Russia, Iran To Complete Deal On Nuclear Fuel
25 May 2004 -- The head of Russia's Atomic Energy Agency, Aleksandr Rumyantsev, says that Russia and Iran will complete a pact this summer requiring Iran to return all spent fuel from a new nuclear reactor to Russia.
Russia has overridden U.S. opposition to its construction of an $800-million reactor at Bushehr in Iran. But it has sought to alleviate U.S. concerns that Iranian scientists could extract weapons-grade plutonium from spent fuel.
Iran, with the world's second-largest gas reserves after Russia, says it needs nuclear energy to meet booming demand for electricity and to keep oil and gas reserves for export.
Once the protocol is signed, Russia will ship reactor fuel to Iran. Spent fuel is to be sent back to a giant storage facility in Siberia.
(Reuters)
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Feeling the Heat
As Iran's Joyless Generation awakes, the theocracy shudders.
"I don't compare myself with ten years ago. I compare myself to what I could have and don't". So spoke Tannaz, a 20-year-old university student to a New York Times reporter touring Iran. "There's no joy here," she said, summarizing the feeling of the first generation of Iranians to grow up exclusively in the Islamic Republic. Iranians of Tannaz's generation and mine speak of their hopes "melting" as Iran's leaders replaced reform with a renewed revolutionary trance.
Iran's youth represent 70 percent of Iran's population of 70 million. It is the only pro-American generation in the Middle East. And, it is ready for democracy. As the Joyless Generation awakes, the theocracy shudders. And so does Islamism throughout the region. The Joyless Generation may not abandon their religion in their lives, but even in the cradle of theocracy, they do believe that it should not be in the realm of the state.
Each week since the Islamic Revolution a quarter century ago, a prominent cleric has led public prayers and delivered the official state sermon. On Friday, May 13, 2004, it was the turn of Ayatollah Ahmed Jannati, secretary of the Council of Guardians. The Council of Guardians is the body that determines who can participate in an election, and who is banned from Iran's "democracy". Delivering his sermon, Jannati spoke to the new parliamentarians who owe their positions to his approval. "Creating jobs is among the economic issues of priority", Jannati told them. "If the people are hungry they would hardly resist the difficulties and enemies."
In other words, Iran's leadership no longer speaks of political reform. Instead, the clerics will concentrate on economic problems, falsely believing that Iranians will then surrender their quest for freedom. Ironically, it is Jannati and his close political allies, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Expediency Council chairman Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who are most responsible for the Islamic Republic's economic catharsis. In the 1980s, under their stewardship, Iran experienced "one of the sharpest economic declines in the twentieth century", according to a leading analyst. Simultaneously, they encouraged a "jihad" baby boom and promoted an "autarkic Islamic economy". Two decades later, Jannati and his fellow clerics face an army of the unemployed that increases at a rate of 800,000 persons per year.
Jannati alludes to what every Iranian knows. The Islamic Republic's enemies are not external, but rather internal: The Joyless Generation. Iran's leaders are so insecure that they imprison students like Ahmed Batebi, languishing in prison for the crime of being photographed holding his own bloody shirt in the wake of a police beating. What is joy and tolerance to Tannaz and her generation is "cultural corruption" to Jannati. For all practical purposes, Jannati and Tannaz don't speak the same Persian. Tannaz's belief in the bankruptcy of the Islamic Republic's system represents the views of perhaps seventy percent of Iranian society; Jannati's uncompromising attitude is shared by only ten percent. The remaining 20 percent might still hold out some hope that the Islamic Republic is capable of reform, but this group diminishes daily.
Iran's post-revolutionary generation is aware of basic realities: the irreconcilability of theocracy with reform, whether economic as preached by Rafsanjani, or political as preached by President Mohammad Khatami. Theocracy corrupts not only the temporal sphere but also spiritual spheres. It is the Islamic Republic's ideology which prevents the Iranian people from fulfilling their desire to join the concert of nations. Such awareness is the cornerstone upon which a new Iran can be built. A free Iran can be the keystone to regional reform.
At a time when there is growing consensus to support a "Middle East forum to bring together governments, businesses, and non-governmental organizations" to discuss reform, as reported by the Washington Post, acknowledgement of the waves of change in Iran would be a sure investment. Support for Iran's Joyless Generation, rather than any faction within the Islamic Republic's leadership, would bring a high rate of return in terms of both prosperity and security.
A democratic Iran in harmony with the world and its own historic and cultural heritage will be a significant step forward on the path towards stability in the Middle East. Security and democracy, intertwined with rights for men and women, are twin necessities.
Iran is experiencing a new dawn. The Iranian people are looking Westward for support. The choice is clear: Jannati or Tannaz. There can be no hybrid between the two. There can be no d?tente with the theocracy. There can be no Chinese model, in which the West bolsters trade but allows a small clique of rulers to stifle political change. It's time for the West to decide. Will Iran become a regional model of democracy, or will Washington's willingness to engage with theocrats cause it to lose the support of a generation?
-- Ramin Parham, editor of Iran Institute for Democracy, is an independent commentator based in Paris.
http://www.nationalreview.com/voices/parham200405250846.asp
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World: Can Oil Prices Fall, Given The Rapidly Rising Demand?
By Mark Baker
World oil prices are high, and oil consumers like Europe and the United States are complaining. They are putting pressure on oil producers to increase supply and ease price pressures. But there's not much that can be done in the short term. Oil supplies are tight and demand remains unexpectedly strong.
Prague, 25 May 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Big oil consumers like the United States and the European Union are becoming increasingly nervous over what they see as excessively high world oil prices.
Average oil prices have risen to more than $40 a barrel in recent days -- prices not seen since the first Gulf War more than a decade ago. The rise is threatening to scuttle a global economic recovery before it can even get started.
In the United States, the run-up in oil is forcing gasoline prices sharply higher. Americans -- who are highly dependent on their cars -- are so sensitive to gasoline prices it might even cost President George W. Bush his reelection in November."I would say it's quite likely that in the medium term -- over the next two to three or four years -- prices will indeed flip back into the mid-20s range [$22-$28 dollars a barrel] on the basis of what we know about growing non-OPEC supply."
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury John Snow has been blunt in recent comments. He told an international gathering of finance officials over the weekend that a price of $40 for a barrel of oil was "unwelcome:"
"Current energy prices are unwelcome. We'd like to see energy prices recede. It's important that energy prices -- since they play into the growth rate for the global economy -- be at a level that complements growth," Snow said.
He and his colleagues in the EU, Japan and other major consumer areas would like to see prices fall to $22 to $28 a barrel. This is a price band that producers like the OPEC oil cartel say they aim at as fair to both producers and consumers.
But are the high oil prices here to stay? Has demand outstripped supply so much that average prices -- for example, of $25 a barrel -- are no longer realistic?
RFE/RL posed that question to oil demand and supply experts at the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris. The IEA closely monitors developments in the oil market and publishes each month the highly influential "Oil Market Report."
Antoine Halff is an IEA specialist in oil demand. He declined to comment directly on oil prices, but sounded downbeat about a drop in prices. He tells RFE/RL that global demand has risen unexpectedly rapidly in recent months and is unlikely to slow anytime soon.
"We've been through a period of a few years when oil demand growth was quite slow. And some analysts had speculated that we had entered a new era of slower growth in oil consumption and with the changes in the economy and so on. But this year, [we have] seen a return to a very steep pace of growth in oil consumption," Halff said.
Halff says the biggest factor in demand these days is China and its rapidly growing economy. The economy of the world's most populous country is now rising at an unprecedented rate of almost 10 percent a year. The IEA estimates this translates into increased Chinese oil demand of as much as a million barrels a day.
Oil suppliers -- both inside and outside OPEC -- have tried to raise output to meet this demand, but Halff says China's need for oil shows no immediate signs of abating.
"If you hadn't had the increase in Chinese demand that we've experienced in the past few months, it's quite likely that the increase in non-OPEC supply would have been enough to push the price down and it would have put pressure on some OPEC members to defend their market share and it would have translated into a decrease on the call on OPEC [and lower prices]," Halff said.
Halff says another big factor is the United States, where a recent, relatively rapid economic recovery is pushing up demand for diesel fuel. This is used by trucks to ship goods around the country.
David Fyfe, Halff's colleague at the IEA, appears less pessimistic on price. He agrees that demand from China could keep pressure on prices keen. But he points to rising output from non-OPEC countries -- particularly Russia and West Africa -- that he says could eventually dampen price pressures.
"I think there is a danger in extrapolating $40-a-barrel prices. We're in a fairly tight market. We're in a fairly jittery market at the moment, but the fundamentals of supply and demand, with fairly buoyant non-OPEC supply growth this year and for the next two to three years, suggests to us that that tightness in the market should ease," Fyfe said.
Non-OPEC producers include Russia, the Caspian states, and major suppliers in Northern Europe, West Africa, and North America. They account for around two-thirds of world oil output.
"I would say it's quite likely that in the medium term -- over the next two to three or four years -- prices will indeed flip back into the mid-20s range [$22-$28 dollars a barrel] on the basis of what we know about growing non-OPEC supply," Fyfe said.
That says little, however, about the short term. Prices in the past two days alone have jumped some $2 a barrel -- amid growing concern over tightening supplies. Whatever happens, it looks like a long, hot summer for oil consumers and a boom for producers.
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Iraqi weapons pipeline probed
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Pentagon is investigating reports that Iraqi weapons are being sent covertly to Syria and that they are fueling anti-U.S. insurgents training there, The Washington Times has learned.
The shipments include weapons and explosives sent by vehicles that were detected during the past several months going to several training camps inside Syria, which has become a key backer of anticoalition forces in Iraq, according to defense officials familiar with reports of the shipments.
One defense official said the pipeline was uncovered as part of efforts to discover what happened to Iraq's arms programs -- conventional as well as weapons of mass destruction.
"Everyone seems to have forgotten that there was the prospect of ongoing traffic in munitions ... that could then be re-imported into Iraq with quite considerable effect," the official said. "We are pursuing the extent and location of that."
The weapons are traveling by covered trucks and unmarked vans along routes that appear to have been set up before the U.S.-led military invasion of Iraq last year.
