. What would happen is that the ice in the poles would begin to melt, as we're already seeing some of. Glaciers would begin to retreat. Both of these would release fresh water into the North Atlantic. Increased precipitation associated with all of that might also lead to rivers producing more fresh water to the North Atlantic. That freshening of the North Atlantic, which we have been seeing, would then trigger a collapse of the Gulf Stream. It would move several thousand miles south. It would no longer bring warm water to the North Atlantic, warming, particularly, Europe, parts of the northeastern United States and Canada.

And that would be part of a larger shift of a similar nature in a number of parts of the world in the kind of heat balance mechanisms, particularly of the ocean currents. So that's the kind of mechanism that triggers first warming and then cooling. The cooling would be something on the order of, over the northern hemisphere, of about five degrees or so over a decade or so. In fact, what we are describing is a picture of a world very similar to what happened 8,200 years ago, when the world's temperature, particularly in the northern hemisphere, dropped a similar five degrees in roughly a decade, stayed down for a century, and came back up for a decade.

CURWOOD: Let me just ask you one more thing on the science. People talk in terms of global warming. How do you explain to them that you see a cooling here?

SCHWARTZ: Well, global warming is another possible scenario. We have a fair amount of uncertainty about what's likely to happen. In fact what we could see - and as we emphasized, this is the worst case scenario - more likely is that you might see 50, 75 more years of warming that then could trigger a cooling. Or the cooling might never happen. I am personally of the mind that the more likely scenario that history tells us, is that we will get some sustained warming, and then we will experience abrupt cooling. The history of climate change is more often abrupt change, and it has frequently been large scale over very long periods of history.

CURWOOD: For the moment, let's assume that the worst case scenario that you were asked to conjure up is happening. Could you lay out a timeline for us, what would be happening in the United States over the next few decades?

SCHWARTZ: Sure. The immediate effects would be you'd start to see more variability in the weather. You'd see more severe storms, you would see more torrential rainfall, you might see very short winters, very little snow, more rain. One of the impacts that is plausible, but hard to predict, would be a shift in the location of tornadoes. There is believed to be a belt of tornadoes off-shore in the south. You might see more coming on-shore. So those would be some of the kinds of symptoms of a kind of disruptive change under a way in the warming phase.

In the cooling phase what you would see is more severe winters, the kind of thing that you're experiencing right now. But the more important thing you would see is a gradual diminishment of rainfall and then a movement into what we're calling mega-droughts, i.e. they would probably be regional, in what we've thought, more likely, would be the southeast. But it could also be the Midwest or the far West as well. You know, again, think the 1930s here. This is similar to that. It's not much worse, except for one important detail, which I'll come back to in a moment. But - extended droughts over years, five, six, ten years even. And leading therefore to significant fall in reservoirs, in rivers, and so on.

And the thing that is importantly different in terms of its consequences this time, as compared to the 1930s, was that in the 1930s we still had substantial reserves of groundwater we could tap. And while the effects were severe, they were ameliorated in part by the groundwater. We no longer have those reserves. That water is all committed, or used up in some cases. That is, the big aquifers of America are now fully committed. So we don't have spare capacity to deal with the rapid drop in rainfall. So that's the kind of trajectory we're talking about.

CURWOOD: In terms of conflict in the United States, what could happen with our neighbors? Like, what happens with Canada, for example?

SCHWARTZ: That's a very good question. I can imagine a scenario where things got so bad in Canada that some people might want to head south, but frankly I don't think the issues will be to the north. More likely they'll be to the south. And we have two key bodies of water, namely the Colorado and the Rio Grande that, in effect, we share with Mexico. And we already have issues about managing both of those. And in this scenario that could be very severe and produce pressure for migration northward, on the one hand, and disruptions to the management of the water and conflicts over water that we share with Mexico.

But another one that we've already begun to experience some issues over is fishing rights in the Atlantic. We've already seen struggles between Spain, Portugal, and France over fishing rights there, ourselves with respect to the Europeans and the Canadians in the Grand Banks. This could be a really significant issue, because, of course, the fish move with changing temperature of the seas as well. When the ecosystems of the seas change, the locations of the fish change. And we have now become dependent on various fish populations in both sides of the Atlantic. And you can imagine conflicts over access to fishing.

CURWOOD: Now, what are some of the geopolitical things that you forecast here in your scenario? What happens to people and politics under the scenario that you paint?

SCHWARTZ: Well, we see, for example - right now, an example of something that is the kind of consequence we might have to deal with and the kid of political issues - the unraveling of Haiti, and should we intervene or not. One of the possible disruptions is to water supplies in the Caribbean and Central America. The United States has already several times been hit by waves of refugees from that part of the world. And it is not at all implausible that we could be doing better, and others worse, and we could be hit - immediately in our environs, from the Caribbean, Central America, maybe even Mexico, but especially Central America and the Caribbean - with very large numbers of people headed our way. How do we cope with it? Should we intervene in advance? Should we send them water supplies rather than let them come here? There's all kinds of important political questions, technical questions and so on that would have to be resolved. And we're suggesting thinking about those kinds of things in advance, rather than having to improvise in the moment.

CURWOOD: Now, you write also that a possible reaction here in this country to abrupt climate change might be to turn inward, committing our resources to feeding our own population, shoring up our borders and managing increasing global tension. But how does the United States manage this global tension if at the same time it's closing itself off to the rest of the world? I mean, wouldn't this create even more tension?

SCHWARTZ: You're exactly right. I mean, that is the heart of the issue. That's part of why we're warning of this. We have an instinct to kind of stay at home, as it were. And under these circumstances you can imagine much of the population, particularly if there are significant disruptions and high costs domestically, saying, you know, let's take care of our own. Meanwhile you can imagine a political leadership looking around the world and saying, God, there are really terrible things, we've got to be helpful. And if we don't, that will still some home to us eventually one way or the other, and we better deal with it over there than over here. Now caught between a populace reluctant to intervene and the necessity of intervention. And we've been there before. And that kind of situation, I think, is not at all implausible in this circumstance.

CURWOOD: What happens to your report now that you've handed your findings over to the Pentagon?

SCHWARTZ: Well, unfortunately this has gotten a lot of negative publicity, in the sense that particularly The London Observer both implied that the Pentagon tried to suppress the report on the one hand, and secondly that they exaggerated our conclusions, made it a prediction rather than a worst case scenario. And then turned it around and said, well, see, this proves that the Bush administration is wrong. So, in fact, the likelihood is that very little will happen as a result of it. Had it been able to proceed in a more appropriate fashion, it would have been considered along with many other possible scenarios regularly considered by the office of net assessments and the Secretary of Defense's office - that they consider as the routine part of their thinking in the long run.

