>> OUR LEADERS, OUR SELVES?


QUERYING KERRY
February 15, 2004 -- IN the more than 250 days until Nov. 2, John Kerry can answer questions that linger in spite of, or because of, all he has said so far. Such as:
Other than denoting your disapproval, what does the adjective mean in the phrase "special interest"? Is the National Education Association a special interest? The AFL-CIO?
You abhor "special tax giveaways for the privileged and special interests." When supporting billions in ethanol subsidies, mostly for agribusinesses, did you think about corn-growing, caucus-holding Iowa?
Is the National Rifle Association a "special interest"? Is "special" a synonym for "conservative"?
When you denounce "lobbyists" do you include those for Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club? Is "liberal lobbyist" an oxymoron?
All the Americans affected by laws you pass - that is, all Americans - refuse to pipe down and mind their own business so that you can mind their business for them. Often they hire lobbyists to exercise their First Amendment right to "petition the government for a redress of grievances." Can you despise lobbyists without disparaging that right?
You say the rich do not pay enough taxes. In 1979 the top 1 percent of earners paid 19.75 percent of income taxes. Today they pay 36.3 percent. How much is enough?
You say the federal government is not spending enough on education. President Bush has increased education spending 48 percent. How much is enough?
In January 1991, after Iraq extinguished Kuwait's sovereignty, you opposed responding with force rather than economic sanctions. Have such sanctions ever undone such aggression?
On Jan. 11, 1991, you said that going to war was abandoning "the theory of deterrence." Was it not a tad late to deter Iraqi aggression?
The next day you said, "I do not believe our nation is prepared for war." How did unpreparedness subsequently manifest itself?
On Jan. 22, 1991, responding to a constituent opposed to the Gulf War, you wrote "I share your concerns" and would have given sanctions more time. Nine days later, responding to a voter who favored the war, you wrote, "I have strongly and unequivocally supported President Bush's response to the crisis." Did you have a third position?
You say the Bush administration questions "the patriotism" of its critics. You say that as president you will "appoint a U.S. trade representative who is an American patriot." You mean the current representative, Robert Zoellick, is not a patriot?
You strongly praise former Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin, who strongly supports NAFTA and free trade. Have you changed your mind about him or about free trade (as you have changed your mind about No Child Left Behind, the 2002 war resolution, the Patriot Act, etc.)?
You oppose immediate termination of U.S. involvement in Iraq, and you opposed the $87 billion to pay for involvement. Come again?
In 1994, the year after the first attack on the World Trade Center, you voted to cut $1 billion from counterterrorism activities. In 1995 you proposed a $1.5 billion cut in intelligence funding. Are you now glad that both proposals were defeated?
You favor civil unions but not same-sex marriage. What is the difference? What consequences of gay marriage worry you? Your state's highest court says marriage is "an evolving paradigm." Do you agree? You say you agree with what Dick Cheney said in 2000: States should have a right to "come to different conclusions" about same-sex marriage. Why, then, were you one of only 14 senators who opposed the Defense of Marriage Act, which protects that right? Massachusetts opponents of the same-sex ruling are moving for a referendum to amend the state constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. How will you vote?
You favor full disclosure of political spending. Organized labor is fighting new regulations requiring full disclosure to union members of the political uses of their mandatory union dues. As president, would you rescind these regulations?
Praising McCain-Feingold restrictions on political contributions, you said: "This bill reduces the power of the checkbook, and I will therefore support it." In December you saved your sagging campaign by writing it a $6.4 million check. Why is your checkbook's unfettered freedom wholesome?
You deny that restricting campaign contributions restricts speech. How much of the $6.4 million did you spend on speech - broadcast messages?
Billionaire George Soros says he will spend whatever is necessary - just a few million so far, but more coming - to defeat Bush. As one who believes - well, who says - there is "too much money" in politics, are you appalled?
There are 28 more questions where these 28 came from.
E-mail: georgewill@washpost.com

-------------------------------------------------------------------
The Beacon Hill Nightmare
Some perspective on John Kerry's mortgage.
The story of Senator John Kerry's mortgaged home in Beacon Hill is worth looking at. What made the papers was the suggestion that his access to it, in usufruct, was threatened by the sheer size of the loan and the attendant obligations of financing it. All of this, of course, in the context of his need for money to finance the ongoing campaign for the presidency.
There are several perspectives one needs in order to evaluate the problem of Mr. Kerry's mortgage. The first, of course, is that if you own a house valuable enough to warrant a loan of $6 million, you are living, by common standards, in an economic stratosphere, the implications of which require adjusting to normal standards of evaluation. If you hock the Hope Diamond for $10 million, attention focuses on your owing $10 million whereas, properly, it should focus on your owning the Hope Diamond.
Senator Kerry's widely publicized point is that he has had to finance his campaign by using his own resources, which are limited. But of course that is Hope Diamond talk. If a bank lends you $6 million, it knows it's going to get the money back.
How? Well, Senator Kerry is not wealthy, but he does have undisclosed assets. That is, assets undisclosed to the public, but not to the bank. All the bank needs is approximately $200,000 per year in interest payments, which is a little more than Senator Kerry's income as a senator. This point is mentioned in the news stories.
Where else would the bankers look, if they thought themselves threatened? Well, of course, to the property on which the loan was made, namely the house on Beacon Hill. There is a difficulty, which is that the house is jointly owned by Mr. Kerry and his wife. She has to be careful, even though she made out a prenuptial agreement with John. If he divorced her, one assumes, she would keep the house, to say nothing of her fortune.
Bear this poignancy in mind, that Mrs. Kerry is not permitted, under the law, to give Mr. Kerry more than $2,000 when he is running for office. Now some may classify this as an example of the problems of the idle rich. But this would be flippant. It is a big enough story of a human plight, to make the press worldwide.
Now pity for Mr. Kerry is immediately evoked by the circumstances of the mortgage. It is not as if he was taking $6 million to buy himself a G-V jet. No, he was using $6 million to pay the staff of his campaign and take out ads, all of this in anticipation of the returns in Iowa and New Hampshire. It added up to this, that returns from his campaign weren't large enough to satisfy his inclination to advance the cause of the campaign by additional advertising.
Now if he had lost out in Iowa, he'd have needed to reduce spending, which would have given his most resolute backers a challenge, namely to continue to support John Kerry at least to the point of giving him back his home on Beacon Hill. But if he did well in Iowa, as indeed he did, everybody could assume that the flow of money would not only continue, but increase. The publicity attached to the mortgage can only have served the cause of alerting his donors to the need to save not only the nation, but the house.
This is because current law denies to a candidate the right to repay past loans from money that comes in after the operative political date (in this case, the national convention in late July). After that, you can only use $250,000 of campaign contributions to repay old debts, and $250,000 comes to only a little over one year's interest on the Beacon Hill loan.
So it has to be cleared up before then, Kerry supporters are being told.
Campaigning for president in l956, Governor Adlai Stevenson crossed his legs while sitting on a chair on the dais, waiting to give his speech and a photographer shot a picture of his shoe. Lo!-there was a hole in his shoe.
That shoe with the hole became a talisman of Stevenson for President. Tiny gold and copper replicas were made to pin on to your handbag or lapel. What it said was: Vote for this man who, though so straitened as not to be able to afford to repair his shoes, walks on day after day, wearing out life's shoe leather, in the cause of America.
Get it?
John Kerry for President devoutly hopes you do.


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

'This won't go away. What happened is much nastier than is being reported'
By Adrian Blomfeld in Nairobi and Andrew Alderson
(Filed: 15/02/2004)

PHOTO
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/02/15/wus15.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/02/15/ixnewstop.html/news/2004/02/15/wus15.xml

Alex Polier, the twenty-four year old journalist who could end Senator John Kerry's hopes of becoming the next president of the United States is alleged to have had a two-year affair with the front-runner for the Democratic nomination. Last night the rumours were in danger of becoming a full-blown scandal.
Alex Polier, 24, is alleged to have had an affair with John Kerry
"This is not going to go away," one American friend of Miss Polier said yesterday. "What actually happened is much nastier than is being reported."
The allegations come at a crucial time for the senator. Polls showed him leading Mr Bush by 52 per cent to 42 per cent, and aides will be anxious to see if the apparent scandal affects his standing among voters.
Miss Polier, a former intern who also spent some time in 1998 doing work experience at the Houses of Parliament in London, is in Kenya staying with Yaron Schwartzman, her fiance and a member of the country's fashionable young set. The couple have refused to make any comment on her alleged links with Senator Kerry, who is married to Teresa Heinz Kerry, an heiress to the food empire.
Senator Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran dubbed the new JFK, has vehemently denied any relationship with Miss Polier, and shrugged off allegations that he had a two-year affair with her from 2001. "I just deny it categorically. It's rumour. It's untrue. Period," he said.
Mr Kerry, 60, has won 12 out of the 14 Democratic primaries and has looked all but certain to seal the nomination to take on President George W. Bush in November's elections.
His aides have blamed a dirty tricks campaign for bringing the allegations about Miss Polier into the public eye; they first surfaced last week on a Right-wing internet site, the Drudge Report, which famously first broke the news of Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Miss Polier's parents, Terry and Donna, from Malvern, Pennsylvania, added fuel to the fire by claiming that Mr Kerry did pursue their daughter.
"I think he's a sleazeball. I did wonder if she didn't get that feeling herself," said Mr Polier. "He's not the sort of guy I'd choose to be with my daughter.
"John Kerry called my daughter and invited her to be on his re-election committee. She talked to him and decided against it."
The Drudge website also quoted retired Gen Wesley Clark, one of Mr Kerry's rivals for the nomination, as having told journalists off the record: "Kerry will implode over an intern issue."
Mr Clark later dropped out of the race and endorsed Mr Kerry.
Miss Polier, a journalist who once worked for Associated Press, is a graduate of Columbia University, New York. She apparently met the senator as she was beginning her media career. Miss Polier and her fiance were believed to be hiding yesterday at the Nairobi home of Mr Schwartzman's parents, who moved to Kenya from Israel.
She appears to have few friends of her own in Kenya: she has never lived in the country and makes only occasional visits. "She seemed perfectly nice, although she was a little cool," said a Schwartzman family friend.
"She didn't seem to be very willing to open up but whether it was because she was aloof or just shy, I couldn't work out."
? Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004
-------------------------------------------------

Dems fret over Kerry's 'Clintonian' response
Privately concerned he didn't flatly deny allegations of affair
Posted: February 13, 2004
8:53 p.m. Eastern
? 2004 News World Communications Inc.

Top Republican and Democrat strategists are curious about Sen. John Kerry's choice of words to radio mega-host Don Imus concerning rumors burning up the Internet and newsrooms about a possible extramarital affair with a young woman.
Painfully similar to former President Bill Clinton's careful parsing of words, Kerry told Imus in a morning interview yesterday the following when asked about an item first revealed in print by Internet guru Matt Drudge:
"Well, there is nothing to report," Kerry told Imus. "So there is nothing to talk about. I'm not worried about it. No."
The failure to issue a flat-out denial that he had an extramarital affair or relationship "is very Clintonian," a top Democratic aide told Insight Online. "It's worrying."
A senior White House aide declined to speak directly on the issue but when pressed, smiled and said: "It was an interesting choice of words."
News organizations have not been able to get responses from Kerry or his campaign on what the senator actually meant with the three-part response to Imus.
Democratic strategists in Washington are worried in private because Kerry lately has been fairly black and white in his answers on important issues. "Why didn't he just say the rumors are false?"
Clinton, when confronted with rumors about Monica Lewinsky, told reporters early on in the scandal that "I've had no sexual relations with that woman. Miss Lewinsky."
The use of a term of art, sexual relations, was subsequently revealed to be a coy way to deflect questions swirling around the former president.
In fact, Clinton had engaged in sexual contact of another nature with the former White House intern as was subsequently revealed.
"Kerry needs to come clean and be absolutely clear about this rumor and other ones now starting to surface," a Senate source close to Kerry told Insight Online. "We need to know flat out if he's [fooled] around with women besides his wife."
Democrats still feel the sting of Clinton's sexual escapade and lying about it and worry that failure to fully dispel rumors involving Kerry will open old wounds and let out steam from the front runner for the party thus far.
"People's memories are not that short to forget the national embarassment Clinton caused and compounded with lies," a top GOP strategist said. "We don't want to touch this one with a ten foot pole but it'll be interesting to see if the press pursues this further."
Thus far, however, Kerry's carefully worded response seems to have quelled immediate press questions about the rumored affair though parents of the former intern have stated they think Kerry's character is less than desirable.
"This is a touchy subject because of Bill Clinton and it needs to be killed right away," the Senate source close to Kerry said. "His answers on the Imus show were less than forthcoming."
Meanwhile, reports that several news organizations are pursuing the alleged fling, and other sexual relations outside of his two marriages are being pursued.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The V-Day Chronicles
Like flowers and chocolates, performances of Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues" have become a Valentine's Day tradition--and controversy is not far behind.
by Rachel DiCarlo
02/13/2004 12:00:00 AM
RATHER THAN SPEND 24 HOURS celebrating love and romance tomorrow, some politically correct feminists would prefer we spend Valentine's Day pondering rape, incest, and domestic violence. Inaugurated in 1998, "V-Day"--the term a coalition of feminist groups use to describe their new version of Valentine's Day--is, according to its organizers, "a palpable energy, a fierce catalyst, . . . a global movement to stop violence against women and girls."
This year V-Day has been promoted as a celebration of the "vagina warriors," with over 2,000 V-Day events scheduled, mostly at colleges. The main attraction of all these events is Eve Ensler's one woman play "The Vagina Monologues." The verbally (and often visually) explicit play consists of 15 vignettes in which women portray their vaginas, and talk about such experiences as rape, genital mutilation, the view that men are innately violent, and lesbian statutory rape.
In one scene, a 24-year-old woman gets a 13-year-old girl drunk and has her way with her. Afterward, the girl says, "if it was rape, it was a good rape. I'll never need to rely on a man." Shouting "vagina"--the word is used over 100 times in the play--is touted as "real" sexual liberation, as well as a way to end violence against women. (By the way, the 24-year-old molester is portrayed as rescuing the 13-year-old from male violence.)
IN 2002, the embarrassment of several university officials over the scene prompted the elimination of the reference to "good rape," and the 13-year-old victim became 16. But the sex scene remains and the girl still concludes that she'll "never need to rely on a man."
Of course, it's likely--in fact, probable--that a storm of outrage would have ensued if the idealization of child molestation in the play had been initiated by a male offender. In this case, the "Vagina Monologues" went on to win the prestigious Obie award. Actresses like Susan Sarandon, Winona Ryder, Swoosie Kurtz, Glenn Close, Kimberly Williams, and Whoopi Goldberg have jumped at the chance to perform in the play, and the New York Times has called Ensler "the Messiah heralding the second wave of feminism."
In past years, protests from conservatives about the play's content have not been taken too seriously. In 2000, for example, Robert Swope, a student at Georgetown University, was fired from his student newspaper, the Hoya, for writing a piece protesting the use of tuition dollars for a production of the play at his school. The editors of the Hoya thought that Swope's repeated criticisms of the Georgetown Women's Center, which sponsored the play, "hurt the newspaper's credibility."
This year the play finds itself surrounded by more controversy. Ensler forgoes all profits made by Valentine's Day performances of her play if the proceeds go to agencies that aid women. Thus, in keeping with its contractual agreements with World/Wide Campaign/V-Day C&C Productions, a tiny theater in New Hampshire has earmarked its proceeds for the Portsmouth Feminist Health Center, which provides first trimester abortions.
There are other examples of controversy. For instance, taxpayer money will help fund a production of the "Vagina Monologues" at Amherst-Pelham Regional High School in Massachusetts, the only high school so far to sponsor a production of the play. The decision has drawn national attention. In 1999, the school board of Amherst refused to allow a production of "West Side Story" because of claims that the musical promotes racial stereotypes toward Hispanics. Controversy over the play, of course, only serves as publicity for the "Vagina Monologues." Which means, sadly, that it's likely the play will be with us for many "V-Days" to come.
Rachel DiCarlo is an editorial assistant at The Weekly Standard.
? Copyright 2004, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> TALKING TO THEMSELVES?

Gauging the Future of Iraqi Self-Rule
http://www.npr.org/rundowns/segment.php?wfId=1677166
?
from All Things Considered, Saturday , February 14, 2004
Difficulties and disagreements remain as the U.S. vies to meet a June 30 deadline to transfer the governing of Iraq to Iraqis. NPR's Steve Inskeep discusses prospects for Iraqi sovereignty with Joost Hilterman of the International Crisis Group, Juan Cole of the University of Michigan and Isam al-Khafaji, of the Open Society Institute.

-----------------------------------------------
http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1658915
Live from Virginia, It's Alhurra
Later this month, the U.S government launches Alhurra, a new 24-hour, Arabic language TV news channel designed to compete with the Arab world's al-Jazeera. As NPR's Steve Inskeep reports, Alhurra's mission is to present the American perspective to the Arabic world.
Saturday, February 7, 2004


>> QUICK HIDE THE I.G.?
http://www.wnyc.org/onthemedia/
Operation No Post
Recently, defense reporter John Donnelly discovered a memo on the website of the Defense Department's Inspector General. In the note, the I.G. informed his staff of new restrictions on information that could be posted on the site. Donnelly tells Brooke that the new restrictions are dangerously broad, and explains why the National Press Club has sent the Pentagon a formal letter of protest.



>> CHECHNYA DISPATCH...1

MUG SHOTS AT...

http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/article.php?id=2386
Dock for Putin is ready
In response to the calls of European politicians to peace settlement in Ichkeria, Russian leadership was pretending not to hear anything. In reality, the reason for silence was lack of any acceptable arguments for objection, the arguments that would not expose the interest of the Russian leadership in continuing the bloodshed. Maniac Putin has been quiet until the blasts in Moscow occurred. Then he made his statement in the middle of the bloody mess in the Moscow metro, just like Nero did in the middle of burning city of Rome.
The accusations against European parliamentarians with claims that their calls for peace are coordinated with 'acts of terrorism' were designed for Russian consumers. Average citizens will not delve into details, since they have been convinced by the propaganda anyway that Chechen Mujahideen (figthers) are acting by the instructions from the CIA, even though Russian human rights activists, ex-tycoon Berezovsky and Western 'experts' whom he is funding, have been trying to push another idea into the minds of the public: that Chechen Mujahideen are allegedly in conspiracy with the FSB. (Like, Chechens cannot be an independent nation, they must certainly have a 'master').
The export contents of the statement that the Russian president made has another meaning: look who you are offering me to negotiate with!
?The very fact of this kind of calls to negotiations with Maskhadov, after the crimes committed, indirectly confirms Maskhadov's ties to bandits and terrorists?, Putin stated without even explaining how the calls by Europeans to peace between Russia and Ichkeria can confirm ?Maskhadov's ties to terrorists?. Unless the Kremlin's vampire views peace as terrorism.
There is no way Putin did not know about peace initiatives or calls for negotiations that were announced even before the metro blasts. By giving his 'fact', Putin is lying as usual. Just as he lied that the Central Market of Jokhar did not get bombed by tactical missiles. Just as he lied that the hostages in the Moscow theater did not die from gas, that the gas was allegedly harmless. And just as he lied about the 'training exercise' in Ryazan (when the FSB/KGB got cought planting explosives in an apartment buildings to blame the blast on the Chechens).
However, you can agree with Putin that there still is a connection between calls for negotiations and the blast. But the conclusion will not be in favor of the Kremlin's master. First he keeps silence without reacting to the peace proposals, but then he gets paranoid and starts rejecting them, standing on the top of a pile of dead bodies, while these dead bodies are the main and irrefutable evidence of his total political failure, false promises and gravest crimes that he will have to answer for sooner of later.
The time of retribution is drawing near. The dock for the Kremlin's maniac is ready for him to sit on.
Salman Daudov,
for Kavkaz-Center
2004-02-13 00:16:31

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> CHECHNYA DISPATCH...2

The country needs a lethal injection
Anything secret sooner or later comes to light. When KGB generals were planning and carrying out the blasts of apartment building in Moscow, when they were planting hexogen from army warehouses, they were figuring no one was going to find out about it. In Russian city of Ryazan the next morning they were assuring us that it was nothing but a 'training exercise'. But the course of the further events and their further actions blew their cover.
The blasts became a perfect pretext for a new invasion of Chechnya. The raiders drove in their tanks and it started... Tortures with electric shock, beatings, cutting off heads, ears and arms, and sales of dead bodies. 'Kindhearted and sympathetic' Russian people showed their true face in Chechnya. The crimes of Stalin, who started a barbaric deportation of Chechens back in 1944 were surpassed. Sadist generals were issuing orders and sick soldiers, contracted servicemen (mercenaries), and professional cutthroats were carrying out the orders with sadistic pleasure: they would surround peaceful villages, shoot the locals, break into the houses and rob and take people away during 'cleansings', so that a few days later the fellow villagers discover their dead bodies with traces of tortures in the woods nearby, only barely covered with soil...
Whichever excuses you can come up with to justify it, still fascism has come to Russia. Bloody terrorist dictatorship, killing without looking at the law, and torturing and maiming anyone who somehow gets in its way. With all of the oaths of sticking to democracy and with all of its curtsies before the West, the bloody crimes of Russian military clique in Chechnya or the totally totalitarian policy of Putin's bureaucrats in Russia can just never be called democratic!...
Many people are guessing: how far the dictatorship can go this time? As far as Stalin's camps with millions of inmates cutting trees for timber industry? As far as Brezhnev's mental facilities with their straight jackets (see NOTE) and aminazine? So far we can see the main crime of this regime in Chechnya: outright genocide of an entire nation. And inside Russia these are the same ethnic cleansings going on: police terror against people from the Caucasus, outright persecution of democratic opposition by the KGB, totally false spy trials, when the poor 'suspects in espionage' are locked up in prisons for years...
Independent mass media have been defeated or shut down, or taken away from their owners and nationalized, - one way or another, there is virtually no free press remaining that would dare openly criticize the authorities like it did back in the '90s during Yeltsin. Russian Orthodox Church is rushing to the government sinecure too: the most reactionary and fundamentalist organization, hostile to the very idea of rights and freedoms (what kind of rights can 'slaves' of God ever have?...), dreaming of making everybody live by its rules and pushing its ideas into schools, hospitals, prisons, army, all over...
Russia of the early 21st century is a goon with a camouflage uniform on, with a black mask on his face and a gun in his hands. This thug just killed a Chechen woman or a Chechen child. He is ready to shoot or kick anybody who dares to say a single word against him - whether in Chechnya or inside Russia. He is a butcher, which says it all. He has no elementary ideas about personal rights, about value of human life or presumption of innocence. Force is the only thing he understands and has respect for. You can't explain to him that he is wrong, that he is a criminal - you can only shoot him.
In Russia there will probably be no need for the new government to be sending millions of inmates to cut down trees. Why do that since everybody is obedient like sheep anyway? ?For them are sheers and slaughter-stall...? And those few who dare resist, come out and protest will most likely face tortures a lot more severe than aminazine or haloperidol in psycho wards of the Brezhnev era. An example is the hard-to-believe case of Eugene Novozhilov from Krasnodar, whom FSB framed and locked up in a loony bin after charging him with violation of Article 207 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (?Deliberately False Report on Act of Terrorism?).
So how else can these poor victims oppose the authorities, other than their personal courage and selflessness? So far a slogan on a sign is the only weapon. Even a megaphone will probably be outlawed, since legal rallies permitted by the authorities are coming to an end at least in Moscow. Only non-sanctioned ones are remaining, with the arrest within the next five minutes, and all sorts of addresses to people in the form of leaflets and samizdat. As well as the Internet, as long as they don't deny the access so far...
The subjects of a totalitarian state are not supposed to have any rights or freedoms: in Russia there have never been any for centuries. There was only a 'right' to die by the fancy of another tyrant while praising the tyrant with your lips. In 1991 in only seemed to us, we only had a happy dream that Freedom had come and that the people finally obtained their legitimate rights. Today that short thaw has come to an end and everything is coming back to where it used to be. Just like it's always been, criticizing the government is automatically equaled to high treason and is punished as far as the death sentence (which will be introduced again, this time really with no irony, ?upon requests by the working people?, who are really asking for it, even demanding).
The blood of the Chechen people is putting an indelible stain on the regime: now the regime has no place to go; now any opposition must be crushed at any cost, under any pretext, - by beatings and violence. Otherwise somebody will have to answer for bombings of Grozny (Jokhar), for all 'cleansings', and for the Moscow blasts of September 1999...
In vain did the human rights activists have gotten into the habit of talking about the need to comply with the law. How naive! Like the country has the force capable of making the FSB officers obediently comply with the laws and human rights!... But who can ever make them do that and how? Maybe human rights activists with their speeches and petitions to the Council of Europe? No, a brute totalitarian force that speaks the language of prisons, concocted criminal charges, tanks and nuclear blackmail to its opponents, cannot be dealt with in such a way.
Democratic mechanisms - elections, referendums, etc. - have been run by this KGB militarist gang for quite a while. No one can be elected anywhere unless the Kremlin power will want to see him elected. During the appearance of maintaining constitutional democratic mechanisms their entire job turned into a profanation. When the entire alternative at the elections is an FSB general or an acting official from the higher strata of Communist bureaucracy, - it make no sense of even going to these elections...
FSB grabbed the throat of freedom with its paws - and it is orchestrating a profanation at the same time. This is one of the most important weapons at the new stage of the existence of our 'millennium Reich'. Really, why execute and drive hundreds and thousands of dissidents and human rights activists to cut down trees, while all you need to do is set up a 'civil forum', for an example, where you can get them domesticated pretty well? Why get the Council of Europe and the entire civilized world outraged about physical retaliations against journalists, when you can quietly and noiselessly organize a 'dispute of two entities' in totally obedient courts? A big show will be put on, everybody will be demonstratively happy, just like after a lobotomy. And those who refuse to undergo this surgery will be executed under some 'financial' or 'espionage' pretext.
But the lives of educated and civilized citizens won't be any easier if millions of voluntary slaves do not get driven to the prison camps this time. You can set up a prison camp right where you reside or work, and drag barbed wire all along the perimeter of the country's borders and thus create a big prison camp - just like we always had actually. They say you can't be running a business here without violating any laws either. But you can pass such laws that will be impossible not to violate at all. And looks like this is what everything is heading for...
Everything must get started all over again, from the very first proclamations, from the experience of the populists, without repeating the mistakes that we already know of, of course. We must give up all hopes that maybe the things will get by and settle down by themselves - and we must stop working with no hopes for success, where there is no other prospect except for a room in a psycho ward. ?Abandon hope, ye who enter here?. You can't be practicing revolution on weekends or in the evening after work, - a revolution can only be an occupation and a calling at the same time. And one must leave for the revolution like leaving for a monastery, while giving up all vain and mundane business and concerns. Revolution is Service, when you bear your cross, and Nechayev was right when he wrote: ?a revolutionary is a doomed man?.
We don't know when there will be a pretty noticeable number of such people in Russia. So far you can count them on the fingers of one hand. Dull dictatorship, described by Russian fiction writer Strugatsky, is triumphing in all directions. ?Masks are thrown off, fascism is coming!? - one communist poet wrote in 1991...
There is only one support that the revolutionaries have in this country: the nations oppressed by the empire, the natives of national 'autonomies'. This is where the percentage of those who do not accept Putin's policies is always higher, let alone the support of Chechnya in Muslim regions of the empire.
If 'patriots' are outraged that 'thieves' were running the country during Yeltsin, - i.e. shy 'little thieves' like Alchen, - now the country is run by shameless KGB, butchers of entire nations, which is a lot worse. It would be better if they were stealing!... After all, money and property come and go. But even the most honorable human rights activist Robles (who from time to time mentions the 'improvement' with human rights in Chechnya) will never bring the dead bodies back to life, which were 'cleansed' to death and buried right at the site of a military base where they were tortured.
The savage country with savage people, who adore a whip and dictatorship with a dictator, is continuing its life after death. What for? Who ever needs it? (I just feel like answering with the words from a popular Russian song: 'No one needs it!') Their children are getting grabbed when the police break into student dorms, they get dragged right out of their beds, get handcuffed and drafted into the army without giving a darn about any postponements, - and they will keep quiet! All 'trial balloons' launched by the authorities are welcomed here by everybody except for a handful of human rights activists, capable of gathering a rally right in Moscow with as much as 100 people participating, and capable of endlessly complaining about the actions of the authorities to obedient courts and prosecutors' offices...
There have never been any freedom or democracy in Russia anyway. And turned out Russia is not genetically predisposed to them at all. Whatever is happening in the country right now is a natural reaction of rejecting an extraneous body by an organism. Freedom and democracy have always been foreign to Russia. And yearning for dictatorship, barracks and whips, which is irrational for any normal person, is quite natural and normal. From Putin's ratings and his actions we can see the power of how the force of rejection is: from genocide of the Chechen people to severe atrocities against new political prisoners in Russia. Whichever crimes are being committed, the rating is persistently stays where it is.
This country needs a revolutionary party like it needs a breath of life. Such a party would have been the only doctor that would be able to finally give a prescribed shot of euthanasia to it. Just to put it out of its misery. We have been walking around the circle for a few centuries in a row, we have been stepping on the same shovel. And we are still trying to start liberal reforms that for some reason always end up with riots against foreigners and bonfires for infidels. (Or even for their holy books first, like it already happened in Yekaterinburg in the Urals). Enough! We got sick of it! Time to get it over with!
They are clamping down on everything real tight! Yeltsin's thaw is becoming a thing of the past. It is too naive to appeal to courts and prosecutors' offices and demand its return. The people must find the power, get up, wipe off this government, place it under arrest and preferably hang it on the light poles...
NOTE: (on straight jackets at Brezhnev's mental facilities) The prisoner would be tightly wrapped from feet to armpits in a wet sheet or strips of canvas. As the material (the straight jacket) dried out, it shrank, inflicting terrible pain on the prisoner, and scorching his body all over. Usually the prisoner would quickly lose consciousness...nurses would loosen the roll-up and tighten it again.
Boris Stomakhin,
for Kavkaz-Center
2004-02-15 00:46:04
--------------------------------------------------------
>> CHECHNYA DISPATCH...3

About level of danger and hypocrisy
UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland stated that Chechnya is a territory with the so-called fifth level of danger. It is the highest degree of danger, according to the UN classification. But it has nothing to do with the danger which the entire population of Ichkeria faces each day. This particular UN classification marks the danger for... its personnel present in the country.
Security for UN officials could be viewed as an important issue, if the UN were not called the United Nations or if its duties were not providing people's security.
UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs managed to spot some 'positive' changes in the region after visiting Chechnya (meaning return of some of the refugees back to the country). Here he found common terms with the Russian officials, who have been terrorizing the refugees in neighboring Ingushetia in order to have them brought on the territory of even greater terror.
According to the UN official, starting the year 2000 over 0 million has been spent on the implementation of the aid program in the Northern Caucasus. It was not specified how much the refugees actually received. But if this amount of money says nothing to you, it will be interesting to discover that the amount of the UN aid to the Northern Caucasus is equal to the cost of oil pumped out from the territories of Chechen Republic of Ichkeria for the same period of time.
So what was the result of the visit by UN Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs to Chechen Republic of Ichkeria occupied by the Russian troops? Full mutual understanding has been reached with the Russian invaders on bringing Chechen refugees back into the country, which has a positive moment of reducing their number in Ingushetia. The Chechen population found out that the 'fifth level of danger' exists on the territory of Chechnya, and as a result the UN observers cannot be present there and defend their right. Apparently, the level of danger must be reduced for the UN to be present. Then it's not too clear what they will be needed for.
From all of it it follows that the UN doesn't care about what happens to the Chechen population. For the past two years the UN Human Rights Commission blocked the resolution on Chechnya twice. Delegations of Cuba, China, Syria and Lybia were especially distinguished in noting 'positive' changes in Chechnya along with Russia.
This visit of a UN official to the Northern Caucasus did not expect to change anything either. But it's not only the matter of indifference alone. Any attempts to give assistance to Chechen refugees by Islamic charities are being nipped in the bud by Russian authorities. For this purpose they bring absurd accusations against them, like supporting terrorism or abetting separatists.
Inaction of international structures in the middle of ongoing tyranny by the Russian invaders can be regarded as complicity in crimes committed by the Russian regime against the Chechen people. Weak calls to the Russian side to stick to humanitarian standards sound unconvincing and hypocritical after that.
Mockery of people and common sense was contained in the reports about Jan Egeland being impressed with the amounts of payouts (which no one ever saw) to the people who suffered during the war operations in Chechnya, as well as about his response to the question about a possibility of UN mission being set up in Chechnya.
Jan Egeland said that this issue involves the release of the head of MSF mission (Doctors Without Borders) Arjan Erkel, who was captured in the Northern Caucasus a year and a half ago.
Mr. Egeland stressed that his release would be a forcible argument for constant UN presence in the Northern Caucasus.
Considering the unwillingness of the Russian side to have witnesses of their crimes be present in Chechnya, and the direct involvement of FSB in kidnapping Arjan Erkel, Mr. Egeland's statement can be regarded as a friendly step towards the Russian authorities. The longer the doctor is held hostage, the more chances there are Russians won't be bothered with foreign presence.
Sure the US envoy does not care about how many Chechen citizens have been kidnapped and are still missing after the kidnapping of Arjan Erkel, and how many will still have to suffer.
Salman Daudov,
for Kavkaz-Center
2004-02-14 00:36:04

>> OUR FRIENDS IN SOUTH KOREA...