The night-time deliveries are reported to include small arms, bombs and explosives pilfered from some of the several thousand weapons depots scattered throughout Iraq. The Pentagon has identified more than 8,700 weapons dumps and is continuing to find caches almost daily, officials said.
The arms and explosives come back into Iraq with the Syrian-based insurgents and terrorists, the officials said.
Camps were set up by former officials in the Saddam Hussein regime and are being used to train foreign fighters who are continuing to flow into Iraq to conduct attacks on U.S. and allied forces, the official said.
Homemade bombs fashioned from artillery shells and other military ordnance stored in Iraq have caused hundreds of casualties among coalition forces.
The Syrian border with Iraq is under intense surveillance by U.S. intelligence agencies and patrols involving U.S. and allied military forces. Electronic surveillance includes unmanned aerial vehicles and satellite reconnaissance.
The weapons smuggling, however, appears to be done by Iraqis and others who have found ways to avoid the surveillance.
Some defense and intelligence officials said goods related to Saddam's chemical, biological and nuclear programs were sent covertly to Syria before the war.
Several thousand foreign fighters have infiltrated from Syria into Iraq, according to military officials who disclosed the flow to The Times last month.
The 600-mile desert border between Syria and Iraq has been a key smuggling route for decades, and the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad has facilitated the foreign fighters' movement, providing travel papers and weapons in some cases.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said last week that Syria and Iran "have been unhelpful to what it is we're trying to do in Iraq."
Mr. Rumsfeld said Syria's "dictatorship" opposes the development of a free political system in Iraq.
Mr. Rumsfeld said the border is easily crossed "and people, terrorists, have come across that border."
"Syria has been recalcitrant with respect to freeing up Iraqi assets that were frozen in their country, and large portions of it have been disappearing," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
Mr. Rumsfeld said recent sanctions imposed on Syria are an attempt to pressure its government to change its behavior.
He said he thinks that "it is ... appropriate that Syria not be rewarded."
"The hope is that through discussion, and debate, and consideration, diplomacy, that Syria will recalibrate its direction," he said after a speech at the Heritage Foundation.
"Whether that will happen, I don't know. I wish I did know. But in the meantime, we've got to make sure that they do as little damage to what we're trying to accomplish in Iraq as possible."
On May 11, the Bush administration announced new sanctions against Syria, noting Damascus' support for terrorists and its failure to keep anticoalition fighters from crossing into Iraq.
The sanctions bar U.S. exports to Syria and restrict Syrian assets held in the United States. They were imposed after Damascus failed to address U.S. concerns about support for terrorists and about Syria's arms programs.
President Bush said in announcing the sanctions that Syria's government "must understand that its conduct alone will determine the duration of the sanctions."
Mr. Bush also noted that insurgents "bent on sowing terror continue to cross into Iraq from Syria."
The export ban is expected to keep about $100 million in goods from going to Syria.
Signed into law in December, the sanctions were imposed under the 2003 Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act. The act called on Syria to close borders to military and equipment and anti-U.S. militants headed to Iraq.
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U.S. Finally Spending Iraq Construction Funds
Outlay Doubles in 2 Months as Iraqis Arrive to Work Despite Security Fears
By Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 25, 2004; Page A11
A senior official responsible for overseeing rebuilding efforts in Iraq said yesterday that spending on construction has surged in recent weeks, despite continuing security problems that have kept Iraqi workers away from the job.
At a Pentagon briefing, David Nash, a retired admiral managing the spending of U.S. tax dollars, said more than $4 billion has been obligated to specific projects, about double the amounts reported two months ago.
The upbeat assessment came just weeks after the Pentagon and the U.S.-led occupation authority in Iraq were stung by criticism from lawmakers that little of the $18.4 billion allocated by Congress for the effort last year had been spent.
Nash said yesterday that at one point in recent months only about a quarter of the Iraqis working on reconstruction were showing up because of the continuing violence in the country. "Yes, it's had an impact on how many people show up to work," Nash said. "Security is having an impact on us."
But he said that more than 8,000 Iraqis, three-quarters of those scheduled, arrive for work daily and that the work is accelerating.
Some Americans and other Westerners working for U.S. contractors left Iraq over the past several weeks because of the deteriorating security situation, he said. "The contractors have showed up with great vim and vigor, and in fact they're at work," Nash said during a half-hour briefing. "So things are going very well."
He said authorities are "putting in place" up to $75 million in new construction projects every week. Briefing documents from his Program Management Office show that about $3 billion was obligated to construction projects by the end of last week, compared with about half that amount a month ago. Spending has been heaviest on electricity and water projects.
Critics acknowledged some improvements in the reconstruction effort, including the delivery of electricity and fresh water to Iraqis. But they said yesterday's briefing appeared oriented to create a favorable impression in the weeks leading up to the handover of limited authority to an Iraqi government on June 30 and in the months leading up to the U.S. presidential election.
"They're clearly trying to put the best face on this," said Tim Rieser, chief Democratic clerk for the Senate Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, which is monitoring the spending. "Yet by any objective measure they're falling far short of what they said they were going to do when they asked for all this money."
The coalition had planned on spending nearly $8 billion through March.
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), the subcommittee's ranking Democratic member, said the future of reconstruction efforts hangs in the balance because the country remains so dangerous and many contractors and Iraqis are still afraid to work.
"Security is quickly becoming the X-factor that is impeding and complicating the reconstruction effort," Leahy said in a statement. "Many people predicted these problems back when the Administration made its request for far more money than it could effectively spend. The reality on the ground is illustrative of the many needless mistakes that have created the mess we face today."
Nash said he is "very enthusiastic, very positive" about the overall direction of reconstruction. He estimated that $5 billion worth of projects will be underway by July 1, when Iraqis are scheduled to be largely in control of the country.
? 2004 The Washington Post Company
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Shiite Scientist Likely to Be New Iraqi Prime Minister
By Robin Wright and Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, May 25, 2004; 5:48 PM
The United Nations is closing in on a slate for the new Iraqi government that is likely to be headed by Hussain Shahristani, a Shiite nuclear scientist who spent years in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison for refusing to participate in Saddam Hussein's nuclear program and is now the leading candidate to become prime minister in the first post-Hussein government, according to Iraqi and U.S. officials.
U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi and U.S. presidential envoy to Iraq Robert D. Blackwill are still in the final throes of working out the "complicated geometry" of dividing power among Iraq's disparate ethnic and religious factions, a senior administration official in Baghdad said today. But Brahimi has met several times this month with Shahristani, who said in an interview today that he would reluctantly accept the job if asked.
"If they consider my participation essential, I'll try to convince them otherwise," said Shahristani, 62, who was educated in London and Toronto. "But if they're not convinced and they ask me to take a role . . . I cannot refuse. I must serve my people."
Shahristani has little political experience. Unlike many other Iraqis who lived in exile, he was not active in opposition political parties, choosing instead to focus his energies on humanitarian aid projects. But he does possess an important connection on Iraq's new political scene: He is close to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the country's most-powerful Shiite cleric, whose support is essential for the viability of an interim government.
Shahristani, who has described himself as an adviser to Sistani, said he has met with the grand ayatollah several times since the fall of Hussein's government. Shahristani said Sistani has played a "very, very constructive" role in Iraq over the past year.
Iraqi officials familiar with Brahimi's mission said Shahristani's lack of political affiliation could be an asset, allowing him to serve as a bridge between various factions that will be jockeying for power in the run-up to elections early next year.
Shahristani, who has a doctorate in nuclear chemistry, served as the chief scientific adviser to Iraq's atomic energy commission until 1979, when Hussein took over as president. Hussein ordered Shahristani to shift his focus from nuclear energy to nuclear weaponry. When he refused, the president ordered Shahristani tortured and jailed.
He spent a decade in the Abu Ghraib prison, most of it in solitary confinement. He managed to escape in 1991 and fled with his wife and three children to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. When Hussein's army pushed into Kurdistan, he and his family crossed into neighboring Iran, where he spent three years working with Iraqi refugees. He and his family eventually moved to Britain, where he found work as a visiting university professor.
He crossed into Iraq two days before Hussein's government fell to deliver aid to the city of Karbala. Since then, he has divided his time between Karbala and the southern port city of Basra, working on humanitarian projects in both places.
"I've been actively working to help the Iraqi people to free themselves from Saddam's tyranny, but I have always concentrated on serving the people and providing them with their basic needs rather than party politics," he said.
Iraqi officials familiar with Brahimi's mission said it was an April 29 op-ed piece Shahristani wrote for the Wall Street Journal that piqued the attention of the U.N. envoy. Titled "Election Fever," the piece criticized the U.S. occupation authority for failing to prepare for elections sooner and for promulgating an interim constitution that was drawn up behind closed doors. He called for the government taking power on June 30 to have limited powers aimed at preparing the country for elections -- a position advocated by Sistani.
"The new provisional government should only be a caretaker government to prepare for elections," he wrote. "It should not indulge in negotiating military, economic or political treaties or agreements that will bind legitimately elected governments in the future."
Although U.S. officials say negotiations have not been concluded, particularly for the cabinet positions, Shahristani has emerged as by far the most attractive candidate for prime minister. "The game has not played out yet, but Shahristani is the candidate to beat," said a senior State Department official.
An Iraqi who knows him well called Shahristani "a captain of men," despite his lack of political leadership.
Brahimi is now expected to announce the interim government line-up -- for prime minister and the three ceremonial positions of president and two vice presidents -- by Monday or Tuesday, said the senior administration official in Baghdad.
The jobs could be contentious -- or dangerous. A new Gallup poll of 3,444 Iraqis showed that nearly 7 in 10 (69 percent) believe their lives or the lives of family members would be in danger if they were viewed as cooperating with the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority.
In the quest to establish an interim government that will have credibility among both Iraqis and the international community, Brahimi and Blackwill have done a wide sweep of new names. Among the others to emerge for a top job is Sinan Shabibi, governor of the central bank whose father was one of the founders of modern Iraq in the 1920s after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
? 2004 The Washington Post Company
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18,000 Potential Al Qaeda Said at Large
By BARRY RENFREW
The Associated Press
Tuesday, May 25, 2004; 2:18 PM
LONDON - Far from being crippled by the U.S.-led war on terror, al Qaeda has more than 18,000 potential terrorists scattered around the world and the war in Iraq is swelling its ranks, a report said Tuesday.