CURWOOD: So, let me see if I understand this right. Because the public and the press has kicked this around in perhaps, from your perspective, an overly dramatic fashion, it means that the Pentagon can't think about this at all?

SCHWARTZ: It means that this kind of thing gets suppressed for a while. It will come back up again. But it means that this is a taboo topic because you have a meeting about it, and it leaks out to the press again, and it just keeps the storm going, if you know what I mean.

CURWOOD: Peter Schwartz is a future scenario planner and chairman of the consulting firm Global Business Network, part of the Monitor Group. Peter, thanks for speaking with me today.

SCHWARTZ: My pleasure.

CURWOOD: Coming up, we'll continue the climate change conversation with two perspectives on the science and security implications of global warming. We'll be back in a minute, stay tuned. I'm Steve Curwood, and you're listening to NPR's Living on Earth.

[MUSIC: Pan American "Starts Friday" PAN AMERICAN (Kranky - 1998)]

CURWOOD: Welcome back to Living on Earth, I'm Steve Curwood. We've been talking about abrupt climate change, and "Imagining the Unthinkable," as a recent report to the Pentagon is titled. This document outlines a worst-case scenario of abrupt climate change that would cause massive disruptions in agriculture, the economy, and international diplomacy.

So far, the Pentagon has had no public comment on the report of its consultants. But soon climate change may be a hot topic on the national security agenda. With me to talk about the security implications of abrupt climate change is Leon Fuerth, Professor of International Affairs at George Washington University, and the former national security advisor for Vice President Al Gore. Leon Fuerth, welcome.

FUERTH: Thank you.

CURWOOD: Well, we've heard from a consultant to the Pentagon that an abrupt shift in climate could turn out to be a critical issue of national security if it should occur. I'm wondering if you could tell me from your own experience, working as a national security advisor here in the United States, Leon Fuerth, what do you think would happen strategically around the world? What changes, what imbalances in strategic alliances would happen, do you think?

FUERTH: I think what would happen is that the world as you knew it, organization as you knew it, relationships among states as you understood them, the rules of economics as you had understood them would all be shifting. I mean, our territory would remain inviolable, but our business may go to hell. At the level of strategic alignments, one of the continents that would experience the greatest dislocation would be western Europe, where the place would become much, much colder, possibly with the effect of severely damaging the economy of the northern tier of countries and causing a lot of people to try to move south, and creating tremendous internal migration problems for the European Union at the time.

CURWOOD: If there is a country in the world that the United States has a lot of business to do with in the diplomatic sense, in the world power sense, it has to be China. The scenario says that China's going to have pretty serious water problems, and that means food problems. It's a quarter of the world's people, and today they're rich and technologically savvy. What might happen between the United States and China in such a world?

FUERTH: Interesting question. One of the determinants is do we continue to need to borrow half a trillion dollars a year to finance the debt of the federal government of the United States, most of which has been coming from China. And it works out in a giddy sort of way. They lend to us so that we can buy their products.

Now if, let's say, two administrations from now, all of a sudden the climate patterns in China begin to shift drastically, it's natural to believe that trade, economy, and other issues are going to also be disturbed.

So, one of the things I think the United States should do in its own interest is to make itself less dependent on the scale of borrowing than we have been. Because if any of our creditors, for any reason, finds themselves unwilling or unable to continue to lend to us at this rate, then that house of cards can come down.

CURWOOD: So, Leon Fuerth, if you were the national security advisor today, what steps would you advise that the United States take to deal with the possibility of such a climate scenario?

FUERTH: First of all, I think we need a major effort to acquire better modeling in order to be able to calculate as accurately as possible, and in real time, what some of the effects might be. I would begin having people work out planning scenarios, including some of the social, economic, and political consequences in parts of the world where, let's say, the agricultural cycle is disturbed. Better to have people playing these mind games over what might occur while we still have time to think about action than to wait until the evidence is on hand that we're in the middle of it.

CURWOOD: What do you suppose is going on in the Pentagon now and in the Bush administration in the aftermath of this report?

FUERTH: Not much. I mean, what's interesting about this is that this is not like Orson Wells "War of the Worlds," where what you had was a fantasy that was put out there, which inadvertently frightened the public. What you have here is a response to a request from the Department of Defense for a scenario - imagine something. But what they did was imagine a thing on the basis of an event they considered quite possible. And so what it carries is a message, which is: it's time to get real about this while we still have the luxury of time and resources and allies to work the problem.

CURWOOD: Leon Fuerth is professor of International Affairs at George Washington University, and the former national security advisor for Vice President Al Gore. Thanks for taking this time with me today.

FUERTH: Thank you.

CURWOOD: We've been talking about the economic and political consequences of abrupt climate change, in light of a recent report to the Pentagon called "Imagining the Unthinkable." The authors stress that the scenario they paint "pushes the boundaries of current research on climate change." With me to talk about what we do know within the boundaries of climate science today is Daniel Schrag, professor of earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University. Hello, sir.

SCHRAG: Good day.

CURWOOD: What should you as a scientist - let's say the Defense Department calls you up and says, Professor Schrag, as part of our national security assessment, we are on the lookout for signs of abrupt climate change. What do you look for?

SCHRAG: There are a few possible modes of abrupt climate change that we've seen in the past, in the geologic past, that we could look for in the future. The most obvious one would be an instability in the large ice sheets on Greenland or Antarctica. So, if the West Antarctic ice sheet or if the Greenland ice sheet started to exhibit some very unusual behavior, and we thought that a large amount of ice might slide off the continent and into the ocean, this could cause a very abrupt rise in sea level. And would damage coastal cities around the world, devastating world economies.

CURWOOD: Hm, hmm. Now, Professor Schrag, the Defense Department is worried about this. They tend to have a short-term view of things. The effects that you've been talking about so far seem to be decades away. I'm confused - why is the Defense Department so concerned, apparently over the short-term here?

SCHRAG: Well, what I'm talking about may take years to decades to actually happen, and no one knows exactly when these sorts of things can occur, but one shouldn't think that these effects are just decades away. The truth is no one knows. We are already experiencing a world that is substantially warming because of human activities. We know this from the melting of ice in the tropics up at high altitudes, Kilimanjaro and in the Andes, and a lot of other pieces of evidence that tell us global warming is happening now.