South Korea's Intelligence Targets U.S. Technology
As one of the Four Dragons of East Asia, South Korea has achieved an incredible record of economic growth. Little more than a generation ago, Korea was one of the world's poorest countries. In 1963 its per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of only $100 was comparable to those of other poor countries in Asia and Africa. Today, Korea, with a GDP of $434.5 billion (with a year 2000 estimated purchasing power parity of $764.6 billion) and a per capita GDP of $9,019 (with an estimated purchasing power parity of $16,100 in 2000) boasts the world's eleventh largest economy. Its GDP, now greater than that of India, is on a par with those of the lesser economies of the European Union.1 (See Table 1.)
Korea's leaders are keenly aware of the critical role of science and technology in fostering and maintaining their country's economic development. Science and technology have ``significantly contributed to the improvement of the [Korean] people's quality of life, as well as in social and economic development [and are a] key element of national wealth, industrial competitiveness, and national security.''2 In an effort to join the ranks of the technologically advanced nations, the Korean government has placed a ``special emphasis on strengthening its scientific and technological capacity.''3 An integral part of this ``special emphasis'' is the conduct of economic intelligence collection and technology transfer operations against technologically advanced nations. The late Dr. Ray Cline, a former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, once stated, ``South Korea gets enormous economic benefits from spying.'' The Koreans, he said, have been
179
Edwin S. Cochran is a former United States Army intelligence officer. His career included assignments in the Republic of Korea, Panama, Germany, and the United States. His articles on security matters have been published in The Journal of Strategic Studies, Israel Affairs, and Parameters.
International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 16: 179-201, 2003
Copyright # 2003 Taylor & Francis
0885-0607/03 $12.00 + .00
DOI: 10.1080/08850600390198715
``extremely active trying to get, grab, and steal technology that will benefit their industry.''4 South Korea has developed an aggressive and sophisticated economic intelligence collection program, whose principal target, ironically, is its foremost ally and protector, the United States of America. Both the South Korean government in Seoul and Korean businesses have conducted intelligence operations directed at collecting U.S. proprietary information in a wide variety of technology areas.5 South Korea has been seeking U.S. [scientific and technological] and economic information in an increasingly aggressive fashion [since] the 1990s. Its collection approach features many person-to-person contacts, and the South Koreans also possess a major intelligence presence in the United States. These activities are directed at both U.S. military and civilian targets, and are carried out by a range of South Korean Government entities and private corporations.6
POLICY AND ORGANIZATIONAL FRAMEWORK
Policy guidance and direction governing South Korean scientific and technological development, as well as supporting economic intelligence Table 1. Representative Comparisons of GDP, South Korea, and Selected Countries
Country GDP (Billion US$) Per Capita GDP Comments
South Korea1 $434.6 $9,019 2001 estimate
India2 $390 $420
Austria3 $207.96 $25,655 1999 estimate
Belgium4 $266 $25,567 1999 estimate
Greece5 $120.25 $113,305 1998 estimate
The Netherlands6 $406 $25,695 2000 estimate
Spain7 $558.3 $13,203 2000 estimate
Sources:
1 Department of State, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Background Note: South Korea, Internet, www.state.gov=r=pa=ei=bgn=2800.htm#econ.
2 Department of State, Bureau of South Asian Affairs, Background Note: India, Internet, www.state.gov=r=pa=ei=bgn=3454.htm#econ.
3 Department of State, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, Background Note: Austria, Internet, www.state.gov=r=pa=ei=bgn=3165.htm.
4 Department of State, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, Background Note: Belgium, Internet, www.state.gov=r=pa=ei=bgn=2874.htm.
5 Department of State, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, Background Note: Greece, Internet, www.state.gov=r=pa=ei=bgn=3395.htm.
6 Department of State, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, Background Note: The Netherlands, Internet, www.state.gov=r=pa=ei=bgn=3204.htm.
7 Department of State, Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, Background Note: Spain, Internet, www.state.gov=r=pa=ei=bgn=2878.htm.
180 EDWIN S. COCHRAN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE
collection programs, is formulated at the highest governmental levels. Primarily responsible for the development and supervision of Korean science and technology policy are the National Science and Technology Council and the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Established in January 1999, the National Science and Technology Council's functions are to ``review and coordinate national S&T policies and [research and development] programs'' and to set priorities for budget allocations. The Council, chaired by the President of the Republic of Korea (ROK), is composed of representatives of government industries and the Korean scientific community, with a supporting secretariat provided by the Ministry of Science and Technology.7
The Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) formulates and manages all aspects of national science and technology policy and coordinates the work of other Korean government ministries in this area. Specific functions ascribed to MOST include:
Formulation of ``policies for S&T development and [performance] of technology forecasting.''
Development of ``core technology, future-oriented technology, and large-scale technology.''
Pursuit of ``technological self-reliance for the safe use of nuclear technology.''
Support to ``basic and applied research conducted by government sponsored institutes, universities, and private research institutes.''
Formulation of policies for ``[research and development] investment, human resources development, S&T information, and international S&T cooperation.''8 Policy guidance concerning the conduct of economic intelligence collection in support of Korean scientific and technological development programs originates at the presidential level. In May 1991 the Korean government established the Presidential Advisory Council for Science and Technology (PACST) to ``advise the President about science and technology policy in the Republic of Korea.'' Composed of members drawn from the Korean government, industry, and academia (see Figure 1), the PACST has three primary tasks: (1) development of ``policy strategies for technological innovation and human resources development in Korea;'' (2) provision of ``guidelines for institutional reform'' related to science and technology; and (3) to ``undertake special tasks as requested by the President.'' According to PACST Chairman Chun Soung-Soon, these ``special tasks'' are now playing ``a more critical role'' in Korean scientific and technological development.9
The Secret Service
In December 1997 the Korean Yonhap News Agency reported that newly elected President Kim Dae-Jung was drafting a series of intelligence
181 SOUTH KOREA'S INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2
reforms that included an ``intensive buildup of economic informationcollecting capabilities'' against overseas targets. Previous Korean press reporting concerning intelligence service involvement in economic intelligence operations emphasized the collection of foreign scientific and technological information in support of Korean commercial enterprises.10 For its size, South Korea possesses one of the world's most effective intelligence organizations. Its National Intelligence Service (NIS) possesses a cadre of technically proficient intelligence officers supported by enormous financial resources and well-organized agent networks.11
Formally established on 22 January 1999, the NIS is the successor agency to the former Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) and the Agency for National Security Planning. The NIS's organizational chart (Figure 2) suggests that the agency is composed of three operational directives: the First (International Affairs) Directorate, presumably responsible for the collection of foreign intelligence; the Second (Domestic Affairs) Directorate, responsible for internal security issues; and the Third (North Korean Affairs) Directorate. Organizational functions of the NIS include:
``Collection, coordination, and distribution of information'' concerning Korea's security and national security.
Maintenance of classified ``documents, materials, and facilities.'' Figure 1. Presidential Advisory Council on Science and Technology Membership
182 EDWIN S. COCHRAN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE
Investigation of ``crimes concerning national security'' and those ``related to the missions of the NIS staff.''
``Planning and coordination of information and classified information.''12 In addition to collecting intelligence information concerning those states posing the greatest potential threat to South Korea's security--North Korea, China, and Russia--the NIS and its predecessors have also carried out operations against South Korea's allies. The United States and Japan are the two friendly nations in which South Korean intelligence operatives have been the most active; political, economic, and technological information have all been targets of South Korean intelligence collection operations.13
The ROK's economic intelligence collection program appears to have emerged as a coordinated effort in 1997 with the creation of a ``Science and Technology Foreign Cooperation Committee,'' whose function is to consolidate the separate foreign economic intelligence collection programs of the ministries of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Industry, National Defense, and Science. This committee was formed on the basis of a report by the Science and Technology Policy Institute (STEPI--a think tank subordinate to the Ministry of Science and Technology), which found that the coordination of scientific and technological intelligence collection efforts and the integration of collection targets with the requirements of Korean industry constituted a ``bottleneck'' in the country's foreign economic intelligence program. The committee's objectives include the development of a systematic collection strategy in order to better Figure 2. National Intelligence Service Organization. Source: Korean National Intelligence Service, Internet, www.nis.go.kr=english=about=mission_index.html
183 SOUTH KOREA'S INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2
coordinate collection operations and prevent duplication of effort. The committee is reportedly composed of groups of specialists organized by geographic regions and a council of working-level personnel drawn from STEPI, the Korean Trade Promotion Agency, national laboratories, universities, and Korean corporations.
This consolidated collection program, intended to counter the ``increasing reluctance of advanced countries to transfer science and technology,'' includes the creation of local ``Korea Centers'' to collect foreign scientific and technological information, and the establishment of overseas branches of Korean government agencies, national laboratories, and companies ``to provide information on foreign S&T.'' In addition, in order to ``strengthen overseas S&T collection'' and build an information system capable of linking Korean organizations to overseas sources of technology, STEPI was to create an ``Overseas Science and Technology Information Center.'' This center would integrate the information collected by ``overseas Korean scientists and engineers associations, Korean diplomatic and consular officers in foreign countries, large Korean trading companies, and the overseas offices of national [laboratories].''14
THE STRATEGIC CONTEXT
South Korea's conduct of intelligence collection against the United States reflects changes within the international environment associated with the end of the Cold War, as well as internal and external policy objectives of the government in Seoul.
While foreign intelligence operations directed against U.S. economic interests are neither unusual nor unprecedented, the international environment in which they now occur is radically different from that of only a decade ago. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the consequent end of the Cold War and the global competition between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies that dominated world politics since the end of World War II, ushered in a ``new world order'' marked by changing perceptions of national power. Historically, military strength has been the gauge of national power. Perhaps the most important change in the international environment after the Cold War has been the seeming shift in the overall relevance of different sources of national power, with military power declining and economic power increasing in importance.15 Many nations, including the United States, have come to equate economic security with national security.
Economic intelligence collection has therefore become of correspondingly greater importance. A 1994 report by the U.S. National Economic Council found that ``economic espionage is becoming increasingly central to the
184 EDWIN S. COCHRAN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE
operations of many of the world's intelligence services and is absorbing larger portions of their staffing and budget.''16
The United States is the primary target of foreign nations' economic intelligence collection efforts. These consist of both the clandestine and overt collection of classified or sensitive U.S. economic, industrial, technological, or related proprietary or trade secret information, as well as the unlawful acquisition of critical technologies. These operations may be conducted by either a foreign government or a foreign company; while usually targeted against private U.S. firms, they may also be targeted directly against the United States government.17 Strong U.S. capabilities ``in a wide variety of cutting-edge, technical, and scientific fields, and the open nature of the United States'' make it ``the top target of foreign countries in economic [intelligence] collection and espionage.''18 The end of the bipolar international system and increasing national emphasis on economic security have blurred many of the traditional distinctions between ``friendly'' and ``enemy'' states. This has been particularly evident in the area of economic intelligence collection. In February 1996, in testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Louis J. Freeh characterized economic intelligence collection ``perpetrated by foreign governments, institutions, instrumentalities, and persons against the United States'' as a ``critical national security issue.''19
Just as foreign military establishments are the primary recipients of U.S. defense-related information gathered by their intelligence services, foreign companies and commercially oriented government ministries are the primary beneficiaries of collected U.S. economic and technological information. In its Annual Report to Congress on Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage for 2001, the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive estimated that during calendar year 2000 economic espionage cost the U.S. business community $100-250 billion in lost sales. The greatest losses to U.S. companies involved information concerning manufacturing processes and research and development.20 Foreign economic intelligence collection also has broader implications for U.S. national security. In the United States during the Cold War, the relationship between economics and security was indirect: the economy produced the taxes needed to supply the trillions of dollars dedicated to defense spending.21 In the post-Cold War world, the relationship is more direct. More than ever before, U.S. national security and commerce have become mutually reinforcing; America's defense edge is part and parcel of its economic prowess.22 Foreign economic intelligence collection operations directly target elements of the U.S. defense technology and industrial base, those ``business firms, laboratories, and academic institutions that provide
185 SOUTH KOREA'S INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2
products and services to the Department of defense and foreign customers,''23 and which ensure the maintenance of America's continued military-technical superiority over potential adversaries. Key elements of the U.S. defense technology and industrial base include munitions, armored vehicles, shipbuilding, military aircraft, electronics, and defense research and development.24
Foreign nations, Freeh told the Senate Intelligence Committee, ``pose various levels and types of threats to U.S. economic and technological information.'' Freeh also noted:
Some ideological and military adversaries continue their targeting of U.S. economic and technological information as an extension of a concerted intelligence assault on the United States conducted throughout the Cold War.
Other [nations] targeting U.S. economic and technological information are either long time allies of the United States or have traditionally been neutral. These countries target U.S. economic and technological information despite their friendly relations with the United States. In some cases they take advantage of their considerable legitimate access to U.S. information and collect sensitive information more easily than our traditional adversaries. Some countries traditionally considered allies have infrastructures that allow them to easily internalize high-tech information and utilize it in competition against U.S. firms.25
The conduct of economic intelligence collection against the United States is not restricted to foreign intelligence services. Foreign-sponsored nonintelligence personnel, such as industry representatives, students, scientists, researchers, and foreign employees of U.S. companies, may all engage in intelligence collection activities. In addition, the expansion of information technology and increased use of computers and telecommunications systems has widened the environment in which economic intelligence collection occurs to include cyberspace. Many nations have been able to leverage these and other widely available sophisticated technologies to enhance their intelligence collection capabilities.
SEOUL'S PENETRATIONS
South Korea is assessed to be one of five allied nations most actively involved in the conduct of economic intelligence collection operations against the United States.26 These operations are motivated by several factors, including military force modernization objectives, economic competition, and industrial modernization efforts employing technologies with dual-use applications.27 The ROK's economic intelligence collection operations against the U.S. are driven by three specific, interrelated factors: (1) the
186 EDWIN S. COCHRAN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE
requirement for continued access to advanced technologies to ensure continued economic growth; (2) support for Korea's indigenous arms industry; and (3) wider political considerations related to Korea's foreign policy objectives.
Access to Advanced Technologies
Among the factors that have contributed to Korea's phenomenal economic advancement have been an export-led growth strategy and the adoption of foreign technology.28 Korean industries now produce and export advanced electronic components, computers, telecommunications equipment, automobiles, and a wide range of consumer electronic products to markets around the world.
Japan has traditionally served as Korea's source of advanced technology. Since normalizing relations in 1965, the two countries have developed an extensive relationship focused on mutually beneficial economic activity. But Japan charges high royalties for technology transfer and competes sharply with Korea in the export of high-tech products. Faced with a decline in the competitiveness of its export products, the high cost of buying foreign technology, and the difficulty of developing new technologies through indigenous resources, Korea has developed a system of processes to obtain foreign technology by ``indirect'' means, particularly from U.S. companies.29
Technologies targeted for acquisition from U.S. sources by Korean government research institutes and companies include aerospace, automobiles, bioengineering, computers, communications, electronics, environmental controls, metals and machinery, medical equipment, nuclear power systems, and semiconductors. The Koreans most frequently target those technologies that reflect their own major high-tech export fields: electronics, data communications and processing, and semiconductor technology. Within this most frequently targeted group, the highest priorities for collection include high-speed CD-ROM, ultra-high-resolution monitor design, traffic control systems, flash memory, digital signal processors, application-specific integrated circuits, cable television converters, digital communications, image-data processing, asynchronous transmission mode technology, fiber optics, and audio-video compression technology.30
Support to Korea's Arms Industry
A 1996 report by the General Accounting Office found that a common goal of many economic intelligence collection operations directed against the United States by friendly or allied nations to be the support to their national defense industries:
187 SOUTH KOREA'S INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2
Countries seek U.S. defense technologies to incorporate into domestically produced [weapon] systems. By obtaining the technology from the United States, a country can have cutting-edge weapon systems without the cost of research and development. The cutting-edge technologies not only provide superior weapon systems for a country's own use, but also make these products more marketable for exports.31
Since the end of the Korean War, the United States has committed itself to the security of the ROK under the terms of the 1954 Mutual Defense Treaty. In support of this commitment, the U.S. maintains approximately 37,000 military personnel in South Korea. In order to ensure compatibility of weapon systems, the U.S. has historically been Korea's primary external source of arms and military equipment.
High levels of military spending and, presumably, a desire to reduce their dependence on the U.S., led South Korea's leaders to establish a domestic arms industry during the 1970s. South Korea's arms manufacturing sector has evolved rapidly over the past 30 years, thanks in large part to the country's prowess in the civilian heavy industry and electronics sectors. Korea is now largely self-sufficient in terms of military production. Whereas military equipment accounted for 4.9 percent of all Korean imports in 1973, that figure had dropped to 0.8 percent by 1990. While driving up overall costs, domestic arms production has significant benefits for Korea. It keeps more money in the country, provides employment for its citizens, provides export opportunities, and results in the acquisition of technology and production techniques from foreign partners.32
South Korea is emerging as an important second-tier arms exporter. In 1997 the ROK exported $58.02 million worth of arms and military equipment. This figure climbed to $147.19 million in 1998, and to $196.3 million in 1999. While the value of Korean military exports fell to $53.37 million in 2000, Korean government sources expected it to exceed $200 million in 2001.33
Korea now produces all small arms, and has developed its own 105mm and 155mm towed artillery pieces and 130mm multiple rocket launcher systems. Korean firms have also built and exported infantry fighting vehicles (the K-200, manufactured by Daewoo Heavy Industries and Machinery), as well as military trucks, mine detection equipment, munitions, parachutes, uniforms, and body armor to countries in Southeast Asia and Africa. Korean companies also design and manufacture a variety of naval weapon systems. These include patrol boats, minesweepers, Po Hang-class corvettes, Ulsanclass frigates, KDX-type destroyers, combat data systems, search radars, 40 mm light naval guns, the K731 heavy torpedo, and undersea countermeasures equipment. Reports from the ROK Ministry of Defense and from within the arms industry itself indicate the development of
188 EDWIN S. COCHRAN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE
short-range shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles, guided or ``smart'' bombs, ship-to-ship missiles, and unmanned aerial reconnaissance vehicles.34 According to Lee Pil-Joong, a professor at Korea's National Defense University, South Korea is looking beyond the threat posed by North Korea and is developing the types of weapons needed to safeguard its security in the twenty-first century.35 Many Korean weapon development projects, in fact, appear to have objectives broader than that of the ROK's immediate defense needs. Seoul has sought to use co-production projects to decrease its dependence on foreign suppliers and to enter new export markets. Korea is the leading recipient of offset agreements with U.S. defense manufacturers in the Pacific Rim, and among the top ten recipients worldwide. Many of these agreements represent direct investments in the Korean defense industry. For example, as part of an offset agreement connected to the 1991 sale of F-16 fighter-bombers, the Lockheed Martin Corporation agreed to help South Korea build an indigenous training=light attack aircraft. A beneficial result of such agreements, from the Korean perspective, is the transfer of high technology to local industry.36
Foreign Policy Goals
In addition to the domestic importance of continued economic growth, the ROK's economic intelligence collection program also indirectly supports the accomplishment of broader foreign policy objectives. Economic considerations have a high priority in Korean foreign policy. Korea seeks to build on its economic accomplishments to increase its regional and global role, to include playing an increasingly important role in Pacific Rim political and economic activities. In pursuit of this objective, for instance, Korea was one of the founding members of the Asia Pacific Economic Forum.37
COLLECTION METHODOLOGIES
ROK economic intelligence operations targeted against the United States employ both clandestine and overt collection methodologies. A clandestine intelligence collection operation is one that is ``sponsored or conducted . . . in such a way as to ensure secrecy or concealment.'' Because the fundamental objective of a clandestine operation is to deny one's adversary knowledge of the fact of its existence, the emphasis is on concealment of the operation itself, rather than the identity of the sponsor. An overt operation is one that is ``conducted openly, without concealment.'' While the activities associated with an overt intelligence collection operation may be openly conducted, the true identity of their sponsor may still be concealed.38
189 SOUTH KOREA'S INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2
Clandestine Collection
Clandestine collection methodologies employed by South Korea include agent recruitment, physical access, exploitation of private sector organizations, and special technical collection operations. They may also include the recruitment of Korean students and researchers studying and working in the United States.
(a) Agent Recruitment An intelligence collector's best source is a trusted person inside a company or organization whom the collector can task to provide classified or proprietary information. Clandestine human collection ``is another way of saying `espionage,' entailing the use of both human sources and technical devices such as `bugs' emplaced by humans. In other words, it is old fashioned spying, the recruitment of agents and manipulation of people.''39
In a ``classic'' agent recruitment operation, an intelligence officer (a professional employee of an intelligence agency) seeks to recruit an agent (a foreign national) to collect information either in his home country or a third nation.40 Intelligence officers assess potential agents in terms of both their placement within an organization and their access to desired information. Therefore, a foreign intelligence collector's interest in a U.S. company's employees may not be commensurate with their rank in the organization. While corporate executives, key managers, and researchers can all be targets for recruitment, so can support employees such as secretaries, technicians, computer operators, and maintenance personnel. The latter frequently have good, if not often the best, access to sensitive information, and their lower pay and status may provide fertile ground for manipulation.
Recruitment need not be voluntary on the agent's part; foreign intelligence collectors may also identify and exploit a wide range of human weaknesses. This may include the use of prostitutes for sexual blackmail, or the use of a ``swallow'' (an attractive woman) or a ``raven'' (an attractive man) to form a close personal relationship with an employee having knowledge of sensitive information.41 Foreign intelligence collectors may also employ ethnic targeting, which entails the recruitment of U.S. nationals or permanent resident aliens to acquire sensitive information. This may be accomplished through appealing to an individual's sense of ethnic loyalty or patriotism toward his native country, or by threatening the safety of family members still residing in the home country.
Korean agent recruitment operations make extensive use of ethnic targeting. A survey of Korean press reporting conducted by the U.S. National Counterintelligence Centers revealed that ``[s]ubstantial documentation exists on South Korea's interest in exploiting the ethnicity of overseas Koreans to obtain commercial and technological information.''
190 EDWIN S. COCHRAN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE
Korea's government and private industry operate systems to identify potential recruits who are in a position to transfer high-level technology and who, because of their ethnicity, may be predisposed to accept offers to ``contribute'' their knowledge to the ROK. Korea aggressively targets ``present and former nationals working for U.S. companies and researchinstitutions.'' Often, members of the Korean community in the United States have been manipulated or coerced into participating in intelligence collection operations.42
An example of ethnic targeting and recruitment, albeit for political and military rather than economic intelligence collection, is that of Robert C. Kim, a U.S. Department of the Navy civilian computer specialist assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence. Kim was arrested on 24 September 1996 and charged with passing classified U.S. defense information to Captain Baek Dong-Il, the South Korean Naval attache? in Washington. On 11 July 1997, Kim was sentenced to nine years in jail after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit espionage. Kim, a native of Korea, became a U.S. citizen in 1974 and had lived in the United States for thirty years. According to investigators, over a five-month period Kim passed dozens of classified documents (including some that were Top Secret) to Captain Baek out of loyalty to his country of birth. The documents included military assessments about North Korea and China, as well as U.S. intelligence assessments of South Korean government officials.43
(b) Physical Access A far simpler means of acquiring sensitive or proprietary information is simply to steal it. Korean intelligence operatives aggressively pursue access to secure or ``closed source'' environments through a variety of means. These include the use of surveillance and reconnaissance to determine the location of sensitive information, surreptitious photography, and the conduct of surreptitious entry (``black bag jobs'') to steal proprietary information from office files and computers.44
(c) Exploitation of Private Sector Organizations The ROK's economic intelligence collection operations often exploit private sector organizations, particularly Korean businesses, both for collection and to provide operational cover for intelligence officers. While intelligence officers assigned overseas are usually posted to South Korean embassies as members of the diplomatic staff, they may also be afforded ``non-official'' cover by one of Korea's industrial conglomerates, such as Hyundai, Samsung, or the Lucky Group. These corporations are at least sometimes aware of the presence of intelligence officers working out of their corporate offices. According to one former Korean intelligence official, ``They would get [a]
191 SOUTH KOREA'S INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2
call [from government officials], and it would be arranged easily. Most times, no questions would be asked by them.''45
In addition to operations conducted by the NIS, Korean corporations have learned that their own employees can yield a wealth of competitive intelligence information concerning competitors' plans and technologies. While this type of collection may not necessarily result in technology transfer, it does allow Korean corporations ``to get a pulse on worldwide [research and development] activities'' and to use this information for their own purposes.46
(d) Special Technical Collection Operations Special technical collection operations include computer intrusions, telecommunications targeting and intercept, and exploitation of private-sector encryption weaknesses. These clandestine collection activities by foreign economic intelligence collectors account for the largest portion of sensitive information lost by U.S. companies. According to the Defense Intelligence Agency, Korean economic intelligence collection operations have included stealing information from computerized databases maintained by the United States government and U.S. companies.47
(e) Recruitment of Students and Researchers According to the National Science Foundation, 115,367 foreign students were enrolled in graduate studies programs at U.S. universities in 1999. Of these, 109,904 were enrolled in science or engineering programs. This large number, especially those studying in technical fields, represents a potentially rich source of information for foreign intelligence collectors. This is particularly true of students from Asian countries. United States institutions of higher learning are a significant source of doctoral education of Asian students; of the approximately 22,853 doctoral degrees awarded in science and technology in the U.S. in 1990, fourteen percent (3,200) were awarded to graduate students from six Asian countries--China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. And because Asian graduate students come to the U.S. primarily for training in science and engineering, they are and will continue to be an integral part of U.S. universities' science and engineering strengths.48
Students may be recruited by their nation's intelligence services either prior to leaving their home countries, possibly as a pre-condition for departure, or after arrival in the United States. Students may be motivated by appeals to their ethnic identity, patriotism, or simply a fear of the intelligence service involved. Foreign students may be targeted against specific research projects, serving as assistants to professors conducting research in specific technology areas, and be ``encouraged'' to seek employment with targeted U.S. companies after graduation.
192 EDWIN S. COCHRAN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE
Korean students and researchers are often sent abroad to acquire advanced degrees or study specific fields of knowledge. For Korea, however, there is a greater sense of national purpose to these exchanges than for many other countries. The Korean government has tasked its national laboratories to aid domestic industry by providing ``practical'' support for new product development and ``internationalizing their research activities.'' The establishment of ``centers of excellence,'' staffed by leading foreign universities and research institutes, provides Korean researchers with opportunities to ``come into contact'' with high-level scientists and advanced technologies. According to Korean press reporting, the Korean Ministry of Machinery and Metals (subordinate to the Ministry of Science and Technology) sought to establish joint research and development centers at Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to ``acquire leading future technologies.''49
Overt Collection
The South Korean government and Korean corporations have successfully organized and implemented a variety of overt methods for the collection of economic intelligence and the ``indirect'' transfer of technology from U.S. sources. These include international cooperation, direct foreign participation, sponsored research, hiring U.S. scientific and technical personnel, and open source collection.
(a) International Cooperation ``International cooperation'' denotes a range of Korean government and industry programs whose aim is the acquisition of foreign technology. The ROK government has both sanctioned and supported the establishment of ``S&T forums'' to act as a bridge between Korean commercial enterprises and U.S. high-technology companies to facilitate the transfer of technology. The purpose of these state-sponsored ``foundations'' is to ``remedy Korea's weaknesses in key industrial sectors by creating opportunities to interface with scientists working with specific U.S. technologies.''50
The Korean government sponsors a number of programs to foster ``strategic cooperation'' with U.S. firms. In the Korean context, strategic cooperation involves ``identifying gaps in indigenous technology, finding a foreign company that has the technology, and engaging the latter in some kind of cooperative relationship that results in the transfer of the technology to South Korea.''51 Because the initial focus of much of the research developed through strategic cooperation programs is noncommercial, foreign companies are reportedly more willing to share their technology than they would be through more ``conventional'' channels. The Korean government is often involved at different levels of the strategic cooperation process, specifically identifying weaknesses in the national
193 SOUTH KOREA'S INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2
scientific and technological infrastructure, finding foreign companies willing to transfer their technology for commercial purposes, and subsidizing the actual transfer. When South Korean companies obtain foreign technology through the development process as part of a transfer agreement, the Korean press describes the transfer itself as ``joint development.''52 The Korean government sponsors a number of these programs in the United States. The Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC), for instance, sponsors the operations of the Information and Communications Venture Support Center (I-park) in California's Silicon Valley. I-park is an information technology ``incubator'' whose function is to facilitate ``strategic cooperation'' with local companies. I-park's Web page identifies facilitating technology transfer as one of the organization's main functions. The site also acknowledges support from the Institute of Information Technology Assessment (IITA); the IITA's Web page also lists technology transfer as one of its main projects. The IITA was founded in 1992 as an affiliate of the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (now a part of MIC), South Korea's state-run telecommunications research facility chartered to disseminate innovative technology to Korean manufacturers. The MIC also sponsors the Korean Venture Center (KVC), a high-tech ``incubator'' in Fairfax County, Virginia. According to the center's director, the KVC's goal is to assist Korean firms in arranging for ``joint research and development'' with U.S. companies.
In late 2001 the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), a quasi-official organization that serves as an intermediary between Korean companies and government policymakers, announced plans to establish a biotechnology ``liaison center'' near San Diego, California. The proposed ``Korea BioValley'' is intended to serve as a focal point for Korean products into the U.S. market, and to facilitate the acquisition of U.S. biotechnology. FKI's plans reportedly call for the joint participation of large Korean companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and biotech startups in establishing this ``bridgehead'' in the ``hub'' of the life sciences industry.
BioValley is part of a larger FKI proposal released in October 2001 titled ``A Plan for Developing the Biotech Industry.'' According to this document, the primary purpose of BioValley is ``to grasp in real time the latest advances in biotechnology and trends in the biotech industry.'' A secondary goal is to promote the introduction of Korean biotech products into the U.S. and adjacent countries ``with a minimum of investment.''53 (b) Direct Foreign Participation Direct foreign participation includes both foreign direct investment (FDI) and participation in foreign scientific, technological, and industrial training programs. All of the major Korean
194 EDWIN S. COCHRAN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE
corporations have established overseas subsidiaries in an effort to claim markets and take advantage of both lower production costs and local technical expertise. The United States is now the third leading destination of Korean FDI funds; the total value of Korean investments in the U.S. is now estimated to be $790 million.54 Most of these investments are in hightechnology areas. Samsung Electronics, for example, spent $1 million to set up Image Quest Technology in Silicon Valley (Santa Clara, California). Image Quest Technology was built to research and design thin-film technology (TFT) for liquid crystal displays (LCDs) and is staffed primarily by local hires.
Hyundai Electronics's subsidiaries have also been active in the development and assimilation of advanced technology from U.S. courses. Hyundai developed a 10.4-inch TFT LCD at one of its U.S. branches, and brought the technology to Korea for manufacturing. Hyundai Electronics has also set up centers in San Jose, California, and Boston, Massachusetts, for the design of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). According to Korean press reporting, heavy machinery, oil refining, and factory automation companies all take advantage of their geographic location in nations with advanced technology. One newspaper reported that the Pohang Iron and Steel Company's subsidiary in Maryland, Posco International Corporation, would use its position to engage in technical information gathering.55
Korean companies regularly send employees abroad for on-site training at overseas companies. This practice exposes Korean technicians to the technology, operations, and practices of a foreign company. For example, Korean firms have regularly sent researchers and technicians to aircraft manufacturers in the United States to introduce them to advanced aerospace technology. Korean Air sent six employees to participate in the Boeing Company's 777 aircraft project in order to accumulate manufacturing design experience. In another instance, Samsung Aerospace sent sixty employees to the United States for technical training, and Halla Heavy Industries sent an eight-person technology training team to study satellite technology.56
(c) Sponsored Research South Korea takes advantage of the favorable research climate in the United States to sponsor research activities at U.S. universities and research centers. Major Korean-owned, U.S.-based research facilities include Samsung Electronics's San Jose Research Institute (85 employees); LG Electronics's San Jose Research Institute (10 employees); LG North American Operations in Chicago, Illinois (15 employees); Hyundai Electronics's SEMR Research Institute in San Jose (29 employees); and LG Semicon in San Diego, California, with 60 people conducting semiconductor technology surveys.57
195 SOUTH KOREA'S INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2
(d) Hiring U.S. Personnel ROK companies favor hiring foreign experts for Korean operations as an indirect method of technology transfer. This approach is recommended by Seoul government experts, facilitated by official and semiofficial Korean organizations, and widely practiced in Korean industries. The Korean media has reported that the government will match funds spent by companies recruiting and employing high-level foreign personnel. These funds include salary incentives for qualified and accomplished foreign personnel, at rates well above international standards. According to Korean press reporting, during the early 1990s Samsung Aerospace recruited 140 foreign aeronautical specialists, 40 from the United States and the remainder from Russia and Ukraine. A Samsung mission visiting the United States in June 1993 was able to recruit sixteen general managers of design, nine group leaders, and five senior technicians. Korean companies periodically take out full-page ads in Silicon Valley newspapers to recruit engineers, and have been able to scout out talented personnel. In an effort similar to ethnic targeting for clandestine recruitment, the Korean Ministry of Science and Technology operates a system to recruit scientists and technicians, drawing from the 40,000 ethnic Koreans working overseas in scientific and technical fields, a third of whom are affiliated with the General Federation of Korean Science and Technology Organizations. The purpose of this ``brainpool'' is to provide incentives for overseas Koreans and other foreign scientists to help Korea acquire at an early date the newest science, technology, and know-how in the research and development stage in advanced countries.58
(e) Open Source Collection Foreign economic intelligence collectors routinely exploit the vast amount of competitive information that is legally available in the United States. Commercial databases, trade and scientific journals, computer bulletin boards, freely available government publications and reports, Freedom of Information Act requests for corporate publications, and Internet Web sites--all of these are potentially valuable sources of information in their own right or as tools to identify intelligence gaps and generate leads for clandestine collection. The rapid growth and commercialization of the World Wide Web has made all of this information more freely available, significantly reducing the cost of information acquisition. The Korean government and major Korean corporations have recognized that foreign databases are an excellent and inexpensive source of technological information. ROK government research institutes have provided Korean companies with access to foreign databases containing industrial, scientific, and technological information. Capitalizing on these databases has allowed South Korea to acquire considerable scientific and technological information within a limited time.59
196 EDWIN S. COCHRAN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE
ONE EXAMPLE AMONG MANY
South Korea provides a clear example of one allied nation's conduct of economic intelligence collection operations against the United States. The Korean government has developed and implemented a structured, systemic approach for the acquisition of sensitive economic information and ``indirect'' transfers of technology from U.S. sources. These efforts are centrally orchestrated, and take place within a policy and organizational framework managed at the highest levels of the Korean government. Most significantly, this framework has allowed the Korean government to coordinate the activities of various government agencies--the National Intelligence Service, the Ministry of Science and Technology and other government ministries, and national laboratories and research institutes-- with those of private industry for the accomplishment of specific collection objectives in support of wider national-level internal and external policy interests.
REFERENCES
1 U.S. Department of State, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Background Note: South Korea, September 2001, Internet, www.state.gov=r=pa=ei=bgn=2800.htm; Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook 2001, Internet, www.cia.gov=publications=fact book=inex.html.
2 Korean Ministry of Science and Technology, ``Organization and Legal Framework,'' Internet, www.most.go.kr=index_e.html.
3 Korean Ministry of Science and Technology, ``Science and Technology Policy: A Brief History,'' Internet, www.most.go.kr=index_e.html.
4 Quoted in Peter Schweitzer, Friendly Spies: How America's Allies Are Using Economic Espionage to Steal Our Secrets (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1993), p. 207.
5 Interagency OPSEC Support Staff, Operations Security Intelligence Threat Handbook, May 1996, Internet, www.fas.org=irp=nsa=ioss=threat 96, part 05.htm.
6 Foreign Collection Against the Department of Energy: The Threat to U.S. Weapons and Technology, 1998, p. 19, reproduced in Bill Gertz, The China Threat: How the People's Republic Targets America (Washington, DC: Regnery, 2000), p. 223.
7 Korean Ministry of Science and Technology, ``Organization and Legal Framework.''
8 Ibid.
9 Korean Presidential Advisory Council for Science and Technology, ``Mission,'' Internet, www.pacst.go.kr=English=3=3.htm; ``Chairman's Message,'' Internet, www.pacst,go.kr=English=1=1.htm.
10 National Counterintelligence Center, ``South Korea Informal Technology Acquisitions,'' Counterintelligence News and Developments, Vol. 2, June 1998, Internet, www.ncix.gov=nacic=news=1998.htm#rtoc2.
197 SOUTH KOREA'S INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2
11 Peter Schweitzer, Friendly Spies, p. 186.
12 Korean National Intelligence Service, ``Mission,'' Internet, www.nis.gov.kr=English=about=mission.html.
13 Peter Schweitzer, Friendly Spies, p. 186.
14 National Counterintelligence Center, ``South Korea Informal Technology Acquisitions.''
15 Karl W. Deutsch, The Analysis of International Relations, 2d ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1978), p. 23; David Jablonsky, ``National Power,'' Parameters, Vol. 27, No. 1, Spring 1997, p. 43; Samuel P. Huntington, ``America's Changing Strategic Interests,'' Survival, Vol. 33, No. 1, January-February 1991, p. 5.
16 National Economic Council, Report to Congress on Foreign Acquisition and Espionage Activities Against U.S. Critical Technology Companies, 1994, p. 5, cited in John J. Fialka, Statement Before the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress, 17 June 1997, p. 2, Internet, www.fas.org=irp=congress=1997_hr=j970601f.htm.
17 There is no clear operational definition of foreign economic espionage and intelligence collection. The U.S. Attorney General defines economic espionage as ``the unlawful or clandestine targeting or acquisition of sensitive financial, trade, or economic policy information, proprietary economic information, or critical technologies.'' This definition excludes the collection of openly and legally available information that constitutes a significant majority of economic intelligence collection. Aggressive intelligence collection that is entirely open and legal may harm U.S. industry, but it is not espionage. However, it can help foreign intelligence services identify information gaps and in some cases may be a precursor to economic espionage. The Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1995 defines industrial espionage as ``espionage conducted by a foreign government or by a foreign company with direct assistance of a foreign government against a private U.S. company and aimed at obtaining commercial secrets.'' This definition does not extend to the activities of private entities acting without foreign government involvement, nor does it pertain to lawful efforts to obtain commercially useful information. While some of these legal activities may be precursors to clandestine collection, they do not constitute industrial espionage.
The definition of foreign economic intelligence collection offered here includes elements of generally accepted definitions of both economic and technical intelligence. See Jeffrey T. Richelson, The U.S. Intelligence Community (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1989), pp. 8-9.
18 National Counterintelligence Center, Annual Report to Congress on Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage, 1998, p. 3, Internet, www.nacic.gov=nacic=reports=fy98.htm.
19 Louis J. Freeh, Statement Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Government Information, Hearing on Economic Espionage, 29 February 1996, p. 10, Internet, www.fas.org=irp=congress=1996_hr=s960228f.htm.
198 EDWIN S. COCHRAN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE
20 Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, Annual Report to Congress on Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage, 2001, Internet, www.ncix.gov=pubs=reports=fy01.htm#c.
21 Samuel P. Huntington, ``America's Changing Strategic Interests,'' p. 8.
22 Michael Hirsh, ``The Great Technology Giveaway? Trading with Potential Foes,'' Foreign Affairs, Vol. 77, No. 5, September-October 1998, p. 3.
23 Gordon Boezer, Ivars Gutmanis, and Joseph E. Muckerman, II, ``The Defense Technology and Industrial Base: Key Component of National Power,'' Parameters, Vol. 27, No. 2, Summer 1997, p. 26.
24 Ibid., pp. 30-37.
25 Louis J. Freeh, Statement Before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Government Information, Hearing on Economic Espionage, 29 February 1996, p. 3.
26 General Accounting Office, Economic Espionage: Information on Threat from U.S. Allies, GAO=T-NSIAD-96-114, 28 February 1996, Internet, www.fas.org=irp=gao=nsi96114.htm. Initially identified by the GAO only as countries ``A'' -``E,'' these states have since been identified in open source literature as Israel, France, Germany, Japan, and South Korea.
27 National Counterintelligence Center, Annual Report to Congress on Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage, 1998, p. 2.
28 Central Intelligence Agency; William J. Taylor, Jr. and AbrahamKim, ``The Koreas in the Changing Northeast Region,'' in Dianne L. Smith (ed.), Asian Security to the Year 2000 (Carlisle Barracks, PA: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, 15 December 1996), p. 25. Other factors have included Korea's highly skilled and educated labor force working at low wages; close relations between government and business, including directed credit, import restrictions, and state sponsorship of specific industries; and the adoption of foreign capital.
29 Department of State, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Background Note: South Korea; National Counterintelligence Center, ``South Korea: Indirect Technology Transfers,'' Counterintelligence News and Developments, Vol. 2, June 1996, Internet, www.ncix.gov=nacic=news=1996=jun96.htm#rtoc1.
30 National Counterintelligence Center, ``South Korea: Indirect Technology Transfers.''
31 General Accounting Office, Economic Espionage: Information on Threat from U.S. Allies.
32 Federation of American Scientists, U.S. Arms Clients Profiles--South Korea, Internet, www. fas.org=asmp=profiles=south_korea.htm; ``ROK's Yonhap: Korean Arms Industry, Development, Potential, Shortfalls,'' KPP 20011002000001 Seoul Yonhap in English 0001 GMT 2 October 2001, Internet, groups.yahoo.com=group=arms trade=message=6309.
33 Federation of American Scientists; Korea Herald, ``Seoul to Export $200 Million Worth of Defense Goods,'' 26 March 2001, Internet, www.indg.org=korea.htm.
34 ``ROK's Yonhap: Korean Arms Industry, Development, Potential, Shortfalls.''
35 Ibid.
199 SOUTH KOREA'S INTELLIGENCE
AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2
36 Federation of American Scientists, ``Seoul to Export 100 Million Worth of Defense Goods.''
37 Department of State, Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Background Note: South Korea.
38 Joint Chiefs of Staff, Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, Joint Pub. 1-02, 10 June 1998, pp. 79 and 333. A covert operation, by comparison, is one ``that is so planned and executed as to conceal the identity or permit plausible deniability by the sponsor'' (p. 115).
39 Samuel Halpern, ``Clandestine Collection,'' in Roy Godson (ed.), Intelligence Requirements for the 1980s: The Elements of Intelligence (Washington, DC: National Strategy Information Center, 1983), p. 31.
40 See Jeffrey T. Richelson, The U.S. Intelligence Community, pp. 234-238.
41 Edwin Fraumann, ``Economic Espionage: Security Missions Redefined,'' Public Administration Review, Vol. 57, No. 4, July-August 1997, p. 304.
42 National Counterintelligence Center, ``South Korea: Indirect Technology Transfers,'' Counterintelligence News and Developments, Vol. 2, June 1996, Internet, www.ncix.gov=nacic=news=1996=jun96.#rtoc1; National Economic Council, Report to Congress on Foreign Acquisition and Espionage Activities Against U.S. Critical Technology Companies, 1994, p. 23, cited in Peter Schweitzer, ``The Growing Threat of Economic Espionage,'' Business Forum, Vol. 23, Nos. 1-2, Winter-Spring 1998, p. 2; Peter Schweitzer, Friendly Spies, p. 187.
43 Defense Personnel Security Research Center, Recent Espionage Cases, 1996, Internet, www.dss.mil=training=espionage=1996.htm.
44 Edwin Fraumann, ``Economic Espionage: Security Missions Redefined,'' pp. 304, 306.
45 Peter Schweitzer, Friendly Spies, p. 187.
46 National Counterintelligence Center, ``South Korea: Indirect Technology Transfers.''
47 Interagency OPSEC Support Staff; Neil Munro, ``South Korea Said to Eye U.S. Technology,'' Washington Technology, 19 May 1994, p. 1.
48 National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Studies, Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering, 1999, Internet, www.nsf.gov=sbe=srs=nsf01315=dst.htm; Jean M. Johnson, Human Resources for Science and Technology: The Asian Region, NSE 93-3-3 (Washington, DC: National Science Foundation, 1993), pp. 1, 5, 9. 49 Department of Commerce, Office of Technology Policy, Korea's Strategy
for Leadership in Research and Development, June 1997, p. 24, Internet, www.ta.doc.gov=Reports=Korea=Korea.pdf; National Counterintelligence Center, ``South Korea Informal Technology Acquisitions''; National Counterintelligence Center, ``South Korea: Indirect Technology Transfers.''
50 National Counterintelligence Center, ``South Korea: Indirect Technology Transfers,'' Department of Commerce, p. 21.
51 Ibid.
200 EDWIN S. COCHRAN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTELLIGENCE
52 Ibid.; and Department of Commerce, ``Korea's Strategy for Leadership in Research and Development,'' p. 26.
53 Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, ``South Korea: Biotech Consortium to Build Tech-Transfer Facility in San Diego,'' 21 December 2001, Internet, www.ncix.gov.
54 Korea Ministry of Finance and Economy, ``China Replaces U.S. as Korea's Investment Destination,'' 8 August 2001, Internet, www.korea.net=kwnews; ``Korean Investment in China Up, U.S. Down,'' Asia Times, 7 February 2002, Internet, www.atimes.com=koreas=DB07Dg01.html.
55 Department of Commerce, ``Korea's Strategy Leadership in Research and Development,'' pp. 19-20.
56 Ibid., p. 18.
57 Ibid., p. 20.
58 Ibid., pp. 29-30.
59 National Counterintelligence Center, ``South Korea: Indirect Technology Transfers,'' Department of Commerce, p. 35.
201 SOUTH KOREA'S INTELLIGENCE AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 16, NUMBER 2
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Lie of Egalitarianism
By Jamie Glazov
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 13, 2004