Al Qaeda is probably working on plans for major attacks on the United States and Europe, and it may be seeking weapons of mass destruction in its desire to inflict as many casualties as possible, the International Institute of Strategic Studies said in its annual survey of world affairs.
Osama bin Laden's network appears to be operating in more than 60 nations, often in concert with local allies, the study by the independent think tank said.
Although about half of al-Qaida's top 30 leaders have been killed or captured, it has an effective leadership, with bin Laden apparently still playing a key role, it said.
"Al Qaeda must be expected to keep trying to develop more promising plans for terrorist operations in North America and Europe, potentially involving weapons of mass destruction," IISS director Dr. John Chipman told a press conference releasing "Strategic Survey 2003/4."
At the same time it will likely continue attacking "soft targets encompassing Americans, Europeans and Israelis, and aiding the insurgency in Iraq," he added.
The report suggested that the two military centerpieces of the U.S.-led war on terror - the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - may have boosted al-Qaida.
Driving the terror network out of Afghanistan in late 2001 appears to have benefited the group, which dispersed to many countries, making it almost invisible and hard to combat, the story said.
And the Iraq conflict "has arguably focused the energies and resources of al Qaeda and its followers while diluting those of the global counterterrorism coalition that appeared so formidable" after the Afghan intervention, the survey said.
The U.S. occupation of Iraq brought al Qaeda recruits from across Islamic nations, the study said. Up to 1,000 foreign Islamic fighters have infiltrated Iraqi territory, where they are cooperating with Iraqi insurgents, the survey said.
Efforts to defeat al Qaeda will take time and might accelerate only if there are political developments that now seem elusive, such as the democratization of Iraq and the resolution of conflict in Israel, it said.
It could take up to 500,000 U.S. and allied troops to effectively police Iraq and restore political stability, IISS researcher Christopher Langton told the news conference.
Such a figure appeared impossible to meet, given political disquiet in the United States and Britain and the unwillingness of other nations to send troops, he said.
The United States is al-Qaida's prime target in a war it sees as a death struggle between civilizations, the report said. An al Qaeda leader has said 4 million Americans will have to be killed "as a prerequisite to any Islamic victory," the survey said.
"Al-Qaida's complaints have been transformed into religious absolutes and cannot be satisfied through political compromise," the study said.
The IISS said its estimate of 18,000 al Qaeda fighters was based on intelligence estimates that the group trained at least 20,000 fighters in its camps in Afghanistan before the United States and its allies ousted the Taliban regime. In the ensuing war on terror, some 2,000 al Qaeda fighters have been killed or captured, the survey said.
Al Qaeda appears to have successfully reconstituted its operations by dispersing its forces into small groups and through working with local allies, such as the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front in Turkey, the report said.
"Al Qaeda is the common ideological and logistical hub for disparate local affiliates, and bin Laden's charisma, presumed survival and elusiveness enhance the organization's iconic drawing power," it said.
? 2004 The Associated Press
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Koreas hold rare high-level military talks
By HANS GREIMEL
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
SEOUL, South Korea -- North and South Korea opened high-level military talks Wednesday aimed at reducing tensions amid a deadlock over the communist North's nuclear weapons programs.
Generals from the two militaries met at the communist North's east coast Diamond Mountain resort, just north of the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone that has separated the rivals since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, according to a South Korean Defense Ministry spokeswoman in Seoul.
Officials will discuss ways to avoid naval skirmishes along the west coast during the May-June crab catching season, when fishing boats from the two Koreas jostle for position along the poorly marked maritime border.
The Koreas fought deadly naval gunbattles there in 1999 and 2002, both in June.
New clashes could derail fragile international efforts to find a peaceful resolution to the standoff over North Korea's nuclear weapons development.
South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun was optimistic about progress at the one-day meeting.
"The prospects for the talks are not so bad. Accidental naval clashes in the West Sea must be prevented in whatever format," Jeong told reporters on Tuesday.
The West Sea is known as the Yellow Sea outside Korea.
The five-member South Korean delegation is being led by Rear Adm. Park Jung-hwa; the North's five-member team is reportedly headed by Army Maj. Gen. An Ik-san.
The United States, two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia are trying to hold a third round of six-nation talks by the end of June to persuade North Korea to abandon its nuclear programs, but a date has yet to be fixed.
The two Korean militaries seldom hold talks, although their governments have expanded economic and political exchanges in recent years.
The defense ministers of the Koreas met in September 2000, following that year's unprecedented inter-Korean summit.
But the North had typically rejected the South's call for high-level military talks, allowing only colonels to meet and limiting their discussions to economic exchanges.
The Koreas officially remain in a state of war since the Korean War ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. Their border is guarded by nearly 2 million soldiers, including 37,000 U.S. troops in the South.
North and South Korea often accuse each other of violating the western maritime border. The South recognizes a border demarcated by the United Nations after the end of the Korean War, but the North claims a boundary farther south.
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World: Freedom House Says 'New Divide' Formalized By EU Expansion
By Ron Synovitz
EU: Reuniting and dividing?
Freedom House, a U.S.-based pro-democracy group, has issued its latest annual report as part of an ongoing, decade-old study on democratic transition in the former communist world. RFE/RL takes a closer look at the "Nations in Transit 2004" report.
Prague, 25 May 2004 (RFE/RL) -- Freedom House, a U.S.-based group that monitors democracy around the world, says there is a widening "democracy gap" between the European Union and former communist states further east that continue to lag behind on reforms.
Freedom House released its report, "Nations in Transit 2004," in New York late yesterday. The report says the enlargement of the European Union on 1 May has formalized a "new divide" between the stable democracies of Central Europe and the Baltics on the one hand, and reform laggards further to the east on the other."Freedom House found that the non-Baltic post-Soviet states have regressed over the life of the study. Russia has registered the most significant decline in scores since last year, with Azerbaijan, Moldova, and Ukraine also showing significant downturns."
Kristie Evenson is the director of Freedom House's Budapest office. She explains that the latest report is part of an ongoing study that began nearly 10 years ago.
"The 'Nations in Transit' study is an attempt to be systematic at looking at the transition process in Central and Southeast Europe and in the Eurasia region. The study has a consistent set of methodology -- or a framework -- which looks at key areas of political development. Everything from media, to 'free and fair elections,' to differences in judicial reform, etc. The study is a good way to begin benchmarking progress, or [a lack of progress], in areas which have been determined to be important for overall reform and democratic transition," Evenson said.
The methodology Evenson refers to includes a "democracy score" based on a 1-7 scale. The democracy score is an average of subcategory ratings that Freedom House researchers have given each country after reviewing electoral processes, civil society, independent media, governance, corruption and legal frameworks.
A score of 1 represents the highest possible level of democratic development in a particular country, while a score of 7 represents the lowest score.
Evenson tells RFE/RL that the most recent report in the ongoing study reveals there have been regressions on democratic reforms in most former Soviet republics.
"Freedom House found that the non-Baltic post-Soviet states have regressed over the life of the study. Russia has registered the most significant decline in scores since last year, with Azerbaijan, Moldova, and Ukraine also showing significant downturns. Continued poor performance was documented throughout the Central Asian countries, which include some key U.S. allies. The editor of the 'Nations in Transit' report, Amanda Schnetzer, says that while there were some bright spots in the past year -- especially in Georgia -- the longer-term outlook for democracy in the non-Baltic former Soviet states remains bleak," Evenson said.
Although Russia's democracy score of 5.25 was a better ranking than Belarus (6.54), Azerbaijan (5.63), and all five former Soviet republics in Central Asia (ranging from 5.67 to 6.8), Evenson says Freedom House remains concerned about democratic regression in Russia.
"Worrisome setbacks in Russia continue. It's been noted [that there has been] a backslide in key areas of democratic practice. According to our 'Nations in Transit 2004' [report], President [Vladimir] Putin's policies have sought to centralize power, leaving little room for a vibrant civil society, independent media or political opposition. While Russia has emphasized the importance it places on maintaining strong ties to the West, it is headed in an increasingly authoritarian direction," Evenson said.
Armenia's score of 5.0 reflects what Freedom House calls a worsening of the ratings for electoral process and independent media. That score reflects serious irregularities that were noted by international observers at presidential and parliamentary elections last year.
By comparison, Georgia's overall score of 4.83 includes criticism of what Freedom House calls "fraudulent parliamentary elections" last year. But Evenson notes that the readiness of the Georgian people to mobilize peacefully and defend democratic values has resulted in an improved rating for civil society in Georgia.
"'Nations in Transit 2004' suggests some cause for concern regarding Armenia's democratic trajectory, particularly in the areas of free and fair elections, independent media, and human rights. Georgia's performance since the 'Rose Revolution' of last November suggests more promise in this regard," Evenson said.
Out of all the countries examined, Turkmenistan received the lowest overall score with 6.88. It was followed closely by Belarus with 6.54; Uzbekistan with 6.46; Kazakhstan with 6.25; Tajikistan with 5.71; and Kyrgyzstan with 5.67.
"Freedom House Executive Director Jennifer Windsor says that Western leaders must renew efforts to support political and economic reform in the postcommunist countries," Evenson says. "At the same time, they must press slow-to-reform governments harder for tangible improvements in securing basic rights, promoting free and independent media, supporting the rule of law, and introducing effective and transparent governance."
In the final analysis, Freedom House says that the findings of this year's "Nations in Transit" study make clear that much remains to be done to extend the benefits of liberal democracy and free markets to the majority of postcommunist countries in Europe and Eurasia.
Here are the democracy scores published by the Freedom House for the non-Baltic former Soviet republics and some of the reasons given for the rating.
Belarus (6.54) -- "Belarus saw its ratings worsen in two 'Nations in Transit' categories: civil society and corruption. Local elections in March 2003 were conducted as a largely ceremonial event and predictably confirmed the political hegemony of the president. The government intensified its attacks on civil society and the independent press, and introduced a new 'state ideology' that had a particularly negative impact on academic freedoms. The government has failed to address the spread of corruption in the public sector, and the public's perception of corruption has increased considerably."