CURWOOD: Now why does melting of ice in the tropics indicate global warming?

SCHRAG: Well, this is a really powerful piece of evidence that climate change is happening now. The middle of the troposphere, the middle of the atmosphere near the equator, is a very stable region of the atmosphere. There's very little weather there, there's very little variability. And so, as a result, if one starts to see warming there you know that it's a global signal, because there's very little variability normally.

In the case of these tropical glaciers, Lonny Thompson, from Ohio State University, has shown that these glaciers are melting for the first time in thousands of years. So that proves that it's not a 100-year cycle, or a 500-year cycle. This is truly an extraordinary event coincident with the enormous rise in carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. And to me, that's the most compelling evidence that climate change is happening now.

Now, when we cross certain thresholds that lead to abrupt change, no one has any idea. We don't think that Greenland or West Antarctica are going to melt and drop into the sea in the next 10 years. On the other hand, if they suddenly crossed an instability and started to collapse over a period of a few years, it would be too late to do anything about it. And no one knows exactly when that happens. So to me it makes sense that the Pentagon is planning for all sorts of possibilities, just like an insurance company.

CURWOOD: What kind of shape is the West Antarctic ice sheet in right now?

SCHRAG: Well, it's hotly debated. Some scientists think that the West Antarctic ice sheet is so large and massive that it's insulated from all changes, and that it takes thousands of years for the ice sheet to adjust to the warming that we're experiencing now. Other scientists think that there are mechanisms that we don't understand very well, whereby the ice sheet can actually move and adjust very rapidly. And if that's correct then we are in danger of that amount of ice falling into the ocean. And that amount of ice represents a substantial amount of sea level change.

CURWOOD: On the order of?

SCHRAG: On the order of six meters or so.

CURWOOD: 18 feet of more water.

SCHRAG: And that would pretty much wipe out every coastal city in the U.S.

CURWOOD: And how soon could that happen?

SCHRAG: Well, if it went in over a period of even a hundred years it would mean devastation. You can't even begin to calculate the amount of damage that that would do to the U.S. economy. And to the global economy. And if it went faster than that, which is possible, we'd really be in trouble. I think that really gets to one of the points about climate change. We're doing an experiment on the earth that hasn't been done in millions of years, and no one knows what's going to happen. And if we suddenly decide that a disaster's going to befall us, we may not be able to turn back the clock. Because the system has so much momentum, and is so powerful, we can't just assume that we can fix it.

CURWOOD: You folks who look at the changing climate often use computers to model. In fact that seems to be the basis of a lot of the predictions of the warming that's coming. How well do these models work when you look back at these other changes thousands and millions of years ago? How well do these computers predict something we already know the answer to?

SCHRAG: That's a very good question. It turns out that the answer is that sometimes they work very well, and sometimes they don't work very well. And of course a model is most interesting when it doesn't work well, because it tells us that something's missing. Remember that the models are only as good as the physics that we put into the model. And therefore the models reflect our understanding of the climate system based on modern observations, primarily over the last 50 years or so. Now, we're entering into a mode of climate with high atmospheric carbon dioxide that we haven't been in for tens of millions of years. So nobody has the right set of observations to completely describe the climate system in this mode.

What's interesting is about 50 million years ago, the earth was very warm. We think that carbon dioxide was high. We don't know exactly how high, we think maybe 1,000 to 3,000 parts per million, which is not that far off from where we're going to be 100 to 200 years from now. Now, at that time there were crocodiles living up in Greenland, there were palm trees in Wyoming. Palm trees can never have cold winters, and there were palm trees thriving in Wyoming, where today it gets very cold. Antarctica was a pine forest. Sea level was about 150 meters high than today. It was a completely different world. And the question is, can these models produce it? And when you try to put high carbon dioxide in the models and let them try to simulate the climate, it turns out they don't do a very good job. They actually don't get the world warm enough. There's something missing in the models that is a positive feedback that amplifies the effect of the carbon dioxide. But if that effect kicks in, the warming could be much more severe than the models are predicting.

CURWOOD: Yeah, I was going to say, you're starting to scare me here.

SCHRAG: Well, we should be scared.

CURWOOD: You're saying the models that are predicting this rather large shift don't predict these biggest shifts from the past. Therefore, we're missing something here.

SCHRAG: You know, we've been hearing in the debate about climate change in the public a lot of rhetoric that says because the climate scientists aren't certain, we should wait and not do anything about it. For me it's exactly the opposite. It's our lack of certainty, which is why we should do something now. Because the answer could be much worse than we expect. Climate change could be much more severe than anyone thinks.

CURWOOD: This summer there's going to be a movie out of Hollywood. I think it's called "The Day After Tomorrow." It paints an apocalyptic scene of, actually, the northeastern United States pretty much freezing over.

SCHRAG: I know. I get a lot of pleasure from looking at the preview. I show it in some of my talks. Unfortunately, I think that's probably a very unlikely scenario. I think the idea comes from the idea that the Gulf Stream will somehow collapse when the thermohaline circulation of the Atlantic stops. And therefore this will lead to an ice age and everything will freeze. The truth of the matter is that if the thermohaline circulation stops, it will affect a region around Britain and Scotland, but will probably not affect New York much at all. The movie was by the maker of "Independence Day," and I think after destroying Washington, D.C., he wanted to destroy New York City, and he found a way to do it.

CURWOOD: Why now all this attention to the question of abrupt climate change? The Greenland ice core samples that you told us about have been around for a long time, demonstrating that it didn't take more than a few decades to change a lot of temperature. And yet today, folks like the Defense Department, folks in Hollywood, are suddenly paying attention to the question of abrupt climate change. Why is that happening?

SCHRAG: I think there are powerful forces in our society that have a lot of economic stake in our current energy technology, and are resistant to change. And therefore have promoted the idea that this was just a theory, that climate change was just an idea that scientists had that they weren't sure about, and discouraged action on this front.

And I think a variety of different sectors of our society are beginning to wake up to the fact that we can't just put our head in the sand and hope that it goes away. We know that climate change is a serious risk. The probability of it being dramatic is very high, probably greater than 50 percent. And yet we're willing to spend almost nothing to protect ourselves. We need to buy at least some insurance. And to me, the minimum insurance policy is that we actually should have the technological capacity to do something about it. At the very least, we should be able to change our behavior if we want to. Right now we can't even do that.

CURWOOD: Daniel Schrag is a professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Harvard. Thanks for taking this time with me today.