Frontpage Interview's guest today is John Kekes, the author of many books, including Against Liberalism, A Case For Conservatism and, the most recent: The The Illusions of Egalitarianism (Cornell University Press, 2003)

Frontpage Magazine: Mr. Kekes, welcome to Frontpage Interview. Let me begin with your argument that the absurdity of egalitarianism is, among many other things, its flawed premise that justice requires overlooking whether individuals deserve what they have and whether they are responsible for what they do not have. Could you talk a bit about this?

Kekes: Egalitarians believe that the obligation of the government is to treat citizens with equal consideration and they interpret that primarily in economic terms. They think that a government that allows substantial differences in wealth is immoral and their policy is to change the existing differences in wealth by taxation. The money collected by taxation is then used to benefit those who have less.
The fundamental objection to this is that the egalitarian policy ignores the crucial question of how people have come to differ in wealth. If they earned their money by legitimate mean, hard work, intelligence, in tough competition, and not being afraid to take risks, then they deserve what they have. To take their money from them in order to benefit those who have made wrong choices, were afraid of taking risks, or lost in a fair competition is unjust because it takes from people what they deserve and use it to benefit those who do not deserve it. To say that a government that does not adopt this unjust policy is immoral is absurd. It is the precise opposite of the truth. and it is this falsehood that egalitarian rhetoric endlessly repeats.

FP: Let's talk a about the impulse behind the egalitarian agenda. Somewhere it is a clear rejection of life and of the world in which humans actually occupy. There is some kind of rage and anger that lies beneath the surface of this disposition. Could you talk a bit about the psychological dimensions that spawn the desire of egalitarians to steal from people who earn wealth and to give it to people who do not?

Kekes: I shall do my best to answer your question, but I must point out that I am not a psychologist and what I say is a guess. One part of the egalitarian motivation seems to me to be an envious resentment of success. Egalitarians seem to mind that some people achieve excellence in some area of life and enjoys the rewards his excellence brings him. In having this attitude, egalitarians forget that human progress was always achieved in the past and will only be achieved in the future by people who have exceptional talent combined with the willingness to work hard to use their talent for some purpose.


Egalitarians tend to forget that everyone benefits from such achievements, not just the person himself. For businesses are profitable, if they sell something that people want to buy; research in science, medicine leads to discoveries that make life better; great works of art teach people about world and respond to their sense of beauty. Such achievements make life worth living, or at least make it less miserable for countless people.


Another part of the egalitarian motivation is pity for those who are at the bottom. This is a noble sentiment, but it easily becomes sentimentalism. For it makes a great difference why people are at the bottom. If they are the helpless victims of misfortune, that is one thing. If their position is their own fault, that is quite another. People who are deprived through no fault of their own should be helped. That is what individual good will and charity are for. But egalitarians want to force good will and charity on people by legislation. And if people have other priorities, then egalitarians are quite willing to force them to do what they don't want to do.

FP: Leftists always dream of "equality" and redistribute resources. Tell us why the very assumptions behind these dreams are flawed.
Kekes: If by some miracle resources were redistributed and everybody would start out with the same amount of money, in no time at all the old differences would emerge. For some would spend their money, others would waste it, and others would invest it, or use it to start a business. People differ, they have different preferences, and what they do with the money they have reflects their preferences.
The dream of equality is to make life such that everybody's preferences would be satisfied. But that is an impossibility because some preferences are criminal, sadistic, stupid, trivial, self-destructive, or otherwise irresponsible. A government must prevent the satisfaction of preferences that interfere with the satisfaction of other people's preferences. Not all preferences are equally acceptable. A government that ignores this violates its most basic obligation. And that is what an egalitarian government would have to do to achieve equality.
FP: You refer to some preferences being "criminal, sadistic, stupid, trivial, self-destructive, or otherwise irresponsible." In other words, Mr. Kekes, evil exists. But egalitarians seem to have a problem with the phenomenon of evil. And I would add to that the notion of original sin and our fall. Could you expand on this? Why do egalitarians have such a difficulty with the existence of evil, and from where does the need to deny its existence emanate?


Kekes: I have much to say about this question in The Illusions of Egalitarianism. One of the fundamental assumptions of egalitarians is that people are basically good. Egalitarians recognize, of course, that there are evil acts, serious crime, and that there is much injustice. But they explain all this as resulting from bad political institutions. These institutions, they suppose, are responsible for the evil that people do because they corrupt them. People become enraged by the injustice, exploitation, discrimination inflicted on them, and their evil acts are the result. The naivite of these views is amazing. For egalitarians refuse to ask the obvious question of why bad political institutions are bad. Surely, if institutions are bad, it is because bad people create and maintain them.


If there is injustice, it is because people are unjust; if there is discrimination, it is because people discriminate. People come first, and the institutions they create and maintain can come only after. So it is the badness of institutions that must be explained by there being evil people, rather than as egalitarians do: explaining evil people by bad institutions. And of course if there are evil people, as there certainly are, as we know from reading the newspapers and watching the news, it would be insane to regard them as equal to those people who live decent lives.


FP: It is clear that egalitarians are ultimately at war with human nature and the human condition. Could you illuminate this phenomenon for us?
Kekes: One basic truth about human nature is that people are individuals: they have different strengths and weaknesses, different talents and shortcomings, different experiences, different upbringing, and different luck in lives. Their actions reflect these differences. And whether their actions succeed or fail depends on these differences. Egalitarians find these differences immoral.but this is simply a failure to accept the human condition, the fact that human beings are different as a result of genetic inheritance and subsequent experiences.
To undo these differences would require forcing people to live and act in the same way, and that would destroy individuality and establish the worst kind of tyranny the world has ever seen. Egalitarians perhaps do not intend this, but whether they intend it or not, this is what they would have to aim at in order to pursue their absurd goal of changing human nature.
FP: Mr. Kekes, you say that egalitarians "perhaps do not intend" the tyranny that emanates from their ideas. But I would argue that in fact they do, that their disposition is actually rooted in a death wish itself and that Stalinism and Pol Pot's killing fields etc. are no coincidences or undesired results. In the heart of the Left, there lurks the impulse for the extinguishment of life itself. And it is precisely why the leftist political pilgrimages to the Soviet Union and China occurred during the most genocidal times - and waned off only after the most terrible mass murdering stopped. The Left loses interest in worshipping a regime when the totalitarian terror recedes. Now this might all be happening subconsciously, but the core instinct is there.
Is this too extreme of an interpretation?
Kekes: I certainly agree that Stalin's Russia and Pol Pot's Cambodia were evil regimes. But it is important to remember that there are evil regimes also on the right, and that many evil regimes are neither clearly leftist nor rightist. It is clear that Idi Amin's Uganda, Khomeni's Iran, Saddam's Iraq, were evil regimes, but it is not clear that they were leftists. I think that looking for a political explanation of evil is a mistake. The explanation of evil is psychological. The sad fact is that there is in human beings a potentialities for evil, just as there is a potentiality for good. Which dominates depends on many factors, among which genetic inheritance, upbringing, economic circumstances, good or bad luck play an important role. All in all, I think that facing evil and trying to explain its causes are among the most important questions we have to face. I merely mention that the book I have just finished is on this question. Its tentative title is The Roots of Evil.

FP: But Mr. Kekes, yes, there are evil "right-wing" regimes, but these regimes are human-made, not necessitated by ideas. What I mean by this is that there is a difference between human evil and institutional evil. Humans can create evil everywhere, but some might not. So one regime that is "right-wing" might be evil, but another one might not, because it depends what kind of human beings run it. But the idea behind the regime does not necessitate evil. In terms of the socialist idea, meanwhile, it necessitates evil. You can never have Marxism experimented anywhere without there being genocide and evil. In other words, what I am saying is that the very impulse of socialism leads to evil necessarily. Whereas, with non-Marxist regimes that do not necessitate totalitarianism, it might just mean what human being is in power. What do you say to this?


Kekes: I don't believe that ideas necessitate anything. I agree that communism tends to lead to evil, but so do racism, fascism, religious extremism. Whether ideas lead to evil depends on the people who hold the ideas and act according to them. Any idea can be misused. Take, for instance, the Constitution. It says that all men are created equal, and goes on the specify that this means that all men have an equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You would think that this is clear and not easy to misunderstand. But egalitarians interpret it to mean that what the government is required to do is to provide the means that enable people to be happy. What the Constitution says is that the government should guarantee that there is no interference with people's life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, not that the government should finance life, liberty, and the happiness. I mention this to show that you can take very good ideas and misuse them and no one has to accept very bad ideas. If people do evil because of the ideas they hold, it is still they who do evil, not the ideas acting through them. They did not have to accept the ideas or act on them in evil ways.


FP: Sorry, Mr. Kekes, I don't mean to belabor this point, but I think it is crucial to crystallize this theme. You say that you do not "believe that ideas necessitate anything" and that "whether ideas lead to evil depends on the people who hold the ideas and act according to them."


Just a second. I would argue that the Marxist agenda, no matter what people are in power, necessitates oppression and economic destitution. The very ideas inherent in Marxism necessitate terror, and that is precisely why every experiment with it has done so. The notion that there must be a classless society, and that private property must be taken away, and that there can be no multi-party system -- these notions mandate a terrorist component and human corpses if applied to the human situation. In other words, Stalinism was not an aberration of Marxism, but the necessary and inevitable result of it - no matter who was in power. There is no way to collectivize property, for instance, without deadly force. Do you disagree with this?

Kekes: I don't for a moment want to deny that Marxism is a very bad idea and, if it is adopted by people, it leads them to the sort of evil actions that are familiar from the history of the Soviet Union, China, and other countries.


Ideas have consequences, and bad ideas have bad consequences. But ideas don't have to be adopted and acted on. People have a choice about what ideas they hold and act on. It is this possibilities that I have been stressing in my previous replies and I want to continue to stress.


The question is: why do people come to hold ideas that have evil consequences. There are, I think, only three possibilities. One is that they are evil people and the idea gives them some form in which they can express their evil impulses. A second one is that they don't understand that the idea is bad. If they are moderately well educated and read newspapers or watch TV, they cannot fail to understand this. Of course, they may be illiterate and ill-informed. But then they can hardly be said to adopt the idea. They are likely merely to live under it, and be ruled by people who force the idea on them. The third possibility is that they are mentally lazy and pay no attention. Then they are responsible for it because they ought to pay attention to such matters.


I may add that, having lived under both Nazism and Communism, I unequivocally and deeply condemn them. But my interest is in explaining how such regimes become possible. And to explain that merely by saying that bad ideas cause them is not enough because the obvious question about that is why people adopt bad ideas. That is what I have been trying to answer.


FP: Ok, fair enough, and this is truly a crucial and fascinating question. So, in this context, let's talk about how the bad idea of socialism and Marxism was applied repeatedly throughout the 20th century and how it ended up producing 100 million corpses. And yet, despite this genocide, the Marxist idea continues to be as popular as ever in academia and other milieus. The Left is completely unchastened in terms of the horrific consequences of its own ideas. If it has another opportunity to put socialism into practise, even though it will automatically create another Stalin or Pol Pot, it will do it. And it will do it over and over again. How do we explain the Left's refusal to acknowledge the human blood that flows from its ideas - and its insistence to continue reapplying the same ideas over and over again?


Kekes: I'll try to answer the question you pose in a minute, but I want to distinguish first between Marxist and non-Marxist socialism. When I agreed with you about the evil consequences of socialism I meant only the Marxist version. I am strongly opposed to all forms of socialism, but it has to be said that the socialist governments in England or Sweden, for example, were not evil. Their policies were mistaken, in my opinion, but they had nothing to do with the sort of mass murder that Stalin and Mao had perpetrated.


It is, therefore, one question of why some people on the Left sympathize with non-Marxist socialism, and quite another why they sympathize with the Marxist kind. Having said that, it remains true, of course, that many Lefists do sympathize with Marxist socialism, which continues to be popular in academia, and it requires an explanation of how supposedly intelligent, well-informed academics could continue to have that sympathy after the well-known atrocities of the Marxist socialist regimes.


My answer is not simple because I think that the explanation is a complex mixture of several causes. First, these largely American academics do not believe that the atrocities were all that bad. They may concede that a few people have been unjustly murdered, but they refuse to accept that their number ran in the tens of millions. They think that the numbers have been exaggerated by right-wing propaganda. And as to those who have been unjustly murdered, they think that all countries, especially America, have been guilty of worse offenses. Not a word of this is true, of course, but that is what they believe.


So we need to ask how they could continue to hold such beliefs in the face of the readily available evidence to the contrary. Part of the answer is that they are outraged by what they see as the grave defects of their own society. They see poverty, racism, exploitation, and they think that the system that allows such things to happen is so rotten that it must be radically changed. They look around for an alternative to it, and Marxist socialism looks attractive to them from a distance. It lends some plausibility to their position that it is true that bad things have happened in America. It would be dishonest to deny this.


But what they don't see is that our system is set up in such a way that the bad things are publicly identified, acknowledged, great attempts are made to correct them, and are not allowed to continue. Our system is open, both the good and the bad are visible, not kept secret. In Marxist socialist regimes, great efforts were made to hide the bad things from outsiders. This was done by secrecy, deception, propaganda, and reliance on the testimony of people who were either duped or terrorized.


So these American would-be Marxist socialists see the bad here, don't see the awful there, and they arrive at the stupid view that what they are not allowed to see is not there. But this is still not the full answer to your question. For we need to understand the outrage that so often goes with these Leftist political commitments. Why are they so angry? I think this is because of their innocence. They start with the belief that everyone is basically good, that if people did not starve, were not unjustly treated, and so forth, then life would be simple and pleasant.


They don't see that in any complex society conflicts of interests are frequent, that people are motivated not just by love, altruism, sympathy, and kindness, but also by selfishness, greed, aggression, hatred, prejudice, cruelty, and so forth, and the idea of basic human goodness is a sentimental falsification of reality. They refuse to believe these hard truths, partly because is would shatter their illusions, and partly because their implications are frightening. They are outraged because they feel that their illusions are attacked. They passionately feel that the world ought not to be like that. But the world is like that and the rage is a symptom of their refusal to admit it. Most of these Leftists have never lived in a repressive tyrannical society, and they cannot imagine just how bad life could be. Their innocence is due to their ignorance, and their innocence is irresponsible because the knowledge they lack is readily available but they refuse to acquire it. And they refuse it because it would result in the painful loss of their innocence.


FP: Why are laws made in terms of punishing racial hatred but not class hatred? Racial hatred is considered a crime now in many parts of the world. Even articulating something that can be perceived as racial hate can get you charged with a criminal offense. And in many respects, this is because of slavery, the Nazi holocaust, etc. And yet, despite the 100 million lives that were extinguished because of class hatred in the 20th century, class hate is still seen not only as normal, but actually as something admirable in many sectors of our society - especially in academia. How do you explain the demonization and criminalization of racial hatred and the simultaneous toleration and promotion of class hatred?


Kekes: I am not in favor of criminalizing any idea. A free society does not do that. But I am deeply opposed to any form of indoctrination with an idea, especially if it is an undeniably bad one. And I am afraid in academic life such indoctrination is frequent. This is inexcusable. Supporters of leftist causes routinely use the classroom as a political platform and coerce students to listen to the noxious political message these academics are eager to deliver. Intolerance is rampant in academic life. This is a very bad thing, but the solution is not to respond to intolerance with intolerance, and criminalize ideas.


If people want to deny the Holocaust, want to say that women or Blacks are inferior, let them. They should be answered and their stupidity, prejudices, or ignorance should be made plain. The direct answer to your question of why racism is criminalized and the hatred of the successful is not is that Leftists have succeeded in hi-jacking most universities. The damage they have done is enormous. There are voices and organizations speaking out and trying to return to sanity and decency, but they are few. I am not optimistic about their success, although I am on their side.


FP: Will the socialist impulse ever die out in the human race and, one day, be seen as an old worn-out idea? Or will it, like war, exist as long as human beings exist, since inequality is a part of the human condition? In other words, since there will always be inequality, no matter what, there will also be those who dream of building utopia on earth rather than waiting for it in heaven. Right?


Kekes: Yes, and yes again. On this point, we are in complete agreement. If you and I are right about this, then the question arises of what could be done. There are, I think, two things: one public, the other private. The public one is to speak out as forcefully as one can against egalitarianism whenever there is an opportunity. The private one is to create for oneself as good a life as one can under the circumstances. As it has been said, living well is the best revenge. Political statements are needed, but the spectacle of a good life is much more likely to be imitated than a political statements followed.


FP: Mr. Kekes, thank you, we are out of time. It was a pleasure to have you here.


Kekes: It was a pleasure to talk to you Jamie -- and to think about your thoughtful questions. It is wonderful that Frontpagemag.com exists and provides a forum for the expression of views contrary to the Left-Liberal orthodoxy that pervades the media.

*

I welcome all of our readers to get in touch with me if they have a good idea/contact for a guest for Frontpage Interview. Email me at jglazov@rogers.com.

NATO NOTES...
http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1744/MR1744.pdf

AMERICAN AVIARY...
http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1738/MR1738.pdf

BEYOND HOMELAND WIND...
http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1646/

BEYOND MAD COW...CONFIDENCE?
http://www.rand.org/publications/MG/MG135/MG135.pdf

OUR FRIENDS IN AFRICA REALLY WANT HELP WITH AIDS...
http://www.theworld.org/latesteditions/20040213.shtml
Drugs interview (8:00)
Unscrupulous doctors in Kenya are taking advantage of a government deal on AIDS drugs to make a quick profit from their sick and unwitting patients. Host Lisa Mullins speaks with correspondent Gatonye Gathura of Nairobi newspaper The Nation.



The Advisability of Sabbatical Leaves for Officers
http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1752/MR1752.pdf

Abstract
As a competitive employer in the United States, the Department of Defense (DoD) strives to maintain benefits comparable to those of the public and private sector. DoD recently asked the RAND Corporation to explore the greater use of extended leaves as part of the department's strategic human resource plan. The researchers offer recommendations and observations on which extended leave programs would most benefit military officers as well as ideas on how to implement such programs.

In recent years, the Department of Defense (DoD) has focused increasing attention on ways to attract and retain highly skilled personnel at greater rates. Specifically, DoD is seeking to develop management strategies that will improve the quality of life of its officers, thereby competing more effectively with the civilian job market and creating a more flexible personnel system to prepare the military for the future. One area under active consideration is the increased and strategic use of extended leave programs, also known as sabbaticals.

Long a feature of private-sector employment, paid and unpaid leaves of absence enable employees to attend to a family crisis, undertake professional development, work in social service, take time for personal renewal, or even help their company through a financial crisis. Extended leave programs also exist in varying forms in the civilian sector of the U.S. government and in foreign militaries. Within the U.S. military, however, extended leaves are primarily restricted to educational sabbaticals, during which time officers receive only basic pay and certain benefits and after which they must "pay back" one month's service time for every two months away. The services also offer return-to-service programs, with returns contingent on service need. Still, for officers seeking a leave of absence for noneducational reasons and who hope to receive some compensation or maintain their benefits during their time away, no full-scale option exists.

But are the more expansive and flexible extended leave programs offered in the civilian world a viable option given the unique demands of the U.S. military? Would a targeted introduction of new leave options be an advisable -- and cost-effective -- personnel tool for military planners?

Why Should the Military Consider New Extended Leave Programs?
RAND researchers identified three rationales for why the U.S. military might want to implement a more comprehensive range of leave options. First, legal and legislative changes may mandate it. That is, Congress or the President could decide to extend civilian workforce laws (e.g., the Family and Medical Leave Act) to military personnel. Second, the human resources value of specific extended leave options may merit their adoption. In other words, a program might prove the "right thing to do" to keep officers satisfied and motivated and to ensure the military remains competitive with the private sector. Finally, many of these programs, depending on their design, may prove cost-efficient, either through direct savings or by generating a return on investment (ROI) in the form of increased officer retention, which in turn can result in a more experienced force and lower accession and training costs.

Return on Investment: Balancing Size, Target Cohort, Duration, and Cost
Using these rationales, the research team evaluated a wide variety of civilian, foreign military, and existing U.S. military programs for their potential human resource value. Determining whether these programs are ultimately advisable, however, requires an analysis of the third rationale: cost-efficiency. Programs may be legally tenable or mandated and may serve a public relations and morale function, but they may not be cost-effective.

To create a framework that DoD might use to formulate effective programs, the researchers conducted an illustrative ROI analysis to determine the variables that most affect whether a program's benefits outweigh its costs. The purpose was to generate general principles from which to shape and evaluate programs offering a positive, or at least neutral, ROI.

Researchers assessed four sample programs -- two leaves for social service and two for personal growth -- each with varying eligibility, participation, and benefit levels. The process demonstrated that the purpose of the leave has only a minor impact on efficiency. Instead, the characteristics with the greatest impact on ROI are the duration of the leave, the number of participants, the compensation offered, and the likelihood that participants would otherwise have left the service. The researchers also determined that

programs with limited-length leaves resulting in changes in retention behavior in at least 10 percent of participants generally have a positive ROI
programs targeting subpopulations with the highest likelihood of changing retention behavior (e.g., junior officers) are more efficient
programs that are some combination of small, short, and low cost have the more favorable ROI.
All told, program size, duration, and cost must be in balance to achieve the desired effects on retention. For instance, if costs are high, the program should be smaller and offer shorter leaves. With such programs, however, personnel managers must weigh whether the retention needed for favorable ROI can be achieved from a small group of participants taking a short leave. Further, large programs offering full compensation and long leaves may be too costly (if not substituted for other funded programs), but those providing only basic pay or benefits and short leaves may still be feasible despite their size.

Extended Leave Programs, If Well Crafted, Can Provide Desirable Flexibility
ROI analyses indicate that, with a thoughtful weighing of program features, benefits can surpass costs. When one adds in the possible legislative mandates and such qualitative values as morale improvements, these programs could be highly beneficial. Based on these findings, the researchers made the following recommendations:

Implement a Range of Programs Devoted to Personal Leaves, both paid and unpaid, with some open to all occupations and others restricted to critical ones. These programs would acknowledge and accommodate officers' personal responsibilities while allowing flexibility for both officers and personnel managers, permitting them to, for instance, employ leaves as incentives for exemplary performance.

Consider Replacing Some Intermediate Education with More Flexible Educational Sabbaticals. Educational sabbaticals could substitute for the current intermediate program of officer education, allowing some officers more freedom to study areas of individual interest and of value to their service.

Improve Existing Return-to-Service Programs. Currently, these programs do not guarantee that officers can return, even if service needs make a return desirable. Such programs should be revisited in the context of larger service priorities and total accession plans.

Evaluate Personal Growth or Sabbatical Programs for Specific Cohorts. Because target population is a major factor in costeffectiveness, DoD should conduct a cohort-based analysis to assess programs for specific groups in order to evaluate with more precision the possible effects on population size, continuation rates, and retention. Findings could also help community managers steer programs toward those officers most likely to leave (e.g., junior officers).

Leadership Support Will Be Crucial to Successful Implementation
Regardless of which programs are instituted, leadership support will be critical to their success. Such support will help ensure that eligible officers are made aware of their options and also that they are not disadvantaged for making use of them. Indeed, the importance of internal perceptions of both programs and participants should be taken into consideration when formulating program parameters. For instance, merit-based leaves are more likely to meet internal acceptance.

Ultimately, a more comprehensive system of extended leaves carries the promise of greatly enhanced flexibility for individual officers and for the military more largely. These programs can be adjusted, replaced, or eliminated based on different service needs, work-life patterns, private-sector trends, legislative developments, or shifting national priorities. However, they should not be entitlements. Moreover, in addition to the potential for concrete benefits (e.g., improved retention rates), implementing these programs may help reinforce the military's reputation as a competitive and conscientious employer.

This product is part of the RAND Corporation research brief series. RAND research briefs present policy-oriented summaries of individual published, peer-reviewed documents or of a body of published work.

This research brief describes work done for the RAND National Defense Research Institute documented in Officer Sabbaticals: Analysis of Extended Leave Options, by Harry J. Thie, Margaret C. Harrell, and Marc Thibault, MR-1752-OSD, 2003, 97 pages, ISBN: 0-8330-3456-1 (Full Document).

Copyright ? 2004 RAND Corporation

The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit research organization providing objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.

RB-7564-OSD (2004)

An Auschwitz in Korea
Jeff Jacoby (archive)
February 9, 2004 | Print | Send
Two words -- "never again" -- sum up the most important lesson that civilized men and women were supposed to have learned from the 20th century. It is forbidden to keep silent, forbidden to look the other way, when tyrants embark on genocide and slaughter -- if Auschwitz and Kolyma and the Cambodian killing fields taught us nothing else, they taught us that.
Or so, at any rate, we like to tell ourselves. As Samantha Power discovered upon returning to the United States after two years as a war correspondent in Bosnia, the lesson of "never again" is invoked far more often than it is applied.
"Everywhere I went," Power recalled in a speech at Swarthmore College in 2002, "I heard 'never again.' Steven Spielberg's 'Schindler's List' had been a smash hit. The Holocaust Museum had opened on the Mall in Washington. College seminars were taught on the 'lessons' of the singular crime of the 20th century. But why, I wondered, had nobody applied those lessons to the atrocities of the 1990s: the systematic murder of 200,000 Bosnian civilians in Europe between 1992 and 1995 and the extermination of some 800,000 Rwandan Tutsi in 1994.
"Did 'never again' simply mean 'never again will Germans kill Jews in Europe between 1939 and 1945?' "
Power went on to write A Problem From Hell, her Pulitzer Prize-winning account of America's failure to intervene in the genocides of the 20th century. The book was hugely and deservedly praised. It made clear, as no previous book ever had, just how much Americans knew about some of the most horrific massacres of the last century even as they were happening, and how little we did to stop them -- or even, in most cases, condemn them.
Which brings us to North Korea.
It is not exactly news that the communist regime of Kim Jong Il has sent millions of North Koreans to early graves. Estimates back in 1998 were that as many as 800,000 people were dying in North Korea each year from starvation and malnutrition caused by Kim's ruthless and irrational policies. World Vision, a Christian relief organization, calculated that 1 million to 2 million North Koreans had been killed by "a full-scale famine" largely of Pyongyang's creation.
Nor is it breaking news that North Korea operates a vicious prison gulag -- "not unlike the worst labor camps built by Mao and Stalin in the last century," as NBC News reported more than a year ago. Some 200,000 men, women, and children are held in these slave-labor camps; hundreds of thousands of others have perished in them over the years. Some of the camps are so hellish that 20 percent or more of their prisoners die from torture and abuse each year. The dead can be of any age: North Korea's longstanding policy is to imprison not only those accused of such "crimes" as practicing Christianity or complaining about North Korean life, but their entire families, grandparents and grandchildren included.
And of course it is widely known that Kim is openly pursuing nuclear weapons, has fired missiles capable of reaching Japan, and controls one of the largest military forces on earth.
All of this is hideous enough, and more than sufficient reason for making Kim's ouster -- and his prosecution for crimes against humanity -- an explicit goal of the United States. But now comes something new.
"I witnessed a whole family being tested on suffocating gas and dying in the gas chamber. The parents, a son, and a daughter." The speaker is Kwon Hyuk, a former North Korean intelligence agent and a one-time administrator at Camp 22, the country's largest concentration camp. His testimony was heard on a television documentary that aired last week on the BBC. "The parents were vomiting and dying, but till the very last moment they tried to save the kids by doing mouth-to-mouth breathing."
Like other communist officials, Kwon was not bothered by what he saw. "I felt that they throroughly deserved such a death. Because all of us were led to believe that all the bad things that were happening to North Korea were their fault. . . . Under the society and the regime I was in at the time, I only felt that they were the enemies. So I felt no sympathy or pity for them at all."
Another eyewitness was Soon Ok-lee, who was imprisoned for seven years in a different North Korean camp. She described the use of prisoners as guinea pigs for biochemical weapons.
"An officer ordered me to select 50 healthy female prisoners," she testified. "One of the guards handed me a basket full of soaked cabbage, told me not to eat it, but to give it to the 50 women. I gave them out and heard a scream. . . . They were all screaming and vomiting blood. All who ate the cabbage leaves started violently vomiting blood and screaming with pain. It was hell. In less than 20 minutes, they were dead."
Gas chambers. Poisoned food. Torture. Families murdered en masse. Staggering death tolls. How much more do we need to know about North Korea's crimes before we act to stop them? How many more victims must be fed into the gas chambers before we cry out "never again!" -- and mean it?
?2003 Boston Globe
-----------------------------------------------------------
Saudi Payments for Foreign Journalists
Ina column published in the Saudi daily Al-Watan, columnist Abdallah Nasser Al-Fawzan criticizes Saudi payments given to foreign journalists in order to write pro-Saudi media reports. The following are excerpts from the column : [1]
Bribing Journalists - A Rumor or the Sad Truth?
"For quite some time I have been hearing rumors that we [the Saudis] are paying journalists in Arab and non-Arab capitals, and that these payments are not in the hundreds of thousands but in the millions. I did not believe it, because first of all it was in complete contradiction to our ethics, our values and dignity, our self-respect, and our reverence to our nation and country. Secondly, I found nothing in the publications abroad about the Kingdom [of Saudi Arabia] that justified such practices. [In fact] there has been an Arab regime that used to pay [journalists], and that was manifested clearly in media publications about it. For example, we remember the media festivals organized by Arab media outfits [to hail] this regime and we remember the odd propaganda efforts on its behalf. But when it comes to comparing ourselves with that regime we deserve epic poems of praise ... because we find no evidence to the [bribery] rumors. Furthermore, sometimes we are the target of organized media attacks and we do need support, but no one comes forward to speak up for us, which gives the impression that we don't pay anyone.
"Such was my impression, and that is why the rumors did not sink in and did not leave me any reason for further contemplation. But the rumors persisted, and two days ago I was surprised by a trustworthy Saudi journalist and a media personality with considerable credence, Mr. Turki Al-Sudairi, editor-in-chief of the Saudi daily Al-Riyadh, who published an article that changed my mind about the rumors I heard, and made me reconsider them seriously."
The Need for 'a Home-Grown Strong and Honest Media'
"In his regular column 'Meeting,' published last Monday [2] ... he talked about our dire need for a home-grown strong and honest media, free of domestic and social shackles, able to stand up to other provocative and destructive media, rather than having to rely on crippled and suppliant foreign media... Mr. Al-Sudairi went on to say that: 'Having a crippled and suppliant media cannot benefit us,' and he added even more bluntly that 'we have had the most bizarre relationship with newspapers in other Arab countries ... which to this time receive annual payments and subsidies, although they are insignificant in their own countries, let alone in the Arab world...'"
The Price for Silence
"I said at the beginning of this article that for various reasons I used to dismiss what I heard about paying Arab journalists... And although I do not support such payments under any circumstances, it would [be safe to] assume that they were given in exchange for taking certain positions and for defending us from attacks. However, this did not happen. On the contrary, the opposite has sometimes occurred.
"Mr. Al-Sudairi confirms that payments were made, but why haven't we seen the desired effect? Mr. Al-Sudairi provided a heartbreaking answer in his article. He said that those who receive payments from us 'do not write one word to refute Western media campaigns, as if the payments are made to prevent them [too] from writing against us ... i.e. they are the price of their silence.
"So, the problem is far worse than just making annual payments to Arab journalists, because these payments are the 'price of silence...
"Finally Mr. Al-Sudairi said that those who receive bribes to spare us their harm do not have the ability to harm us with their words or to safeguard us with their silence. In the words of Mr. Al-Sudairi himself: 'They are insignificant ingrates ... and some of them even use pseudonyms to publish articles against us.' What a shame... What a tragedy...
"I thank Mr. Turki Al-Sudairi for his obvious patriotic concern and I join him in condemning this sorry affair, and urge everyone to support him. If we are paying the price, as he said, to insignificant ingrate journalists who consider them a price for their silence, and still publish articles against us using pseudonyms, then the matter is truly scandalous and calls for investigation and proper remedies, not just for the end of the payments."
[1] Al-Watan (Saudi Arabia), January 14, 2004.