Russia (5.25) -- "Russia experienced the greatest overall decline of any country covered in 'Nations in Transit 2004,' with ratings worsening in five out of six categories covered by the study. The December 2003 State Duma elections capped a year in which the central government continued to tighten its grip over all aspects of Russian political life. The authorities used public resources and state-funded personnel to guarantee the overwhelming victory of the pro-Kremlin party in elections to the lower house. As Putin continues to crack down on all sources of opposition and to limit public space and debate, he will undermine the very democratic institutions and practices that could help the country deal with the enormous challenges it faces."
Moldova (4.88) -- "Democratic practice in Moldova continued to decline in the period covered by 'Nations in Transit 2004,' with the country receiving worsening ratings in the areas of electoral process, civil society, independent media, and governance. The ruling Communist Party achieved victory in flawed local and regional elections in 2003. Overall public support for the party actually slipped during the year, but the opposition remained fragmented and lacking in resources. Efforts to settle the Transdniestrian conflict continued, but Russia failed to comply with commitments to withdraw its armaments and munitions from the breakaway region. The persistence of weak governance, widespread corruption, and a fragile system of checks and balances also marked the year."
Ukraine (4.88) -- "Political life in 2003 was guided by the upcoming 2004 presidential election. Growing pressure against opposition parties and politically active NGOs, a persistent lack of transparency in policy making, and the presidential administration's efforts to pressure Parliament, the Cabinet, and the courts led to ratings declines in four out of six areas covered by 'Nations in Transit.' President Leonid Kuchma sought guarantees that he will not face criminal proceedings if he leaves office and pursued changes to the Constitution that would limit the authority of any future president and/or eliminate direct presidential elections."
Azerbaijan (5.63) -- "With events in 2003 once again highlighting the authoritarian nature of government in Azerbaijan and the extent of government control over civil society and the media, the country received declining ratings in four out of six categories covered by 'Nations in Transit.' President Heydar Aliyev's public collapse and subsequent health problems in 2003 ended his rule. Internal fissures in the government were muted as President Aliyev's son Ilham was appointed prime minister and became the ruling party's presidential candidate. Cracks within the opposition could not be similarly bridged. The opposition's claims of electoral fraud and its refusal to accept the official election results resulted in violent clashes with the authorities. Government efforts to exert greater control over civil society and the media were also evident."
Armenia (5.00) -- "Armenia's ratings for electoral process and independent media worsened in 'Nations in Transit 2004.' International observers noted serious irregularities in presidential and parliamentary elections in 2003. The authorities also failed to ensure that the country's leading independent media organizations were able to resume broadcasting before the elections. Media freedom was further threatened by the inclusion of strict libel laws within Armenia's new criminal code. International organizations continued to highlight human rights abuses, but welcomed the abolition of the death penalty. Corruption and weak governance remained serious threats to Armenia's democratic development."
Georgia (4.83) -- "Fraudulent parliamentary elections in 2003, and the ensuing political crisis that culminated in President Eduard Shevardnadze's resignation may constitute a turning point in the development of Georgian democracy. Although this change of power demonstrated the fragility of Georgia's democratic institutions, the events also showed the readiness of the people to mobilize in a peaceful and organized way to defend democratic values, thus leading to an improvement in the country's 'Nations in Transit' rating for civil society. This, as well as strong leadership by the opposition, the independent media, and civil society, factored heavily in the success of the 'Rose Revolution.' The incoming government was fast to reestablish public order, working within the limits of the Constitution. Nations in Transit ratings declines in the areas of governance and corruption suggest the extent of the challenges ahead."
Turkmenistan (6.88) -- "Fallout from the 2002 assassination attempt against President Saparmurat Niyazov continued in 2003. The country's economy weakened further, despite claims by the government to the contrary. Political oppression, already severe, further increased. And the country's international relations with neighbors and major powers in the region deteriorated. Overall, prospects for the country's future remained depressing. Turkmenistan's governance rating worsened in 'Nations in Transit 2004' owing to President Niyazov's continued efforts to make government officials and institutions operate only at his behest."
Uzbekistan (6.46) -- "In 2003, Uzbekistan remained one of the most authoritarian countries to emerge from the Soviet Union. Controls over the media continued to stifle freedom of expression. Administrative functioning remained excessively politicized. The absence of judicial independence continued to present serious impediments to commerce and liberty. And flagrant violations of human rights called into question Uzbek government commitments to international standards of promises of lasting reforms."
Kazakhstan (6.25) -- "Kazakhstan's ratings for independent media and corruption worsened in 'Nations in Transit 2004.' The elections for local councils in September enabled the regime to install its favored candidates, who will play a crucial role in securing a favorable outcome in the elections of the lower house in 2004. Although the government withdrew a draft law that ambiguously defined NGOs and restricted their ability to accept foreign funding, no noticeable improvement took place in the civil sector in 2003. The government refused to release the highly regarded journalist Sergei Duvanov from prison. The president and close family members continue to wield control over all key positions within the government and economic sector."
Tajikistan (5.71) -- "A June 2003 plebiscite paved the way for constitutional amendments that allow President Emomali Rakhmonov to stand for reelection for two additional seven-year terms. The flawed nature of the referendum resulted in a worsening of Tajikistan's 'Nations in Transit' rating for electoral process. Corruption and a lack of confidence in the market and the state continued to scare away the levels of international capital required for a full economic recovery, leading to a 'Nations in Transit' ratings decline for corruption. However, the government did make progress in securing the country from banditry, hostage taking, and terrorism, as reflected in a slight 'Nations in Transit' rating improvement for governance."
Kyrgyzstan (5.67) -- "In 2003, the opposition demanded President [Askar] Akayev's resignation over the 2002 killing of unarmed opposition demonstrators in the southern town of Kerben. Various opposition groups and parties united for the first time in criticism of Akayev's policies and widespread corruption among his cronies. After Parliament adopted a law granting Akayev lifetime immunity, the president confirmed he would step down in 2005. Attacks on the media continued, and the country's governance system remained ineffective and unaccountable."
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FOLTERSKANDAL
General Sanchez abgel?st, Generalin Karpinski suspendiert
Die amerikanischen Streitkr?fte ziehen Konsequenzen aus den Foltervorw?rfen gegen US-Gener?le im Irak. General Sanchez, Oberbefehlshaber der Truppen im Irak, wird ausgewechselt und Brigadegeneralin Karpinski, Kommandeurin der Milit?rpolizei, vom Dienst suspendiert
ANZEIGE
DPA
Sieht sich als S?ndenbock: Karpinski
Washington - Beide Gener?le werden mit Vers?umnissen im Foltergef?ngnis Abu Ghureib in Verbindung gebracht. Generalleutnant Ricardo Sanchez wird vorgeworfen, er sei pers?nlich bei Verh?ren Gefangener dabei gewesen und habe von Folterungen gewusst. Das Wei?e Haus sprach am Dienstag von einem routinem??igen Wechsel nach 13 Monaten. Pr?sident George W. Bush sagte, Sanchez habe hervorragende Arbeit geleistet und sei eine lange Zeit in Irak gewesen.
Pentagonsprecher Larry Di Rita wies einen Zusammenhang zu den Misshandlungen in Abu Ghureib zur?ck. Gegen den General waren am Wochenende schwere Vorw?rfe laut geworden, die von der Armee zur?ckgewiesen wurden. Als Nachfolger f?r Sanchez ist der stellvertretende Generalstabschef George Casey im Gespr
AP
Sanchez: Routinem??iger Wechsel
Vom Dienst suspendiert wurde die zust?ndige Kommandeurin der Milit?rpolizei, Janis Karpinski. Sie ist im Rang eines Brigadegenerals. In ihrer Funktion war sie auch f?r das Gef?ngnis Abu Ghureib westlich von Bagdad verantwortlich, in dem es zu zahlreichen physischen und psychischen Misshandlungen kam. Karpinski wurde bereits unmittelbar nach Bekanntwerden des Skandals Ende April abgemahnt und in die USA geschickt. Nun wurde ihr auch das Kommando ?ber die 800. Brigade der Milit?rpolizei entzogen, wenn auch zun?chst nur vorl?ufig. Karpinski wird vorgeworfen, den Gef?ngnisalltag nicht ausreichend ?berwacht und die ihr unterstellten Soldaten nicht diszipliniert zu haben.
Nach der Nachricht von ihrer Suspendierung kritisierte sie erneut, dass sie als S?ndenbock in dem Skandal herhalten solle. Ihre Vorgesetzten h?tten wiederholte Anfragen nach einer Verst?rkung der unterbesetzten Milit?rpolizei in Abu Ghureib abgelehnt.
In der vergangenen Woche verurteilte ein Milit?rgericht in Bagdad den Soldaten Jeremy Sivits wegen Misshandlungen in Abu Ghureib zur H?chststrafe von einem Jahr Gef?ngnis und unehrenhafter Entlassung aus den Streitkr?ften. Sechs weitere Soldaten sollen demn?chst vor Gericht gestellt werden.
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KERRYISMS
Die menschliche Nebelmaschine
Von Thomas Hillenbrand, New York
Jedes Mal, wenn George W. Bush den st?ndigen Kampf mit seiner Muttersprache verliert, erblickt ein neuer "Bushism" das Licht der Welt. Auch Herausforderer John Kerry produziert denkw?rdige Zitate - dass er fehlerfreies Englisch spricht, macht die Sache nicht besser.
ANZEIGE
AP
US-Demokrat Kerry: "Menschlicher Nebel"
New York - "Mehr und mehr unserer Importe kommen aus dem Ausland." Das Online-Magazin "Slate" dokumentiert diese als Bushisms bekannt gewordenen Zitate des US-Pr?sidenten seit mehreren Jahren. Und der Amtsinhaber, der zurzeit wahlkampfbedingt viele Reden h?lt, liefert stetig Nachschub. Mal begl?ckt er Bushism-Fans mit Aussagen, die sich einer allzu linearen Logik entziehen ("Mein Job ist, sozusagen, ?ber das Jetzt hinauszudenken") oder er erfreut sie mit frontalen Angriffen auf die englische Sprache als solche ("They misunderestimated me").