SCHRAG: Thank you.
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Scientist 'gagged' by No 10 after warning of global warming threat
By Steve Connor and Andrew Grice
08 March 2004


Downing Street tried to muzzle the Government's top scientific adviser after he warned that global warming was a more serious threat than international terrorism.

Ivan Rogers, Mr Blair's principal private secretary, told Sir David King, the Prime Minister's chief scientist, to limit his contact with the media after he made outspoken comments about President George Bush's policy on climate change.

In January, Sir David wrote a scathing article in the American journal Science attacking Washington for failing to take climate change seriously. "In my view, climate change is the most severe problem we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism," he wrote.

Support for Sir David's view came yesterday from Hans Blix, the former United Nations chief weapons inspector, who said the environment was at least as important a threat as global terrorism. He told BBC1's Breakfast with Frost: "I think we still overestimate the danger of terror. There are other things that are of equal, if not greater, magnitude, like the environmental global risks."

Since Sir David's article in Science was published, No 10 has tried to limit the damage to Anglo-American relations by reining in the Prime Minister's chief scientist.

In a leaked memo, Mr Rogers ordered Sir David - a Cambridge University chemist who offers independent advice to ministers - to decline any interview requests from British and American newspapers and BBC Radio 4's Today .

"To accept such bids runs the risk of turning the debate into a sterile argument about whether or not climate change is a greater risk," Mr Rogers said in the memo, which was sent to Sir David's office in February. "This sort of discussion does not help us achieve our wider policy aims ahead of our G8 presidency [next year]." The move will be seized on by critics of Mr Blair's stance over the Iraq war as further evidence that he is too subservient to the Bush administration. It will also be seen as an attempt to bolster the Prime Minister's case for pre-emptive strikes to combat the threat of international terrorism, which he outlined in a speech on Friday.

Sir David, who is highly regarded by Mr Blair, has been primed with a list of 136 mock questions that the media could ask if they were able to get access to him, and the suggested answers he should be prepared to give. One question asks: "How do the number of deaths caused by climate change and terrorism compare?" The stated answer that Sir David is expected to give says: "The value of any comparison would be highly questionable - we are talking about threats that are intrinsically different."

If Sir David were to find himself pushed to decide whether terrorism or climate change was the greater threat, he was supposed to answer: "Both are serious and immediate problems for the world today." But this was not what Sir David said on the Today programme on 9 January when the Science article was published.

Asked to explain how he had come to the conclusion that global warming was more serious than terrorism, Sir David replied that his equation was "based on the number of fatalities that have already occurred" - implying that global warming has already killed more people than terrorism.

The leaked memo came to light after a computer disk was discovered by an American freelance journalist, Mike Martin, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle, where Sir David gave a lecture.

"The disk was lying on the top of a computer in the press room and I popped it into the machine to see what was on it," said Mr Martin, whose own article is published on the ScienceNow website, an online service operated by Science.

Mr Rogers' memo, written a few days before the Seattle conference, was aimed at limiting his exposure to questions from US and British media. While in Seattle, Sir David sat on a panel of scientists at one carefully stage-managed press conference, but his press office said he was too busy to give interviews afterwards to journalists.

Lucy Brunt-Jenner, Sir David's press officer, said she could not comment on internal government documents but said it would be wrong to suggest that Sir David was in any way muzzled. "Sir David had a press conference and he was available to the media at three times," Ms Brunt-Jenner said.

But Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrats' environment spokesman, said: "It's a clear attempt by the Prime Minister to keep Sir David quiet. The Government's chief scientist is the nation's chief scientist and I'd expect him to say what he thinks."
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Missing Gulf War pilot's family wants to interview Iraqis
Associated Press
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- An attorney representing the family of missing Navy pilot Scott Speicher is asking for permission to interview captured Iraqi officials to see if she can determine what happened to the pilot who was shot down 10 years ago in the first war with Iraq.
In a letter faxed to U.S. Sens. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., attorney Cindy Laquidara said she had independent evidence placing Speicher in the custody of the man known as Chemical Ali, former Iraqi Gen. Ali Hassan al-Majid.
Al-Majid, captured by coalition forces in August, was considered to have been Saddam Hussein's hatchet man and the one who ordered a gas attack that killed 5,000 Kurds in 1988.
Laquidara also wants the government's help in locating Iraq's former ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammed Aldouri, for additional questioning.
In 2002, Laquidara traveled to New York and met with Aldouri. When Saddam Hussein was ousted, he left New York.
"We either are not capable of closing this matter following a war or we do not choose to pursue the answer," Laquidara's letter said. "Either is unacceptable."
Nelson's office said copies of the letter were given to Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Calls to Laquidara's office Thursday were not returned.
At a recent briefing, Nelson learned the Defense Department was now not planning to offer the reward of up to $1 million that was authorized by Congress to learn the fate of the Jacksonville-based pilot.
Nelson wrote a letter to Rumsfeld asking him to not reconsider his earlier decision on offering a reward.
"I believe such an action would be a mistake," Nelson said. "At the very least, it would send a clear signal that finding out what happened to Scott Speicher is no longer a top priority."
Pete Contosgavlos, a Nelson aide, said, "Rewards in countries like this can be effective."
Earlier this week, Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, said investigations in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad have found no evidence that Speicher was held in captivity after being shot down on the first night of the 1991 Gulf War.
The Iraqi government under President Saddam Hussein maintained from the start that Speicher died in the crash on Jan. 17, 1991, although his body was not recovered.
Speicher was 33 when he was shot down. He held the rank of lieutenant commander at the time; he has since been promoted to captain.
Speicher's family lived in the Kansas City area and moved to Florida when he was a teenager.

Blair's 'international community' doctrine

By Paul Reynolds
BBC News Online world affairs correspondent

To intervene or not to intervene? That is the question increasingly on the minds of world leaders at the start of the 21st century.

To President Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive action, we now have to add British Prime Minister Tony Blair's doctrine of "international community."
This is a kind of half-way house between the freedom of action Mr Bush seeks to preserve and the rules of the United Nations Charter which allow intervention only in certain circumstances, such as reversing an act of aggression.

It is highly unlikely that the UN would want to go too far down the interventionist path. The UN exists to try to make individual action unnecessary.

And to some a doctrine of international community is a doctrine of international interference.

'Serbia' precedent

But the old rules are already under strain.

Nato's attack on Serbia over Kosovo in 1999 established the rule of a humanitarian intervention. It followed the worldwide guilt felt at the failure by the UN, or anyone else, to intervene in Rwanda.