[2] Al-Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), January 12, 2004.
--------------------------------------------------
The Saudi Separation Fence
By: Yotam Feldner*
Historical Background
Two months ago, the Saudi government began to build a fence along its border with Yemen in an attempt to separate the residents along both sides of the border. The border between the two countries was set out in the 2000 Jeddah border treaty, which included a 20 kilometer-wide neutral zone as a strip of grazing land permitted to both sides. The building of the fence enraged the Shi'ite Wayilah tribe on the Yemenite side, which even before its construction had objected to the location of the border.
The Wayilah tribe owns approximately 200 military vehicles and thousands of rifles, and in the past has waged fierce battles against the Saudi Yam tribe. In 2000, it battled the Yemenite Dahm tribe, which is said to have the support of the Saudi government.
The late Wayilah tribal head Sheikh bin Shag'e, who died in 2002 under mysterious circumstances, had explained that he had in his possession 240 year-old documents proving the tribe's ownership of the lands included in the Jeddah treaty. Saudi Arabia tried to pacify the Wayilah, giving 500 of them Saudi citizenship, but the tribesmen nevertheless rioted on various occasions, including when the Saudi authorities arrested a Shi'ite sheikh of the tribe and shut down his mosque.[1]
The Wayilah Tribe: We Do Not Recognize the Border
When Saudi Arabia began to build the separation fence, the Wayilah tribe announced that if the Saudis did not stop the construction and remove all trace of it from the area, they would "blow everything up," including the Jeddah treaty. The tribe compared the Saudi fence to Israel's separation fence, and claimed that it was being built five kilometers over the border into Yemenite territory.
The Wayilah tribe also claimed that it did not recognize the international borders that crossed their territory and ripped apart their tribal unity, let alone the fence that as far as they were concerned violated their human rights. The tribe said, "The blood of thousands of our tribesmen has been shed in tribal wars against the Saudi Yam tribe for the sake of the border ... and our tribesmen are willing to sacrifice their lives in order to preserve the borders of their tribal lands."
The Wayilah claimed that the tribal borders between the Wayilah and Yam were set down in written tribal agreements even before the Saudi and the Yemenite states were established, and that these agreements were officially recognized by the first Saudi monarch Abd Al-'Aziz Aal Saud and by the Yemenite monarchy during the time of the Imam Yahyah Hamid Al-Din.
A communiqu? published by the Wayilah tribe stated: "We are renewing our objection to the agreements that created a barrier between us and our lands and our property. Similarly, we reject the principle of compensation or the division of land or of the tribe... Every new border route will be null and void, and has nothing to do with the tribal border route recognized by the Wayilah and Yam tribes...."[2]
Saudi Government: Most Explosives and Weapons Captured by Saudi Security Forces were Smuggled In by Islamists from Yemen
Saudi officials told the London Arabic-language daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that the "barrier of pipes and concrete" could in no way be called a "separation fence." Saudi Border Police Commander Talal 'Anqawi said: "What is being built within our borders is a barrier of pipes full of concrete, aimed at deterring infiltration and smuggling... This barrier does not in any way resemble a fence. The site chosen to establish it is located within sovereign Saudi territory."[3]
The Saudi prince of Najran, Mash'al bin Abd Al-'Aziz, also denied that the barrier was a separation fence. According to him, Saudi authorities built a barrier of pipes 95 km-long in an open area between two mountains to block smugglers in cars from infiltrating Saudi lands, north of the region of the agreed upon 20 km-wide strip. According to the Saudis, most of the explosives and weapons captured by Saudi security forces in recent months have been smuggled in by Islamists from Yemen.[4]
Yemen Claims Saudi Arabia has Backed Down
Following the media reports, the regime heads in Saudi Arabia and Yemen denied any crisis. The leaders of the countries tried to solve the problem behind the scenes, and Yemenite President Ali Abdallah Saleh went to Egypt so that it would mediate between the sides. At the same time, a Yemenite delegation visited Saudi Arabia in order to resolve matters. But according to a report in the English-language Yemen Times, the Wayilah tribe was preparing for war:
"A prominent sheik of the Wayilah tribe ... told Yemen Times that up to 3,000 tribesmen are preparing to fight Saudi forces unless Saudi Arabia pulls out of Yemen. The sheik claims that Saudi Arabia has already built a security fence 4 to 7 km beyond the neutral zone inside Yemen, stretching from Jabal Hobash to Jabal Al Fara. 'Saudi Arabia has already built a security fence inside Yemen,' said the sheik, 'and we are ready to fight any time if Saudi Arabia doesn't remove what they have built in our country...'
"Even though tribes are preparing for a conflict, a Yemeni government official told Yemen Times on Tuesday that Saudi authorities did accept to remove the separation fence along its border with Yemen after extensive Egyptian and U.S. efforts paid off in convincing Saudi authorities to do so. 'Both the U.S. and Egypt exerted efforts with Yemen and Saudi Arabia resulting in an agreement to remove all constrictions made by the Saudis,' said the Yemeni official."[5]
* Yotam Feldner is Director of Research at MEMRI.
[1] See http://www.islamonline.net/iol-arabic/dowalia/alhadath2000-oug-29/alhadath7.asp.

[2] Al-Quds Al-Arabi (London), February 9, 2004.

[3] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), February 9, 2004.

[4] Al-Hayat (London), February 10, 2004.

[5] Yemen Times, February 12, 2004.


----------------------------------------------------
Saudis Warned of 'Imminent' Car Bomb Threat
"PA"
Saudi TV has warned residents of Riyadh that there is an imminent threat of a car bomb attack.
Quoting the Saudi Ministry of Interior, the newsreader said, "According to very reliable sources there is an imminent threat of a car packed with explosives ready to be used in a terrorist act."
He directed the warning to "the attention of the locals and residents especially in Riyadh," the capital.
In last night's broadcast on state-run television, monitored by APTN television in London, the newsreader gave a detailed description of the vehicle "to ensure that everyone is alert and extra careful because these terrorists have these types of cars in residential areas."
A picture of a car was broadcast and described in voiceover as "A GMC Suburban, 1991 automatic, the original registration number is DNA 034. Dark grey which may have been changed."
The broadcast went on with minute detail, describing windows tinted except for the driver's side window and the windscreen, a curtain between the front seat and the rest of the car, and a scratch along the side of the car.
"The last time the car was seen was on Alrabwa Street, east of Riyadh," the broadcast said.
The newsreader asked anyone with information to come forward, and said information leading to the arrest of those involved would be rewarded.
The Saudi government has more publicly combated support for extremists in the kingdom since bombings May 12 and November 8 that targeted housing compounds for foreigners in Saudi Arabia. Saudi and US officials have blamed Saudi exile Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terror network.
Since those blasts, authorities have detained hundreds of people in a crackdown on alleged militants and have urged wanted persons to surrender.
In January, the authorities said they had seized nearly 24 tons of explosives in anti-terrorism raids during the past six months.
Still not getting it: FBI sacks translator who reported on pro-terrorist colleagues
The FBI translator who exposed pro-terrorist colleagues has been sacked.
The FBI has sacked a linguist who blew the whistle on some colleagues who cheered the 9/11 terrorist attacks and reportedly sabotaged translations crucial to ongoing terrorism investigations.
The report is the latest instance of high-level political correctness within the FBI, where senior officials have been pandering to Islamist fringe elements who are tied to terrorist groups.
Investigative reporter Paul Sperry reports, "Middle Eastern linguists with top-secret security clearance" at the FBI celebrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States and shouted: "It's about time they got a taste of what they've been giving the Middle East."
Sperry reports that when FBI linguist Sibel Dinez Edmonds reported the incident and other "breaches in security, mistranslations and potential espionage by Middle Eastern colleagues," she was fired "without specified cause."
Edmonds's supervisor, "a naturalized U.S. citizen from Beirut" reportedly told his employees "to take long breaks, to slow down translations, and to simply say 'no' to those field agents calling us to beg for speedy translations so that they could go on with their investigations and interrogations of those they had detained."
Edmonds is said to have detailed these allegations further in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee last month.
The Center for Security Policy has warned repeatedly over the last year and a half that the failure of the FBI to acknowledge the nature of certain Islamist groups and individuals, in order not to appear "insensitive," would jeopardize the Bureau's ability to protect against potential terrorist threats.

-----------------------------------------------
February 6, 2004 No.658
Egyptian Government Daily: Suicide Bombings are Legitimate Even if Children Are Killed
An editorial in the Egyptian government daily Al-Masaa praised suicide/martyrdom operations, and called on Palestinian organizations to not publish the names of the bombers so that their families' houses would not be demolished. The article focuses primarily on female suicide bombers, following the debate in the Arab media over Hamas's dispatching of Reem Al-Riyashi, a mother of two, to carry out the January 14, 2004 bombing in Gaza. The following is the translation of the editorial : [1]
"We ask again, why do the various Palestinian organizations insist on publishing the name of everyone who carries out a martyrdom operation against the Zionist entity?
"We have no argument regarding the question of the legitimacy of these operations, because they are considered a powerful weapon used by the Palestinians against an enemy with no morality or religion, [an enemy] who has deadly weapons prohibited by international law, that is not deterred from using them against the defenseless Palestinian people.
"Even if during [a martyrdom operation] civilians or children are killed - the blame does not fall upon the Palestinians, but on those who forced them to turn to this modus operandi.
"Ultimately, we should bless every Palestinian man or woman who goes calmly to carry out a martyrdom operation, in order to receive a reward in the Hereafter, sacrificing her life for her religion and her homeland and knowing that she will never return from this operation.
"But at the same time, we wonder about the reason for publishing the names of those who carry out the [martyrdom] operations; [this publishing] is a valuable gift that the Palestinian resistance gives the Zionist entity, since as soon as it receives this gift, the armies of the [Zionist] entity hasten to the home of the martyr's family, wounded by the loss of its son, in order to multiply its pain by destroying its home. Moreover, the home of the martyr's family is always destroyed negligently, causing serious damage to or the collapse of the neighbor's home.
"We ask the leaders of these organizations: Give us one good reason for publishing the names of the martyrs whom, it can be assumed, martyred themselves for the religion, the homeland, and the people, and not for any other reason. The Lebanese resistance published [the names of] those who took this path during the years of the Zionist occupation [in Lebanon] without any logical justification. We were surprised that the Palestinian resistance is employing the same method, also without any justification. "This is even though the situation is different, as the Shahids in the case of Lebanon, such as Sanaa Muheidali and other women, lived in territories not under the control of the Zionist occupation, while in the Palestinian case, [they live under Zionist occupation]."
[1] Al-Masaa (Egypt), January 2, 2004.

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


John Kerry: Shredding documents and abandoning veterans
Ben Shapiro (archive)
February 11, 2004 | Print | Send
John Kerry is running as a Vietnam veteran. The Kerry campaign Web site states: "When John Kerry returned home from Vietnam, he joined his fellow veterans in vowing never to abandon future veterans of America's wars. Kerry's commitment to veterans has never wavered and stands strong to this day." But Kerry's resume tells a very different story.
Kerry's actions in Vietnam were heroic, but his actions upon his return were inexcusable. Kerry associated with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, a rabid anti-war group that defamed United States soldiers and often protested under the banner of the Viet Cong.
Kerry testified before Congress that American soldiers had "raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs ... poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam." He has never named anyone who committed these atrocious acts and admits that he never witnessed these war crimes. Kerry's words certainly contributed to fortifying Viet Cong morale and promoting Viet Cong interests.
Kerry's abandonment of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam wasn't over yet. When he became a senator, Kerry continued to stab Vietnam soldiers in the back. Kerry began pushing normalization of trade with Vietnam. To that purpose, he founded the Senate Select Committee for POW/MIA Affairs. Kerry became chair of the committee. In order to normalize trade, the Vietnamese government would have to prove that its hands were now clean with regard to POW/MIAs.
Kerry tried to erase the possibility that prisoners of war were still alive in captivity in Vietnam. I spoke Monday evening with Mike Benge, a POW/MIA activist. Benge was a civilian POW held from 1968 until 1973 by the North Vietnamese Army; he spent 27 months in solitary confinement, one year in a "black box," and one year in a cage in Cambodia. Benge accuses Sen. Kerry of shredding key papers documenting "live sightings of POWs in Vietnam and Laos" during the POW/MIA hearings. According to Benge, Kerry attempted to shred all copies to prevent leaks and future declassification of the materials.
John F. McCreary, a Defense Intelligence Agency analyst assigned to Kerry's committee, reported knowledge of Kerry's document shredding to Vice Chairman Bob Smith. A memorandum by McCreary explains: "Senator John Kerry ... told the Select Committee members that 'all copies' would be destroyed. This statement was made in the presence of the undersigned and of the Staff Chief Counsel who offered no protest." On April 9, 1992, McCreary verified that the original document was destroyed, as well as 14 copies. The memo continues: "On 15 April 1992, the Staff Chief Counsel, J. William Codinha ... ridiculed the Staff members for expressing their concerns; and replied, in response to questions about the potential consequences, 'Who's the injured party,' and 'How are they going to find out because its classified.'"
On April 16, Kerry stated that the original documents had remained in the Office of Senate Security all along, so nothing wrong had been done. Actually, this was not the case, according to McCreary: "the Staff Director had deposited a copy of the intelligence briefing text in the Office of Senate Security at 1307 on 16 April." In a classic CYA maneuver, Kerry had ordered a non-original copy of the document entered into the Office of Senate Security -- but only after protests from staff caused him to rethink complete destruction of the documents. As McCreary stated, this "constitute(d) an act to cover-up the destruction."
Mike Benge also told me that Kerry hung one POW/MIA testifier out to dry. Garnett "Bill" Bell was chief of the U.S. Office of POW/MIA Affairs in Hanoi when he testified before the Senate Select Committee. Benge says that he brokered a deal with Bell: Kerry would grant Bell immunity from retaliation by the Defense Department if Bell testified. Bell testified; the immunity never came. Bell was fired, Benge stated.
Normalization for Vietnam passed overwhelmingly in the Senate, largely due to Kerry's persistence. Kerry's pro-normalization views seem particularly strong when viewed in comparison with Kerry's other foreign-policy positions. Kerry has flip-flopped repeatedly on the war in Iraq, but his support for the Vietnamese government has been unwavering. According to Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby, in 2002 Kerry blocked the Vietnam Human Rights Act from coming to a vote.
Is John Kerry committed to Vietnam veterans? Perhaps the ones back in the United States. But for the Vietnam soldiers who died because Kerry provided aid and comfort to the Viet Cong, or the POWs who may have lived out their lives in cages, Kerry's lack of commitment had tragic consequences.
?2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Teresa Heinz Kerry: Bag Lady for the Radical Left
By Ben Johnson
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 13, 2004
With Matt Drudge's recent revelation that John Kerry is as faithful to his second wife as he was to his old Vietnam "brothers," the senator's presidential campaign may depend more than ever on the actions of his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry. While the mainstream media has thus far overlooked the alleged infidelity, media outlets have also overlooked a far more important story: The former Mrs. John Heinz is also in bed - financially - with the radical Left.
Teresa Heinz Kerry has financed the secretive Tides Foundation to the tune of more than $4 million over the years. The Tides Foundation, a "charity" established in 1976 by antiwar leftist activist Drummond Pike, distributes millions of dollars in grants every year to political organizations advocating far-Left causes. The Tides Foundation and its closely allied Tides Center, which was spun off from the Foundation in 1996 but run by Drummond Pike, distributed nearly $66 million in grants in 2002 alone. In all, Tides has distributed more than $300 million for the Left. These funds went to rabid antiwar demonstrators, anti-trade demonstrators, domestic Islamist organizations, pro-terrorists legal groups, environmentalists, abortion partisans, extremist homosexual activists and open borders advocates.
During the years 1995-2001, the Howard Heinz Endowment, which Heinz Kerry chairs, gave Tides more than $4.3 million. The combined Heinz Endowments (composed of the Howard Heinz Endowment and the Vira I. Heinz Endowment) donated $1.6 million to establish the Tides Center for Western Pennsylvania, a Pittsburgh office of the San Francisco-based Tides Center. Since that time, the local branch has tirelessly pushed an anti-business agenda in the name of "preserving the environment." However, it is the Tides Foundation's national organization whose connections are most disconcerting.
The Tides Foundation is a major source of revenue for some of the most extreme groups on the Left. Tides allows donors to anonymously contribute money to a host of causes; the donor simply makes the check out to Tides and instructs the Foundation where to forward the money. Tides does so, for a nominal fee. Drummond Pike told The Chronicle of Philanthropy, "Anonymity is very important to most of the people we work with." That becomes understandable when one views the list of Tides grant recipients. And who are the beneficiaries of this money?
The Antiwar Movement
Senator John F. Kerry has gone far with his nuanced view of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He voted for the war resolution but specified a litany of conditions the Bush administration must meet before he would support combat, then proceeded to vote against funding troops already in harm's way - then claimed he had always supported the president when Saddam Hussein was captured. The grant recipients of the Tides Foundation, to which Kerry's wife has steered more than $4 billion in "charitable" funds, understand no such nuance.
Tides established the Iraq Peace Fund and the Peace Strategies Fund to fund the antiwar movement. These projects fueled such hysterical protest organizations as MoveOn.org, the website that recently featured two separate commercials portraying George W. Bush as Adolf Hitler. (Howard Dean, not Kerry, won MoveOn.org's "virtual primary.")
The antiwar movement often boasted that MoveOn.org and the radical website Indymedia provided them "alternate media coverage." Indymedia, an enormous news and events bulletin board with local pages in most of the world's major cities, provided a vital link for radical activists often with violent agendas to coordinate their protests. Indymedia received $376,000 from the Tides Foundation.
The Institute for Global Communications is another leftist communications facilitator that received Tides grant money. IGC, which during the 1990s was the leading provider of web technology to the radical Left, links to "recommended sites" such as the War Resisters League (a group whose purpose is enabling peaceniks to refuse to pay taxes) and the leftist American Friends Service Committee. Most disturbing is the link to Ramsey Clark's International Action Center, which has supported Slobodan Milosevic and North Korean strongman Kim Jong-Il. The IAC is the force behind International ANSWER, which sponsored the major antiwar (and anti-Bush) rallies before the invasion of Iraq. When ANSWER was outed as a Communist organization, United for Peace and Justice, headed by longtime Communist Party member Leslie Cagan was created as a "moderate" alternative. UFPJ is also a Tides grant recipient.The Tides-funded "A Better Way Project," which opposed war in Iraq, also coordinated efforts of United for Peace and Justice and the Win Without War Coalition. The celebrity-laden Win Without War Coalition, along with the Bill Moyers-funded Florence and John Schumann Foundation, ran full-page ads in the New York Times opposing the War on Terrorism. This will not be the last overlapping of far-Left causes.
The Islamist Front
Immediately after 9/11, Tides formed a "9/11 Fund" to advocate a "peaceful national response" to the opening salvos of war. Part of the half-million dollars in grants the 9/11 Fund dispersed went to the New York Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project to protect the rights of homosexual Arabs. The Foundation replaced the 9/11 Fund with the "Democratic Justice Fund," which was established with the aid of George Soros' Open Society Institute. (Currency speculator and pro-drug advocate Soros is, like Teresa Heinz Kerry, a major contributor to Tides, having donated more than $7 million.) The Democratic Justice Fund seeks to ease restrictions on Muslim immigration to the United States, particularly from countries designated by the State Department as "terrorist nations."
Tides has also given grant money to the Council for American Islamic Relations. Ostensibly a "Muslim civil rights group," CAIR is in fact one of the leading anti-anti-terrorism organizations within the Wahhabi Lobby, with links to Hamas. CAIR regularly opposes and demonizes American efforts to fight terrorism, claiming, for instance, that Homeland Security measures are responsible for an undocumented surge in "hate crimes."
CAIR officials have reason to fight Bush's anti-terrorism measures: all too many CAIR officials are on the record supporting terrorism. CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad openly stated in 1994, "I am a supporter of the Hamas movement." Community Affairs Director Bassem K. Khafagi has been arrested for visa and bank fraud. Randall Royer, a Communications Specialist and Civil Rights Coordinator at CAIR, was arrested along with a group of Islamic radicals in Virginia for allegedly planning jihad. CAIR has defended terrorist "charities" shut down by the Bush administration. Every few months some CAIR campus official is arrested for aiding and abetting terrorism.
The Legal Matrix
The Tides Foundation has funded a number of the pillars of the radical legal establishment. Chief among these is the National Lawyers Guild, which began as a Commnist front organization and is proud of its lineage. At its recent convention last October, the concluding speaker was Lynne Stewart, an indicted terrorist NLG lawyer arrested for helping her client - convicted 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman - communicate with his terrorist cells in Egypt. In her speech, Stewart said she and her NLG comrades were carrying on a proud tradition of their forebears, past and present:
And modern heroes, dare I mention? Ho and Mao and Lenin, Fidel and Nelson Mandela and John Brown, Che Guevara who reminds us, "At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love." Our quests like theirs are to shake the very foundations of the continents.
More recently, the NLG has endorsed the March 20 call to End Colonial Occupation from Iraq to Palestine & Everywhere" organized by International ANSWER, and has posted a petition for "Post-Conviction Relief" for convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Tides' Peace Strategies Fund has funneled money to the Center for Constitutional Rights. The CCR was stablished by Sixties radical William Kunstler, defender of the Chicago 8, and Arthur Kinoy. The two also had plans to establish a new Communist Party. Executive Director Ron Daniels has been honored by the Communist Party USA for his work. Daniels also has a long and cordial relationship with racist, anti-Semitic "poet laureate" Amiri Baraka. Since 9/11, CCR has channeled its efforts into fighting every effective Homeland Security measure. They have opposed increasing the government's ability to wiretap Islamists suspected of plotting terrorism and moaned the sequestering of terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay was an unexcusable form of "racial profiling." CCR President Michael Ratner has portrayed American soldiers as the offenders, guilty of 9/11 by their Middle East policy and guilty of keeping Islamist killers "shackled, hooded and sedated during the 25 hour flight from Afghanistan." CCR has also defended Lynne Stewart's "innocence" in aiding Sheikh Rahman's Islamic Jihad.
Tides also funds the Alliance for Justice, a group dedicated to stopping Bush judicial appointees (a cause John Kerry can agree wholeheartedly endorse). Other Tides grants have gone to the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and the Asian Law Caucus.
Environmental Extremism
The Tides Foundation has funded the Ruckus Society, a group of anarchist Greens who rioted and looted Seattle during the 1999 World Trade Organization riots. The Tides Center of Western Pennsylvania, established in Pittsburgh with Heinz Family funds, advocates for environmentalist measures that have helped put holes in the Rust Belt's economy.
Tides money has also squashed free speech. Thanks to complaints generated by the Tides-funded Environmental Working Group, ABC cancelled a John Stossel piece exposing the misleading nature of environmental advocacy in public elementary schools.
Greenpeace is a well-known Tides grant recipient. Greenpeace is best known for its illegal actions, endangering humans in order to make a point about the environment. Tides gave Greenpeace a quarter of a million dollars over ten years.
Lest one think only Tides' money is going to radicals, not funds directly controlled by Teresa Heinz Kerry, remember that Heinz money has repeatedly found its way to the Earth Island Institute. On September 14, 2001, the Institute's website bore the headline "U.S. Responds to Terrorist Attacks with Self-Righteous Arrogance."
Heinz family philanthropic funds have also had some dubious effects on the presidential race. The League of Conservation Voters has recently endorsed John Kerry's presidential campaign. The Heinz Family Foundation gave LCV at least $20,000 and donated almost $250,000 to a member of the LCV board.
Perhaps this circular rotation of cash and endorsements should not surprise anyone. The grant-making institutions of the Left and their feverish recipients ultimately form an amorphous, leftist entity. One never needs to search very far to find connections between a leftist foundation and extreme advocacy groups. Teresa Heinz Kerry, George Soros, Bill Moyers and the Ford Foundation fund the Tides Foundation/Center; Tides funds the National Lawyers Guild, CAIR, MoveOn.org and United for Peace and Justice; those organizations then unite in fluid coalitions to protest against their common political enemies (Republicans). Ultimately, their representatives end up on Bill Moyers' PBS programs or active within the Democratic campaigns of their fundraisers. Between now and the election, these organizations will run constant interference for the Democratic presidential nominee (presumably Kerry himself): they will march en masse against the Bush administration again and again; they will file more lawsuits against the administration's Homeland Security measures, decry any effective response to terrorism, claim the United States is guilty of slaughtering Iraqi civilians and petition leftist judges to open America's borders to Islamist terrorists. After they help his election, President Kerry will be indebted to them. And then they will insist he begin implementing their political agenda.
Moreover, they will have a close ally in the East Wing of the White House, an ally more intimately tied to them than she is to her (second) husband. (She only adopted his last name and political party registration less than 18 months ago. "Politically, it's going to be Heinz Kerry," she recently said. "But I don't give a sh-t, you know?") Teresa Heinz Kerry will play a potent role in saving her second husband's presidential campaign now - as Hillary Clinton did in 1992, and again during her husband's impeachment. Like Hillary, in return for her service, Heinz may demand a place at the table for her pet causes. Caveat emptor.
Ben Johnson is Associate Editor of FrontPage Magazine.

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

>> OUR FRIEND KARZAI...

Inviting Terrorism
With Karzai's permission, Iran is establishing terrorist bases in Afghanistan.
Last Saturday, the Iranian government made an extraordinary announcement. The mullahs' Islamic Republic News Agency said that they had completed construction of ten "border outposts" inside the Harat province of Afghanistan. According to the report, these are in addition to others all along the border, inside Nimrouz, Sistan, Baluchestan, and Farah provinces. That the mullahs are doing this at all -- with the apparent consent of the Karzai government and without any objection from us -- is simply astounding. In effect, Karzai has invited them in to foment terrorism and insurgency against our forces and against his struggling government.
Iran is the central terrorist nation. Hezbollah -- the terrorists who operate as functionaries of Syria -- are backed and paid for by Tehran, as are several other terrorist organizations. Iran has admitted that several of the al Qaeda leadership are in Iran, supposedly under arrest, but more likely being given sanctuary and assistance. Iran, already well armed with missiles and WMD, has built several nuclear "research" sites, many of which are well buried to protect them from air strikes. They don't want to be the recipients of a message from Israel like the one that destroyed Iraq's Osirak facility in 1981.
As Undersecretary of State John Bolton explained last November, Iran's nuclear program is -- despite what the Clouseaus of the International Atomic Energy Agency say -- working hard to develop nuclear weapons. Enriched plutonium, which even the IAEA managed to find at one Iranian nuclear site, has no peaceful purpose. More than two years ago one of Iran's leaders, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, said that if the Islamic world can get nuclear weapons it should use them on Israel, because they can destroy Israel while the Islamic world would survive a nuclear counterattack. These are the people Karzai is inviting into his country.
The Iranians are being quite clever, saying that their Afghan outposts will be manned by "special police" for a campaign against poppy cultivation. Iran's interest in poppy production is the same as its interests in nuclear weapons: They don't plan on using nukes on themselves, and they have an active antidrug campaign that works against the heroin traffickers who try to sell their wares in Iran. But others cross Iran from Afghanistan to reach heroin labs in eastern Turkey and in the northern Kurdish region of Iraq. Heroin sales are used to finance terror. Intercepted al Qaeda shipments of heroin prove that well enough. The Iranians' having antidrug cops inside Afghanistan may aid them in stopping some shipments to local drug sellers, but it will also allow them to provide safe conduct for those shipments that are meant for their terrorist allies and operatives.
By allowing the Iranians in, the Afghans are providing them with the best cover they can get: a legal right to operate inside Afghanistan. The Iranians will catch a few "suspect" druggies to show the world that they're good guys. To better achieve their "mission" against poppy growing, Iranian forces will range over large areas of Afghanistan. They will claim that any interference in any of their operations is unlawful and only helps the drug smugglers. If American troops interfere in their terrorist operations, the Iranians will fight. There will be small skirmishes between Iranian "police" and our special-ops troops. But the Iranians don't want an open war against the United States, at least not yet. So they will complain to the Karzai government, which, having trapped itself, will have to ask us to leave the Iranians alone. The whole mess may end up in another drawn-out U.N. debate, which will blame America for helping the drug smugglers. We can't let it get that far.
At this writing, there are still about ten thousand American troops and eight thousand NATO troops in Afghanistan, trying to stabilize the country so that democracy can take hold. Facing them -- or, more accurately, operating in the shadows all around them -- are the resurgent Taliban, al Qaeda, and agents of both the Pakistani and Iranian regimes. Pakistan's military intelligence agency -- the ISI -- was instrumental in the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan and is allied with terrorist groups such as al Qaeda. Iran is more powerful, and thus more of an immediate threat to Afghanistan. The dozen Iranian outposts are also a direct challenge to the American and NATO forces. They will have to be watched every moment, and movement of people beyond their immediate vicinity will have to be stopped. This will tie up many of our special-ops troops, who are also out chasing the Taliban remnants and bin Laden himself.
The Iranians are setting themselves up to take Afghanistan by stealth, gradually and certainly. They will use their outposts to smuggle al Qaeda and Taliban operatives, as well as weapons and money, in and out of Afghanistan. They must be stopped with whatever force it takes. Otherwise, Iran's presence will grow, and so will its interference in the Afghan government's ability to establish security for its own people. The Iranians are preparing to fight a guerilla war against the Karzai government and the Western forces now in the country. They are readying the battlefield for a coming fight on their terms. We cannot allow this to proceed, and we need to force them out, but before we can we must persuade the Karzai government to reverse itself and deny the Iranians permission to enter Afghanistan.
If Afghanistan is free -- or at least free of the Taliban regime for the time being -- it is to President Bush's credit. But in Afghanistan, like Iraq, the battle is far from over. Karzai must act quickly and withdraw his permission for the Iranians to bring any police or troops into Afghanistan. The Iranians should be told to pack up and get out of town by sundown. If they don't, they should be evicted with whatever force may be required. Closing these outposts will not end infiltration from Iran, but it will make a stealthy invasion much harder.
-- NRO Contributor Jed Babbin was a deputy undersecretary of defense in the first Bush administration.
-------------------------------------------------------------

Southwestern Asia And The Middle East
Volume 8 Number 29
Friday, 13 February 2004
previous issue

ISLAMABAD CONCEDES POSSIBLE CROSS-BORDER RAIDS INTO AFGHANISTAN
Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf acknowledged on 12 February that Al-Qaeda and neo-Taliban elements might be using Pakistani territory to launch attacks inside Afghanistan, the Karachi-based daily "Dawn" reported the next day. "On the western border [with Afghanistan], certainly everything is not happening from Pakistan, but certainly something is happening from Pakistan," Musharraf said. "Let us not bluff ourselves.... Whatever is happening from Pakistan must be stopped. That is what we are trying to do." "Dawn" called Musharraf's de facto acknowledgment that militants and terrorists have been crossing his country's border into Afghanistan "Pakistan's most explicit admission" to date in the ongoing diplomatic feud over Islamabad's efforts to help curb cross-border insurgency. Western diplomats based in Islamabad have noted that Pakistan appears more willing to rein in the neo-Taliban since the new Afghan Constitution enshrined the rights of Pashtuns, Pakistan's recent allies in Afghanistan, the Karachi daily concluded. Afghan authorities have long asked Islamabad to do more to stop cross-border activities by militants. AT

PAKISTAN ARRESTS TWO SUSPECTED TERRORISTS NEAR AFGHAN BORDER
In a raid on a village near the Afghan border, Pakistani paramilitary troops arrested two suspected members of Al-Qaeda on 12 February, AP reported. The raid took place in the village of Mir Khankhel in Jamrud, 25 kilometers northwest of Peshawar, an area dominated by Afridi Pashtun tribesmen. The suspects are reportedly a Moroccan national, Abdul Rahman, and Adnan Khan Afridi, a local resident who is believed to have been sheltering Abdul Rahman, an unidentified Pakistani intelligence official was quoted as saying. The operation in Jamrud, which lies on a main road connecting Pakistan to eastern Afghanistan, is believed to be the first in the area, AP commented. AT

KABUL PAPER LAMENTS LACK OF SECURITY
The Kabul-based publication "Mosharekat-e Melli" wrote in a commentary on 10 February that insecurity is spreading in Afghanistan. The commentary claimed that while Afghanistan has been an insecure place in which to work and live for the last 25 years, last year marked the first time that international social workers were killed or attacked. "Mosharekat-e Melli" added that UN and other aid agencies have scaled back their activities in Afghanistan because of the surge in terrorist attacks. There are many domestic and foreign factors that "have increased barbarism and insecurity" in the country, the paper added. External factors include the insufficiency of financial contributions, a lack of policy coordination by Western countries, and "unsatisfactory cooperation of the neighboring countries like Pakistan in the eradication of terrorism," the paper said. The commentary listed several domestic problems, including a lack of progress in the disarmament process, the inability of the central government to extend its authority throughout the country, and unemployment. "Mosharekat-e Melli" warned that both Afghanistan and the world "will have to pay a great and heavy compensation" if extremists prevail. AT

TEHRAN REJECTS U.S. NUCLEAR CONCERNS
Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi during a 12 January visit to Rome rejected recent comments by U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton about Tehran's nuclear activities, IRNA and RFE/RL reported. "We have decided to develop nuclear technologies for peaceful purposes and we insist on that," Kharrazi said, according to RFE/RL. "This is our right, this is our legitimate right to have access to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes." Kharrazi added that Iran does not believe nuclear weapons would contribute to its security, and he said Tehran is ready to respond to IAEA inspectors' questions. Referring to reports claiming the discovery of undeclared Iranian nuclear activities (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 12 February 2004), Bolton said the same day, according to RFE/RL, "The information that the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] has learned is certainly consistent with the information that we had, and it's not surprising." BS

TEHRAN ACKNOWLEDGES NUCLEAR-CENTRIFUGE 'SUCCESS'
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Assefi said on 13 February that his country "has achieved major success in the technology of nuclear-fuel centrifuge," ISNA reported. International media reports the same day added details to a story about undeclared Iranian nuclear activities -- including a new centrifuge design -- that was broken by the "Financial Times" on 12 February (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 12 February 2004). "The Washington Post," the "Los Angeles Times," and "The New York Times" reported that UN inspectors discovered documents for a sophisticated uranium-enrichment machine referred to as P2 or G2, depending on the source. Tehran had not declared its possession of the technology previously, although it claimed to have been completely forthcoming in an October report to the IAEA (see "RFE/RL Iran Report," 27 October 2003). Henry Sokolski of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center said of the discovery: "This is like saying, 'I prohibited you from having any motorized vehicles, and you declared your motor scooter, and I discovered you had a Ferrari,'" the "Los Angeles Times" reported. BS

COALITION FOR IRAN ANNOUNCES CANDIDATE LIST
Campaigning for Iran's 20 February parliamentary elections began on 12 February, and the Coalition for Iran (Etelaf Bara-yi Iran) announced the same day a list of candidates it backs for Tehran's constituencies, ILNA reported. Coalition members include reformist groups like the Executives of Construction, the Militant Clerics Association (Majma-ye Ruhaniyun-e Mubarez), the Islamic Iran Solidarity Party, and the Shiraz wing of the Office for Strengthening Unity student organization. Normally the list of candidates for Tehran would contain 30 names, but the Guardians Council barred four of the coalition's choices. The better-known names on the list include the speaker of parliament, Hojatoleslam Mehdi Karrubi, as well as other members of the legislature, such as Hojatoleslam Majid Ansari, Elias Hazrati, Mahmud Doai, Ali Hashemi-Bahramani, Jamileh Kadivar, and Soheila Jelodarzadeh. BS