Der weit gereiste Diplomatensohn John F. Kerry hat gegen?ber seinem Yale-Kommilitonen Bush den Vorteil, die englische Sprache vollst?ndig zu beherrschen. Wer sich je einer Kerry-Rede ausgesetzt hat, stellt allerdings schnell fest, dass dies nicht unbedingt ein Vorteil ist. Bush neigt zu schr?gen, daf?r aber erfreulich kurzen Sentenzen. Kerry hingegen ist ein Freund des Schachtelsatzes. M?chtig sind die Wortgeb?ude, welche der Senator auft?rmt, und um seinen Zuh?rer zus?tzlich zu beeindrucken, verstuckt Kerry sie mit einem ?berma? an Adjektiven und Floskeln. Dass er zudem betont langsam spricht und dabei dreinschaut wie Baumbart der Ent, macht die Sache nicht besser. Reichlich Potenzial f?r Spott und H?me scheint also vorhanden.
Das haben sich auch die Journalisten von "Slate" gedacht. In der Hoffnung, den Erfolg der Bushisms wiederholen zu k?nnen, unterh?lt das Magazin neuerdings eine Rubrik mit Kerryisms. Dort finden sich t?glich Zitate wie dieses:
"Lassen sie mich lediglich sehr schnell sagen, dass diese schrecklichen Misshandlungen irakischer Gefangener, welche die Welt nun gesehen hat, v?llig unakzeptabel und unentschuldbar sind. Und die Reaktion der Regierung, vor allem des Pentagons, kam zu langsam und war nicht angemessen. Ich glaube, der Pr?sident muss garantieren, dass die Welt eine Erkl?rung erhalten wird. Was dort geschehen ist, hat unseren Soldaten, die mit gro?er Tapferkeit und noch gr??erem Heldenmut und ich denke ausgezeichnet, dienen, Schaden zugef?gt. Und es untergr?bt zudem Amerikas eigene Anstrengungen in der Region."
Aus dieser Kerry'schen Langversion entfernt Slate-Autor William Saletan in der Folge alles, was seines Erachtens ?berfl?ssig ist:
"Lassen sie mich lediglich sagen, dass die Misshandlungen irakischer Gefangener v?llig unakzeptabel sind. Und die Reaktion der Regierung war nicht angemessen. Ich glaube, der Pr?sident muss eine Erkl?rung [abgeben]. Was dort geschehen ist, hat unseren Soldaten Schaden zugef?gt. Und es untergr?bt zudem Amerikas Anstrengungen in der Region."
Diese sprachhygienische ?bung soll belegen, dass Kerry viel redundantes, gestelztes Zeug quasselt. Ganz fair ist dieses Vorgehen allerdings nicht. Sprachpolizist Saletan muss tats?chliche Kerry-Zitate zun?chst langwierig redigieren, um deren Autor als Dampfplauderer zu "entlarven". Zudem entfernt "Slate" nicht nur F?llstoff ("ich denke", ich glaube"), sondern ver?ndert auch die inhaltliche Aussage ("vor allem des Pentagons").
DPA
Rhetorik-Talent Bush: "They misunderestimated me"
Ist das komisch, so komisch gar wie die Bushisms? Deren Faszination lag darin, dass man den ungeschminkten George W. Bush zu sehen bekam. Der Mann hat wirklich gesagt, dass "mehr Handel mehr Kommerz bedeutet". Da musste textlich nichts frisiert werden. Zu Saletans Ehrenrettung muss man wiederum anf?hren, dass er sich ein besonders schwieriges Ziel ausgesucht hat. John Kerry ist einfach zutiefst unkomisch. Auch der vielk?pfige Pressestab des Senators bem?ht sich seit Monaten, etwas Humor in den Kandidaten Kerry hineinzuredigieren. Bisher ohne erkennbaren Erfolg.
Lustig oder nicht, Kerrys Zitate sagen einiges ?ber den Mann aus. Eine kleine Archivsuche gen?gt, um eine Reihe k?rzerer Bonmots zutage zu f?rdern, die man ebenfalls unter dem Oberbegriff Kerryisms zusammenfassen k?nnte. Ihr gemeinsamer Nenner: Der demokratische Senator schafft es, jeder noch so einfachen Frage auszuweichen. Einige Beispiele:
Kerrys Antwort auf die Frage, ob er einen Spritfresser der Marke Chevrolet Suburban in der Garage stehen hat:
"Die Familie hat einen. Ich habe keinen."
Kerrys Antwort auf die Frage, warum er gegen zus?tzliche Finanzmittel f?r US-Soldaten im Irak gestimmt hat:
"Tats?chlich habe ich f?r die 87 Milliarden Dollar gestimmt, bevor ich dagegen gestimmt habe."
S?tze wie diesen verwenden die Republikaner in ihren Wahlkampfspots, um Kerry als "Flip-Flopper" hinzustellen - als einen der erst H?h und dann Hott sagt. "New York Times"-Kommentator David Brooks verh?hnt den Senator wegen seiner oft allzu wolkigen Aussagen als "John Kerry, den menschlichen Nebel". Es ist schon paradox: Eigentlich sollte es Kerry der Wortgewandte sein, der George den Stammler vorf?hrt; tats?chlich ist es Bush, der mit seinem sprachlichen Defizit punktet.
IN SPIEGEL ONLINE
A bis Z: Das Bush-Analphabet (Archiv) (17.08.2001)
Aus Sicht der Bushhasser sind die Bushisms zwar der Beweis daf?r, dass der Amtsinhaber ein Kretin ersten Grades ist. Mit den Ansichten eines Politikers, der nicht einmal richtig sprechen kann, so deren g?ngige Meinung, muss man sich gar nicht erst auseinander setzen. Vor allem in l?ndlichen Teilen der USA wird dem Pr?sidenten die Neigung zum frakturierten Hauptsatz aber nicht als Schw?che ausgelegt, sondern als positiver Charakterzug. Bush, so die Wahrnehmung, ist keiner von diesen Washingtoner Sprachakrobaten; er ist ein straight talker. Au?erdem: Kann jemand, der so viele Lacher produziert, ein ?bler Bursche sein?
Bushisms sind ein Bonus, Kerryisms ein Malus. Nat?rlich hat Kerrys Verhalten viel mit seiner zwanzigj?hrigen Sozialisation in Washington zu tun. Wie die meisten Spitzenpolitiker h?tet er sich vor allzu klaren Aussagen, auf die er sp?ter festgenagelt werden k?nnte. Doch auch wenn man Kerry diese "Umwelteinfl?sse" in Rechnung stellt, ist es erstaunlich, wie sich die "Nebelmaschine aus Boston" (Brook) selbst bei politisch unverf?nglichen Fragen gewohnheitsm??ig ein Hintert?rchen zimmert. Mitunter wirkt das pathologisch. Als Kerry k?rzlich w?hrend eines Kurzurlaubs in Idaho gefragt wurde, ob er denn heute Ski oder Snowboard fahren werde, antwortete der Senator:
"Es ist ein Ski-Tag, ein Teil des Tages."
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TERRORGEFAHR IN H?FEN
Machete im Handgep?ck
Von Lisa Erdmann
Terrorangst herrscht l?ngst auch auf See. Um Horrorszenarien wie Attentate auf Kreuzfahrtschiffe zu verhindern, hat die Uno-Schifffahrtsorganisation Imo einen weltweit verbindlichen Sicherheitskodex entworfen, den Reeder und H?fen ab 1. Juli einhalten m?ssen. Die Bundesregierung und die L?nder schaffen es bis dahin nicht mehr, die notwendigen Gesetze zu erlassen.
ANZEIGE
AP
Container Terminal in Bremerhaven: 95 Prozent des weltweiten Warentransports laufen per Schiff
Hamburg - Nichts ist mehr undenkbar seit dem 11. September 2001. Wenn Terroristen Flugzeuge in Hochh?user steuern, warum sollen sie nicht ein vollbesetztes Kreuzfahrtschiff oder eine F?hre in die Luft jagen? Zum Beispiel w?hrend der Olympischen Spiele in Athen, wenn die "Aida Aura" als offizielles G?steschiff des deutschen NOK mit ?ber 1200 G?sten an Bord im Hafen von Pir?us liegt?
So weit hergeholt sind solche Szenarien nicht, gab es doch schon vor al-Qaida Terroristen, die Kreuzfahrtschiffe kaperten: 1985 entf?hrten militante Pal?stinenser die italienische "Achille Lauro" und 1961 kaperten portugiesische Rebellen die "Santa Maria".
Noch viel mehr als die Personenschifffahrt macht den Terrorfahndern die Containerbef?rderung Sorgen. Ein versenktes Schiff in der Elbe k?nnte etwa den Hamburger Hafen, den zweitgr??ten Containerhafen Europas, tagelang blockieren. Mehrere versenkte Schiffe in wichtigen H?fen k?nnten den Welthandel zeitweise zum Erliegen bringen. Denn bis heute werden 95 Prozent der Waren weltweit in Containern verschickt. Millionen dieser Boxen sind rund um den Globus unterwegs. Unm?glich sie alle auf ihren Inhalt zu ?berpr?fen. Die 16.000 Container etwa t?glich im Hamburger Hafen werden zwar alle auf Radioaktivit?t ?berpr?ft. Aber durchleuchtet werden grade mal hundert St?ck von ihnen. Waffen, Drogen, Sprengstoff k?nnen rund um die Welt transportiert werden, ohne dass es jemand merkt.
SPIEGEL ONLINE
Gep?ckkontrolle am Seehafen Kiel: Jeder Koffer der Kreuzfahrtg?ste wird durchleuchtet, ab Juli auch versiegelt
So wunderte es die Experten auch wenig, als im Oktober 2001 im s?ditalienischen Seehafen Gioia Tauro ein h?chst verd?chtiger blinder Passagier in einem Container entdeckt wurde. Nur die Ausstattung der Box erstaunte: Bett, Heizung, Toilette, Satellitentelefon und Laptop. Der ?gypter hatte mehrere Sicherheitsausweise von US-Flugh?fen bei sich. Ob er tats?chlich, wie vermutet, ein Terrorist war, konnte nie gekl?rt werden. Nach Zahlung einer Kaution tauchte der Mann unter.