Now Mr Blair wants to take the process further.

International terrorism post-11 September and the spread of weapons of mass destruction require a further redefinition of the rights of a nation-state, he argued in a speech on Friday.

He even mentioned the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. That basically ended the religious wars in Europe and began the modern system of the nation-state, whose rights, he suggested, should be further curtailed.

He wondered whether international law should not be developed to avoid situations where "a regime can systematically brutalise and oppress its people and there is nothing anyone can do, when dialogue, diplomacy and even sanctions fail, unless it comes within the definition of a humanitarian catastrophe".

Tony Blair in fact first mentioned his doctrine of international community (and world figures like to be known for their doctrines) in a speech in Chicago in 1999. It was at the time of the Kosovo war

'Five rules' for intervention

It was a speech which Saddam Hussein should have read. It illustrated Mr Blair's inclination for action.

He outlined five rules for intervention - be sure of your case, exhaust all other options first, ask if military operations can be "sensibly" undertaken, prepare for the long-term and identify if your interests are involved.

Ideally, Mr Blair suggested in both speeches, the UN would lead the way. But the implication is that individual countries should act if the UN did not.

His problem of course is that "intervention" for some is "aggression" for others. His speech is also under attack from his critics for being too much of a justification of the war in Iraq.

UN's 'wise men'

Meanwhile, the UN itself is also trying to redefine intervention.

All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state
Article 2 of the UN Charter
Last September, the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, set up a committee of "wise men and women" to make recommendations about the UN's future role. It will report this December.

There are 16 members of the committee, an array of the international great and the good (and some say the deja vu).

The members include President Bush senior's National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, who opposed the latest war against Iraq, and former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, who always has the interests of the developing world at heart.

It is not a panel likely to recommend pre-emptive military action.

Lord Hannay, a former senior British diplomat and another member, indicated the limits of the committee's aims.

"The UN should get involved with countries under stress," was how he put it to the BBC.

'Different perceptions'

"We support a collective response to stop a state from sliding down the slope," he said.

Lord Hannay pointed out that there were "different perceptions" about what a threat was in different parts of the world. To some, poverty and Aids were the problem, not terrorism.

The thorn the committee may or may not grasp is the UN's Article 39 which itself accepts that the UN can act in advance of an overt act of war by one state against another.

"The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken," it states.

This article means that the UN can take its own collective pre-emptive action - and of a military kind. It could one day declare that, say North Korea, is a "threat to the peace."

That is really what Mr Bush and Mr Blair are on about. If the UN does not act, they argue, then individual states may do so themselves.

That in turn would be a long way from Article 2 of the UN Charter which says: "All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state."

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3539125.stm

Published: 2004/03/06 15:08:17 GMT

? BBC MMIV

Russian Engineers Reportedly Gave Missile Aid to Iraq

March 5, 2004
Russian Engineers Reportedly Gave Missile Aid to Iraq
By JAMES RISEN
WASHINGTON, March 4 -- A group of Russian engineers secretly aided Saddam Hussein's long-range ballistic missile program, providing technical assistance for prohibited Iraqi weapons projects even in the years just before the war that ousted him from power, American government officials say. Iraqis who were involved in the missile work told American investigators that the technicians had not been working for the Russian government, but for a private company. But any such work on Iraq's banned missiles would have violated United Nations sanctions, even as the Security Council sought to enforce them. Although Iraq ultimately failed to develop and produce long-range ballistic missiles and though even its permitted short-range missile projects were fraught with problems, its missile program is now seen as the main prohibited weapons effort that Iraq continued right up until the war was imminent. After the first Persian Gulf war in 1991, Iraq was allowed only to keep crude missiles that could travel up to 150 kilometers, or about 90 miles, but the Russian engineers were aiding Baghdad's secret efforts illegally to develop longer-range missiles, according to the American officials. Since the invasion last March, American investigators have discovered that the Russian engineers had worked on the Iraqi program both in Moscow and in Baghdad, and that some of them were in the Iraqi capital as recently as 2001, according to people familiar with the intelligence on the matter. Because some of the Russian experts were said to have formerly worked for one of Russia's aerospace design centers, which remains closely associated with the state, their work for Iraq has raised questions in Washington about whether Russian government officials knew of their involvement in forbidden missile programs. "Did the Russians really not know what they were doing?" asked one person familiar with the United States intelligence reports. A spokesman for the Russian Embassy in Washington denied any knowledge of the allegations of recent Russian technical support for Iraq's missile effort. "The U.S. has not presented any evidence of Russian involvement," said Yevgeny Khorishko, a spokesman for the Russian Embassy. Russia and the former Soviet Union were among Iraq's main suppliers of arms for decades before Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, leading to the first gulf war. The Bush administration has previously said it had uncovered evidence that Iraq had unsuccessfully sought help from North Korea for its missile program, but had not disclosed the evidence that Iraq had also received Russian technical support. C.I.A. and White House officials refused to comment on the matter, and people familiar with the intelligence say they believe that the administration has been reluctant to reveal what it knows about Moscow's involvement in order to avoid harming relations with President Vladimir V. Putin. "They are hyper-cautious about confronting Putin on this," complained one intelligence source. In his public testimony last week about the worldwide threats facing the United States, George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, restated Washington's longstanding concerns about Russia's controls over its missile and weapons technology, without mentioning the evidence of missile support for the Hussein government. "We remain alert to the vulnerability of Russian W.M.D. materials and technology to theft or diversion," Mr. Tenet said. "We are also concerned by the continued eagerness of Russia's cash-strapped defense, biotechnology, chemical, aerospace and nuclear industries to raise funds via exports and transfers -- which makes Russian expertise an attractive target for countries and groups seeking W.M.D. and missile-related assistance." The Iraq Survey Group, the United States team that has hunted for evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, also found indications that Baghdad had received assistance from sources in Ukraine, Belarus and Serbia, according to American officials. In an interim report on the progress of the Iraq Survey Group made public in October, David A. Kay, then the C.I.A.'s chief weapons hunter, reported that his group had found "a large volume of material and testimony by cooperating Iraq officials on Iraq's effort to illicitly procure parts and foreign assistance for its missile program." It listed several examples detailing assistance from foreign countries, but apart from North Korea, no other countries were identified. More than 10 months after the end of major military operations in Iraq, American teams have still not found conclusive evidence that Iraq had any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, raising doubts about one of the Bush administration's main arguments for going to war. Since he resigned from his post last month, Dr. Kay has said he believes that Iraq largely abandoned the production of weapons of mass destruction after the first gulf war, and that it gradually destroyed its remaining stockpiles during the 1990's. But Dr. Kay has said the evidence shows that Iraq tried to keep upgrading its ballistic missiles even as its other weapons programs were stalling out. In interviews with Iraqi scientists, examinations of documents and other sources, the Iraq Survey Group has determined that Iraq was actively seeking ways to upgrade its crude missile abilities in order to try to build a rocket fleet that could become a regional threat, reaching American forces based in neighboring countries. American officials now say that the United Nations restrictions that allowed Iraq to keep missiles with ranges of up to 150 kilometers had anunintended effect. From the Iraqi perspective, it meant that it was still legal for Baghdad to continue some missile development activities, since short-range missiles were permitted. By contrast, United Nations sanctions completely banned Iraq from keeping any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, and it now seems that Iraq eventually abandoned those programs. Taking advantage of the loophole permitting short-range missiles, Iraq sought foreign advice on such technical matters as guidance and airframe systems in order to develop missiles with greater range and accuracy than its previous missiles, according to officials familiar with the intelligence. In his October interim report, Dr. Kay said Iraqi detainees and other sources had told American investigators that beginning in 2000, Mr. Hussein approved efforts to develop ballistic missiles with ranges from 400 to 1,000 kilometers. Still, the evidence gathered by the Iraq Survey Group suggests that Iraq's missile development efforts were poorly organized and ultimately unsuccessful. "They had too many scattered programs, and so they didn't focus their efforts on any one missile," said one person familiar with the intelligence on the matter. When United Nations weapons inspectors returned to Iraq in late 2002 just before the war, they found that Iraq had produced short-range Samoud 2 missiles that had slightly longer ranges than the United Nations sanctions allowed. In the weeks before the war, Iraq agreed to destroy many of those missiles, but those highly publicized actions were not enough to convince the United States that Iraq was in compliance with United Nations sanctions. In fact, the evidence suggests that Iraq was seeking to upgrade to missiles with greater range and accuracy than the older, Scud-based Samoud. After the war, the Iraq Survey Group found evidence that Iraq had agreed to pay North Korea $10 million for technical support to upgrade its ballistic missile program in violation of the sanctions. But American officials believe that North Korea never actually delivered anything to the Iraqis, even though it apparently kept Iraq's $10 million. By contrast, the Iraq Survey Group found evidence that the Russian missile engineers actually did provide technical support for the Iraqis for years. The Bush administration's reluctance to raise publicly the issue of Russian support for Iraq's missile program appears to stem from the White House's effort to cultivate better diplomatic relations with Moscow, particularly in the wake of last year's tensions over the war in Iraq. Russia opposed the war, but President Bush and Mr. Putin have still developed a good personal relationship, and there seems much less residual tension between Washington and Moscow over the war than there does between the United States and France and Germany. Since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the United States has also appeared more willing to view Russia's fight with separatists in Chechnya as part of the global war on terror.


Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

How Bush can destroy Kerry fast

The Democratic Party chose a nominee Tuesday who probably cannot win the White House in November.

In opting for Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and turning down Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, Democrats have broken from the pragmatism and moderation that dominated their party's profile under Bill Clinton and Al Gore in the 1990s.

Their party has now moved back to the liberal extremism of Walter Mondale and Michael Dukakis that characterized the 1980s -- with the same predictable result.

It is now up to President Bush to take advantage of this by implementing a three-part strategy in the coming campaign.

First, his paid media must attack Kerry's voting record to define him as an ultraliberal. There are likely those in the White House who are urging Bush to run positive ads. That won't work. Even if positive ads produce a small, short-term bounce for Bush, events soon will come to dominate, and the impact of those ads likely will evaporate.

But if Bush uses the next eight months to educate voters on Kerry's opposition to the death penalty, his vote against the 1991 Iraq war, his poor attendance record in the past year and his opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act, he could put this election away by defining Kerry right now.

Kerry has not been tested. He was nominated by running in the shadow of Howard Dean. Throughout the fall, all eyes were on the former Vermont governor. When he crashed and burned in late January, Kerry, as the liberal heir apparent, inherited his disappointed voters.

Meanwhile, Edwards never got the money or the momentum to run a decent race against Kerry because Gen. Wesley Clark -- remember him? -- crowded the field. By the time Edwards got Kerry one on one, the number of primary states stretched his resources to the point where he could not afford it.

But now, Kerry is a fair and inviting target. Bush has to zero in on him and push him to the left right now. Whether Kerry ever consorted with Jane Fonda is beside the point, but Kerry's voting record is not.

Second, while his anti-Kerry ads are running, the president himself needs to make Americans understand that the war on terror is still atop our national agenda. He needs to elevate the sense of threat so that his advantage as a war president begins to count.

Kerry has also made a big mistake in backing the criminal-justice approach to terrorism, seeking to transform the war on terror into a series of DEA-style busts. Voters recognize that Bush is right when he says that this is a war against nation-states that sponsor terror, not a hunt for criminal bands in the mountains.

Pundits say that Kerry's admirable war record makes national security irrelevant as a campaign issue. They couldn't be more wrong. His efforts to defund the CIA and his opposition to the funding of the Iraq war are all key targets for Bush.

Some of those who have Bush's ear may urge him to speak more about the economy and less about terror. This would be a big mistake. Bush must use his profile as president to make Americans understand how crucial staying the course in the war on terror is to our safety. Bush has lost a lot of support among women with the war in Iraq. But he can restore that support by stressing the need to make America safe from terror attacks and to stress how important it is to stick to this task.

Finally, Bush must begin to pull American troops out of Iraq after the handover in June. He should leave a sufficient number there, in safe, secluded bases, to intervene if the bad guys try to come back in power. But the daily drip of casualties must end.

President Johnson kept the troops in Vietnam and lost. President Nixon was withdrawing them, and he won.

If Bush's ads and surrogates savage Kerry while the president raises the profile of the war on terror and his foreign-policy team brings the troops home, this race could be over long before either Bush or Kerry is officially designated as the standard bearers of his respective party.


Dick Morris is the author of Off With Their Heads: Traitors, Crooks, and Obstructionists in American Politics, Media, and Business.