PROMINENT IRANIAN REFORMIST WITHDRAWS FROM PARLIAMENTARY RACE
Tehran parliamentary representative Hojatoleslam Ali Akbar Mohtashami-Pur told ISNA on 13 February that he has withdrawn from this month's parliamentary elections. In addition to being a prominent reformist, Mohtashami-Pur is a member of the Militant Clerics Association (Majma-ye Ruhaniyun-e Mubarez). Seyyed Hadi Pazhuheshi-Jahromi, the Khorasan Province Election Headquarters chief, said on 12 February that 30 candidates for the parliamentary elections pulled out of the race on the first day of campaigning, ISNA reported. He did not explain the withdrawals. Before the withdrawals, the Guardians Council listed 577 candidates in Khorasan Province. BS

UN ADVISER SAYS IRAQIS CLOSE TO CONSENSUS ON ELECTIONS...
A spokesman for UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on 12 February that Annan's adviser on Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, has told the secretary-general that Iraqis are closer to reaching a consensus on a timetable for elections following his weeklong trip there, AP reported. "There is wide agreement that elections must be carefully prepared and that they must be organized in technical, security, and political conditions that give the best chance of producing a result that reflects the wishes of the Iraqi electorate and thus contributes to long-term peace and security," Annan's spokesman Fred Eckhard said. "Everyone expects elections in 2005," Reuters quoted Eckhard as saying. "The question is what can be done before June 30 and, if it can't be elections, what other way can you find to establish a legitimate government." Meanwhile, Brahimi told CNN on 12 February that "what is encouraging is that I think [Iraqis] want to go toward the rule of law, they want to go toward a government that is representative and they all agree that this can best be done through elections. The question is, when are these elections possible?" KR

...AS IRAQI GOVERNING COUNCIL MEMBERS SCRAPPING CAUCUS IDEA
A number of Iraqi Governing Council members are reportedly moving away from a proposed U.S. plan to hold caucuses in Iraq to elect an interim Iraqi leadership, AP reported on 13 February. Several council members from different factions are now supporting a plan that would expand the Governing Council, which would assume power on the 30 June handover date. Nationwide direct elections would then be scheduled for later this year. The plan has the strongest support among the council's 13 Shi'ite representatives, according to AP. However, Sunni council member Samir Shakir Mahmud told the news agency that the proposal has not been finalized or discussed at length with UN adviser Brahimi. Meanwhile, Shi'ite Governing Council member Muwaffaq al-Rubay'i told AP that Shi'ite Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has pushed for early national direct elections, would support an expanded-council formula. Al-Sistani previously objected to the idea of an expanded council. KR

U.S. DEFENSE SECRETARY SAYS ARAB TELEVISION NETWORKS DAMAGED U.S. INTERESTS IN IRAQ
Al-Jazeera on 13 February quoted U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as saying that Arab television networks have damaged U.S. interests in Iraq by continuously broadcasting inaccurate information. "Undoubtedly, Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiyah caused us great damage and harm in Iraq by continuously broadcasting wrong and inaccurate information, impairing what the coalition forces are trying to achieve in Iraq," Rumsfeld was quoted as saying. "Attempts to compete with them in that part of the world is very difficult." Al-Jazeera did not report when or where the defense secretary made the comments. KR

U.S. COMMANDER'S CONVOY ATTACKED IN IRAQ
A convoy carrying U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) commander General John Abizaid was attacked on 12 February as it approached the headquarters of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC) in Al-Fallujah, the Coalition Provisional Authority's website (http://www.cpa-iraq.org) announced the same day. Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt told reporters during a weekly press briefing in Baghdad that militants fired three rocket-propelled grenades at Abizaid's convoy from nearby rooftops as the convoy approached the ICDC compound. "A local mosque was thought to be harboring the attackers, and [ICDC] soldiers conducted a search of the mosque without result," he said. Asked whether he believed the attackers had any prior knowledge that General Abizaid would be at the compound, Kimmitt said: "Whether we can directly link this attack to any foreknowledge...is a bit of a leap that we're not prepared to make at this time." KR

VALOR, WITHOUT RANCOR
By JOHN PODHORETZ
February 13, 2004 -- THE world is puzzling these days over the incomprehen sible tale of the young John Kerry -- a war hero who never stops invoking his own heroism and who felt no compunction about defaming hundreds of thousands of his fellow American troops by accusing them of committing horrible war crimes in Vietnam that never took place.
So it is beyond fortunate that just at this moment, the writer Harry Stein has come along to remind us there was (and there is) another way to come home from the horrors of battle -- a way that does not involve trashing your country and your compatriots, a way that involves looking to what is best in America and what is best in its people, in its traditions and in its soul.
Stein's wonderful book is called "The Girl Watchers Club," and there's really not been anything like it before. I guess you could call it "Tuesdays With Morrie" meets "Saving Private Ryan," except I wasn't really a fan of either. "The Girl Watchers Club" is moving, funny, powerful and instructive. As its subtitle promises, it teaches "lessons from the battlefields of life."
It's the true story of a group of men in their 70s and 80s who live in and around Monterey, Calif. -- all of them veterans of World War II, all of them changed forever either by the searing experience of battle or the wondrous experience of youthful involvement in a righteous communal cause.
They have been hanging out together for 50 years, and the book chronicles two years in their late lives as they struggle with astonishing good cheer against aging, ailing, family tragedies and death.
They are all very different -- Democrats and Republicans, Northerners and Southerners and Westerners.
Moe Turner, who is Stein's father-in-law, is a classic American eccentric who lives in Collier-Brothers-like overstuffed squalor. Boyd Huff is a quiet and gentle retired professor of history who makes a cheerful way through life despite having lost a son to a horrendous accident and another to schizophrenia. A modest fellow named Gene Cooper, who was instrumental in aiding in the technological development of television, expresses no bitterness that he received a check in 1950 large enough to buy a house with but not another penny for his labors.
What they all have in common is the war that forged them. They do not romanticize their experience in World War II -- they all gripe about what a pain it was to deal with the bureaucracy. And they have a tendency to downplay and push away the horrors to which they were witness.
Harry Handler may rib his buddies by saying that "every time I hear their [war] stories, they get more brave," but he only says it because it's not true. As for Handler himself, he was a 19-year-old second lieutenant in the Pacific theater who was forced to lead his men through the hellish battle to take the island of Okinawa. "Looking at that map was like reading your death warrant," he tells Stein.
Handler survived it. More than just survived, as Stein writes: "Handler is one of those men who will tell you that the war years were his making; that had he not served where and when he did, he'd likely never have acquired the fundamental seriousness of purpose that has shaped his life ever since."
Seriousness of purpose -- that's the real subject of Stein's book. These are men who learned to lead an ethical life. They were and are blessed with good marriages, and long marriages as well, to women from whom they would not cut and run when the going got tough.
The lives they have led since their war days sound ordinary -- building homes, raising children, going to work, playing golf, going to yard sales, retiring -- but in their ordinariness these men have achieved something very close to grace. They acknowledge that all the changes in American life since their youth have brought about great social progress, though they are all disgusted by the parlous state of the education system.
And yet they still possess what Stein calls "an abiding appreciation for the lost standards of the America in which they grew up. Yes, in many ways, some of incalculable importance, life in this country was far worse then. But in this vital way it was better: people didn't look for excuses and certainly weren't offered any; they expected a lot more of themselves."
John Podhoretz's new book is "Bush Country: How Dubya Became a Great President While Driving Liberals Insane" (www.bush-country.com). E-mail: podhoretz@nypost.com
--------------------------------------------------------------

Ex-Swedish Minister Won't Be Charged
ASSOCIATED PRESS
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) - Sweden's former migration minister will not face charges for calling President Bush "that damn old man from Texas," an investigator said Friday.
Jan O. Karlsson's comment during a press lunch in May 2003 was protected by free speech laws, Justice Chancellor Goeran Lambertz told the Swedish TT news agency.
The chancellor's office investigates complaints against government officials.
An unidentified person filed a complaint against Karlsson saying his statement was racist and demeaning to the U.S. government, TT reported.
Two days after the press lunch, Karlsson told The Associated Press he could not recall his exact words, but said he had expressed strong opinions about the U.S. policies on AIDS prevention and population control in developing countries.
Karlsson, who left the government in October, was often criticized in Swedish media for being too outspoken.

-----------------------------------------------
Ex-Halliburton Employees Tell of Overbilling
By Sue Pleming
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two ex-Halliburton employees told Democratic lawmakers that Vice President Dick Cheney's old energy company "routinely overcharged" for work it did for the U.S. military, the congressmen said on Thursday.
The Texas oil services giant, which is being examined by the military for possibly overcharging for services, has consistently denied allegations of overbilling.
The two ex-employees, who contacted U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who has been critical of Halliburton, worked for the Texas firm's procurement office in Kuwait. Waxman's office said the two quit for personal reasons.
Waxman and another Democrat, Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, wrote about the "whistle-blowers" in a letter to the Defense Contract Audit Agency, which is already looking into whether one of the company's subsidiaries overcharged for fuel it took into Iraq and for meals served to U.S. troops in the region.
Examples of wasteful spending given by the ex-employees ranged from leasing ordinary vehicles for $7,500 a month to seeking embroidered towels at a cost of $7.50 each when ordinary ones would have cost about a third of the price.
The DCAA confirmed it had received the letter. "The letter is under review. It would be premature to comment at this time," a spokeswoman said.
Halliburton unit Kellogg Brown and Root has a logistics contract with the U.S. military that has so far received more than $3.7 billion in business, mostly in Iraq. It also has contracts worth nearly $4 billion to rebuild Iraq's oil industry.
ONE IDENTIFIED
One of the employees, a field buyer identified as Henry Bunting, was to address a Senate Democratic Policy Committee hearing on Friday about alleged Iraq contracting abuses. Bunting could not be reached for comment.
The other whistle-blower, a procurement supervisor, was not identified by name.
Halliburton said it provides a toll-free hotline where employees can report concerns about business practices and had no record of complaints by Bunting or even anonymous complaints matching his set of facts.
"If he was so concerned about this information, we question why he did not raise the issue by means made available to him in the of the Code of Business Conduct information that he acknowledged receiving," said company spokeswoman Cathy Gist, in an e-mailed statement.
Halliburton is the U.S. military's biggest contractor in Iraq and the Pentagon's seventh biggest contractor overall.
The letter said senior Halliburton officials frequently told the employees high prices charged by vendors were not a problem.
"One whistle-blower said that a Halliburton motto was: 'Don't worry about price. It's cost plus," said the letter, referring to the practice of charging for a service and then adding a percentage fee as profit.
Halliburton has come under scrutiny by a number of U.S. government departments during the 2004 election year, leading the company to accuse Democrats of political mudslinging because of the company's former ties to Cheney.
Authorities are looking into a range of issues, from allegedly paying kickbacks in Nigeria to whether the company broke U.S. laws by dealing with Iran via a foreign subsidiary.
The company denies wrongdoing, except in the case of one or two former employees who it said may have paid $6.3 million in kickbacks to a Kuwaiti subcontractor.
Copyright ? Reuters 2004. All rights reserved.

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


Spanish Police Seize 10 Tons of Cocaine
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MADRID, Spain (AP) - Police seized about 10 tons of cocaine on a fishing boat off the Cape Verde Islands and arrested 13 people, authorities said Friday.
Spanish Civil Guards boarded the Belize-flagged boat about 1,000 miles from the island chain off the coast of West Africa, police said.
The cocaine was found wrapped in 215 parcels, each weighing about 55 pounds.
The crew of the "Lugo," all Colombians, were arrested. Six other six people - five Spanish men and a Dominican woman - also were arrested in connection with the seizure in Spain's northwestern region of Galicia, according to the police statement.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Chinese Workers Detained After Clashes
By ELAINE KURTENBACH Associated Press Writer
SHANGHAI, China (AP) - Workers at a textile factory in central China were hospitalized and others detained following clashes with police over the planned sale of a state-owned factory to a Hong Kong investor, local officials said Friday.
The protests began Feb. 8 when as many as 2,000 workers and retirees from the Tieshu Textile Factory in Suizhou, a city in Hubei province, blocked a rail line, according to the Hong Kong-based China Labor Bulletin.
It said a "violent confrontation" broke out when police attempted to disperse the crowd and prevent more workers from joining the protest.
At least one worker and two police were hospitalized with head injuries and as many as 20 workers were detained, the group said.
Local officials put the number of protesters at 1,000.
"The workers aren't satisfied with the compensation plan, and there are conflicts over the amount of money raised and the shares given to workers and management," said a senior official in the Suizhou city government, who said his surname was Yu.
"These can still be negotiated, and the government will try its best to make our people better off," Yu said.
Officials would not name the Hong Kong investor.
China has seen rising numbers of labor protests in recent years, with workers and retirees protesting unpaid wages, pensions and other benefits. In many cases, the workers charge that factory managers are selling off state assets for personal profit, denying them fair compensation.
Authorities have responded to such protests by satisfying some demands but also arresting and jailing organizers.
Yu denied that the plan to sell the company's assets amounted to corruption. He said provincial anti-graft officials had investigated and found no signs of malfeasance.
Like many other state-run factories struggling to stay afloat, the textile factory had been suspending production and restructuring over many months.
2004-02-13 18:37:14 GMT

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

>> NYC WATCH...

THE UNION VS. THE KIDS
Fri Feb 13, 3:02 AM ET Add Op/Ed - New York Post
Randi Weingarten and the union she heads have essentially declared war on Mayor Bloomberg.
A United Federation of Teachers advertisement charges that the mayor is going in the "wrong direction" in current contract talks.
"The mayor and chancellor want to take away teachers' ability to do what they do best -- teach," says the ad.
Translation: Bloomberg wants change -- but we think things are just fine.
But things aren't just fine.
Far from it.
The mayor, who won nominal control over the schools two years ago, now seeks to win functional control -- which means wresting it from the UFT.
Ostensibly, there are a lot of seemingly mundane and bread-and-butter topics at issue: Bloomberg seeks a reduction in the number of unused sick days that can be cashed in by retirees; more work days; an exchange of productivity gains for salary hikes; bonuses for teachers working in low-performing schools, and the elimination of sabbaticals.
Weingarten called the offer a "sham."
Which it most certainly is not.
It is about meaningful control.
While other mayors have demanded similar concessions, this is the first mayor who has the statutory authority to integrate them into a coherent management structure.
The point is to give school managers operational command of the school workforce -- a radical notion in New York, to be sure, but necessary if the public schools are ever again to function properly.
Count on one thing, though: When Weingarten yelps, it's because her institutional ox stands to be gored. Everybody believes in tough school standards -- until they start to bite.
So never mind the ads: They are not about the kids.
At the same time, Bloomberg himself needs to be faithful to the reforms he has already made.
He promised "zero tolerance" on school violence.
But when a student who brought a 12-inch knife into his high school earlier this week is welcomed back to class the very next day, as happened this week -- well, what does that say about the new policy?
We'd rather that kids who bring weapons to school be bounced out -- all the way to Rikers Island, if necessary.
As it is the weapons-toters are supposed to be suspended and placed in one of the city's euphemistically named "second-opportunity" schools.
But this knife-wielding thug wasn't.
Why not?
Bloomberg needs to send a message -- that he's serious enough about school safety to fire whoever was responsible for this specific security breakdown.
No teacher can fairly be expected to teach in a climate of fear.
Similarly, no student can be expected to learn in such an environment either.
The upcoming contract negotiations are going to be very tough -- but they have the possibility of being some of the most significant in the city's history.
It's not simply about bargaining over union salary and benefits.
It's about whether New York's children are going to get a real opportunity to learn in the days ahead.
Both Mayor Bloomberg and Randi Weingarten understand what's at stake.
Now they need to rise to the challenge.

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

>> "..."

On Unions and Education

by Deborah Meier
Despite popular impressions and dinner-table gossip, the problems of our schools, and above all of "school reform," are not the result of unions. I speak in part from personal experience over the past thirty-five years in New York City and Boston. The last big project I was involved with in New York, which required real courage on the part of all the major institutional powers, came to a screeching halt because everyone backed down except the teacher's union. We had asked for a "free zone"-constituting no more than 5 percent of New York's student population as an experiment in non-regulation (or at least vastly decreased regulation). The state, the city, and the Board of Education ended up backing away, but at no point did the United Federation of Teachers. Perhaps they would have if and when we really began to operate (except on matters of wages and working conditions) outside of the union contract. They weren't always enthusiastic supporters; they were skeptical from first to last and might have become more so if the idea had caught on. But that's speculation; in fact they never flinched. They saw the project, they said, as an experiment in providing a form of schooling that would produce better results for kids while also empowering classroom teachers.

My experience over the past five years in Boston is similar. The Pilot Schools project-involving at the start no more than 5 percent of Boston's students-was based on an agreement between the Boston Teachers Union and the Boston Public Schools to suspend all the regular contractual agreements as they applied to a dozen or so schools, provide a flexible per capita budget to each school, and allow freedom from other city-mandated requirements with regard to curriculum, scheduling, and staffing. Both the BTU and BPS soon lost their initial enthusiasm for the project-which they probably first saw as an answer to charter schools. But the BTU never went back on the original agreement. Small-scale quarrels between the pilots and the BPS, however, were and are constant as we negotiate each provision anew every year: Which budget item do we have control over and which do they? What voice do we have over state-provided "coaches"? Given the constraints of busing, what freedom do we actually have over scheduling? And so on. Because most of the daily issues relate to freedom from city, not union, rules it is hardly surprising that our frustration is usually focused on the "system." The major worry we hear from the union is whether these less constrained schools actually offer more power to classroom teachers rather than school principals. Both parties also worry that, under the label of autonomy, the Pilot Schools are choosier about which students they accept. Do they, for example, accept fewer troubled students? And both worry about what the consequences would be if the idea really spread-in terms of the impact on system-wide seniority, accountability, and so on.

These are legitimate issues. In a climate of high-stakes testing and increasing competition, many good reforms can turn into monsters. I'm disinclined of late even to call myself a school reformer. Too often it feels like deforming.

When I visited Houston, Texas, recently, I was alarmed at how many teachers came up to me to say that they couldn't speak out as I was doing and hold their jobs in Houston. There was a rule against speaking or writing against district policies. Georgia teachers, meeting with me at a summer institute in Massachusetts, literally whispered about their problems with testing. "Why are you whispering," I asked? "Because we could lose our jobs."
What do these two states have in common? Weak unions with no legal bargaining rights. So there is an eerie internal silence about issues of importance. Of course, the silence is not confined to Georgia and Texas. Even in a union stronghold like New York, much is not discussed that ought to be.

For example, there is no doubt that (some) small and more autonomous schools in New York have become choosier in whom they take, in a setting in which "ability" (and social class and race) tracking has returned with a vengeance. Small schools of choice have often become a kind of parallel "private school-like" network, with the same kind of rank order between the most elite and the least. This was true long before "choice" existed, as neighborhood schools that reflected social class and ethnic differences performed the same function as ability tracking. Similar tendencies could soon affect Boston's citywide schools of choice movement (which originally was instituted as a court-approved response to racial segregation)-especially now that all racial and ethnic categories have been eliminated in the current anti-affirmative action climate.

And the focus on "results"-setting standards as the basis of graduation rather than piling up credits or seat time, presented so powerfully by Ted Sizer in Horace's Compromise and pioneered by schools such as the Central Park East Secondary School that I helped found in 1985-has taken an odd turn. It has too often been used to increase the power of centralized authorities, of both superintendents and principals, and even more ominously of state politicians, with "standards" turning into standardized tests. And then the tests are enforced by state and federal mandates with detailed rewards and punishments for those dotting and not dotting their "i"s appropriately. Indeed, it is often assumed that reform means allowing those at the top of the hierarchy to act decisively-that is, outside of formally bargained rules-in order to get better results. Or it means abandoning the public system entirely for that alternate system of decision making: the free-well, sort of free-market.

But the evidence is pretty clear that although unions are a force to be reckoned with, and by nature conservative, especially in defense of basic teacher protections, they have not been a powerful force in preventing school reforms sought by mayors, governors, and local business coalitions-even those that undermine traditional teacher rights. Yes, of course, opposition or foot-dragging by the American Federation of Teachers or National Education Association makes such reforms harder to enact in states where unions are strong. But it's unlikely that serious reforms can be effective if they are enacted from the top down, without the enthusiastic support of those who must implement them. This is hardly an idea requiring complicated sociological theories. When I was a member of my local school board twenty years ago, we received a petition from 99 percent of the staff of a local junior high expressing their lack of confidence in the principal. I told my colleagues on the board that we really had only two choices if our focus was on teaching and learning: we had to get rid of most of the staff or remove the principal. The case is similar when top-down reforms are resisted by teachers: you can get rid of the teachers or learn to negotiate the reforms.

Yes, most unions-including teachers' unions with their highly educated membership-have a tendency to take on some of the qualities of the management they are counterpoised to. They get caught in their own power plays; they over-react, become rigid, and more. This is especially true when the local union serves a large district in which personal ties are difficult to maintain. And then teachers begin to see their union much as they see the rest of the system-impersonal, capricious, and inflexible, another hurdle to get around. They appreciate the union when they are dealing with a particularly vexatious principal or even with vexatious colleagues; they value it when it comes time to negotiate wages and benefits and to fight back against changes made without due process. But on a day-to-day basis, the union is just one more bureaucracy that has little to do with their working lives. A call to the union office is often just as frustrating as a call "downtown."

In schools where collegiality is high, and principal and teachers work easily together, many teachers feel even more estranged from their union. Teachers in small, successful communal schools often don't make their voices heard within the union; the voices of those who need the protection of rules and regulations are loudest and most powerful-as they should be! But this natural tendency sways the union into a more hostile or skeptical stance toward innovative schools where teachers appear not to need its protection-or where the protection they need may be from city hall, state legislators, the federal government, or from the union itself.

These are issues that won't easily be solved; and reformers-especially those who believe real reform must bring working teachers into greater positions of power over their schools-cannot ignore them. The imposition of greater authoritarian and bureaucratic controls over teachers, in the name of even the best curriculum and pedagogy, won't begin to tackle the decisive intellectual failings of our schools. In fact, it will exacerbate them on every front. It will make teaching less and less attractive to those considering a career-above all where they are most needed, in urban and rural schools serving low-income children, but also in many other places where creative work is taking place that could excite a new generation of teachers. The new authoritarianism is defended in the name of the "underprivileged," in the name of "ordinary" kids, on the theory that truly creative, high quality teaching cannot be brought to scale-so that the vast majority of the least well-off American kids cannot hope for that. At best they must thrive on highly bureaucratized, centralized, scripted mediocrity.

This repeats an old, old story. Democracy is only for the affluent. Indeed, it's partially true, and unions need to acknowledge the partial truth. But it's not the whole truth. You cannot take ordinary underpaid teachers and ordinary underfunded schools and turn them around in the face of only grudging compliance from the staff. Maybe you can't do it even with generous funding. Teachers will resist reforms and will only "comply" under duress, unless they own the reforms and believe in them. Of course, they resist; it is an honorable response to arbitrary power. If teachers didn't resist each new fad, they'd be lobotomized.

The intellectual need of the young, to become "critical thinkers," requires schools that dare tackle stuff worth being critical about; it requires teachers who have the authority and respect to model the critical stance in the company of their peers and to present truly controversial stuff to the young. But at present only the rich can afford such schools-largely in the private sector or in the more affluent suburbs.

Good thinking cannot be passed on to the young by uncritical and compliant teachers. But, some would argue, such qualities are a luxury for the poor-and open to abuse. Let the regular schools first prove themselves on the ABCs and then, someday, they too can get to "critical thinking." There's a certain logic to this, but it will not and cannot lead to high standards (although one can call any score on any test "high standard" or "proficient" if one has the power to do so).

The kind of workplace collaboration required by the graduates of our schools cannot be taught in schools focused only on rote learning or test prep or remediation. It cannot be learned where young people do not see adults serving as models of higher order thinking, but instead only experience adults struggling to follow the script or high-powered test preppers who zero in on what's really important: test scores, test scores, and test scores. We cannot tell kids that what counts is the quality of their language, their ability to think on their feet, to be reliable and responsible, to care about their community, to stand up and be counted, and to work well with others, if none of these in fact "count." In this setting, it is unlikely that children will learn what it takes-or even what it means-to be an effective member of a thoughtful adult society. And surely such schools cannot teach what collaboration, solidarity, and community mean when adults are mostly busy complying.

So, both union and management need to figure out how reform might be enacted with the collaboration of teachers, in a way that provides them with appropriate power over major and minor decisions. It may take longer to see such reforms take hold, but going faster in the wrong direction is no advantage at all! Here is what unions are best at doing-giving those closest to the action a voice, giving them respect and dignity. This is at the heart not only of teacher unions but of all unions everywhere.

Even industrial unions have found increased work-site voice important to the material success of auto plants (for example, the Saturn and Toyota plants), but the argument for its centrality when it comes to schools is far more powerful. It may not matter to the automobile whether it was produced by willing or unwilling workers (although the evidence suggests its users will notice the difference). But students are not automobiles, and the active intelligence of their teachers is central to the development of their own intelligence.

Oddly enough, quality control may matter more to auto-makers than to school-makers these days. Imagine if we were told that we can't afford to worry about whether the cars that come off the assembly line "work"-as we are told about the reforms we know are needed to make schools work. Small schools have proven effective, but they are too expensive, we're told. Not true if one counts the cost per graduate: in fact, they are cheaper if we count that way, at least in our urban communities.

Teachers can help Americans understand what works and doesn't work in our schools. Opinion polls confirm that they are still the most trusted group of public authorities in the country-ranking above mayors, governors, corporate CEOs, doctors, lawyers-and even principals! But when they join together to express their opinions, suddenly they turn into an "interest group" (unlike the Business Roundtable?). Yes, there have been occasions (rare, in fact) when teacher unions acted in ways that did not earn, or deserve, public trust-but compared to what and whom? To the corporate community?

When all is said and done, there's another reason why we need to worry about the public's perception of unions (and our own too). Not only are strong teacher unions critical to the success of teaching and learning, they are critical to the survival of the conditions needed to support teaching and learning. They are critical to the success of the mission of public schools in a democracy: to produce citizens who can effectively rule.

Although there are many folks out there who have a stake in good public schools, the only organized and experienced allies, committed over time and with the necessary expertise and resources, are the teachers' unions. Parents come and go, and given the incredibly busy lives of the women who once led parents' organizations (especially in those communities where the need is greatest), sustaining their political power is almost impossible. They have been effectively weakened-even more than teachers-and are rarely represented on state or national task forces, think tanks, or school boards.

Politically, the parents of the children who are least well served by our schools are precisely the ones who have the least political leverage. They are less likely to be citizens, let alone voters; they are rarely people with the time or skill to make themselves heard. The foundations that try to represent their views are also constrained when it comes to political lobbying, and those on the liberal end are less likely these days to be ideological allies of unions and teachers. So the weakening of union power quickly translates, locally and nationally, into less support for the least well-served students, above all, the urban or rural poor. There may be loud cries for higher test scores, but there will be little concern about the fairness of our school system so long as those most directly affected by its unfairness are politically impotent. It is easier to pass off half-truths to a politically active public that has no direct exposure to how the other half lives-that doesn't, in fact, include the other half!

But it is also important to say that the larger inequities that affect poor children-that depress their test scores and always have-are not directly related to schools. The achievement gap in schools is as nothing compared to the resources gap out of school.

And in correcting such inequities, strong unions-not just teacher unions-are the primary and steady vehicle; they are the only substantial counterpoint to the power of organized greed. In a society in which the income differential is steadily widening, the clamor about decreasing the academic gaps-even if the focus were not solely on standardized test scores-won't be serious until there is an organized and "interested" power bloc whose members stand to gain, in the here and now, from greater equity.

The balance of power in contemporary America is way off, and threatens to get worse, not better. Redressing this imbalance-with the social power of numbers versus resources-has been one of the central functions of trade unions since their inception. They have been the dependable ally of the least advantaged for a hundred years when it comes to issues of wages, safety, health care, retirement, subsidized housing, public transportation, and on and on. Even on issues of racial equality, the unions, although often mirroring the racism of the larger society, have been allies in political fights to expand civil rights for at least half a century. And on issues more removed from everyday working life-issues of civil liberties, prison reform, abortion rights-unions have historically been the allies of reformers. In the current climate, the tenuous and fragile balance that has existed since the New Deal has been decisively shifted, if not altogether shattered. Until it is restored, it isn't just good schooling, but the good life for vast numbers of our fellow citizens that is in jeopardy.

Thus, there are still many reasons why teachers and parents, and their friends and relatives, need to be the allies of their local teacher unions, even on those days when the unions make foolish mistakes, act with the same short-range self-interest as their opponents, and so on. The kind of support that is needed is not uncritical; it is not a matter of falling into line behind union leaders. But first and foremost, it means putting to rest the inaccurate idea that unions are to blame for the difficulties of school reform. Reforms are not always good, and change is not always in the interest of better learning. Healthy resistance is sometimes what we most need, side by side with thoughtful proposals for change-and this is what we will sorely miss if teachers' unions are defeated by the relentless hostility of their many opponents.

Deborah Meier founded the Central Park East schools in New York City and the Mission Hill School in Boston. She is author of The Power of Their Ideas, Will Standards Save Public Education?, and In Schools We Trust.


? 2004 Foundation for Study of Independent Ideas, Inc

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

NBER Reporter: Research Summary Winter 2004

The Economics of Education

Steven D. Levitt(1)


In recent years, I have written a number of papers related to the economics of education. This research agenda has three distinct strands. One set of papers analyzes the impact of school choice on student outcomes. A second line of research investigates teacher and administrator cheating on standardized tests, and explores how such behavior responds to the introduction of high-stakes testing. Third, I have examined Black-White test score differentials and the role that the educational system may play in contributing to those differences. I discuss these three sets of papers in turn.

The Impact of Public School Choice on Student Outcomes

In recent years, school choice has become an increasingly prominent feature of primary and secondary school education. With the passage of new federal legislation (No Child Left Behind), there is little doubt that the trend will continue. School choice comes in a variety of flavors. Vouchers and charter schools are two types of school choice which have received a great deal of both academic and media attention. A third type of school choice, open enrollment, is actually far more prevalent than either vouchers or charter schools. Under open enrollment, students within a public school district are able to attend schools other than their neighborhood school, including specially designated magnet schools. As of 1996, open enrollment was available in more than one in every seven school districts nationally, and in more than a third of large districts. Moreover, No Child Left Behind mandates that students in underperforming schools be provided the option to attend other schools in the district.

Along with co-authors Julie B. Cullen and Brian Jacob, I have written two papers that analyze the impact of open enrollment policies on student outcomes in the Chicago Public Schools (ChiPS). ChiPS represents an excellent laboratory for studying the impact of open enrollment. Chicago has been among the most aggressive cities in implementing this form of school choice, with more than half of the students in the system presently opting out of their neighborhood schools. Thus it may provide a window into what the future holds for other districts that are moving in the same direction. The Chicago data are also exceptionally rich, including not only detailed administrative records on attainment and test scores, but also attitudinal surveys administered periodically to students.

The first of these papers(2) starts with the observation that students who opt out of their local school to take advantage of open enrollment are 7.6 percentage points more likely to graduate from high school than peers who are observationally equivalent in eighth grade -- off of a baseline graduation rate of 50 percent. This increment to graduation is the same order of magnitude as the gap between students at Catholic and non-Catholic schools in previous studies.

There are several competing explanations for why students who opt out of their assigned school outperform those who stay behind. Higher graduation rates among those who opt out may be the result of these students attending better schools or finding a school that better matches their preferences. In either of these cases, the increased graduation rates represent the true benefits of open enrollment. There are, however, scenarios in which the students who take advantage of school choice outperform students who do not, but the differences in outcomes do not actually reflect real benefits of open enrollment. Higher graduation rates among those who opt out may be spurious if those who opt out are better on unobserved dimensions (for example, student motivation, parental involvement). In other words, the students who opt out may have systematically done better than other students, even if they had not left their assigned schools. Also, it is possible that the graduation gap is attributable not to the students who opt out doing better, but rather to the students who remain behind doing worse, since they have less able and motivated peers.

Our results suggest that, with the exception of career academies (that is, vocational schools that focus on practical skills), the benefits of school choice to students who opt out are illusory. There are three primary pieces of evidence supporting this claim. First, in a survey administered in eighth grade that asks students a wide range of questions about their expectations for the future, past educational record, and parental involvement, the responses are strongly correlated with both the likelihood of graduation and with the decision to opt out. This suggests that students who opt out would be expected to do better, even if they had to remain in their local school. The second piece of evidence is that students who live in areas with many nearby schools on average should derive the greatest benefit from the availability of school choice, because distance to nearby schools is a strong predictor of the likelihood that a student will opt out of the assigned school. Empirically, we find that easy access to a career academy is associated with substantial increases in graduation likelihood, but the same is not true for other types of schools, including high-achieving schools. Finally, when we compare student outcomes within a given school (in most schools in ChiPS some students are assigned and some opt in), we find that those opting in do the same as those assigned at career academies, but do much better at other schools. Since all students at a school experience similar peers and teacher quality, the fact that those opting in far outperform those assigned to the school reinforces the idea that those who opt in are systematically better than observationally similar students who make other schooling choices and would outperform them regardless, except at career academies.

Our second paper on this topic(3) exploits the fact that school choice causes desirable schools in ChiPS to be oversubscribed, and many of these schools use randomized lotteries to determine which students gain admission. We analyze data from 194 separate lotteries held to gain access to high school. One drawback of the data is that we only observe student outcomes if they enroll in ChiPS. To the extent that there is selective attrition, the inferences drawn from a simple comparison of outcomes of lottery winners and losers will be misleading. Relative to past studies (for example, the Milwaukee voucher experiment), however, attrition rates are low, with over 90 percent of the students remaining in ChiPS.

Empirically, we find that those students who win the lotteries attend what appear to be substantially better high schools -- for example, schools with higher achievement levels and graduation rates and lower levels of poverty. Nonetheless, consistent with our first paper discussed earlier, we find little evidence that attending these sought-after programs provides any benefit on a wide variety of traditional achievement measures, including standardized test scores, attendance rates, course-taking patterns, credit accumulation, or grades. We do, however, find evidence that attendance at such schools may improve non-traditional outcome measures, such as self-reported enjoyment of school, availability of computers, expectations for college attendance, and arrest rates. This suggests that schools may be influencing children in a variety of ways not generally captured by test scores. To the extent that these non-traditional measures help to predict life outcomes such as college attendance, labor market attachment, wages, and criminal involvement, an exclusive focus on test scores will be misleading.

An important caveat to interpreting the results of both of these papers is that we are only able to evaluate how access to a particular school affects educational outcomes for a student, holding constant the existence of a school choice program. We cannot estimate the overall impact of introducing a system of school choice, which might induce changes in residential location choice or in overall school quality due to increased competition.

Teacher Cheating

High-stakes testing, like school choice, has become an increasingly prominent feature of the educational landscape. Every state in the country, except Iowa, currently administers state-wide assessment tests to students in elementary and secondary school. Federal legislation requires states to test students annually in third through eighth grade and to judge the performance of schools based on student achievement scores.

The debate over high-stakes testing traditionally has pitted proponents arguing that such tests increase incentives for learning and hold schools accountable for their students' performance against opponents who argue that the emphasis on testing will lead teachers to substitute away from teaching other skills or topics not directly tested on the exam. Along with Brian Jacob, I have written two papers that explore a very different concern regarding high-stakes testing -- cheating on the part of teachers and administrators. As incentives for high test scores increase, unscrupulous teachers may be more likely to engage in a range of illicit activities, such as changing student responses on answer sheets, or filling in the blanks when a student fails to complete a section. Our work in this area represents the first systematic attempt to identify empirically the overall prevalence of teacher cheating and to analyze the factors that predict cheating.

To address these questions, we once again turn to data from the Chicago Public Schools, for which we have the question-by-question answers given by every student in grades 3-7 taking the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) over an eight year period. In the first paper,(4) we develop and test an algorithm for detecting cheating. Our approach uses two types of cheating indicators: unexpected test score fluctuations and unusual patterns of answers for students within a classroom. Teacher cheating increases the likelihood that students in a classroom will experience large, unexpected increases in test scores one year, followed by very small test score gains (or even declines) the following year. Teacher cheating, especially if done in an unsophisticated manner, is also likely to leave tell-tale signs in the form of blocks of identical answers, unusual patterns of correlations across student answers within the classroom, or unusual response patterns within a student's exam (for example, a student who answers a number of very difficult questions correctly while missing many simple questions).