Im Oktober 2002 ver?bte al-Qaida einen Anschlag auf den franz?sischen Tanker Limbourg vor der K?ste Jemens und einen Monat sp?ter gab es Warnungen vor einem angeblich in Europa bevorstehenden Anschlag auf eine F?hre. Die USA dr?ngten die Imo nun, schnell zu handeln. Strengere Regeln sollten her.
Der ab dem 1. Juli 2004 weltweit verbindliche ISPS-Code (International Ship and Port Facility Security) soll nun Terroranschl?ge verhindern oder doch zumindest deutlich erschweren. Der neuen Richtlinie zufolge m?ssen H?fen und Schiffe weltweit k?nftig besondere Sicherheitsstandards erf?llen, um ein entsprechendes Zertifikat zu erhalten. H?fen, die wegen Sicherheitsm?ngeln kein Zertifikat erhalten, droht der wirtschaftliche Untergang. Sie werden als "unsichere H?fen" eingestuft. Schiffe, die solche H?fen anlaufen, k?nnten zum Beispiel ihren Versicherungsschutz verlieren. Schiffe, die von dort kommen, m?ssen k?nftig, insbesondere in den USA, zeitaufwendige und damit teure Kontrollen ?ber sich ergehen lassen. Im Zweifel m?ssen sie sogar mit einem Einlaufverbot in US-amerikanische H?fen rechnen.
Hektische Betriebsamkeit vor Ende der Frist
Die Imo hat den Beschluss aus dem Dezember 2002 als historisch bezeichnet. Innerhalb von 18 Monaten sollten die Regeln in nationales Recht umgesetzt werden. In den deutschen H?fen herrschen sechs Wochen vor Ablauf der Frist noch hektische Bauarbeiten. Da werden etwa Z?une gezogen und Lichtmasten aufgestellt. Koordiniert und ausgearbeitet werden die neuen Standards von den jeweiligen Hafensicherheitsbeauftragten, den jeder Hafenbetreiber nach dem Code nun haben muss.
DDP
Luxusurlaub an Bord der MS Europa: Ein Sicherheitsoffizier ist Pflicht
Bei der Hamburger Hafen- und Lagerhaus Aktiengesellschaft (HHLA) ist das Jens Weber. Wie das Sicherheitskonzept an den HHLA-Kais genau gestrickt ist, will er bis auf die sichtbaren Teile wie Absperrungen und Code-gesicherte Drehkreuze nicht verraten. Die Geheimniskr?merei geh?rt zur Terrorabwehr dazu. Er r?umt allerdings ein, dass nicht alle Risiken auszur?umen sind. "Wenn hier jemand mit einem Panzerfahrzeug ankommt, dann schafft der es nat?rlich auf das Gel?nde zu kommen." Er will den Hamburger Hafen allerdings auch nicht als Hochsicherheitstrakt sehen, sondern vergleicht die Sicherheitsma?nahmen eher mit denen an einem Flughafen. Das Zertifikat f?r einen "sicheren Hafen" hofft er im Juni zu erhalten.
Auch alle Schiffe ?ber 500 BRZ (Bruttoraumzahl) m?ssen ab Juli einen Sicherheitsoffizier an Bord haben. Sie m?ssen wie ihre Kollegen im Hafen Gefahrenabwehrpl?ne vorlegen. Darin sollen Angaben ?ber Sperrbereiche an Bord, Verhaltensregeln im Notfall und H?ufigkeit von Sicherheitsstreifen an Bord stehen. Die speziell ausgebildeten Offiziere sollen darin auch auf verschiedene Bedrohungsszenarien eingehen: Was tun bei einem Angriff auf See oder bei der Entf?hrung des Schiffes?
W?hrend die gro?en deutschen Seeh?fen den ISPS-Code bereits fast vollst?ndig umgesetzt haben, hinkt der Gesetzgeber noch hinterher. Denn im f?deralen Deutschland ist dieses Verfahren kompliziert. Daf?r braucht es n?mlich ein Bundesgesetz und - da die H?fen in den Zust?ndigkeitsbereich der Bundesl?nder fallen - noch jeweils die Landesgesetze. Aber die Regelwerke haben bislang erst den Status "Referentenentwurf" erreicht. Bis die jeweiligen Gesetze g?ltig sind, gehen noch sechs bis neun Monate ins Land. Was aber Lothar Bergmann, Chef der Hafensicherheitskommission in Hamburg, f?r nicht weiter tragisch h?lt. "Wir brauchen die Gesetze nicht eher, weil wir ohne Zwangsandrohungen auskommen." Bu?gelder, meint er, m?ssten sicher kaum verh?ngt werden, weil die H?fen und Schiffseigner selber ein wirtschaftliches Interesse daran haben, die Vorschriften einzuhalten und als sicherer Hafen zu gelten. "Da gibt es nur verschwindend wenige Ausnahmen."
So bietet der gr??te deutsche Kreuzfahrt- und F?hrhafen in Kiel mit 1,3 Millionen Passagieren bereits seit Beginn dieser Kreuzfahrtsaison am 1. Mai allen ihn anlaufenden Kreuzfahrt-Reedereien Sicherheitschecks nach ISPS-Standard an. Die britische Reederei des Clubschiffs "Aida Blu" hat f?r das Einschiffen in Kiel Anfang Mai das volle Programm eingekauft: Das Schiff am Kai liegt hinter einem bewachten Zaun, die Koffer der Reisenden werden durchleuchtet bevor sie aufs Schiff gelangen, Proviant-Lieferanten werden gecheckt, Passagiere m?ssen wie am Flughafen durch einen Metalldetektor gehen und ihr Handgep?ck ?berpr?fen lassen.
SPIEGEL ONLINE
HHLA-Sicherheitschef Jens Weber: Ein Restrisiko bleibt
F?r den Hafen ist der ISPS-Code ein dicker Kostenfaktor. Vor allem die Personalkosten schlagen zu Buche. Der Security-Chef des Kieler Hafens, Volker Dziobeck, hat 20 Mann einer speziell zugelassenen Wachfirma im Einsatz, die das Gel?nde sichern, solange ein Schiff wie die "Aida blu" am Kai liegt, Personen- und Gep?ckkontrollen durchf?hren. Gefunden wurde bislang nur einmal was: "Ein Mann hatte eine Machete im Reisekoffer. Was er damit vorhatte, wissen wir nicht. Er hat uns erz?hlt, dass er immer mit dem Ding reist", sagt Dziobeck. Die Waffe musste an Land bleiben.
W?hrend die amerikanischen H?fen eine Milliarde Dollar f?r Antiterrorma?nahmen von der US-Regierung erhielten, gab die Bundesregierung kein Geld. Die H?fen m?ssen ihre Investitionen, die sich bei der HHLA zum Beispiel im zweistelligen Millionenbereich befinden, umlegen: Auf den Reeder und damit bei Kreuzfahrten und F?hrpassagen auf die Reisenden und bei Containern auf die Verbraucher.
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>> LEFT WATCH
Memo on the Status Report on the War on Terrorism
May 25, 2004
To: Interested Parties
From: Robert O. Boorstin
The U.S. war in Iraq has helped to revitalize and motivate the al Qaeda network and risks to Westerners have increased. That's the conclusion of a new report released by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies. This is particularly important given the president's invoking of the global war on terrorism to justify the administration's actions in Iraq.
Highlights from Institute's annual Strategy Survey are given below. A summary is available here.
Al Qaeda fully functioning, growing. "The Madrid bombings in March 2004 suggested that al Qaeda had fully reconstituted, set its sights firmly on the U.S. and its closest Western allies in Europe, and established a new and effective modus operandi that increasingly exploited local affiliates." Furthermore, al Qaeda still has a functioning leadership despite the deaths or capture of key figures. Al Qaeda has more than 18,000 potential terrorists in more than 60 nations around the world.
Iraq used as al Qaeda recruiting tool. Iraq has become the new magnet for al Qaeda's recruiting efforts. Up to 1,000 Islamic fighters from foreign nations have infiltrated Iraqi territory, where they are co-operating with Iraqi insurgents. "In counter-terrorism terms, the intervention has arguably focused the energies and resources of al-Qaeda and its followers." Progress against al Qaeda "is likely to accelerate only with currently elusive political developments that would broadly depress recruitment and motivation."
Iraq has split the coalition. The war in Iraq has diluted "the global counter-terrorism coalition that appeared so formidable following the Afghanistan intervention in late 2001." "Politically, it split the U.S. and major continental European powers, leaving the United Kingdom uncomfortably in the middle, and induced uncertainty in other governments about the extent of any contribution to the post-conflict effort."
Failure in Iraq would be a strategic nightmare. "A failed Iraqi state would be a strategic nightmare for the U.S. and the West... It is key to regional security - and the stability of the international system - that the U.S. and its allies get Iraq right." "The U.S. is realizing the awful truth that the first law of peacekeeping is the same as the first law of forensics - every contact leaves a trace. Unfortunately, too many bad traces have been left recently, and many good ones will be needed for the U.S. to recover its reputation, its prestige and therefore effective power."
Robert O. Boorstin is the senior vice president for national security at the Center for American Progress.
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Predicting Presidential Performance:
Is George W. Bush An Active/Negative President Like Nixon, LBJ, Hoover and Wilson?
By JOHN W. DEAN
----
Friday, May. 21, 2004
Many political scientists believe it is possible to predict presidential performance. While no one can predict future events, the future performance of those who occupy the Oval Office can be ascertained, at least in a general fashion.
Political scientist James David Barber first showed the analytical and predictive potentials of psychology in studying presidents with his classic, The Presidential Character: Predicting Performance in the White House. This work, originally published in 1972, has been republished and updated on four occasions.
Barber first wrote -- long before Richard Nixon's troubles had fully unfolded but based on his scrutiny of Nixon's personality and character traits -- that Nixon would self-destruct in his second term. Since then, Barber has tested and retested his analytical tools, applying them to all the modern presidents up to and including George Herbert Walker Bush.
In retirement, Professor Barber did not apply his techniques to either Presidents Bill Clinton or George W. Bush. But shortly after 9/11, curiosity prompted me, to see how the incumbent president fared under Barber's predictive analysis. The results were anything but comforting.
Professor Barber's Analytical Framework
Before I offer the results of my analysis, a bit of background is essential.