? 2004 The Hill
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John Kerry's Waffles
If you don't like the Democratic nominee's views, just wait a week.
By Michael Grunwald
Posted Wednesday, March 3, 2004, at 2:46 PM PT



Head to head

Last week, President Bush offered a wry critique of his Democratic challengers. "They're for tax cuts and against them. They're for NAFTA and against NAFTA. They're for the Patriot Act and against the Patriot Act. They're in favor of liberating Iraq, and opposed to it. And that's just one senator from Massachusetts." Now that John Kerry is the presumptive Democratic nominee, Republicans are sure to focus the spotlight on his history of flip-flops. Kerry did vote for the Patriot Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, and the war in Iraq, even though he constantly trashes the Patriot Act, the No Child Left Behind Act, and the war in Iraq. He voted against the Defense of Marriage Act, which limited marriage to a man and a woman, but he now says marriage should be limited to a man and a woman. (Although he also points out that he once attended a gay wedding.) And those are just the better-known issues on which Kerry has "evolved."


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Here, then, since John Edwards was too polite to mention them (though President Bush won't be), is a guide to some of Kerry's other reversals on substantive issues. This list doesn't include quickly withdrawn gaffes, such as Kerry's recent suggestion (retracted after an uproar from Jewish groups) that he might make James Baker or Jimmy Carter his Middle East envoy. It doesn't include long-renounced youthful indiscretions, such as his proposal after returning from Vietnam to eliminate most of the CIA. It doesn't include less clear-cut sins of omission and opportunism, such as his stirring denunciations of companies caught in accounting frauds, even though he supported a 1995 law protecting those companies from liability. And it doesn't include the inevitable fund-raising hypocrisies that accompany all modern campaigns, such as his donations from some of the "Benedict Arnold" companies he routinely rips on the trail, or his bundling of contributions from special interests despite his high-minded rejection of PAC money. Even so, the list is long, and it isn't all-inclusive. Kerry's supporters cite his reversals as evidence of the senator's capacity for nuance and complexity, growth and change. His critics say they represent a fundamental lack of principles. Either way, we'll be hearing a lot about them over the next eight months.

Issue Kerry's Original Position Kerry's Revised Position
Welfare Reform In 1988, Sen. Kerry voted against a proposal to require at least one parent in any two-parent welfare family to work a mere 16 hours a week, declaring the work requirement "troublesome to me." During his 1996 re-election campaign, when his Republican challenger, Gov. William Weld, was calling him soft on welfare, Kerry voted for the much stricter welfare reform law that Clinton signed into law.
Mandatory Minimums In 1993 and 1994, the senator from liberal Massachusetts voted against mandatory minimum sentences for gang activity, gun crimes, drug trafficking, and drug sales to minors, explaining in an impassioned speech that long sentences for some dealers who sell to minors would be "enormous injustices" and that some convicted drug offenders were "so barely culpable it is sad." He also said congressionally imposed mandatory minimums made no sense and would just create turf battles between federal and local prosecutors. Today, presidential candidate Kerry strongly supports mandatory minimum sentences for federal crimes, including the sale of drugs to minors.
Affirmative Action In 1992, Kerry created a huge stir among liberals and civil rights groups with a major policy address arguing that affirmative action has "kept America thinking in racial terms" and helped promote a "culture of dependency." Today, Kerry's campaign Web site vows to "Preserve Affirmative Action," noting that he "consistently opposed efforts in the Senate to undermine or eliminate affirmative action programs, and supports programs that seeks to enhance diversity." It doesn't mention any downside.
Death Penalty During one of his debates with Weld in 1996, Kerry ridiculed the idea of capital punishment for terrorists as a "terrorist protection policy," predicting that it would just discourage other nations from extraditing captured terrorists to the United States. Kerry still opposes capital punishment, but he now makes an exception for terrorists.
Education Reform In a 1998 policy speech the Boston Globe described as "a dramatic break from Democratic dogma," Kerry challenged teachers unions by proposing to gut their tenure and seniority systems, giving principals far more power to hire and fire unqualified or unmotivated teachers. Today, Kerry once again espouses pure Democratic dogma on education. His Web site pledges to "stop blaming and start supporting public school educators," vowing to give them "better training and better pay, with more career opportunities, more empowerment and more mentors." It doesn't mention seniority or tenure.
Double Taxation In December 2002, Kerry broke with Democratic dogma yet again in a Cleveland speech, calling for the abolition of the unfair "double taxation" of stock dividends in order to promote more investment and more accurate valuations of companies. Five weeks later, after President Bush proposed a second round of tax cuts that included an end to this double taxation, Kerry changed his tune. He voted against the dividend tax cuts that were ultimately enacted by Congress and now hopes to roll them back as president, along with Bush's other tax cuts for upper-income Americans.
Gas Taxation In 1994, when the Concord Coalition gave Kerry a failing rating for his deficit reduction votes, he complained that he should have gotten credit for supporting a 50-cent increase in the gas tax. Today he no longer supports any increase in the gas tax.
Social Security During the 1996 campaign, when I was a Globe reporter, Kerry told me the Social Security system should be overhauled. He said Congress should consider raising the retirement age and means-testing benefits and called it "wacky" that payroll taxes did not apply to income over $62,700. "I know it's all going to be unpopular," he said. "But this program has serious problems, and we have a generational responsibility to fix them." Kerry no longer wants to mess with Social Security. "John Kerry will never balance the budget on the backs of America's seniors," his Web site promises.
Trade Kerry has been a consistent supporter of free trade deals, and as late as December, when reporters asked if there was any issue on which he was prepared to disagree with Democratic interest groups, Kerry replied: "Trade." Slate editor Jacob Weisberg came away impressed by the depth of Kerry's commitment to the issue: "Unlike Edwards, he supports international trade agreements without qualification." But that was three months ago! In recent weeks, when Kerry has talked trade, he has talked nothing but qualification, calling for "fair trade" rather than "free trade," claiming to agree completely with the protectionist Edwards on trade issues, and vowing to "put teeth" into environmental and labor restrictions in agreements like NAFTA.


Michael Grunwald is writing a book about the Everglades.
Confidence Man
The case for Bush is the case against him.
By William Saletan
Posted Thursday, March 4, 2004, at 4:24 PM PT



Let his record speak for itself

"I know exactly where I want to lead this country," says George W. Bush in one of his new campaign ads. The ad, along with three others that began airing today, concludes with his official campaign theme: "President Bush. Steady leadership in times of change." In the revamped stump speech he has delivered twice in the last two weeks, Bush calls the election "a choice between an America that leads the world with strength and confidence, or an America that is uncertain in the face of danger."

And how does Bush view his challenger, John Kerry? The title of the attack ad posted on Bush's campaign Web site says it all: "Unprincipled."