Empirically, we find evidence of cheating in approximately 4 to 5 percent of the classes in our sample. For two reasons, this estimate is likely to be a lower bound on the true incidence of cheating. First, we focus only on the most egregious type of cheating, where teachers systematically alter student test forms. There are other more subtle ways in which teachers can cheat, such as providing extra time to students, that our algorithm is unlikely to detect. Second, even when test forms are altered, our approach is only partially successful in detecting illicit behavior. We then demonstrate that the prevalence of cheating responds to relatively minor changes in teacher incentives. The importance of standardized tests in the ChiPS increased substantially with a change in leadership in 1996. Schools that scored low on reading tests were placed on probation and faced the threat of reconstitution. Following the introduction of this policy, the prevalence of cheating rose sharply in classrooms with large numbers of low-achieving students. In contrast, schools with average or higher-achieving students, which were at low risk for probation, showed no increase in cheating.

Our second paper on this topic(5) reports on the results of an unusual policy implementation of our cheating detection tools. We were invited by ChiPS to design and implement auditing and retesting procedures implementing our methods. Using that cheating detection algorithm, we selected roughly 120 classrooms to be retested on the Spring 2002 ITBS. The classrooms retested include not only cases suspected of cheating, but also classrooms that had achieved large gains but were not suspected of cheating, as well as a randomly selected control group. As a consequence, the implementation also allowed a prospective test of the validity of the tools we developed in our first paper on the subject.

The results of the retesting provided strong support for the effectiveness of the cheating detection algorithm. Classrooms suspected of cheating experienced large declines in test scores (on average about one grade equivalent, although in some cases the fall in mean classroom test scores was over three grade equivalents) when retested under controlled conditions. In contrast, classrooms not suspected of cheating a priori maintained virtually all of their gains on the retest. As a consequence of these audits and subsequent investigations, disciplinary action was brought against a substantial number of teachers, test administrators, and principals.

Black-White Test Score Gaps Early in Life and the Contribution of Schools

The Black-White test score gap is a robust empirical regularity. A simple comparison of mean test scores typically finds Black students scoring roughly one standard deviation below White students on standardized tests. Even after controlling for a wide range of covariates including family structure, socioeconomic status, measures of school quality, and neighborhood characteristics, a substantial racial gap in test scores persists.

In a paper joint with Roland Fryer,(6) I revisit this topic with a newly collected data set, the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K). The survey covers a sample of more than 20,000 children entering kindergarten in the fall of 1998. The original sample of students has subsequently been re-interviewed in the spring of kindergarten and first grade.

The results we obtain using these new data are informative and in some cases quite surprising. As in previous datasets, we observe substantial racial differences in test scores in the raw data: Black kindergartners score on average .64 standard deviations worse than Whites. In stark contrast to earlier studies (including those looking at kindergartners), however, after controlling for a small number of other observable characteristics (children's age, child's birth weight, a socio-economic status measure, WIC participation, mother's age at first birth, and number of children's books in the home), we essentially eliminate the Black-White test score gap in math and reading for students entering kindergarten. While there are numerous possible explanations for why our results differ so sharply from earlier research, we conclude that real gains by recent cohorts of Blacks are likely to be an important part of the explanation.

Despite the fact that we see no difference in initial test scores for observationally equivalent Black and White children when they enter kindergarten, their paths diverge once they are in school. Between the beginning of kindergarten and the end of first grade, Black students lose .20 standard deviations (approximately .10 standard deviation each year) relative to White students with similar characteristics. The leading explanation for the worse trajectory of Black students in our sample is that they attend lower quality schools. When we compare the change in test scores over time for Blacks and Whites attending the same school, Black students lose only a third as much ground as they do relative to Whites in the overall sample. This result suggests that differences in quality across schools attended by Whites and Blacks is likely to be an important part of the story. Interestingly, along "traditional" dimensions of school quality (class size, teacher education, computer-to-student ratio, and so on), Blacks and Whites attend schools that are similar. On a wide range of "non-standard" school inputs (for example, gang problems in school, percent of students on free lunch, amount of loitering in front of school by non-students, amount of litter around the school, whether or not students need hall passes, and PTA funding), Blacks do appear to be attending much worse schools. Other explanations for the divergence in Black-White test scores, such as a greater "summer setback" for Blacks when school is not in session, or discrimination by teachers against Blacks, find no support in our data.

1. Levitt is a Research Associate in the NBER's Programs on Public Economics, Law and Economics, Children, and Education. He is also a Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago.

2. J. B. Cullen, B. Jacob, and S. D. Levitt, "The Impact of School Choice on Student Outcomes: An Analysis of the Chicago Public Schools," NBER Working Paper No. 7888, September 2000, forthcoming in Journal of Public Economics.

3. J. B. Cullen, B. Jacob, and S. D. Levitt, "The Effect of School Choice on Student Outcomes: Evidence from Randomized Lotteries," forthcoming as an NBER Working Paper.

4. B. Jacob and S. D. Levitt, "Rotten Apples: An Investigation of the Prevalence and Predictors of Teacher Cheating," NBER Working Paper No. 9413, January 2003, and Quarterly Journal of Economics, 117 (August 2003), pp. 843-77.

5. B. Jacob and S. D. Levitt, "Catching Cheating Teachers: The Results of an Unusual Experiment in Implementing Theory," NBER Working Paper No. 9414, January 2003, and Brookings-Wharton Papers on Urban Affairs, 2003.

6. R. Fryer and S. D. Levitt, "Understanding the Black-White Test Score Gap in the First Two Years of School," NBER Working Paper No. 8975, June 2002, forthcoming in Review of Economics and Statistics.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>> MS. NOONAN...

The Paragraph
Help the White House make the case for re-election.
Thursday, February 12, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST
When you are a conservative and tend to support conservatives, it will come as a surprise, and an unwelcome one, when you ding one, as I dinged President Bush the other day about his "Meet the Press" performance. Of those who responded, about 60% disagreed with me, and the rest were more or less in agreement. Many of those who disagreed with me said they thought the president had done well with Tim Russert, that the interview made clear his decency and sincerity. Others said I was kicking the president when he's down and that's the problem with conservative pundits, they can't be trusted. My answer is the obvious one: It is the job of a writer to write the truth as he sees it, and if it's an uncomfortable truth, then so be it.
But here's what was most interesting to me. The letters in disagreement were often passionate and insisted that Mr. Bush will be re-elected. They were so insistent that I realized: They're nervous out there, the Bush people. If they weren't so nervous, they wouldn't have cared about bad reviews. They wouldn't have been so insistent.
So today, in an attempt to harness and refocus the passion of Bush supporters, a contest. Let's go all Deanian and unleash the power of the internet.
It is February 2004. In nine months, the big election. The White House, even as I type, is in the process of preparing a huge and high-stakes campaign. They have a foe to fight, money with which to fight the foe, and loyal troops who will march.
When the president's men gather to come up with the themes and rhetorical approaches of 2004, there's a big question that more often goes unarticulated, and unnoticed. It is: How to make it new.
Mr. Bush has been president three years. He has presided over a time of dense history. Most of the voters in the country have been paying more attention than usual. We know what's happened.
The Bush people have to roll it all into, say, one speech, which can be distilled to one paragraph, which people will distill to a sentence or two to explain to themselves and others why they support the president for re-election.
Just about now they'd be coming up with the paragraph.
But as they do it they have to make it new. To make you look and notice they have to make it fresh, and succinct, something you believe and remember. And it's got to be true. When the paragraph a president's men come up with is not true, they lose. Jimmy Carter's paragraph in 1980 was: We're not so bad, and at least you know us, and Jimmy is a nice man, and by the way that Reagan guy is just too extreme and radical and right-wingy and nutty. People didn't find Ronald Reagan too extreme. And he wasn't too extreme. He seemed like a possible antidote to failure--Jimmy Carter's failure in the world. The paragraph wasn't true. Mr. Carter lost in a landslide.
Is it easy for a White House to come up with paragraph? No. It's hard. There's so much to say, you don't know what to say.
After a while, presidential staffers become so immersed in the sheer grinding dailyness of the White House that it's hard to step out of the thought stream and characterize it in a new way. Years from now they'll do that in their memoirs, capture the big meanings. But it's hard to do it now, when they're immersed.
Another thing. By the end of a first term, White House staffers have been exhausted by history. Every White House is high stress and high stakes 24/7, 365. You get so tired that your ability to judge your fatigue becomes dull, and you don't even know how tired you are. This White House has dealt with more history and drama than many. When I worked in the White House I used to imagine that when I left I'd do what the Broadway producer Leland Hayward used to do after an opening night. He was so sleep-deprived by the time a show was mounted that he'd go to bed and wake up only to drink milk. He'd sleep 10 hours, get up, drink milk, and go back to bed for another 10 hours. He'd do that for days.
In the past, in the White Houses of Kennedy and LBJ and Nixon, it was tense and grueling, and staffers in those days often dealt with the dailyness of the tension by doing the kinds of things people used to do. They smoked and drank and stayed up late and had intense discussions about the tragedy of governance, and then they'd write it all down in drunken sprawls in their diaries. They partied hearty and thought hard. That stopped in the 1980s. The last sort of rocking White House was that of the abstemious Baptist Mr. Carter, whose young aides flocked to the bars of Georgetown. That's how Hamilton Jordan got in trouble for spitting Amaretto at the Egyptian ambassador's wife. Those were the days.
Now things are so clean that the other night I bumped into an aide to the president and asked with concern if the grueling routine was getting to him, and was he trying to get away from the office enough and go for a hike and get time away from things, room to daydream. He thought for a moment and then told me that on those days that he did not begin with prayer, he became tired. But otherwise, no. He told me the president was in the office at 6:45 a.m. and usually leaves at 6 p.m., so everyone got to go home. I found this remarkable. Not that I hadn't heard it before, I had, we all have, but I thought it was spin. I didn't know it was really true. When I worked for Mr. Reagan I was there till 11 p.m. Anyway, what the aide said seemed so sane and moderate I didn't know whether I wanted to compliment him or smack him. He was rather priggish, but it sounded like he was doing everything right.
A final note on a challenge for this particular administration in putting together the re-election paragraph and making it new. Normally White Houses have a built-in fear of their own political base. It's the base that holds a president's feet to the fire. The anxiety a base causes can be inspirational; it keeps you on your toes. George Bush the elder forgot to fear his base; they reminded him why he should have. George Bush the younger has, since 9/11, been very close with his base. But now, for the first time, that base is a little restless--over immigration, high spending, etc. And the vast American middle has yet to be nailed down. Which means the Bush White House is in a challenging time. They are not used to this kind of challenge. They've been through, every day, a bad time from the world, from terror and diplomatic stress. But they have been on a pretty unbroken winning streak in terms of popularity.
They don't know how to be scared. They probably can't wrap their brains around the idea they should be. Or rather in the abstract they know they should be--they read the papers--but in the particular, in their minds and souls, I doubt they have fully wrapped their brains around it. Which is too bad, because fear makes you sharp.
Now for our challenge. What should the Bush paragraph consist of? How to make it new? How to make it memorable, and true? Readers, you are invited to wrap up in one paragraph what the Bush campaign should say as it unveils itself anew. The White House reads this site. They'll see it. Take the floor and tell them how to do it.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag" (Wall Street Journal Books/Simon & Schuster), which you can buy from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Thursdays.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Polish Company to Be Probed on Iraq Deal
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WARSAW, Poland (AP) - Prosecutors are investigating a Polish company - part of a U.S.-based consortium chosen to equip a new Iraqi army - over allegations it does not have permission to sell weapons abroad, Justice Minister Grzegorz Kurczuk said Friday.
The investigation comes after Polish news reports that Ostrowski Arms is not licensed to export the guns and explosives it is subcontracted to supply for a new Iraq army as part of Nour USA's successful bid.
Polish arms maker Bumar PHZ lost the bid and has asked coalition authorities in Iraq for a detailed explanation of Nour USA's offer. Bumar bid $560 million while Nour USA's winning bid was $327 million. Bumar maintains it would be impossible to meet the technical requirements of the contract for that price.
Poland, which supported the invasion of Iraq and commands nearly 10,000 peacekeepers there, had hoped to be rewarded with an order for the struggling government-owned arms maker.

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

Saddam's Brother-In-Law Refused Asylum
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LONDON (AP) - A brother-in-law of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein who sought asylum in Britain last year was refused the right to residency, the government said Friday.
British authorities had not previously spoken of the application by Emad Noures, but in response to a question from a local lawmaker, the Department for Constitutional Affairs said the asylum application was turned down in October.
The department also said a court in Stoke-on-Trent, central England, had rejected an appeal of the ruling.
"Adjudicator Kenneth Gillance would like to make it clear that the asylum appeal of Mr. Emad Noures and family was dismissed on both asylum and human rights grounds," said the statement on behalf of the Immigration Appellate Authority.
The department said Noures' wife was the sister of the captured Iraqi dictator's second wife, Samira Shahbandar.
Officials had previously refused to discuss the result of Noures' application, saying the matter was confidential. The government announced the decision after Mark Fisher, a lawmaker who represents Stoke-on-Trent, filed a query in Parliament last month asking to know the outcome of the hearing.
Noures' whereabouts were unknown.

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

Qatari Gov't: Yandarbiyev Assassinated
By JABER AL-HARMI
ASSOCIATED PRESS
DOHA, Qatar (AP) -
Former Chechen President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev was assassinated in an explosion that destroyed his car Friday, the Qatari government said.
Yandarbiyev's teenage son was critically wounded in the blast, which occurred as he and his father were driving away from a mosque where they had performed Friday prayers, said the Interior Ministry and a local hospital.
"We are collecting evidence in order to reach the perpetrators," Qatar's chief of security, Mubarak al-Nasr, said on the pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera, which is based in the country.
Yandarbiyev, who was acting president of Chechnya in 1996-97, had been linked to the al-Qaida terror group. Russia had been seeking his extradition from Qatar, where he lived for at least three years, accusing him of ties to kidnappers and international terrorists.
Al-Jazeera and fellow Arabic satellite channel Al-Arabiya reported that two people were killed in the explosion. But the Interior Ministry did not confirm this.
An Interior Ministry official said the explosion at 12:45 p.m. killed Yandarbiyev and injured his 13-year-old son, the official Qatar News Agency reported.
A doctor at Hamad General Hospital told The Associated Press that Yandarbiyev died on his way to the hospital. The doctor said his son was in critical condition.
The doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the father and son were the only casualties brought to the hospital.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast. Such explosions are almost unheard of in Qatar, a quiet state with tight security.
Last year, the United Nations put Yandarbiyev on a list of people with alleged links to the al-Qaida terrorist group, which is blamed for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. The U.S. government also put Yandarbiyev on a list of international terrorists who are subject to financial sanctions.
Yandarbiyev was considered a key link in the Chechen rebels' finance network, channeling funds from abroad. He had denied that the Chechen rebels had ties to al-Qaida.
"Yandarbiyev was the main ideologue of the separatists, and therefore of the terrorist organizations bringing Chechnya to such severe consequences," said the president of the Moscow-backed Chechen government, Akhmad Kadyrov.
"He is guilty of everything that has happened," Kadyrov said, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.
The Russian Embassy in Doha had no immediate comment on the killing.
Boris Labusov, a spokesman for Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, a successor to the KGB, said his agency had nothing to do with Yandarbiyev's death, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
A Russian member of parliament, Nikolai Kovalyov, a former director of the Federal Security Service, told Interfax that the killing was probably a vendetta.
"Knowing the (Chechen) national traditions, I would assume that it must have been the result of a blood feud, as they are never forgotten and passed from generation to generation," Kovalyov said.
Al-Jazeera reported the explosion occurred after Yandarbiyev had prayed at a mosque in the upscale residential area of al-Dafnah, a northern suburb of Doha. He had driven only 300 yards from the mosque when the blast happened.
The channel showed a badly mangled and burned SUV, with only its white fender still recognizable. A body, completely wrapped in white sheet, was loaded into a waiting ambulance.
An hour later, the scene was almost clear of debris. A few workers were picking up the last remnants.
Yandarbiyev, who was born in 1952, became vice president of Chechnya under separatist president Dzhokhar Dudayev. He served as acting president during Chechnya's de facto independence in 1996-97. In 1996, he led the rebel delegation in peace negotiations with Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin.
A poet and author of children's book, Yandarbiyev became one of the most prominent proponents of radical Islam among the Chechen rebels. He came in third in Chechnya's 1997 presidential elections, behind moderate Aslan Maskhadov and the fiery rebel Shamil Basayev.
During the rule of the Islamic militant Taliban in Aghanistan in 1996-2001, Yandarbiyev opened a Chechen Embassy in the Aghan capital, Kabul, and a consulate in the southern city of Kandahar.

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

Barrier Route Change May Have Aided Israel
By GAVIN RABINOWITZ
ASSOCIATED PRESS
JERUSALEM (AP) -
Changes in the proposed route of the West Bank separation barrier could have helped Israel's case before the world court, a government legal adviser said Friday.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said in recent weeks he is considering steps, including route changes, to ease the hardship for Palestinians. Sharon reportedly is ready to move the barrier further westward, closer to Israel, in some areas.
Israel announced Thursday it won't take part in oral hearings before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, saying the judges don't have the authority to rule on the case. The hearings begin Feb. 23.
"If we had changed the route earlier, it could have had an effect (on the hearing). It would have taken the wind out of their (the opponents') sails," said Irit Kahan, head of the international division in Israel's attorney general's office.
"Already some time ago, the government realized that the route of the fence was problematic but they didn't begin to change it in time for the court discussion," Kahan told The Associated Press.
"The issue is not the fence itself, but the route of the fence," Kahan said.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said Israel's decision not to attend the U.N.-mandated court was only the latest instance of Israeli noncooperation with the United Nations.
"They are refusing not only the court of The Hague but many of the United Nations resolutions," he told reporters, in English, at his Ramallah headquarters. "This court of The Hague is according to U.N. resolutions but in spite of that, they are refusing to implement and follow up to it."
Israel says it needs the barrier - a system of fences, trenches and walls that could run for up to 440 miles - to keep out Palestinian attackers.
The Palestinians charge that the barrier constitutes a land grab, since it cuts deep into the West Bank at points to include several Jewish settlements on the "Israeli" side, and it disrupts the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians who can't reach jobs, schools and farmland.
Israel TV's Channel Two reported Thursday that Sharon has decided to shorten the planned route and that three Jewish settlements - Emmanuel, Karnei Shomron and Kedumim - would now be left on the "Palestinian" side of the barrier.
Sharon's office confirmed he is considering changes in the route but would not elaborate.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said the barrier is an attempt by Israel to annex Palestinian land. "If Israel wants to build a security fence, it should do it around its own border," Shaath told a news conference in Tokyo on Friday.
Palestinians fear that the barrier, together with an emerging plan by Sharon for a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank, would torpedo their hopes to set up a state in all these areas.
Sharon said he would go ahead with the one-sided move if there is no progress on the U.S. backed "road map" peace plan in the next few months. The plan has ground to a standstill, with both sides not living up to commitments.
On Thursday, Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States supports the dismantling of settlements. He said U.S. representatives will travel to the region in coming days to "make sure we understand them (Sharon's ideas), and how we can use those ideas and hopefully movement on the Palestinian side in security to get this process moving."
French President Jacques Chirac, meanwhile, criticized the West Bank barrier and said it would hamper chances of a two-state solution to the conflict.
"The current route is not in accordance with international law," Chirac said in an interview published Friday in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot.
"The chosen route ... cuts off thousands of Palestinians from their land and makes life difficult for the Palestinian people who are already suffering on a daily basis," Chirac told Yediot.
In other developments Friday:
- The body of a Palestinian man was found in a bullet-riddled car in a field near the West Bank town of Qabatiya. The army said a patrol had come under fire from a vehicle that tried to flee at high speed. Soldiers gave chase and opened fire after the car refused to stop. Rescue workers said dead man was unarmed.
- Israel said it arrested a 27-year-old Palestinian nurse Feb. 11 on suspicion she acted as a conduit between the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah and a Palestinian militant who had allegedly taken refuge in Arafat's headquarters. Palestinian security officials say the militant and another man were arrested Friday by Palestinian forces at the request of the United States. U.S. officials could not immediately be reached for comment Friday.
- In an Israeli hospital, a Palestinian militant died of wounds sustained in a Feb. 1. firefight with troops in the West Bank town of Jericho.
- In Bethlehem, the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militia loosely linked to Arafat's Fatah party, said it killed a local man, Khaled Abu Assal, 28, after he allegedly confessed to collaborating with Israel. The body was found dumped in a nearby neighborhood.

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

Ship Sinks As Snowstorm Sweeps Turkey
By ESRA AYGIN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ISTANBUL, Turkey (AP) -
Rescuers battled strong winds Friday in the search for 21 crew members of a cargo ship that sank in the Black Sea as a snowstorm sweeping out of the Balkans disrupted travel across Turkey and Greece.
The storm dumped up to 14 inches of snow in Istanbul, and lesser amounts fell in Athens, blanketing the Acropolis and other ancient monuments. Athens' airport was shut down, as was ferry service to several Greek islands, which also lost power.
Temperatures plunged to 15 degrees in northern suburbs of the Greek capital - a 30-year record, and fell to zero in northern Greece. Istanbul recorded a low of 24 degrees.
The Turkish coast guard searched for the crew of the 592-foot coal freighter Hera, a Cambodian-flagged vessel that sank near the entrance of the Bosporus, said official Baris Tozar. Strong winds were disrupting rescue efforts, he said.
Two other cargo ships collided because of poor visibility, leaving one crew member missing. Two more ships ran aground due to strong winds, as the storm forced officials to close the Bosporus and Dardanelles to traffic for a second day.
Authorities canceled flights at Istanbul's main airport, stranding thousands of passengers. Former Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, who visited Turkey on Thursday, was among those stuck in Istanbul, the Anatolia news agency said.
The storm closed roads and schools, knocked out power to some Istanbul neighborhoods and forced city officials turned a sports complex into an emergency shelter for about 100 homeless.
In Greece, hundreds of motorists were stranded by the snow along a main highway, and the military sent armored personnel carriers to help.
"The priority is to free these people before nightfall and before the temperatures drop again," Interior Minister Nikos Alivizatos said. "We're advising people to stay indoors and not use the roads."
Rescuers handed out blankets and dried food to the stuck travelers who were unprepared for the weather, he said.
All planes were grounded at Athens International Airport and flights to the capital were diverted to other cities. Thirteen regional airports were also closed, and ferry services were canceled.
An emergency was declared for three Aegean Sea islands - Tinos, Andros and Syros - which were left without power. Most schools around the country were closed.
Ambulance services were flooded with calls.
The snow disrupted Greece's election campaign, which is in full swing ahead of the March 7 balloting. Candidates canceled appearances and instead donned heavy coats to tour snowbound suburbs and shelters.
Socialist candidate George Papandreou had been due to hand over his portfolio as foreign minister to his deputy, Tassos Giannistis, but the ceremony was postponed.
In Romania, high waves and winds gusting to 50 mph disrupted shipping at three Black Sea ports and halted navigation on parts of the Danube.
Two cargo vessels put out to sea from the port of Constanta-South Agigea to avoid being damaged. Authorities were working to bring the vessels back into port, said Capt. Alexandru Mezei, head of the local naval authority.
Snow and ice slowed road traffic in the country and forced the closure of several mountain roads in northern Romania. Temperatures plunged to 31 below zero in central Romania, while in the capital of Bucharest, a low of 9 below was recorded, making it the coldest day of the year.

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

Venezuela Cautioned on Recall Petitions
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -
The Organization of American States and the U.S.-based Carter Center cautioned Venezuelan election officials Friday against using technicalities to reject petitions for a recall vote against President Hugo Chavez.
"The signer's will and intention should be privileged over any technicality," said Jennifer McCoy, director of the Carter Center's Americas program, after she and OAS delegate Fernando Jaramillo met with National Elections Council directors.
The OAS and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's Atlanta-based center are observing the verification of more than 3.4 million signatures opposition leaders claim to have turned in to demand the recall. The two organizations have led international peacekeeping efforts in Venezuela since a 2002 coup that briefly ousted Chavez.
McCoy's comments came amid a controversy over what to do with thousands of petition sheets in which staff at sign-up centers filled out basic personal information for citizens - and had signers simply sign their names. Election officials are at odds over whether that procedure violated election rules.
The dispute has delayed the verification process and added to tensions as the council prepares to decide whether to call the vote. Two small protests against the delays turned violent Thursday, with 20 people hurt.
Opponents were planning a march Saturday to the Caracas offices of the elections council, where Chavez sympathizers are camped out, ready for confrontation.
Venezuela is deeply torn between those who accuse Chavez of trampling over democratic institutions and those who consider him a champion of the poor.
McCoy urged Venezuelans to be patient and continue to have faith in the council.
Election officials, who had originally promised to complete the verification Friday, said they would try to finish by the end of the month.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Best Idea Yet for Fund Reform -- 12b-1 Fee Begone: Chet Currier
Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- After six months of wrangling over scandals in mutual funds, a bright new idea has just come to the fore.
Abolish 12b-1 fees, the charges that are collected from the assets of many funds to pay for distribution and marketing. Jettison them! Deep-six them! Send them someplace from which they can never return.
Senator Peter Fitzgerald, an Illinois Republican who is one of those making the suggestion, calls these fees ``disguised loads,'' or sales charges, which are all too often used in ``confusing and misleading'' ways.
That Fitzgerald and his co-sponsors made 12b-1 fees a centerpiece of the fund-reform bill they proposed this week came as something of a surprise. These fees haven't figured directly in any of the misbehavior in the fund business uncovered since last September by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and others. Until now they have seldom occupied more than an incidental place in the debate.
Front and Center
It's high time they moved front and center. In the 24 years since they were authorized by the Securities and Exchange Commission, 12b-1 fees have embodied much of what's wrong in the relationship between fund companies and their investors.
Critics never saw much sense in the idea of letting fund management take money from existing shareholders to pay for the costs of bringing in new investors. Why should a fund's owners foot the bill when the benefits of increasing size went not to them but to the managers, in the form of bigger management fees?
Not to worry, 12b-1 fee supporters assured everyone in 1980. They told us existing fund investors would see benefits too, because expenses would be lower per dollar in a larger fund. Well, after two decades, says a white paper published by Fitzgerald this week, ``it does not appear that investors have benefited from economies of scale.''
That's not the only sore point about 12b-1s, which derive their name from a section of basic mutual-fund law. They may look small on paper at, say, 0.25 of 1 percent per year. But over time that money adds up, especially on top of the other costs of fund investing.
Fees Outlive Funds
Fund managers took such a liking to 12b-1s that they sometimes kept charging them even after they closed a fund to new investors. ``That's right,'' the independent fund researcher Morningstar Inc. once observed. ``Funds that are no longer marketing themselves are charging marketing fees.''
The fund scandals of 2003-04 have engendered some bad ideas for reform, including suggestions to regulate the level of fund fees -- as if regulators or legislators were better equipped than the give-and-take of a highly competitive free market to determine a fair price.
The 12b-1 proposal, Fitzgerald takes pains to point out, makes no such judgment. The bill ``does NOT prohibit distribution expenses or sales charges,'' he says. ``Charging a load is fully justified -- but call it a load, make it account-based, and don't disguise it in a permanent asset-based distribution fee.''
In laymen's language, he's urging that investors be told clearly whenever they are being charged for something, and that all investors not be obliged to pay for what might only apply to some.
Where the Devil Lurks
The basic principles of managing money in mutual funds haven't changed much since the first funds began to operate in the U.S. 80 years ago. What has changed much more drastically is the way funds are marketed and sold -- for instance, through discount brokers' fund marketplaces, which may charge what amounts to a listing fee.
Also, a huge part of funds' business is now done through employer-sponsored 401(k) plans. Where mutual funds are concerned, the devil is in the distribution.
The simple old distinction between load and no-load funds has been blurred in many ways. In the midst of that blurry area dwell 12b-1 fees.
``Scandal, cynicism and revolt are inevitable consequences of confusing and opaque cost schemes,'' Fitzgerald says in his white paper.
The 12b-1 fee was a bad idea from the start, and has had 24 years to prove it. There may never be a better time than now to put it to rest.
To contact the writer of this column:
Chet Currier in New York, or ccurrier@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor of this column:
Bill Ahearn in New York, or bahearn@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: February 13, 2004 00:03 EST
---------------------------------------------------
Scientists Develop New Hydrogen Reactor
By GREGG AAMOT
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -
Researchers say they have produced hydrogen from ethanol in a prototype reactor small enough and efficient enough to heat small homes and power cars.
The development could help open the way for cleaner-burning technology at home and on the road.
Current methods of producing hydrogen from ethanol require large refineries and copious amounts of fossil fuels, the University of Minnesota researchers said.
The reactor is a relatively tiny 2-foot-high apparatus of tubes and wires that creates hydrogen from corn-based ethanol. A fuel cell, which acts like a battery, then generates power.
"This points to a way to make renewable hydrogen that may be economical and available," said Lanny Schmidt, a chemical engineer who led the study. The work was outlined in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
Hydrogen power itself is hardly a new idea. Hydrogen fuel cells already propel experimental vehicles and supply power for some buildings. NASA has used them on spacecraft for decades.
But hydrogen is expensive to make and uses fossil fuels. The researchers say their reactor will produce hydrogen exclusively from ethanol and do it cheaply enough so people can buy hydrogen fuel cells for personal use.
They also believe their technology could be used to convert ethanol to hydrogen at fuel stations when cars that run solely on hydrogen enter the mass market.
Hydrogen does not emit any pollution or greenhouse gases. But unlike oil or coal, hydrogen must be produced - there are no natural stores of it waiting to be pumped or dug out of the ground.
The new technology holds economic potential for Midwest farmers, who are leaders in the production of corn-based ethanol.
George Sverdrup, a technology manager at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, said he was encouraged by the research.
"When hydrogen takes a foothold and penetrates the marketplace, it will probably come from a variety of sources and be produced by a variety of techniques," he said. "So this particular advance and technology that Minnesota is reporting on would be one component in a big system."
The Minnesota researchers envision people buying ethanol to power the small fuel cell in their basements. The cell could produce 1 kilowatt of power, nearly enough for an average home.

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


With Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff
For the story behind the story...
Thursday, Feb. 12, 2004
Arnot: NBC Dumped Me for Finding Positive News in Iraq
NBC has refused to renew the contract of Iraq correspondent Dr. Bob Arnot. He says the reason is that he dares to find progress.
"In a 1,300-word e-mail to NBC News president Neal Shapiro, written in December 2003 and obtained by NYTV, Dr. Arnot called NBC News' coverage of Iraq biased. He argued that keeping him in Iraq and on NBC could go far in rectifying that," the New York Observer's Joe Hagan reported today.
"Dr. Arnot included excerpts from an e-mail from Jim Keelor, president of Liberty Broadcasting, which owns eight NBC stations throughout the South. Mr. Keelor had written NBC, stating that "the networks are pretty much ignoring" the good-news stories in Iraq. 'The definition of news would incorporate some of these stories,' he wrote. 'Hence the Fox News surge.'"
Keelor told the Observer: "Of course it's political. Journalism and news is what unusual [events] happened that day. And if the schools are operating, they can say that's usual. My response to that is, 'The hell it is.' My concern there is that almost everything that has occurred in Iraq since the war started is unexpected."
In his letter to Shapiro, Arnot wondered, as has the Bush administration, why the network refused to admit positive developments in Iraq. "As you know, I have regularly pitched most of these stories contained in the note to Nightly, Today and directly to you. Every single story has been rejected."
Arnot told the Observer he knew for "a fact" that Shapiro's problem with his reporting was that "it was just very positive."

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

IRAQ PHASE IV...

TRANSFERRING SOVEREIGNTY
Democracy Delayed
Is Democracy Denied
The sooner elections are held in Iraq the fewer American lives will be lost.
BY HUSSAIN AL-SHAHRISTANI
Thursday, February 12, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST
A U.N. electoral fact-finding team has arrived in Iraq to discuss with local leaders and the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) the possibility of holding elections. Iraqis expect the U.N. experts to give advice on the best way to organize elections through which they choose the people they can trust to rule them.
Since the fall of the regime, I have led numerous humanitarian and developmental projects in different regions of Iraq. Village elders, community leaders and professionals tell me of their dreams for a new Iraq. I am struck by the deep-rooted concern and fear felt by these people that the occupying forces will impose a new dictatorship on them that may cost them further hundreds of thousands of lives. Fair and free elections, they insist, are their only guarantee of living as free people.
It was this very pulse of the nation that the Grand Ayatollah Al-Sistani touched when he first advised the CPA, in June 2003, to prepare for elections where all Iraqis--irrespective of gender, religion, sect or ethnicity--could vote to elect their representatives to a national assembly. Ever since, he has continuously reminded the U.S. that it occupied Iraq to bring democracy, which means free elections, and that it must deliver on that promise.
Iraqis are told by the CPA that the reasons for delaying elections are the absence of voter registration lists and the security situation. However, in mid-2003 the Iraqi Central Bureau of Statistics, the body responsible for preparing voter lists, issued a report concluding that it could prepare lists and arrange for elections before the end of 2003. The CPA and the Transitional Governing Council chose to ignore this report, and together signed an agreement that would allow them to handpick transitional assembly members through a complex caucus process. The Nov. 15 agreement gave no role to the U.N., and set a timetable for a handover of sovereignty to these handpicked Iraqis by June 30, 2004.
Having recognized that this process violates the fundamental principle of a fair election--one person, one vote--Ayatollah Al-Sistani issued an edict, "[T]he mechanism in place to choose members of the Transitional Legislative Assembly does not guarantee true representation of the Iraqi people. Therefore this mechanism must be replaced with one that guarantees the aforesaid, which is elections."
On the Ayatollah's insistence, the U.N. was invited to send a mission to study how it can help prepare for such elections and to assist in the transition of sovereignty to a legitimate Iraqi authority. This is an extremely important opportunity for the U.N. to exercise its mandate to maintain peace and security in this volatile part of the world, and to uphold the right of nations to self-determination.
The current impasse is far more than a showdown between Iraq's most influential leader and the CPA. It raises the disturbing question of whether Washington truly understands the Iraqi reality. National identity and self-determination are strong forces in Iraq. Instead of dismissing them, the U.S. ought to work with the U.N. to start preparation for a national election under U.N. auspices.
CPA head L. Paul Bremer might be right that there is not enough time now to organize elections by June 2004; but surely preparations could have been made over the last nine months--if, indeed, an election was ever a U.S. priority. He also points out that security conditions are not conducive to elections; yet clearly, impeding the legitimate demand for direct and fair elections would further aggravate ethnic and sectarian tensions.
The U.S. administration should not force its agenda onto the Iraqi people, based on a U.S. election timetable. The aim should be the creation of a new Iraqi government that has legitimacy in the eyes of its own citizens, so that in the years ahead, a stable, democratic and peaceful Iraq will emerge as a responsible member of the world community. If America is genuinely committed to democracy in the Middle East, then it should avoid handpicking rulers for Iraq. Only a very short-sighted policy would orchestrate a process that leaves behind a government that may be friendly, but will not endure. Without a constitutional process, Iraqis cannot be assured that their basic human and political rights are respected. Failing to engage the people in the political process will further destabilize the country and provide fertile grounds for the remnants of Saddam Hussain's security apparatus to recruit zealots to carry out terrorist acts.
Iraqis--Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen; Muslims and Christians; Sunnis and Shias--have lived together for centuries, and can continue to do so. With its rich cultural heritage, gifted people and natural resources, Iraq can be built into a prosperous, progressive and democratic country. It can be both a model and a locomotive for social and political change in the Middle East. To play this role and make a contribution to stability in this region, Iraqis should be encouraged to move to democracy as soon as they desire.
Al-Sistani is perhaps the only person who can realize both the dreams of the majority of Iraqis, and the declared goal of the U.S.: to create a stable democracy that could potentially transform the Middle East. The U.S. should value the role the Grand Ayatollah is taking to lead the Iraqi people away from militancy and toward the international system of democracy. If Washington plays it right, this path that Al-Sistani spearheaded in Iraq could prove to be the most significant victory in a war on terrorism. Let us hope--and pray--that Washington has the wisdom to seize it.
The most practical way to help Iraq now is to allow the U.N. to work with representatives of all constituents of the Iraqi society to develop a formula for early direct elections--an achievable task. Elections will be held in Iraq, sooner or later. The sooner they are held, and a truly democratic Iraq is established, the fewer Iraqi and American lives will be lost.