While no system is infallible, and typologies have their weaknesses, Barber's prophetic results have proven extraordinary, for he has been uncannily prescient with his method. He takes five common elements -- character, worldview, style, power situations, and climate of expectations -- and using these elements he has assembled clusters of presidents since Theodore Roosevelt within which he finds a number of repeating baseline characteristics.
Social scientists often employ obtuse terms that appear less than user friendly, and Professor Barber is no exception. Yet when one actually becomes familiar with the jargon, it proves quiet handy. So it is with Barber's grouping of past presidents.
It is not possible to do justice to Barber's work in summary form, but those who are interested can examine his work for themselves. For my purposes, an overview suffices: At least a few key concepts -- and some of Barber's jargon -- are necessary to broadly understand his approach.
Barber has catalogued presidents based on the similarity of their personalities and character traits. His first baseline is to describe them as either "active" or "passive" regarding their work. This he determines by looking at how much energy they invest in the work of the presidency. For example, Lyndon Johnson was a human dynamo; Calvin Coolidge slept eleven hours every night and took naps during the day.
The second baseline for Barber is how presidents react toward their work: "positively" or "negatively." Generally speaking, he seeks to determine if their political experiences are satisfying. To quote Barber, "The idea is this: is he someone who, on the surfaces we can see, gives forth the feeling that he has fun in political life?"
Examples of president who had fun notwithstanding the burdens of power are Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan -- placing them on the positive side of Barber's typology. No doubt Barber would have found Bill Clinton there as well
-- except perhaps toward the difficult end of his second term.
Barber's four categories are active/positive (Example: FDR), active/negative (Example: Nixon), passive/positive (Example: Reagan) and passive/negative (Example: Jefferson).
It is the active/negative group that is the most troubling.
The Troubles of Active/Negative Presidents
Active/negative types, broadly speaking, are aggressive in pursuing their political and policy aims, yet they get little true emotional reward from undertaking these endeavors.
In addition to Richard Nixon, Barber says Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, and Lyndon Johnson were active/negatives -- all presidencies that did not end well.
In his book and his other writings, Barber has noted that for active/negative types that "[l]ife is a hard struggle to achieve and hold power" -- one in which they are "hampered by the condemnations of a perfectionist conscience."
"[A]ctive/negatives pour energy into the political system, but it is energy distorted from within," Barber notes. He found that these presidents are "much taken up with self-concern," and they always want to know if they are "winning or losing, gaining or falling behind."
Active/negative evaluate themselves "with respect to virtue." They view their actions (if not the world) as being good or bad. Their "perfectionistic conscience" provides no room for growth through experience, for they expect themselves to be good at all they undertake. Their ethics result in "denial of self-gratification," for these men see themselves as self-sacrificing rather than self-rewarding. They are "concerned with controlling [their] aggression ... reining in [their] anger."
These presidents are capable of generating "tremendous energies for political domination." They are also uniquely stubborn men, who become more rigid and inflexible as they proceed, for they become caught up in their own self-righteousness. And as Barber says, they mask their decisions not to budge, their rigidity, in whatever rhetoric is necessary, so that they can ride the tiger to the end. They also are our most secretive presidents.
Failure by these presidents is predictable because their flawed perceptions are often risky, they are gamblers, and their rigidity can easily plunge the nation into a tragedy. This occurred with Wilson -- whose presidency was marred by a failed peace accord, a disintegrating economy, and refusal to admit the impact of a debilitating stroke. It occurred with Hoover -- who ineffectively presided over the nation's most devastating economic depression. And it also occurred with Lyndon Johnson -- his Vietnam debacle and withdrawal from reelection. Finally, and most obviously, it occurred with Nixon -- forced to resign after Watergate .
With such presidents there is always "the potential for grievous harm," Barber warns, observing that while the nation has survived several such presidents, this is "cold comfort to those individuals and families who suffered for what these Presidents did."
Barber admonishes that when we find ourselves with an active/negative president, we have a situation that cannot be ignored -- for all such presidents are potentially dangerous.
Is George W. Bush An Active/Negative President?
There is little doubt in my mind that George W. Bush is an active/negative president. Based on the available information, he strikes me as a perfect fit. But because one of Bush's aides, a political scientist who has observed Bush at close range, sees him as otherwise, it caused me to take an even closer look.
Former Bush White House aide John J. DiIulio, Jr., a respected academic, has said he thinks that Bush is an "active/positive," because "he loves the job and is very energetic." Although DiIulio is not a presidential scholar (by his own admission), his comment caused me to examine his observation -- and my own.
DiIulio appears to be using shorthand because loving the job, per se, is not one of the criteria upon which Barber relies. And DiIulio appears to base his conclusion on Bush's public face -- and on an event DiIulio attended with Bush -- rather than on Bush's typical day to day behavior.
Barber's active/positive criteria requires a "relatively high self-esteem [with] ... an emphasis on rational mastery," which is not Bush. Bush no doubt loves being head of state, enjoying the pomp of his high office, as well as the politics of the presidency. Yet there is no evidence he even likes being head of the government (for it involves far more intellectual rigor than Bush enjoys). In fact, Bush is like Nixon in that he gets out of the White House every chance he has to do so.
There is an abundance of evidence (from simply watching television coverage of the seldom smiling, often annoyed, forehead-wrinkled Bush) that demonstrates that Bush reaps a "relative[ly] low emotional reward" from the job -- to quote one of Barber's active/negative criteria.
Indeed, Bush clearly fits many of the traits that Barber relies upon to define his active/negative presidents. For example, Bush has a "compulsive quality, as if ... trying to make up for something or escape from anxiety in hard work." Consider how he has immersed himself in continuous campaigning throughout his first term, while Cheney minds the store.
Continuing with Barber's criteria, Bush is clearly "ambitious, striving upward and seeking power." Indeed, few presidents have been so anxious to risk their political capital to enhance their power as Bush did in the 2000 Congressional races.
In addition, Barber notes that the active/negative president "has a persistent problem in managing his aggressive feelings." Bush seems to deal with his through strenuous exercise -- running and weight training -- which, for him, have (laudably) replaced alcohol as a way to "blow off steam."
Overwhelming Evidence Shows Bush Is An Active/Negative
In sum, I don't believe Professor DiIulio's judgment that Bush is an active/positive president is borne out by the facts. In my judgment, we do, in fact, have another active/negative president -- with all the attendant problems that appears to entail, based on Barber's analysis.
And if I am right, that bodes ill. George W. Bush has taken huge risks during his first term -- with his unprecedented tax cuts, his disregard for humongous budget deficits, and a preemptive and largely unilateral war in Iraq. At the same time, he stubbornly refuses to admit to so much as a single mistake. Under Barber's model, though, we have seen nothing yet. If this active/negative president gets a second term, Barber's model predicts these traits -- love of risk and dislike of admitting error -- will only become more aggravated.
Not since Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon has the nation been exposed to an active/negative presidency. It is not something to look forward to without the greatest vigilance.
As information about John Kerry unfolds in the coming weeks and months, it will be interesting to examine him by Professor Barber's predictive tools. Stay tuned.
What Do You Think? Message Boards
John W. Dean, a FindLaw columnist, is a former counsel to the president.
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La chronique d'Eric Fottorino
Fahrenheit Bush
LE MONDE | 24.05.04 | 13h09
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On n'ira pas jusqu'? ?crire que ce fut l'?v?nement majeur du week-end, mais tout de m?me : samedi, quelques heures avant le sacre de Michael Moore ? Cannes, George W. Bush a tent? une ultime pirouette pour d?crocher le grand prix d'interpr?tation, cat?gorie comique.
D'apr?s les d?p?ches dat?es de Crawford, Texas, o? le pr?sident catastrophe poss?de son ranch de cow-boy, une malencontreuse chute de v?lo lui a br?l? le cuir.
Le porte-parole de la Maison Blanche n'a pas indiqu? ? quel degr? Fahrenheit la peau de Bush avait chauff?. La nouvelle venue quelques heures plus tard de la Croisette l'aura port?e ? coup s?r ? une incandescence plus forte encore.
Samedi donc, escort? de son m?decin - comme s'il avait pr?vu la suite -, "W" p?dalait sur sa b?cane tout-terrain.
L'accompagnaient aussi un collaborateur militaire et un agent secret. Sinc?rement, vu le palmar?s de l'arm?e am?ricaine et des services de renseignement depuis le 11 septembre 2001, on comprend qu'il soit tomb? de v?lo avec pareils ?nergum?nes dans son sillage.
Heureusement, le "doc" veillait. On ignore si, apr?s la gamelle de son patron dans une pente, il a sorti une mignonnette de whisky, comme dans les bons vieux westerns avec John Wayne.
Le communiqu? a seulement signal? des blessures b?nignes au visage, ? la main droite (celle qui dit "Je le jure") et aux genoux, (r?put?s peu flexibles chez George Bush).
Il y a des jours comme ?a. Les sp?cialistes en oies du Capitole jureront plus tard que cette chute pr?sageait celle survenue ? Cannes lorsque Michael Moore et son Fahrenheit 9/11 mont?rent au firmament du cin?ma.
Quant aux m?morialistes des bas - plut?t que des hauts - pr?sidentiels, ils ont d?j? ?tabli un navrant inventaire pour l'ex-jeune premier de la Maison-Bush : ?corchures ? la figure apr?s avoir aval? de travers un bretzel en janvier 2002 ; chute d'une trottinette ? moteur alors qu'il rendait visite ? ses parents dans le Maine, en juin 2003.
Que de maladresses ! Vous l'imaginez, Bush, une arme ? la main ? M?me avec un colt de cin?ma, il serait capable de se tirer dans le pied.
Michael Moore, alias Michael Humour, a d'ailleurs esp?r? en toute sinc?rit? que nul n'annoncerait sa r?compense ? "W" pendant qu'il croquait des biscuits sal?s. Pareil impair aurait r?veill? ses br?lures. Gare au sel sur le "play", aurait dit Gainsbarre.
Le Fahrenheit mooresque ravive le souvenir d'un autre Fahrenheit, 451 celui-l?, ?crit jadis par Ray Bradbury et adapt? ? l'?cran par Fran?ois Truffaut.