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Kerry thinks it's the other way around. He's been telling Democrats Bush is "the biggest say-one-thing, do-another" president ever. Yesterday Kerry's campaign responded to Bush's ads by accusing the president of "unsteady leadership." In the Democratic primaries, this accusation worked for Kerry, because liberals think Bush is a liar. But most voters don't, for a good reason: It isn't true. If Kerry makes the election a referendum on Bush's honesty, Bush will win.

How can Kerry persuade moderates to throw out Bush? By turning the president's message against him. Bush is steady and principled. He believes money is better spent by individuals than by the government. He believes the United States should assert its strength in the world. He believes public policy should respect religious faith. Most Americans share these principles and think Bush is sincere about them. The problem Bush has demonstrated in office is that he has no idea how to apply his principles in a changing world. He's a big-picture guy who can't do the job.

From foreign to economic to social policy, Bush's record is a lesson in the limits and perils of conviction. He's too confident to consult a map. He's too strong to heed warnings and too steady to turn the wheel when the road bends. He's too certain to admit error, even after plowing through ditches and telephone poles. He's too preoccupied with principle to understand that principle isn't enough. Watching the stars instead of the road, he has wrecked the budget and the war on terror. Now he's heading for the Constitution. It's time to pull him over and take away the keys.

Bush was right to go to war against the terrorists who struck us on 9/11. He was right to demand the overdue use of force against the scofflaw Iraqi regime. But he couldn't tell the difference between the two threats. He figured that since both Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden were evil, they had to be connected. Saddam must have helped orchestrate the 9/11 attacks. He must have built weapons of mass destruction to sell to al-Qaida.

In recent months, congressional hearings and document leaks have unearthed a disturbing history. Again and again in 2001 and 2002, U.S. intelligence agencies sent signals that Bush was wrong. The FBI and CIA debunked putative links between Iraq and al-Qaida. The CIA rejected the claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa. In its National Intelligence Estimate, the CIA calculated that it could take Saddam up to five years to make a nuclear weapon and that he would transfer WMD to terrorists only if he were invaded. The Defense Intelligence Agency advised the administration that there was "no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing or stockpiling chemical weapons." The Air Force disputed the suggestion that Iraq had developed aerial drones capable of delivering chemical or biological toxins. Analysts questioned whether the White House was right that Saddam's aluminum tubes were designed for building nukes, or that two trucks the White House found suspicious were designed for making biological weapons.

Bush ignored every one of these warnings. They couldn't be true, because they didn't fit his theory. He couldn't stand the complexity of the facts or the ambiguity of intelligence. "Until we get rid of Saddam Hussein, we won't get rid of uncertainty," he told aides in November 2002. Four months later, on the eve of his invasion of Iraq, he declared, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." After the war, when Diane Sawyer asked Bush about the discrepancy between what he had said--"that there were weapons of mass destruction"--and what U.S. inspectors had found--"the possibility that [Saddam] could move to acquire those weapons"--Bush replied, "What's the difference?"

That's Bush all over: Certainty. No doubt. No difference. But it makes a difference to Britain, France, and Mexico, which no longer trust our requests, based on U.S. intelligence, to cancel flights to the United States. And it makes a difference to China, which refuses to accept our report, based on U.S. intelligence, that North Korea is operating a highly enriched uranium program. Bush's overconfidence--reflected in a series of exaggerations wholly unnecessary to the punishment of Saddam for his noncompliance with U.N. inspections--has trashed our credibility and cost us vital help with other terrorist and WMD-related threats.

Bush was right to propose tax cuts in 1999. The economy was booming. The surplus was ballooning. Liberals were itching to spend the money on new programs, despite Bill Clinton's promises to pay down the national debt. Bush wanted to get the money out of Washington before that happened. That's why, under his plan, the size of the tax cut was to grow from year to year. The point was to keep the surplus from piling up, refunding more and more money as it poured in from a growing economy. That's also why Bush cut taxes across the board instead of targeting middle-class families who would spend the money immediately. He wasn't trying to stimulate the economy. He was trying to give the money back to the people who had paid it in, which meant largely the rich.

Then everything changed. The stock market tanked, and the economy slowed. Sept. 11 shook the nation's confidence and drastically altered military budget projections. Bush didn't need to drain a surplus anymore. He needed to fund national defense and stimulate the economy. He needed to get rid of his back-loaded across-the-board tax cut and replace it (as Jonathan Chait has explained) with front-loaded tax cuts aimed at consumers. Instead, Bush claimed that his original tax-cut elixir was just as good for the new malady as for the old one. The deficit exploded, the economy failed to recover the jobs it had lost, and much of the country remained unprotected from terrorism. The world changed, but Bush couldn't.

When Bush banned federal funding of research on new embryonic stem cell lines, he said sufficient research could proceed because "more than 60 genetically diverse stem cell lines already exist." Bush's HHS secretary, Tommy Thompson, said of the 60 lines, "They're diverse, they're robust, they're viable for research." In truth, nobody knew whether the cell lines were diverse, robust, or viable. To date, only 15 have been made available, and no one knows how many more will turn out to be usable. But Bush hasn't budged.* Last fall, in the name of human life, he signed into law a bill that required any doctor performing a second-trimester abortion to cut up the fetus inside the woman instead of removing it intact. Good principle, atrocious policy. His initiative to fund faith-based social programs has been a classic liberal misadventure, adding religious mini-bureaucracies to various Cabinet departments despite a study last year that showed faith-based job training programs were no more effective, and in some ways less effective, than regular job training programs.

Now, to save the family, Bush proposes to monkey with the Constitution. Why is this necessary? Because conservative states might be forced to honor gay marriages performed in liberal states, says Bush. But didn't the Defense of Marriage Act void that requirement? Yes, Bush argues, but DOMA might be struck down. Unwilling to wait for a ruling on DOMA, Bush prefers to circumvent the court system and local democracy by reopening the nation's founding document. He seeks to impose a permanent federal definition of marriage on "any state or city," regardless of what the voters in Boston or San Francisco want.

President Bush. Strength and confidence. Steady leadership in times of change. He knows exactly where he wants to lead this country. And he won't let facts, circumstances, or the Constitution get in his way.

Correction March 5, 2004: The article originally and incorrectly indicated that Bush overstated the number of "existing" stem cell lines. In fact, he did not. What Bush and HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson overstated was the number of cell lines known to be diverse, robust, and viable. (Return to the corrected item.)


William Saletan is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.