Mr. Al-Shahristani is chairman of the standing committee of the Iraqi National Academy of Science. He was held in solitary confinement for 10 years under Saddam Hussein.
----------------------------------------------------

http://www.tnr.com/blog/iraqd
What is Iraq'd? Click here to find out.
02.12.04
THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR THE CAUCUSES: U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi announced today that he's behind Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani's plan for direct elections "100 percent because elections are the best means to enable any people to set up a state that serves their interest." He did not say whether or not those elections can be held by June 30, the date set under the November 15 Agreement for the handover of power.
Brahimi's announcement lends Sistani crucial support for getting at least half of what he wants. Sistani objects to the mechanism--the misleadingly named "caucuses"--for establishing an interim government enshrined in the U.S. plan, but not the handover timetable. While Brahimi is going to leave Iraq tomorrow, his team will remain to determine whether the timetable for holding elections is realistic or needs to be delayed. He gave another quote seemingly designed to drag Sistani along for a delay: "We are in agreement with [Sistani] that these elections should be prepared well and should take place in the best possible conditions so that it would bring the results which [Sistani] wants and the people of Iraq and the UN [want]."
It's hard to envision how the caucus plan survives, seeing as the United States implored the United Nations to help resolve its elections standoff with Sistani. Already our favored Iraqis, who had supported the caucus proposal, are backing off from both aspects of the U.S. plan--the caucus and the early timetable. As Brahimi's team was set to arrive in Iraq, Adnan Pachachi of the Governing Council said that the United Nations would only make "recommendations" on elections, implying that the Council could reject them. Today Pachachi sounded resigned to early elections:
Every one wants elections if we can have real elections in the time limits we have. ... We all agree that the best way to choose the members of the interim assembly would be through elections and elections will happen if it's not today then after six months.
Pachachi may be a Sunni, but by and large, the Sunnis don't want direct elections because they fear the numerical superiority of the Shia. In order to build a viable, democratic Iraq, the Sunnis--who have made up the bulk of the insurgency--simply have to feel like stakeholders. The United Nations moving closer to Sistani's position not only doesn't resolve that problem, it inflames it, which makes it even more imperative that any plan adopted for the transfer of power find some mechanism to accommodate the Sunnis. It would be prudent to accept a delay in transferring power in order to figure out how to square the circle. While it's not immediately clear if Sistani would accept a delay, direct elections have been his principal demand, and he's been open to compromise all throughout the U.S. occupation--and even since the November 15 Agreement, when his demands hardened. Now that the United Nations is blessing his plan, it will be easier to persuade him to wait a few months to conduct the elections.
But will it be easier to persuade Washington? Here's The New York Times: "American officials have also said they are willing to accept a compromise solution, though they insist that the White House wants to try to stick to the handover date of June 30." Even if the CPA and the White House scrap the caucus plan, it remains an open question whether they'll move away from the handover deadline and risk keeping the occupation going through the election. To judge from today's briefing by Dan Senor of the CPA, the early answer is no:
We are focused on handover of sovereignty on June 30th, as explicitly outlined in the November 15th agreement between the coalition and the Governing Council.
Senor was actually making this point not about Brahimi's statement, which he professed not to have seen, but about the Zarqawi terrorism memo (which I wrote about below). It seems that the memo has fortified CPA opinion that the handover date is non-negotiable:
We are focused like a laser beam on handover of authority this summer, and Mr. Zarqawi is clearly focused on it as a laser beam--focused like a laser beam on our handover date. We are not moving around that date; Mr. Zarqawi understands that. And it is especially important that in light of the fact--as is evidenced by this memorandum, in light of the fact that Mr. Zarqawi recognizes that one of the greatest bulwarks against his efforts to spread terror in Iraq will be Iraqi control of the government, it is especially important that we stick to our plan and move forward this implementation.
As noted below, the greatest threat to Iraq isn't from Zarqawi, Ansar Al Islam, or Al Qaeda. It's from Sunni-Shia divides over creating the transitional national assembly. Unfortunately, it looks like the United States is focused more on the smaller threat. This is a fast-moving story on a complicated issue, so surely things will change. But for now, the United States appears to be sticking to the handover date.
posted 8:00 p.m.
E-mail Iraq'd
Return to the top of the page.

---------------------------------------------------------
>> ON ZARQAWI...

FALSE COMFORT: The other day I laid out my suspicions about the so-called Zarqawi memo. In response to some e-mails, let me clarify that I don't believe the military or the CPA just made the memo up. What I wonder about is whether Zarqawi is really its author--or, if he is, how connected to bin Laden he in fact is. At yesterday morning's CPA briefing, Christopher Dickey of Newsweek and Paul Martin of The Washington Times attempted, with little success, to get more information about the document's authorship and the circumstances surrounding its capture:
Q. Christopher Dickey with Newsweek. Can you tell us a little bit more about how this document was found? The New York Times has carried now two versions. One says the Americans found it directly. William Safire says it was found by the pesh merga. Who found this thing and how was it found?
GEN. [MARK] KIMMITT: The important thing is that we have this document in our hands. How it was found is not as important as the fact that we have it, we've reviewed it, we understand what it is saying, and we can use it, as Mr. Senor said, to understand the thought process behind the terrorists, so that we can use that in future operations to kill or capture those that would create and conduct anti-coalition and anti-Iraqi operations.
MR. [DAN] SENOR: Yeah. For operational security reasons, and certainly issues related to sources and methods and intelligence gathering, we cannot reveal at this time all the details that were involved in the discovery of the memorandum. But as General Kimmitt has said, it is important to have the opportunity to climb into a mind of an individual who is planning, and we believe executing, a major terror campaign inside Iraq.
Yes?
Q. Paul Martin from Washington Times and the Mirror. Could we ask, first of all, what evidence there is that Zarqawi himself wrote the document? Is his signature on the document? How do we know it's Zarqawi, is the first question.
Secondly, you mentioned the date of the 30th of June. What do you expect both from the IGC side and your own side to change after the 30th of June in terms of your security threats and responses?
GEN. KIMMITT: To answer the first question: we're satisfied that given the initial conditions under which we obtained the document, and follow-on intelligence that has been obtained since we picked up the document, that this can be traced back to Zarqawi.
MR. SENOR: Mr. Zarqawi says in the memo, to your second, Paul--Mr. Zarqawi says in the memo that if the Iraqis assume effective control of their own government, the terrorists, the al Qaeda elements, will lose their quote-unquote, "pretext" to wage terror in this country--and that he says they will literally have to pack up and go somewhere else, find another battle.
We hope he's right, because that's the path we're on; we are on the path towards handing over sovereignty and we are on the path towards defeating these terrorists. The two are inextricably linked.
Senor's comments here are far more worrisome than his reluctance to answer questions about the memo. (Surely it's conceivable that there indeed are sources-and-methods reasons for not revealing either how the document was obtained or how its authorship was verified.) He seems to take a kind of comfort from the memo that the course the U.S. is pursuing in Iraq is the right one:
It is very clear that the terrorist strategy will fail if America continues to show its resolve the coalition has demonstrated over the past 10 months. And the terrorist strategy will fail if we hand over sovereignty to the Iraqi people on June 30th as outlined in the November 15th political agreement.
But let's not forget that Islamist terrorism represents only a fraction of the problems Iraq is facing. In fact, taking the memo at face value indicates precisely that, since its author bemoans the inability of Sunnis to join in the jihad. For months, U.S. military officials have said that they believe the vast majority of violence is attributable to Baathists. Obviously, we need to go on the offensive against whatever terrorists have infiltrated Iraq. But even if we get every last terrorist, we're not going to have resolved either the political or the security problems that Iraq is facing--and if we want to address those vastly more difficult and pressing concerns, the path we're on is, at best, seriously inadequate, and at worst, dangerously counterproductive. Even if we assume that the memo illuminates the terrorists' strategy for the next few months, and we further assume that our strategy is as well configured to thwart the terrorists as Senor says, we'll still be addressing the lesser threat and not the greater one. That should be cause both for alarm and for redrawing our plans--not satisfaction.
Another journalist asked Kimmitt about how well our security strategy is, in fact, configured to deal with potential terror attacks indicated by the memo.
Q. Gavin Mostrom (ph), CNN. You say that you're expecting a spike in violent incidents in the lead up to the June 30 handover and that you are taking all the necessary precautions. If that's the case, why at this very time are we seeing the military essentially roll back to eight bases, for instance in Baghdad, while you're expecting this spike to occur? ...
GEN. KIMMITT: ... With regards to the first question about the coalition forces pulling back from Baghdad, again, this seems to be misinterpreted time after time after time. The U.S. and coalition forces are not pulling out of Baghdad. The sum total of the forces that are providing security inside Baghdad are a combination of the coalition forces and the Iraqi security forces, the Iraq Civil Defense Corps, and the Iraqi police and the new Iraqi army, the Iraqi security forces. There is a net amount of security that is provided by both those organizations.
The intent has been, for a long period of time, to establish and move to a process called local control; which is as the Iraqis are capable of picking up the security responsibility themselves, then it is appropriate for the coalition to reduce their visibility. It's far more effective to have Iraqi security forces walking the streets of Baghdad than to have coalition forces do that.
But that is not to suggest that the coalition forces are moving a thousand miles away nor a hundred miles away, they're moving outside to the outskirts of Baghdad. Much like a fireman--where they have up to this point been like the policemen walking up and down the streets, the Iraqi security forces are now capable of providing that function. The coalition forces will move to the outskirts of the city, like the firemen. Their response time may increase from about five minutes to 15 minutes, but they will be inside their bases still conducting some measure of patrol, but like a good fire department, come out when necessary. The first responder, the first person on the scene will continue to be, and appropriately be, the Iraqi security forces. It is their country moving towards sovereignty and self- sufficiency. But while we're going through that transition period, the coalition will stand by, ready to help, but appropriately move to a less visible position, but nonetheless, still providing the same measure of security. The net effect of security should be the same, and more appropriately, with an Iraqi flag on the left shoulder rather than a coalition flag on the left shoulder.
Huh? To the extent this means anything, Kimmitt is conceding that new word of terrorist attacks isn't influencing our security posture. If "the intent has been, for a long period of time, to establish ... local control," then clearly the calculus for this plan was created before we received what U.S. officials are considering credible warnings of forthcoming attacks. To not permit new information about increased threats to change our security planning is playing with fire.
Second, Kimmitt is relying on the premise that "the Iraqis are capable of picking up the security responsibilities themselves." But we've rushed these Iraqi security forces through training. There's no possible way they can match the capabilities--and certainly not the firepower--of the First Armored Division. Furthermore, as Kimmitt noted, the plan to Iraqify security responsibilities in Baghdad was hatched before we got hold of this memo. If we believe there is an increased likelihood of terror attacks, is this really the time we want to gamble on the unproven abilities of Iraqi security forces?
Finally, thwarting terrorism is nothing like fighting a fire. Kimmitt says "the first responder, the first person on the scene will continue to be, and appropriately be, the Iraqi security forces. It is their country moving towards sovereignty and self-sufficiency." But neither the U.S. nor the Iraqis should be responding to terrorism--we need to prevent it. If we're responding to terrorist attacks, that would testify to our insufficient security capabilities.
One might object that if we increase our military presence in Baghdad (or anywhere else), we play into the hands of the memo's author--assume for a second that the memo is unproblematic--who wants to draw the U.S. into a bloody conflict and have us squander what remains of Iraqi goodwill through heavy-handed tactics. But look what happens when the fragile sense of security in Iraq breaks down: After yesterday's suicide bombings, Iraqis began furiously chanting anti-U.S. slogans, blaming us for being unable to provide safety. Given a choice between Iraqis angry at us because of our inability to prevent attacks and Iraqis angry at us because of our ability to prevent attacks, we should choose the strategy that angers Iraqis while saving lives.
This memo seems to have convinced U.S. officials in Iraq that the course we're on is self-evidently correct. That's not a conceit that we, or Iraqis, can afford.
posted 10:27 a.m.

E-mail Iraq'd

----------------------------------------------------------
Zarkawi's Cry
A terrorist's words of despair.
http://www.nationalreview.com/document/zarkawi200402121818.asp
An NRO Primary Document
EDITOR'S NOTE: Earlier this week, Coalition officials discovered a letter believed to have been written by terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to al Qaeda operatives (see Michael Ledeen here). Below is the text of the letter, as translated and distributed by the Coalition Provisional Authority.

1. The foreign Mujahidin: Their numbers continue to be small, compared to the large nature of the expected battle. We know that there are enough good groups and jihad is continuing, despite the negative rumors. What is preventing us from making a general call to arms is the fact that the country of Iraq has no mountains in which to seek refuge, or forest in which to hide. Our presence is apparent and our movement is out in the open. Eyes are everywhere. The enemy is before us and the sea is behind us. Many Iraqis would honor you as a guest and give you refuge, for you are a Muslim brother; however, they will not allow you to make their homes a base for operations or a safe house. People who will allow you to do such things are very rare, rarer than red sulfur. Therefore, it has been extremely difficult to lodge and keep safe a number of brothers, and also train new recruits. Praised be to Allah, however, with relentless effort and searching we have acquired some places and their numbers are increasing, to become base points for the brothers who will spark war and bring the people of this country into a real battle with god's will.

2. The present and future: there is no doubt that American losses were significant because they are spread thin amongst the people and because it is easy to get weapons. This is a fact that makes them easy targets, attractive for the believers. America, however, has no intention of leaving, no matter how many wounded nor how bloody it becomes. It is looking to a near future, when it will remain safe in its bases, while handing over control of Iraq to a bastard government with an army and police force that will bring back the time of (saddam) Husayn and his cohorts. (headquarters comment: it is not clear to whom "it" is referring, but it appears to mean the united states.) There is no doubt that our field of movement is shrinking and the grip around the throat of the Mujahidin has begun to tighten. With the spread of the army and police, our future is becoming frightening.

3. So where are we? Despite few supporters, lack of friends, and tough times, god has blessed us with victories against the enemy. We were involved in all the martyrdom operations -- in terms of overseeing, preparing, and planning -- that took place in this country except for the operations that took place in the north. Praised be to Allah, i have completed 25 of these operations, some of them against the Shi'a and their leaders, the Americans and their military, the police, the military, and the coalition forces. There will be more in the future, god willing. We did not want to publicly claim these operations until we become more powerful and were ready for the consequences. We need to show up strong and avoid getting hurt, now that we have made great strides and taken important steps forward. As we get closer to the decisive moment, we feel that our entity is spreading within the security void existing in Iraq, something that will allow us to secure bases on the ground, these bases that will be the jump start of a serious revival, god willing.

4. Plan of action: after much inquiry and discussion, we have narrowed our enemy to four groups:

A. Americans as you know, these are the biggest cowards that god has created and the easiest target. And we ask god to allow us to kill, and detain them, so that we can exchange them with our arrested shaykhs and brothers.

B. Kurds these are a pain and a thorn, and it is not time yet to deal with them. They are last on our list, even though we are trying to get to some of their leaders. God willing.
C. The Iraqi troops, police, and agents these are the eyes, ears, and hand of the occupier. With god's permission, we are determined to target them with force in the near future, before their power strengthens.

D. The Shi'a in our opinion, these are the key to change. Targeting and striking their religious, political, and military symbols, will make them show their rage against the Sunnis and bear their inner vengeance. If we succeed in dragging them into a sectarian war, this will awaken the sleepy Sunnis who are fearful of destruction and death at the hands of these Sabeans, i.e., the Shi'a. Despite their weakness, the Sunnis are strong-willed and honest and different from the coward and deceitful Shi'a, who only attack the weak. Most of the Sunnis are aware of the danger of these people and they fear them. If it were not for those disappointing shaykhs, Sufis, and Muslim brothers, Sunnis would have a different attitude.

5. Way of action: As we have mentioned to you, our situation demands that we treat the issue with courage and clarity. So the solution, and god only knows, is that we need to bring the Shi'a into the battle because it is the only way to prolong the duration of the fight between the infidels and us. We need to do that because:

A. The Shi'a have declared a subtle war against Islam. They are the close, dangerous enemy of the Sunnis. Even if the Americans are also an archenemy, the Shi'a are a greater danger and their harm more destructive to the nation than that of the Americans who are anyway the original enemy by consensus.

B. They have supported the Americans, helped them, and stand with them against the Mujahidin. They work and continue to work towards the destruction of the Mujahidin.

C. Fighting the Shi'a is the way to take the nation to battle. The Shi'a have taken on the dress of the army, police, and the Iraqi security forces, and have raised the banner of protecting the nation, and the citizens. Under this banner, they have begun to assassinate the Sunnis under the pretense that they are saboteurs, vestiges of the Ba'th, or terrorists who spread perversion in the country. This is being done with strong media support directed by the governing council and the Americans, and they have succeeded in splitting the regular Sunni from the Mujahidin. For example, in what they call the Sunni triangle, the army and police are spreading out in these regions, putting in charge Sunnis from the same region. Therefore, the problem is you end up having an army and police connected by lineage, blood, and appearance to the people of the region. This region is our base of operations from where we depart and to where we return. When the Americans withdraw, and they have already started doing that, they get replaced by these agents who are intimately linked to the people of this region. What will happen to us, if we fight them, and we have to fight them, is one of only two choices:

1) if we fight them, that will be difficult because there will be a schism between us and the people of the region. How can we kill their cousins and sons and under what pretext, after the Americans start withdrawing? The Americans will continue to control from their bases, but the sons of this land will be the authority. This is the democracy, we will have no pretext.

2) we can pack up and leave and look for another land, just like it has happened in so many lands of jihad. Our enemy is growing stronger day after day, and its intelligence information increases. By god, this is suffocation! We will be on the roads again. People follow their leaders, their hearts may be with you, but their swords are with their kings. So i say again, the only solution is to strike the religious, military, and other cadres of the Shi'a so that they revolt against the Sunnis. Some people will say, that this will be a reckless and irresponsible action that will bring the Islamic nation to a battle for which the Islamic nation is unprepared. Souls will perish and blood will be spilled. This is, however, exactly what we want, as there is nothing to win or lose in our situation. The Shi'a destroyed the balance, and the religion of god is worth more than lives. Until the majority stands up for the truth, we have to make sacrifices for this religion, and blood has to be spilled. For those who are good, we will speed up their trip to paradise, and the others, we will get rid of them.

By god, the religion of god is more precious than anything else. We have many rounds, attacks, and black nights with the Shi'a, and we cannot delay this. Their menace is looming and this is a fact that we should not fear, because they are the most cowardly people god has created. Killing their leaders will weaken them and with the death of the head, the whole group dies. They are not like the Sunnis. If you knew the fear in the souls of the Sunnis and their people, you would weep in sadness. How many of the mosques have they have turned in to Shi'a mosques ("husayniyas")? How many houses they have destroyed with their owners inside? How many brothers have they killed? How many sisters have been raped at the hands of those vile infidels?

If we are able to deal them blow after painful blow so that they engage in a battle, we will be able to reshuffle the cards so there will remain no value or influence for the ruling council, or even for the Americans who will enter into a second battle with the Shi'a. This is what we want. Then, the Sunni will have no choice but to support us in many of the Sunni regions. When the Mujahidin would have secured a land they can use as a base to hit the Shi'a inside their own lands, with a directed media and a strategic action, there will be a continuation between the Mujahidin inside and outside of Iraq. We are racing against time, in order to create squads of Mujahidin who seek refuge in secure places, spy on neighborhoods, and work on hunting down the enemies. The enemies are the Americans, police, and army. We have been training these people and augmenting their numbers.

As far as the Shi'a, we will undertake suicide operations and use car bombs to harm them. We have been working on monitoring the area and choosing the right people, looking for those who are on the straight path, so we can cooperate with them. We hope that we have made progress, and perhaps we will soon decide to go public -- even if gradually -- to display ourselves in full view. We have been hiding for a long time, and now we are seriously working on preparing a media outlet to reveal the truth, enflame zeal, and become an outlet for jihad in which the sword and the pen can turn into one. Along with this, we strive to illuminate the hindering errors of Islamic law and the clarifications of Islamic legal precepts by way of tapes, lessons, and courses which people will come to understand.

The suggested time for execution: we are hoping that we will soon start working on creating squads and brigades of individuals who have experience and expertise. We have to get to the zero-hour in order to openly begin controlling the land by night and after that by day, god willing. The zero-hour needs to be at least four months before the new government gets in place. As we see we are racing time, and if we succeed, which we are hoping, we will turn the tables on them and thwart their plan. If, god forbid, the government is successful and takes control of the country, we just have to pack up and go somewhere else again, where we can raise the flag again or die, if god chooses us.

6. What about you? You, noble brothers, leaders of jihad, we do not consider ourselves those who would compete against you, nor would we ever aim to achieve glory for ourselves like you did. The only thing we want is to be the head of the spear, assisting and providing a bridge over which the Muslim nation can cross to promised victory and a better tomorrow. As we have explained, this is our belief. So if you agree with it and are convinced of the idea of killing the perverse sects, we stand ready as an army for you, to work under your guidance and yield to your command. Indeed, we openly and publicly swear allegiance to you by using the media, in order to exasperate the infidels and confirm to the adherents of faith that one day, the believers will revel in god's victory. If you think otherwise, we will remain brothers, and disagreement will not destroy our cooperation and undermine our working together for what is best. We support jihad and wait for your response. May god keep for you the keys of goodness and preserve Islam and his people. Amen, amen.


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

>> ON KERRY...

Kerry Testified of '200,000 a Year Who Are Murdered' By U.S. in Vietnam
by David Freddoso
Posted Feb 10, 2004
On April 22, 1971, asked how a U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam would affect the South Vietnamese, a young John Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: "[Y]es, there will be some recrimination, but far, far less than the 200,000 a year who are murdered by the United States of America." (See page 190 of the attached transcript of his entire testimony).
Kerry, who is now a U.S. senator from Massachusetts and the leading Democratic presidential candidate, was then a private citizen testifying two years after his return from naval service in Vietnam, where he had won a Silver Star and three Purple Hearts. In the course of his remarks to the committee, he complained of "the hypocrisy in our taking umbrage in the Geneva Conventions and using that as justification for a continuation of this war, when we are more guilty than any other body of violations of those Geneva Conventions." (Pages 184-185.)
'A Phony Deal'
The same day Kerry testified, Rep. Sam Johnson (R.-Tex.) was sitting in a cell in the infamous Hanoi Hilton POW camp, where he says he was tortured, underfed, and mostly cut off from correspondence, in violation of the Geneva Convention. Johnson told HUMAN EVENTS that his captors had moved him there recently after 42 months of solitary confinement.
"When [Kerry] testified against the war, his testimony was un-American and untrue, and I think he lost all credibility as a real military man," said Johnson, asked to comment on a full 32-page transcript of Kerry's testimony that was obtained yesterday by HUMAN EVENTS. Johnson, a retired Air Force Colonel, was a prisoner of war for seven years after being shot down in North Vietnam in 1966.
Johnson said the idea that 200,000 Vietnamese were annually "murdered by the United States of America" was "not true. Absolutely not true." He also complained of Kerry's liberal use of his Vietnam service in his presidential campaign, particularly the use of the slogan "band of brothers," a Shakespearean reference to the camaraderie of men who have seen battle together.
"It's a phony deal," he said. "There are Vietnam veterans that you'll see who will call you brother and commiserate with you over experiences over there, but his use of that is totally false, and I don't know how anybody could fall for it."
During the question-and-answer part of his 1971 testimony, Sen. George Aiken (R.-Vt.) asked Kerry if the South Vietnamese army and South Vietnamese people "would be happy to have us withdraw or what?"
"If we don't withdraw," Kerry said, "if we maintain a Korean-type presence in South Vietnam, say 50,000 troops or something, with strategic bombing raids from Guam and from Japan and from Thailand dropping these 15,000 pound fragmentation bombs on them, et cetera, in the next few years, then what you will have is a people who are continually oppressed, who are continually at warfare, and whose problems will not at all be solved because they will not have any kind of representation.
"The war will continue," said Kerry. "So what I am saying is that yes, there will be some recrimination but far, far less than the 200,000 a year who are murdered by the United States of America."
It is not clear from Kerry's testimony when, where or how he believed these people were, or would be, "murdered by the United States of America."
HUMAN EVENTS provided Sen. Kerry's senatorial office with a copy of the full 32- page transcript and asked if he stood by the above statements or wished to offer some explanation for them. Later in the day, a spokeswoman for the senatorial office said she had forwarded the questions to Kerry's presidential campaign. The campaign had not commented by press time.
The transcript indicates that later in the testimony, under sympathetic questioning from Sen. Clifford Case (D.-N.J.), Kerry drew laughter from the crowd when he dismissed the administration's rationale for the war, to keep Communism at bay. "I think it is bogus, totally artificial," he said. "There is no threat. The Communists are not about to take over our McDonald hamburger stands."
In his testimony before Senators Case, Aiken, William Fulbright (D.-Ark.), Stuart Symington (D.-Mo.), Claiborne Pell (D.-R.I.), and Jacob Javits (R.-N.Y.), Kerry also gave and then quickly retracted testimony that the vast majority of soldiers in Vietnam got high on drugs literally all day, every day.
"A lot of guys, 60, 80 percent stay stoned 24 hours a day just to get through the Vietnam [War]," he said.
When Symington appeared incredulous, Kerry altered his testimony: "Sixty to 80 percent is the figure used that try something, let's say, at one point."
Copyright ? 2003 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.
--------------------------------------------------------

Kerry's Troubling Consistencies
by David Limbaugh
Posted Feb 13, 2004
While many, myself included, are pointing out the numerous inconsistencies in Senator Kerry's recent positions on the issues, I think we also ought to look at his disturbing consistencies from the Vietnam era to the present.
It is true that Senator Kerry voted to authorize a military attack on Iraq and then later tried to squirm out of his vote. Senator Kerry decried Republicans for criticizing candidate Clinton for avoiding the draft but is now exploiting questions about President Bush's Air National Guard service. Kerry has conveniently retreated from his position against capital punishment for terrorists. He shamelessly attacks the Patriot Act, though he voted for it a few short years ago. And he's all over the board on the gay marriage debate.
While this small sampling of Kerry's many contradictions reveals that he is a rank opportunist, it tells us little about his driving ideology. But we have other evidence from which a clearer picture emerges as to his true ideological rudder, especially with respect to his fitness as a commander in chief.
President Bush is already a tried and tested commander in chief with whom the majority of the public feels secure despite valiant Democratic efforts to tarnish his credibility. Because the War on Terror is foremost on voters' minds, Democrats became desperate to find a candidate qualified to be commander in chief.
What were Democrats to do? Well, a faction of them tried to draft General Wesley Clark to inject instant defense credibility into the party notorious for its softness on national defense. For a number of reasons that was a bust. At the same time, on a parallel track, Senator Kerry began to milk his Vietnam service for all it was worth, which so far has been a successful ploy.
And so the logic has been established: John Kerry was a war hero 30 years ago, and George Bush saw no combat, therefore John Kerry is better equipped to lead the nation at war than George Bush.
But for Democrats to get any traction here, they have to explain the lack of military experience of our other successful commanders in chief. More significantly, they have to explain how military combat experience qualifies one to lead the nation on foreign affairs and national defense. Perhaps this wouldn't be so difficult if the combat veteran in question had not demonstrated such hostility toward the military and national defense, like Senator Kerry has since he returned from Vietnam.
It was then that he first propelled himself into political prominence on the backs of his fellow Vietnam veterans, accusing them of unspeakable atrocities and impugning America for engaging in an immoral war in Vietnam. He made these charges with all the public fanfare he could muster, knowing they would inevitably undermine the morale of our troops. To him, containing Communism was an ignoble cause. He cavorted with the likes of Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden in decrying this "barbaric war."
Adding insult to injury, Kerry said in 1970 that he would disperse our troops "through the world, only at the directive of the United Nations," and that he wanted to "almost eliminate CIA activity altogether."
All of this could be more easily written off as the fulminations of an idealistic young man, but for the fact that Kerry is singing from the same hymnal today. He is still trashing our intelligence services; he is saying that we should defer to the United Nations before taking military action against known threats to the United States, and he has implied we were involved in an unjust war in Iraq. He has refused to vote for the $87 billion supplemental appropriation for rebuilding Iraq and supporting our troops there. And throughout his career he has voted against developing some of our most important military technology.
So despite Kerry's many political turnabouts, we see a troubling consistency on these issues that matter the most in America today. He seems to have a visceral aversion to the military he served, a visceral affinity for the United Nations, a propensity to rush to judgment against just causes in which the United States engages and a casual disregard for undermining our troops in combat.
With all due respect, all the war medals in the world shouldn't be enough to enable Kerry to overcome his consistent record as being soft on defense. It is this consistency--more than all of Kerry's political inconsistencies--that should ultimately undo his quest for the presidency, if scandal doesn't do him in first.
Copyright ? 2003 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Hillary's Hopes Helped by 'Kerrygate'
Posted Feb 13, 2004
Will "Kerrygate" provide an opportunity for Hillary Clinton to "save the day" at the Democratic convention? R. Emmett Tyrrell , author of the new book Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House, thinks that at the very least the chances of it happening have gone up -- way up. Quoted yesterday, Tyrrell noted that "the likeliness of Mrs. Clinton potentially grabbing the Democratic nomination in Boston in a 'save the Democratic Party' scenario has increased ten fold."
As pundits consider the Democratic Party's latest scandal, Tyrrell has released his Madame Hillary, shedding new light on the junior New York Senator and her seemingly unstoppable rise in power within her party.
About the developing Kerry scandal, Tyrrell stated that "'Kerrygate' could have a tremendous impact on the number one issue driving the Kerry campaign -- 'electability.' While many analysts and pundits will surely give the windfall to Sen. John Edwards, this could have greater impact on Sen. Hillary Clinton's political future."
Tyrrell went on to say, "It is fascinating that one of the driving forces behind Kerry's scandal is none other than friend of Hillary and recent Democratic Presidential Candidate General Wesley Clark, who Mrs. Clinton encouraged to run."
In a recent Wall Street Journal Op-ed, Tyrrell predicted:
"There are Democrats who want to loosen the Clintons' grip on their party. That grip has always been good for the Clintons but bad for the party. Will frontrunner Mr. Kerry be the next victim of the Clintons' political research teams? Possibly not -- he is the Washington insider that Mr. Dean is not. And it is not clear that he will be sailing into the summer convention with a great deal of brag and bounce. He may be limping in after still more primary battles. Then Hillary will make her grand entrance. With Mr. McAuliffe smiling from the podium her power will be vast."
To purchase Madame Hillary, click here.
Copyright ? 2003 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.
----------------------------------------------------------------

VEEP STAKES...

Kerry's Veep
A short list in the making.
Choosing a running mate will be the most important decision John Kerry makes between now and November -- not only because vice presidents stand a reasonably good chance of becoming presidents, but because they are such a key part of electioneering. Kerry probably won't announce his selection until the summer, but with the Democratic presidential nomination all but clinched, the season of speculation may begin.
The traditional rules of veep selection will apply. Most people base their vote on who sits at the top of the ticket, which means that the vice-presidential nominee is not likely to influence the outcome of the race unless it's close. Moreover, potential running mates must meet the "do no harm" principle -- there should be nothing in their backgrounds that might make them liabilities in the fall.
Kerry himself will have to deal with a few unique conditions. He won't want a running mate from the northeast. He'll probably want someone from outside Washington, D.C., which means he'll choose with a bias against a current member of Congress, especially another senator. His running mate will have to stand on stage next to Dick Cheney and appear credible. Finally, Kerry will face pressure from the Clinton faction of his party not to select a partner who would emerge as a rival to Hillary Clinton in 2008 in the event of a Democratic defeat this year.
Herewith, a look at the contenders:
EVAN BAYH: This senator from Indiana is a hawk on the Iraq war and a rising star in the Democratic party. He might put his home state in play, but his main appeal would be his youth, energy, and New Democrat credentials. His membership on the Senate Intelligence Committee would be an asset. Feminist groups might try to nix him because he's not an abortion-rights absolutist -- or possibly get him to pull a Lieberman and renounce his heresy.
WESLEY CLARK: From the standpoint of expectations, no presidential candidate failed so badly in the primaries as this retired general. At least Howard Dean had to rise before he fell; Clark started out near the top and did nothing but tumble. Perhaps more than any other candidate on this list, the unpredictable Clark violates the "do no harm" principle of veep selection.
HILLARY CLINTON: The media will go through several rounds of talking about Hillary as veep, if only because talking about Hillary is a favorite pastime for pundits. But neither Kerry nor Clinton will want this match. The last thing Kerry needs is another "liberal senator from the Northeast" on his ticket. Hillary has a strong incentive to stay away as well. Some potential running mates would see their careers enhanced by losing with Kerry this year: It would establish them as statesmen on their side of the aisle. Yet Hillary's reputation would suffer and it would hurt her chances in 2008. Also, she has repeatedly promised to serve out her term as senator from New York. Reneging would make her seem -- for lack of a better word -- Clintonian.
HOWARD DEAN: Forget it. The only rationale for a Kerry-Dean ticket would have been a desperate attempt to unify a torn party.
JOHN EDWARDS: Apart from Kerry, no presidential candidate has beaten more expectations this year than the senior senator from North Carolina: Edwards is the only loser who emerges from this year's primaries looking better than he did before getting in. He continues to run a veep-friendly campaign and is already generating some buzz about a Kerry-Edwards ticket. What's more, Kerry will face some pressure to go with a southerner. Yet Edwards hasn't exactly been a Dixie powerhouse -- his single triumph in South Carolina didn't translate into victories in Tennessee and Virginia. Another strike is that he's a fellow senator. There's a chance he would make North Carolina competitive for Kerry, but no guarantee. Odds are he'll appear on Kerry's short list until the bitter end -- but that he won't make the final cut.
HAROLD FORD: Some vice-presidential short lists are compiled for public consumption -- certain names are placed on them to flatter and court particular individuals and constituencies. There's no doubt that Kerry will want to be seen as giving serious consideration to a black running mate, even if he isn't really going to pick one. The most likely politician to fill this role is Harold Ford, a young congressman from Tennessee who is believed to have a bright future on Capitol Hill. Talk of a Kerry-Ford ticket will boost both Kerry and Ford, but it won't happen.
DICK GEPHARDT: The ultimate safe pick. The St. Louis congressman has been vetted enough times to guarantee that there are no surprises lurking in his closet. Although he may be seen as a Democratic dinosaur, he's experienced and gaffe-proof. He would put Missouri in play and might help out in other union-heavy Midwestern states (though his poor performance in the Iowa caucuses may suggest otherwise). A Kerry-Gephardt ticket would mollify the party's protectionist wing, which is skeptical of Kerry's vote for NAFTA a decade ago. Gephardt's modest upbringing also makes him one of several contenders who would nicely balance Kerry's privileged background. His recent endorsement of Kerry is another plus.
BOB GRAHAM: If this Florida senator had been the Democratic veep nominee in 2000, we'd probably be in the midst of a primary battle to pick a GOP challenger to President Gore. Graham's disappointing presidential run hurt his chances in 2004, though he did have the sense to exit before the embarrassment became fatal. Kerry will make a play for Florida this year, but the GOP is better positioned there than it was four years ago. Graham's impact today is probably less than it once would have been. As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, he does come with foreign-policy credentials.
JENNIFER GRANHOLM: Looks great on paper as an attractive female governor of a swing state (Michigan). Too bad for Kerry that she was born in Canada and isn't eligible for the Oval Office.
JIM HUNT: The other veep candidate from North Carolina. This retired governor has won plenty of elections in his home state, though a 1984 Senate loss to Jesse Helms prevented him from becoming a national figure. He's no spring chicken -- he'll be 67 on Election Day -- but he's a Washington outsider who would play about as well in the south as anybody Kerry might pick.
GARY LOCKE: If Democrats think they need this governor to carry the state of Washington, then they've got some big problems. Going with Locke would generate very good notice in the press (plus lots of headline puns about "Picking Locke") because Locke, an Asian American, would be the first nonwhite candidate on a presidential ticket. But would black and Hispanic loyalists grumble that they were more deserving of the honor?
JANET NAPOLITANO: The governor of Arizona is probably the top female contender for Kerry -- she's not from D.C. and she might put her GOP-friendly home state into question. But Kerry should keep in mind that while Geraldine Ferraro was making history in 1984 as Walter Mondale's running mate, Ronald Reagan was winning the women's vote. Perhaps the politics of the gender gap have changed, but then again maybe not as much as Democrats might hope. Furthermore, Napolitano would have a tough time looking like she's as ready as Dick Cheney to become commander in chief.
SAM NUNN: Worth considering only because the evil genius James Carville mentioned him as a possibility. As a Georgian, he adds a southerner to the ticket -- though it's far from clear that he would provide a significant lift in his home state, which is now solidly Republican. He is viewed as one of his party's elder statesmen on security issues.
BILL RICHARDSON: The governor of New Mexico is often mentioned because he's Hispanic. But don't be fooled: The Hispanic influence on the Electoral College is often misunderstood. If no Hispanics had voted four years ago, the election results in only two states would have changed: Florida would have gone for Gore and New Mexico would have gone for Bush. (Bush would have won the popular vote but Gore would be president -- all because of Cuban Americans.) It's hard to see how Richardson's addition to the Democratic ticket would give Kerry critical advantages anywhere except New Mexico. Picking Richardson makes more sense for Democrats thinking about long-term demographic alignments than it does for Kerry thinking about November. Despite all this, Richardson is one of the best Democratic pols in the country -- a governor with genuine foreign-policy experience as UN ambassador and as a congressman who secured hostage releases around the world. He would probably make Kerry's short list even if his mother hadn't been Mexican.
ROBERT RUBIN: Selecting the former treasury secretary would be compared to Bush's choice of Cheney four years ago -- a decision that has nothing to do with geography and everything to do with boosting credibility. In Rubin's case, it would signal to Wall Street and the investor class that a Kerry presidency is nothing to fear -- and perhaps create fundraising opportunities that otherwise wouldn't exist. It would also seek to remind people of prosperity during the Clinton presidency and give Kerry a very effective surrogate for attacking Bush's economic record. Interesting trivia: A poll for USA Today in 2000 showed a Gore-Rubin ticket outperforming a Gore-Kerry ticket.
TOM VILSACK: The governor of Iowa presumably would go a long way toward securing his home state, which the GOP hopes to capture this year. And it certainly doesn't hurt that Vilsack's wife endorsed Kerry before the caucuses last month, during Kerry's surprising surge. (In a piece for NRO on Monday, David Hogberg explained why he doubts Vilsack will end up on the Democratic ticket.)
FEARLESS PREDICTION: This wouldn't be punditry if it didn't include some guesswork. Much will ride on the question of how optimistic Democrats are feeling this summer: Will Kerry be forced into a bold and strategic choice or can he be more conservative and tactical? My own sense is that the race will be close to the end, with Democrats believing they have a realistic chance of defeating Bush. Kerry will pick Gephardt -- and he'll be glad he did.