Dans une soci?t? gla?ante et glac?e, la seule chaleur venait des lance-flammes qui tuaient les livres et les id?es.
Au milieu de cet autodaf?, le soldat du feu Montag grimpait dans la hi?rarchie en br?lant Proust et Balzac, avant que, saisi de remords et gagn? par l'amour, il rejoigne le pays des hommes-livres. P?tris de lettres, ils apprenaient chacun une ?uvre par c?ur pour conserver en eux le sens du beau et celui des valeurs.
D'un Fahrenheit ? l'autre, du conte grave au documentaire bouffon, perce la m?me inqui?tude. Dans son r?le de b?te analphab?te, quel livre "W" pourrait-il retenir, lui pour qui chaque mot est une arme pour mentir ?
* ARTICLE PARU DANS L'EDITION DU 25.05.04
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par Dominique Dhombres
T?l?vision : Michael Moore est un clown qui dit la v?rit?
LE MONDE | 24.05.04 | 13h09
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La main sur la bouche comme un enfant pris en faute. Vous avez tous vu ce r?flexe instinctif saisi par les cam?ras du monde entier.
C'est le geste spontan? de Michael Moore, assis dans la salle du Palais des festivals, ? Cannes, au moment o? il apprend qu'il vient de remporter la Palme d'or pour Fahrenheit 9/11.
Il est surpris, plus que cela m?me, boulevers?. "Qu'est-ce que vous avez fait ?", balbutie-t-il. Quelques minutes plus tard, il se reprend et lance, pince-sans-rire : "Mince ! J'allais oublier de remercier mes acteurs. Merci George Bush, Dick Cheney, et surtout Donald Rumsfeld pour la sc?ne d'amour !" Il s'agit, on l'a compris, des photos tr?s sp?ciales prises ? la prison d'Abou Ghraib, en Irak, sinon sur l'ordre expr?s, du moins avec le consentement du secr?taire ? la d?fense, qui a feint ensuite de les d?couvrir. Evidemment, cette "sc?ne d'amour" ne figure pas dans Fahrenheit 9/11 pour la bonne et simple raison que le r?alisateur ignorait tout de ce scandale lorsqu'il a achev? son film.
Mais peu importe. Cet humour-l? est d?vastateur.
Evidemment, Michael Moore est de mauvaise foi. Il voue ? George Bush une haine profonde, inexpiable, qui se nourrit de tous les ressentiments possibles et imaginables. Il est n? ? Flint (Michigan), si?ge de la plus grande usine du groupe General Motors, aujourd'hui disparue. Enfant, Moore ?tait pr?destin? ? travailler chez le constructeur automobile. Il a ?chapp? ? son sort en devenant journaliste. Il d?teste chez Bush le fils de famille quasiment d?linquant et presque analphab?te que sa famille et son milieu ont propuls? ? la Maison Blanche, un lieu sacr? aux yeux de ce patriote.
Lui, il vient de la classe ouvri?re. Et il en joue, bien s?r. Il en rajoute m?me, avec sa bedaine, ses bermudas extra-larges et sa casquette de base-ball ?ternellement viss?e sur le cr?ne. Il avait fait un effort pour Cannes, mais il ressemblait toujours, dans son smoking, ? l'ours de Flint qu'il entend bien rester.
Evidemment, Michael Moore est de bonne foi. Il croit r?ellement que Bush junior n'aurait jamais d? entrer ? la Maison Blanche, qu'il a vol? son ?lection, et qu'il r?tablira la conscription, s'il est r??lu, pour poursuivre sa guerre imb?cile en Irak. Les clowns, et Michael Moore en est un, et de taille, n'ont que faire de la bonne ou de la mauvaise foi. Il leur arrive aussi de dire la v?rit?.
dominique dhombres
* ARTICLE PARU DANS L'EDITION DU 25.05.04
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Magical History Tour
Bush can't learn from the past if he can't see it.
By William Saletan
Posted Monday, May 24, 2004, at 11:57 PM PT
In press conferences, TV ads, and interviews this year, President Bush has manifested a series of psychopathologies: an abstract notion of reality, confidence unhinged from facts and circumstances, and a conception of credibility that requires no correspondence to the external world. Tonight, as he vowed to stay the course in Iraq, Bush demonstrated another mental defect: incomprehension of his role in history as a fallible human agent. Absent such comprehension, Bush can't fix his mistakes in Iraq because he can't see how--or even that--he screwed up.
Here's how Bush, in his speech this evening, described Iraq's place in history:
In the last 32 months, history has placed great demands on our country, and events have come quickly. Americans have seen the flames of Sept. 11, followed battles in the mountains of Afghanistan ... We've seen killers at work on trains in Madrid, in a bank in Istanbul, in a synagogue in Tunis, and at a nightclub in Bali. And now the families of our soldiers and civilian workers pray for their sons and daughters in Mosul, in Karbala, in Baghdad. We did not seek this war on terror, but this is the world as we find it. We must keep our focus. We must do our duty. History is moving, and it will tend toward hope or tend toward tragedy.
The description is almost biblical. The narrative--"this war on terror"--is a moral test arranged by higher powers. Postwar Iraq, like 9/11, Madrid, and Bali, is "the world as we find it," not as we made it. "History," not Bush, has placed the demands of occupation on our country. "Events," not Bush's mistakes and their consequences, have come quickly. We must focus on the "duty" defined by our situation, not on how we got here.
Bush's ignorance of his part in the tragedy infects everything he says. "The swift removal of Saddam Hussein's regime last spring had an unintended effect," he observed tonight. "Instead of being killed or captured on the battlefield, some of Saddam's elite guards shed their uniforms and melted into the civilian population. [They] have reorganized, rearmed and adopted sophisticated terrorist tactics." Note the passive construction. The mistake isn't that Bush failed to prepare for guerrilla tactics commonly adopted against occupiers. It isn't even a mistake; it's an "unintended effect." The cause of that effect is Saddam's "swift removal," not Bush or anyone in his administration who engineered the removal.
Is Bush embarrassed that a year of occupation has failed to substantiate his claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and links to global terrorism? No. He hasn't even noticed. "I sent American troops to Iraq to defend our security," he repeated tonight, adding, "Iraq is now the central front in the war on terror ... This will be a decisive blow to terrorism at the heart of its power and a victory for the security of America and the civilized world." Never mind the emerging evidence that North Korea, not Iraq, was engaged in the kind of WMD proliferation that Bush attributed to Saddam. In his speech, Bush simply repeated that Iraq was the headquarters of terrorists who "seek weapons of mass destruction."
For a still more airbrushed version of history, consider Bush's account of his relationship with the United Nations. "At every stage, the United States has gone to the United Nations to confront Saddam Hussein, to promise serious consequences for his actions, and to begin Iraqi reconstruction," the president asserted. Forget the part where Bush reneged on his pledge to call a Security Council vote on the use of force. Forget the part where he invaded Iraq against the wishes of a majority of the council.
When the gap between reality and Bush's happy talk becomes too painful for his party to bear, he does try to close that gap. But he never faces up to the extent of his errors. "Our commanders had estimated that a troop level below 115,000 would be sufficient at this point in the conflict," he said tonight. "Given the recent increase in violence, we will maintain our troop level at the current 138,000 as long as necessary." 138,000? Everyone knows this is grossly inadequate, as evidenced by bombings, assassinations, and hostile takeovers of cities. We can't maintain order with current troop levels. Most analysts think then-Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki was right that hundreds of thousands of troops were needed to do the job. But all Bush concedes is that the number can't be less than 115,000. Meanwhile, Bush promises to have American officers "oversee the training of a force of 260,000 Iraqi soldiers, police and other security personnel."
In some recent battles against insurgents, "the early performance of Iraqi forces fell short," Bush conceded tonight. "Some refused orders to engage the enemy. We've learned from these failures, and we've taken steps to correct them. ... Successful units need to know they are fighting for the future of their own country, not for any occupying power. So we are ensuring that Iraqi forces serve under an Iraqi chain of command." Well, sort of. According to testimony by administration officials, Iraqi troops will answer to an Iraqi general. But that general, in turn, will serve under an American general. The occupying power still holds the chain.
Bush further boasted, "At my direction ... we are accelerating our program to help train Iraqis to defend their country." To a reflective person, "accelerate" means we could have done this faster but didn't. That's a crucial mistake, given that we're running out of time. But to Bush, acceleration just means things are getting better.
When you deceive yourself about the past, it's easy to deceive yourself about the future. A month from now, Bush vowed, "Our coalition will transfer full sovereignty to a government of Iraqi citizens. ... By keeping our promise on June 30, the coalition will demonstrate that we have no interest in occupation." Er, almost no interest. Iraq's generals will still answer to ours. And we'll hold the strings to $20 billion in reconstruction aid. "To ensure our money is spent wisely and effectively, our new embassy in Iraq will have regional offices in several key cities," Bush decreed. "These offices will work closely with Iraqis at all levels of government to help make sure projects are completed on time and on budget." That's a lot of control and certainty for a non-occupying power to assert. It sounds almost like, well, dictation. "America will fund the construction of a modern maximum security prison," Bush went on. "When that prison is completed, detainees at Abu Ghraib will be relocated."
Blind to the false promises he has already made, Bush adds others. U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi "intends to put forward the names of interim government officials this week," said Bush, ignoring widespread reports that Brahimi will miss that deadline. Bush also assured the public that "we have a great advantage" in Iraq: "Our coalition has a clear goal, understood by all: to see the Iraqi people in charge of Iraq for the first time in generations." Understood by all? Bush seems unaware that even before the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, the most reliable Iraqi poll--a poll to which his own Coalition Provisional Authority submitted questions--found that most Iraqis want coalition soldiers to get out.
Bush, being Bush, thinks abstractions and good intentions will conquer such unpleasant facts. To Bush, they aren't even facts; they're illusions. The reality is the great narrative of the war on terror, whose infallible course is set by a higher power. "The way forward may sometimes appear chaotic; yet our coalition is strong, and our efforts are focused and unrelenting, and no power of the enemy will stop Iraq's progress," Bush insisted tonight. Close your eyes, and you can almost see it.
William Saletan is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War.
Posted by maximpost
at 11:45 PM EDT