http://www.nationalreview.com/miller/miller200402120825.asp



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

Pakistan had case against scientist
By Farah Stockman, Globe Staff, 2/13/2004
WASHINGTON -- More than three years ago, Pakistani intelligence agents built a corruption case against Abdul Qadeer Khan, the country's most famous nuclear scientist, but officials under President Pervez Musharraf decided not to pursue it because Khan was a national hero, according to a former Pakistani official.
The former official, who was a case manager at the National Accountability Bureau, the country's leading anticorruption agency, said the dossier prepared by the intelligence officers spanned some 120 pages. It detailed how he reaped massive profits from kickbacks in the procurement of nuclear equipment and amassed seven houses in the wealthiest areas of Islamabad.
Last week, Khan, known as the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, confessed in a dramatic, televised statement to selling nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran, and Libya in one of the largest cases of nuclear proliferation in history. He was swiftly pardoned by Musharraf after telling the nation that he acted alone and that the government had no knowledge of his dealings over two decades.
Musharraf has said he suspected Khan had been sharing nuclear secrets for three years but did not have evidence.
But the former case manager said investigators in 2000 believed there was sufficient evidence to bring corruption charges against Khan, and there was additional evidence that Khan was making unauthorized deals in the international nuclear black market.
The decision not to bring charges allowed Khan to continue his alleged black-market activities for two and a half more years. Musharraf quietly forced Khan to retire in 2001, but did not curtail his international travel or make public the corruption file against him.
"We said that somehow he is a national hero, the National Accountability Bureau is new, [and] we cannot afford to take on someone of his stature," said the former official. He said he agreed with the determination that Khan was too popular to face national prosecution at that time and had recommended waiting a year.
In Pakistan's five-decade standoff with India, Khan played a vital role in building a nuclear weapon to match that of India. He is so revered in Pakistan that his picture appears in school textbooks along with the nation's founder. His fame extends beyond Pakistan to the rest of the Muslim world.
But the dossier prepared in 2000 told a different story, the official said. It reported Khan held $8 million in several bank accounts and had given a house to General Mirza Aslam Beg, the former commander of Pakistan's army, who supported sharing nuclear technology with other Muslim countries. Beg has told reporters he did not authorize Khan to give nuclear secrets to anyone.
The dossier showed that some in Pakistan's government were worried in 2000 about the lack of oversight over Khan's activities in the underground world of nuclear procurement, including clues that he was buying more materials than were necessary for Pakistan's program alone, the official said.
For example, it showed how Khan had acquired a high-tech wiring system at an extremely high price -- buying far more wire from Indonesia than the nuclear program could have used, according to the official -- "enough for 100 years."
The dossier also detailed Khan's close ties with Haji Abdul Razzak, a Dubai-based Pakistani businessman who is wanted on corruption charges in Pakistan, stating that Khan owned stock in one of Razzak's companies. The document indicated that Khan paid "stipends" to about a dozen journalists who wrote flattering articles about him and financed the Pakistan Observer, a newspaper headed by Zahid Malik, Khan's biographer, according to the official.
The dossier also said that Khan owned a hotel worth about $10 million in Timbuktu, Mali, named after his wife Hendrina and that a Pakistani Air Force C-130 aircraft was used to bring antique Pakistani furniture to the hotel, the official said.
On Monday, Musharraf told The New York Times that he had been suspicious of Khan for at least three years and believed him to be operating with "illegal contacts, maybe suspicions of contacts." Musharraf acknowledged that he was wary about pursuing Khan because of a fear of popular backlash.
Musharraf also said in that interview that he had not been given enough evidence about Khan's proliferation activities to move forward with a case until the fall of 2002.
For decades, specialists in international proliferation have warned that Pakistan's military was not only building a bomb, but assisting other countries to do so.
"They were clearly proliferating," said Larry Pressler, a former US senator who urged that sanctions be imposed on Pakistan in the early 1990s. "The generals were traveling. They were talking to everyone in the region."
According to a special report by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Los Angeles-based human rights organization, Khan secretly visited Busheir, Iran's nuclear facility, in 1986 and 1987 and was retained as a consultant by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran to study whether the reactor there could produce plutonium.
In the 1992 report, the Wiesenthal Center, better known for its work hunting Nazi war criminals, said that Pakistan signed a secret nuclear cooperation agreement with Iran in 1987 that involved training Iranian nuclear scientists in Islamabad.
Libya is also believed to have signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Pakistan and funded part of their program, according to the Wiesenthal report and other nuclear nonproliferation specialists. In the early 1990s, Pakistan's government also bought missile designs from North Korea, but for cash, not in a nuclear barter, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto told the Globe this week.
But the dossier is evidence that beyond whatever trading Khan was authorized to do on behalf of Pakistan's nuclear program, he was also making deals on his own.
"There was no check on him," said the official. The dossier "said that Khan was the only guy who had links with the black market and there was no check" on his international nuclear trading.
The Khan file, which was prepared by an outside intelligence agency and handed to the National Accountability Bureau, was considered so sensitive that officials had to come to the office to read it, and could not make copies, he said. The official studied the file in 2000 and took notes, which he showed to a reporter.
Reached by telephone in Islamabad, the former head of the National Accountability Bureau, Lieutenant General Syed Mohammad Amjad, confirmed that the official was a longtime employee of the bureau and said he had a reputation for honesty.
But Amjad said he could not confirm the existence of a dossier on Khan because he left the bureau before the end of 2000.
Pakistan's secretary of information, Syed Anwar Mahmood, also said he had no personal knowledge of the dossier.
Farah Stockman can be reached at fstockman@globe.com.
? Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

Salon.com News | Did Bush drop out of the National Guard to avoid drug testing?

Did Bush drop out of the National Guard to avoid drug testing?
The young pilot walked away from his commitment in 1972 -- the same year
the U.S. military implemented random drug tests.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
By Eric Boehlert
Feb. 6, 2004 |
One of the persistent riddles surrounding President Bush's disappearance
from the Texas Air National Guard during 1972 and 1973 is the question of
why he walked away. Bush was a fully trained pilot who had undergone a
rigorous two-year flight training program that cost the Pentagon nearly $1
million. And he has told reporters how important it was to follow in his
father's footsteps and to become a fighter pilot. Yet in April 1972,
George W. Bush climbed out of a military cockpit for the last time. He
still had two more years to serve, but Bush's own discharge papers suggest
he never served for the Guard again.
It is, of course, possible that Bush had simply had enough of the Guard
and, with the war in Vietnam beginning to wind down, decided that he would
rather do other things. In 1972 he asked to be transferred to an Alabama
unit so he could work on a Senate campaign for a friend of his father's.
But some skeptics have speculated that Bush might have dropped out to
avoid being tested for drugs. Which is where Air Force Regulation 160-23,
also known as the Medical Service Drug Abuse Testing Program, comes in.
The new drug-testing effort was officially launched by the Air Force on
April 21, 1972, following a Jan. 11, 1972, directive issued by the
Department of Defense.

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

Want to read the whole article? You have two options: Subscribe now,
or watch a brief ad and get a free day pass. If you're already a
subscriber log in here.



Salon Search About Salon Table Talk Advertise in Salon Investor Relations

News & Politics | Opinion | Tech & Business | Arts & Entertainment
Indie film | Books | Life | Sex | Comics | Audio | Dialogue
Letters | Columnists | Salon Gear

Reproduction of material from any Salon pages without written permission is
strictly prohibited
Copyright 2004 Salon.com
Salon, 22 4th Street, 16th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103
Telephone 415 645-9200 | Fax 415 645-9204
E-mail | Salon.com Privacy Policy | Terms of Service
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Attention Deficit
by Andrew Sullivan

Only at TNR Online | Post date 02.09.04 E-mail this article

Many conservative commentators greeted the president's "Meet The Press" interview with considerable gloom. President Bush, they argued, seemed tired, bumbling, didn't actually answer the questions asked, and failed to address the most important issues out there in the country. I disagree somewhat. I felt his answers on the war and its general rationale, his willingness to concede errors, and his demeanor were strong and appealing to those who aren't already turned off by this president's character and personality. But it was in the second part of the interview that things, to my mind, unraveled. Bush offered no compelling rationale for reelecting him. He offered excuses on the economy; and, on the critical matter of the country's fiscal health, he seemed scarily out of touch. Here's the most worrying section of the interview, with some of my comments:


RUSSERT: The General Accounting Office [GAO], which are the nation's auditors ...

BUSH: Yes.

RUSSERT: ... have done a study of our finances. And this is what your legacy will be to the next generation.

It says that our current fiscal policy is unsustainable. They did a computer simulation that shows that balancing the budget in 2040 could require either cutting total federal spending in half or doubling federal taxes.

Why, as a fiscal conservative, as you like to call yourself, would you allow a $500 billion deficit and this kind of deficit disaster?

BUSH: Sure. The budget I just proposed to the Congress cuts the deficit in half in five years.

Now, I don't know what the assumptions are in the GAO report, but I do know that, if Congress is wise with the people's money, we can cut the deficit in half. And, at that point in time, as a percentage of GDP, the deficit will be relatively low.

One simple, perhaps nit-picky, point: To the question "Why ... would you allow ... this kind of deficit disaster?" the president replies, "Sure." Sure? I think I know what the president means. It's a verbal place-saver, a pause. But it's surely worth pointing out that I know of no one who can reply to an allegation that he is about to deny with an actual affirmative. "Did you kill your wife?" "Sure. I never touched her." Who talks this way?

Then the president uses the phrase "if Congress is wise with the people's money." But the point is that, in the last three years, the Congress has, by any measure, been grotesquely unwise with the people's money. And the president vetoed not a single spending measure. In fact, his own budgets exploded spending on both war and homeland security and every other government department, from Labor to Agriculture, before the pork-sniffers in Congress even got started. Then the president simply reiterates, and doesn't explain, something no one believes, which is that the deficit can be cut in half in five years--before, as even he would have to concede, it heads into the stratosphere.

So, in one response, we have a one-word answer that means the opposite of what it should; we have an irrelevance; and we have a pipe dream. And the president expects the people to trust him with their money? If your financial adviser came up with such an answer, after a huge drop in your personal savings and massive loans coming due in a few years, you'd fire him. Back to Bush:


I agree with the assessment that we've got some long-term financial issues we must look at. And that's one reason I asked Congress to deal with Medicare. I strongly felt that, if we didn't have an element of competition, that if we weren't modern with the Medicare program, if we didn't incorporate what's called health savings accounts to encourage Americans to take more control over their health care decisions, we would have even a worse financial picture in the long run.

I believe Medicare is going to not only make the system work better for seniors, but it's going to help the fiscal situation of our long-term projection.

OK, let me put this gently here. Is he out of his mind? The minor reforms to Medicare are indeed welcome in providing more choice and some accountability in the program. But the major impact of his Medicare reform is literally trillions of dollars in new spending for the foreseeable future. He has enacted one of the biggest new entitlements since Richard Nixon; he has attached it to a population that is growing fast in numbers; and the entitlement is to products, prescription drugs, whose prices are rising faster than almost everything else in the economy. Despite all this, the president believes it will "help the fiscal situation of our long-term projection"? Who does he think he's kidding? It's like a man who earns $50,000 per year getting a mortgage for a $5 million house and bragging that he got a good interest rate.


BUSH: We've got to deal with Social Security as well. As you know, I mean, these entitlement programs need to be dealt with.

We are dealing with some entitlement programs right now in the Congress. The highway bill, it's going to be an interesting test of fiscal discipline on both sides of the aisle. The Senate's is about $370, as I understand, $370 billion; the House is at less than that, but over $300 billion. And, as you know, the budget I propose is about $256 billion. So...

It would appear from this response that the president believes that highway construction is an entitlement program. Again: Does he have the faintest idea what he's talking about?


RUSSERT: But your base conservatives--listen to Rush Limbaugh, the Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute--they're all saying you're the biggest spender in American history.

BUSH: Well, they're wrong.

Based on what? They have the numbers. All the president has is words.


RUSSERT: Mr. President...

BUSH: If you look at the appropriations bills that were passed under my watch, in the last year of President Clinton, discretionary spending was up 15 percent, and ours have steadily declined.

OK, let me be candid here and say I don't know what he means. Does he believe that discretionary spending has declined each year under his watch? Surely not. It has exploded during his administration. Is he saying that the rate of increase has slowed? Again: surely not. As Joshua Claybourn has shown, Clinton's last budget increased domestic discretionary spending by 4.56 percent. Bush's first budget increased it by 7.06 percent. His second increased it by over 10 percent. We have a few options here: The president doesn't know what he's talking about, or he's lying, or he trusts people telling him lies. But it is undeniable that this president is not on top of the most damaging part of his legacy--the catastrophe he is inflicting on our future fiscal health.


And the other thing that I think it's important for people who watch the expenditures side of the equation is to understand we're at war, Tim, and, any time you commit your troops into harm's way, they must have the best equipment, the best training, and the best possible pay. That's where--we owe it to their loved ones.

Fine. So why has the president increased discretionary spending outside of defense and homeland security by such a huge amount? Why the massive agricultural subsidies? Why the vast new Medicare entitlement? Couldn't he have said, "Look, we're at war. We cannot afford these other things right now." Did that even occur to him?

I'm not one of those who believes that a good president has to have the debating skills of a Tony Blair or the rhetorical facility of Bill Clinton. I cannot help liking the president as a person. I still believe he did a great and important thing in liberating Iraq (although we have much, much more to do). But, if this is the level of coherence, grasp of reality, and honesty that is really at work in his understanding of domestic fiscal policy, then we are in even worse trouble than we thought. We have a captain on the fiscal Titanic who thinks he's in the Caribbean.

Andrew Sullivan is a senior editor at TNR.
---------------------------------------

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX THU FEB 12, 2004 20:01:49 ET XXXXX
OUT OF AFRICA: KERRY PREPARES RESPONSE TO MEDIA PROBE OF RELATIONSHIP
**Exclusive**
Democratic presidential frontrunner John Kerry is planning a response to a DRUDGE REPORT exclusive which first revealed the frantic behind-the-scenes drama surrounding a woman who recently fled the country, reportedly at the prodding of Kerry!
The nature and details of a claimed two-year relationship, beginning in the Spring of 2001, between a young woman and Kerry is at the center of serious investigations at several media outlets.
After being approached by a top news producer, the woman fled to Africa, where she remains, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal.
Unlike the Monica Lewinsky drama, which first played out publicly in this space, with audio tapes, cigar and a dress, the Kerry situation has posed a challange to reporters investigating the claims.
"There is no lawsuit testimony this time [like Clinton with Paula Jones]," a top source said Thursday night. "It is hard to prove."
A close friend of the woman first approached a reporter late last year claiming fantastic stories -- stories that now threaten to turn the race for the presidency on its head.
Kerry is scheduled to appear on IMUS IN THE MORNING on Friday. Later he is scheduled to join General Wesley Clark, who, in an off-the-record conversation with a dozen reporters earlier this week, plainly stated: "Kerry will implode over an intern issue."
Reporters who witnessed Clark making the stunning comments marvel at the General's reluctance to later confirm they were spoken -- only to later endorse Kerry for the nomination!

Developing...
Filed By Matt Drudge
Reports are moved when circumstances warrant
http://www.drudgereport.com for updates
(c)DRUDGE REPORT 2004
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

>> OH CLARA...

Les d?clarations de Mme Del Ponte tombent dans le vide
11/02/2004 - 19:12
BELGRADE, 11 f?v (AFP) -
Les d?clarations du procureur du Tribunal p?nal international (TPI) Carla Del Ponte sur la pr?sence ? Belgrade de Radovan Karadzic, recherch? pour g?nocide par la juridiction de l'Onu, se heurtent ? une situation proche du vide institutionnel en Serbie, toujours en qu?te d'un gouvernement.
Aucune des six formations politiques ou coalitions repr?sent?es au parlement issu des l?gislatives de d?cembre ne dispose de la majorit? absolue requise pour avaliser un nouvel ex?cutif. Cette situation est imputable en grande partie au regain d'influence des mouvements nationalistes, farouchement oppos?es ? de nouveaux transf?rements d'inculp?s serbes au TPI.
Le Parti radical (SRS/ultranationaliste), dont le pr?sident Vojislav Seselj est inculp? de crimes de guerre par le TPI, est le mouvement le mieux repr?sent? au nouveau parlement.
De son c?t?, le SPS (Parti socialiste) de Slobodan Milosevic --qui comparait actuellement devant le TPI-- a jou? un r?le crucial pour assurer l'?lection du pr?sident du parlement, il y a quelques jours.
L'annonce ? l'automne 2003 par le TPI de nouvelles inculpations ? l'encontre de quatre g?n?raux de l'arm?e et de la police serbe n'a fait que consolider l'?lectorat nationaliste et les sentiments hostiles au Tribunal, selon les autorit?s de Belgrade.
Les quatre partis d'orientation d?mocratique au parlement n'ont pu s'entendre, malgr? d'intenses n?gociations, pour ?tablir une majorit? absolue stable --qu'ils ont pourtant en th?orie-- et permettre la mise en place d'un gouvernement.
Le cabinet sortant, contr?l? par le Parti d?mocratique (DS) du Premier ministre assassin? Zoran Djindjic, qui assure les affaires courantes, a toujours entretenu, depuis le transf?rement de Milosevic au TPI en juin 2001, des relations difficiles avec le Tribunal.
Il en est de m?me pour le cabinet de l'Etat de Serbie-Mont?n?gro, qui a succ?d? en f?vrier 2003 ? la Yougoslavie.
Goran Svilanovic, le ministre serbo-mont?n?grin des Affaires ?trang?res, a implicitement rejet? les assertions de Mme Del Ponte. "Il y a des mois que j'entends tout cela, il n'y a rien de nouveau", a-t-il d?clar? mercredi ? l'AFP.
Mme del Ponte a affirm? ? Bruxelles avoir "re?u (...) une information d'une source cr?dible que (Radovan) Karadzic (ancien chef politique des Serbes de Bosnie) se trouvait maintenant ? Belgrade", tout comme le g?n?ral Ratko Mladic, l'ancien chef militaire des Serbes de Bosnie.
Karadzic et Mladic sont parmi les criminels de guerre pr?sum?s les plus recherch?s par le TPI. Ils sont accus?s du massacre de plus de 7.000 musulmans ? Srebrenica (est de la Bosnie), en juillet 1995.
M. Zoran Zivkovic, le Premier ministre sortant, a de nouveau fait valoir mercredi que Mme Del Ponte "n'avait jusqu'? pr?sent jamais offert (? Belgrade) une information pouvant conduire ? l'arrestation de suspects poursuivis par le
Selon le minist?re serbe de l'Int?rieur, "la police ne poss?de aucune information" de nature ? ?tayer les d?clarations du procureur du TPI.
La normalisation de la coop?ration entre Belgrade et le TPI est d'autant plus hypoth?tique, selon les analystes, que, si un gouvernement peut ?tre prochainement constitu? en Serbie, il devrait ?tre dirig? par l'ancien pr?sident yougoslave Vojislav Kostunica.
Or ce dernier a toujours fait montre, dans le pass?, d'une grande m?fiance envers le TPI, dont il fustige notamment le caract?re "anti-serbe".
Au cas o? le gouvernement n'est pas form? --en raison de divisions persistantes au sein de la classe politique--, l'?lectorat sera de nouveau convoqu? pour des ?lections parlementaires. Les nationalistes --tous anti-TPI-- pourraient alors confirmer, voir accro?tre, les bons r?sultats du scrutin de d?cembre.
? 2004 AFP. Tous droits de reproduction et de repr?sentation r?serv?s
-----------------------------------------

>> NOW CHIRAC...

http://www.nouvelobs.com/dossiers/p2049/a232981.html
M?me sa succession lui ?chappe...

Chirac face ? la ?catastrophe?

Vendredi noir pour le pr?sident. Ce 30 janvier, en apprenant une demi-heure avant le public la condamnation d'Alain Jupp?, Jacques Chirac n'a pas seulement perdu son dauphin. C'est son propre avenir qui s'est effondr?. R?cit d'une semaine folle o? la droite a perdu le contr?le


C'est par un coup de t?l?phone de Philippe Bas, secr?taire g?n?ral de l'Elys?e, lui-m?me pr?venu par le ministre de la Justice, Dominique Perben, que Jacques Chirac a pris connaissance, une demi-heure avant que le tribunal de Nanterre rende son jugement, du sort r?serv? ? Alain Jupp?. Son premier r?flexe, pass? le premier choc? Tout verrouiller. Avant de s'envoler pour Gen?ve, ce vendredi 30 janvier, il a un bref entretien avec Jean-Pierre Raffarin qu'il croise ? 14h45, dans le salon d'honneur de l'a?roport d'Orly - le Premier ministre lui-m?me rentre d'Angoul?me. Le pr?sident de la R?publique passe la consigne: aucun ministre ne doit s'exprimer. Chirac ne veut aucune r?action intempestive. D'abord colmater pour pouvoir s'organiser. Quelques heures plus tard, le chef de l'Etat l?ve la consigne de silence en demandant au Premier ministre et aux membres du gouvernement de d?fendre Jupp?. Et, assure un conseiller de l'Elys?e, il a not? le nom des ministres qui n'ont pas spontan?ment manifest? leur soutien au pr?sident de l'UMP.
Jacques Chirac mesure sans doute mieux que quiconque l'ampleur du d?sastre. Avec la condamnation de Jupp?, le dauphin qu'il s'?tait choisi, c'est le c?ur de son dispositif qui est touch?. C'est toute sa strat?gie qui est remise en cause, tout l'?difice qu'il a soigneusement ?labor? depuis dix ans qui s'?croule. Mais il y a plus grave: son image personnelle est d?sormais atteinte au plus profond. Les chiraquiens du premier cercle l'admettent ? mi-voix: l'affaire est ?catastrophique? pour le chef de l'Etat. Pas seulement parce qu'elle rappelle qu'il n'est pas ?tranger aux affaires du financement du RPR, qu'il ?tait le patron d'un syst?me et que la justice continuera de s'int?resser ? lui le jour o? il quittera l'Elys?e. Mais parce que c'est son capital de sympathie aupr?s des Fran?ais qui en a pris un coup. ?Tout le monde a bien compris que Jupp? payait pour Chirac?, remarque un responsable UMP.
Publicit?

Certes, Chirac a beaucoup donn? ? Alain Jupp?. Il lui a mis le pied ? l'?trier, en a fait son adjoint aux finances ? la Mairie de Paris, puis son secr?taire g?n?ral au RPR, avant de lui confier les r?nes du mouvement gaulliste et d'en faire son Premier ministre au lendemain de sa premi?re victoire pr?sidentielle. Et, entre 1995 et 1997, Chirac a laiss? Jupp? gouverner ? sa guise ? Matignon. Mais, en ayant laiss? perdurer, au-del? du raisonnable, un syst?me de financement appartenant ? une ?poque r?volue, il a aussi creus? la tombe politique de son fils pr?f?r?. Lequel est sacrifi? pour la survie politique du chef. ?J'ai encore des devoirs envers ceux qui m'ont plac? o? je suis?, a dit Alain Jupp? mardi 3 f?vrier sur TF1. Le pr?sident de l'UMP faisait bien s?r r?f?rence aux militants qui l'avaient ?lu en novembre 2002. Mais chacun aura pens? aussi ? ses devoirs envers le pr?sident de la R?publique.
Depuis des ann?es, la popularit? de Jacques Chirac aupr?s des Fran?ais est fond?e sur ses qualit?s d'homme de c?ur, son aptitude ? comprendre les plus d?munis, sa politique compassionnelle. Cette image-l? avait d?j? ?t? s?rieusement ?corn?e par son absence lors de la canicule l'?t? dernier. Elle est de nouveau touch?e gravement. Et, cette fois, c'est le noyau dur de la popularit? du pr?sident de la R?publique qui est atteint.
Chirac n'en est pas, c'est vrai, ? son premier coup dur. Dans sa longue vie politique, ce guerrier en a vu d'autres. En 1988, apr?s son humiliante d?faite face ? Mitterrand, ou ? l'automne 1994 lorsqu'il ?tait au plus bas dans les sondages tandis que Balladur ?tait au z?nith. Mais il ?tait en devenir. Aujourd'hui, ? 71 ans, il s'agit pour le chef de l'Etat de maintenir l'illusion qu'il pourrait se repr?senter en 2007, ? 74 ans. Pour ?viter que ne s'ouvre d?s maintenant la guerre de succession. Pour conserver son influence sur son camp. C'est tout le sens de l'op?ration d?clench?e pour convaincre Alain Jupp? de conserver ses fonctions ? la t?te de l'UMP. Si par bonheur le maire de Bordeaux pouvait ?coper en appel d'une condamnation moindre, sans in?ligibilit?...
Mais en priv? les chiraquiens n'y croient gu?re. ?Il faut arr?ter de se raconter des histoires. Jupp? est cuit au charbon?, soupire, navr?, un ministre. Au moins Jupp? a-t-il choisi d'assurer la transition. D?cision capitale pour Chirac. ?Un d?part imm?diat de Jupp? de la pr?sidence de l'UMP faisait exploser la machine pendant la p?riode ?lectorale?, remarque-t-on ? l'Elys?e. Et ouvrait la voie aux ambitions de Nicolas Sarkozy, ennemi d?clar? de la chiraquie et nouvel homme ? abattre.
?On se croirait revenu ? la p?riode 1993-1995?, note effar?, un d?put? ancien de D?mocratie lib?rale, devant le regain de haine qui a saisi les chiraquiens face ? la perspective d'un Sarkozy pr?sident de l'UMP. Car diriger l'UMP, c'est disposer du tr?sor de guerre - 750 millions de francs - pour l'?lection pr?sidentielle et d?tenir la cl? des investitures pour les l?gislatives, et donc le pouvoir d'influence sur les ?lus et les candidats.
Pour l'heure, quelques mois, l'essentiel est donc sauf: le parti - cl? de vo?te du syst?me gaulliste - demeure sous contr?le chiraquien. Car ce sont bien des r?flexes claniques que l'on voit resurgir ? l'occasion de cette affaire. L'UMP, voulue, pens?e et mise en place par Alain Jupp? et J?r?me Monod, conseiller politique ? l'Elys?e - et ?d?couvreur? du premier -, deux fid?les de Chirac, doit rester une affaire de famille. Ce n'est sans doute pas un hasard si Alain Jupp?, dans son discours de cl?ture du congr?s organis? pour lui dimanche dernier ? la porte de Versailles, a parl? de ?sentiment patriotique?, d'?amour de la France? et fait r?f?rence au g?n?ral de Gaulle, ?figure la plus ?minente de notre xxe si?cle?, seul homme politique qu'il ait cit?. M?me s'il a pr?cis?, en mani?re de pr?caution, qu'il savait que tous n'?taient pas gaullistes d'origine dans la salle, c'?tait bien d'une recommandation pour l'avenir qu'il s'agissait, d'une tradition que son successeur devrait respecter.
Disciple de Val?ry Giscard d'Estaing, Jean-Pierre Raffarin n'est certes pas gaulliste. Mais il est chiraquien. Avec lui au moins Chirac est en confiance. Mais ce serait quand m?me une nouvelle ?re qui s'ouvrirait, celle des incertitudes et des turbulences. Chirac le sait, m?me face ? Raffarin, Sarkozy n'a pas dit son dernier mot. Le ministre de l'Int?rieur a pour principe dans la vie de ne jamais laisser passer une occasion et il ne croit qu'au rapport de force.
Avec Alain Jupp? ? la t?te de l'UMP, Jacques Chirac savait qu'il conservait la supr?matie sur son camp et, surtout, que la question de sa succession ne s'ouvrirait qu'? l'heure choisie par lui. Il sait aujourd'hui que ce pari-l? est d'ores et d?j? perdu.CAROLE BARJON

Carole Barjon



De la loi Perben ? l'affaire Jupp?...

Justice : La droite d?rape

Depuis la condamnation d'Alain Jupp?, la droite n'est plus elle-m?me. Ou bien l'est-elle trop? Oubli du droit, man?uvres contre les juges, m?pris de la s?paration des pouvoirs, nomination d'une commission contraire ? tous les usages par le pr?sident de la R?publique: les dix ans d'in?ligibilit? inflig?s au patron de l'UMP ont fait rena?tre tous les vieux d?mons de la chiraquie. Au moment o? le gouvernement s'appr?te ? promulguer une loi dite ?Perben 2 ? qui renforce de mani?re dangereuse les pouvoirs de la police et des procureurs et affaiblit celui des juges ind?pendants, l'Elys?e orchestre dans l'affaire Jupp? une contre-attaque qui heurte tous les principes d?mocratiques. Marie-France Etchegoin raconte le grand d?rapage du clan Chirac. Claude Weill tire la le?on politique de l'affaire. Et dans un texte important Robert Badinter ?tablit la nocivit? des lois Perben. Une d?monstration sans appel


Si encore ils ?taient encart?s. Si on avait pu leur trouver des ant?c?dents. Par exemple, un engagement gauchiste, voire un peu socialiste. M?me vieux de trente ans. Si on avait pu d?nicher, au contraire, une pointe d'int?grisme, les preuves d'une aust?rit? suspecte. Ou alors une ambition un peu trop d?vorante, l'envie de se faire un nom. Mais non, les trois juges de Jupp? ne ressemblent ni ? des ?juges rouges?, ni ? des ?Torquemada des temps modernes?, ni ? des ?cow-boys? en mal de notori?t?. Ils ne collent pas ? ces clich?s habituellement ?voqu?s pour disqualifier les juges qui d?plaisent. Catherine Pierce, la pr?sidente de la 15e chambre du tribunal de Nanterre, a des racines bourgeoises et un mari am?ricain qui a fait carri?re dans la banque. A la solde de la gauche, de Sarkozy ou d'une autre faction? M?me les plus parano?aques des jupp?istes n'ont pas os? ce genre d'arguments. Ils ont cherch? une faille du c?t? des deux assesseurs. Las. Fabienne Schaller a exerc? le m?tier d'avocate avant de rejoindre la magistrature. On a vu des CV plus r?volutionnaires. Alain Prache, son coll?gue, fut policier avant d'opter pour la magistrature. Et m?me commandant de CRS! Pas exactement le profil d'un ?excit??...
Pour le moment, les fins limiers de l'Elys?e n'ont rien d?terr? sur le trio de Nanterre. Pas la moindre fiche de RG un brin compromettante, pas le moindre ragot. Mis ? part un passage ? l'USM (Union syndicale des Magistrats, majoritaire et mod?r?e) pour l'un des trois, il y a quatre ans. C'est dire! ?Excellents techniciens du droit, int?gres, apolitiques?: tous ceux qui ont c?toy? les trois magistrats chantent depuis quinze jours le m?me ch?ur de louanges.
Publicit?

H? oui, on finirait presque par perdre de vue cette stup?fiante ?vidence tant la ?caravane Jupp?? et son cort?ge de pleureuses ont monopolis? l'attention ces derniers jour: les trois juges n'ont pas commis de faute. Ils n'ont fait que leur travail! Ils ont appliqu? la loi. Simplement. B?tement, si l'on ose ?crire.
Au moment o? le gouvernement s'appr?te ? faire entrer en vigueur la loi Perben, l'une des r?formes de la justice les plus r?pressives de ces trente derni?res ann?es, il donne de lui- m?me un d?plorable spectacle. Ce qui aurait pu ?tre un vrai d?bat (pour ?lutter contre l'ins?curit?? - dont certains postulent qu'elle est d?sormais la principale pr?occupation des Fran?ais -, faut-il mettre ? mal certaines libert?s publiques?) tourne d'un coup ? la farce cynique. Oui, il faut frapper les voleurs, les violeurs, les conducteurs en ?tat d'ivresse, les trafiquants, les fraudeurs. Mais pas touche ? l'?narque, au patron de l'UMP, ? l'avenir de la droite, au fusible du pr?sident, au ?fils pr?f?r??. Pas touche au chouchou de Chichi. Le contraste est saisissant. Si caricatural qu'on croirait une fable mise en sc?ne par un dangereux d?magogue pour discr?diter un peu plus les ?tous pourris?. Ou alors un roman de politique-fiction ?crit par un ?droit-de-l'hommiste? attard? (selon l'expression ch?re ? Nicolas Sarkozy) pour r?veiller les consciences endormies. Et pourtant... c'est ? l'Elys?e que le psychodrame a ?t? ?crit.
Et c'est un clan qui s'est dress? comme un seul homme. Pr?t ? se d?fendre bec et ongles. D?s le vendredi 30 janvier, quelques heures apr?s l'?nonc? du jugement, Jean-Pierre Raffarin est envoy? en premi?re ligne. Mine d?faite, ?paules vo?t?es, costume noir... Il se dit ?surpris? par la d?cision du tribunal, qualifi?e de ?provisoire?, alors que ?la France a besoin d'Alain Jupp??. Comme si le pays traversait un drame sans pr?c?dent. Et message subliminal ? l'intention des magistrats amen?s ? juger l'ancien Premier ministre en appel dans quelques mois: oseront-ils encore priver la nation d'un aussi grand homme? Message d?clin? sur tous les tons, agressif ou compassionnel, dans les jours qui suivent. Ministres et d?put?s se relaient. Les uns pour s'offusquer de cette ?condamnation ? mort politique? (Xavier Darcos), de ce ?jugement disproportionn?, hypocrite et cynique? (Eric Raoult), de cette mani?re ?indigne de traiter quelqu'un de cette qualit? comme un malfaiteur? (Josselin de Rohan). Les autres pour sanctifier Alain Jupp?, ?un homme d'Etat? (Dominique de Villepin), ?un homme d'honneur? (Herv? Gaymard). Jusqu'au point d'orgue: le 2 f?vrier, Jacques Chirac loue avec une ?motion ? peine contenue les ?qualit?s exceptionnelles? de son dauphin. ?Comp?tence, humanisme?. Et ?honn?tet??. ?Honn?te?, Alain Jupp?? M?me ses ennemis politiques le reconnaissent: il n'a pas mis d'argent dans sa poche. Une pr?cision qui ne laisse pas d'amuser nombre d'observateurs ?trangers. ?Je suis toujours ?tonn? par cette manie qu'ont les Fran?ais de s?parer enrichissement personnel et financement d'un parti, remarque par exemple John Henley, le correspondant du "Guardian" ? Paris. Certes, Alain Jupp? n'a pas pris un sou pour lui, mais il a quand m?me enfreint la loi! L'argent des Parisiens a financ? le RPR pendant des ann?es, et donc l'?lection de Chirac, et donc la carri?re politique de Jupp?.? Les juges de Nanterre ont effectivement consid?r? que l'ancien Premier ministre avait commis un d?lit. Et pourtant le pr?sident de la R?publique, le ?garant de l'ind?pendance de l'autorit? judiciaire? selon l'article 64 de la Constitution, vient publiquement et implicitement remettre en question leur d?cision en apportant son soutien ? un condamn? qui a certes fait appel. Ce qui ne veut pas dire que cette condamnation a disparu pour autant, comme par magie! D'autant que la plupart des soutiens de Jupp? contestent la s?v?rit? de la peine et non la r?alit? du d?lit.
La France semble bien atteinte de ?sous-d?veloppement d?mocratique?, comme le disent depuis longtemps avocats et magistrats. Un pays o? l'ind?pendance de la justice ressemble parfois ? une faribole. Cela ne vaut pas seulement pour la droite, bien s?r. La gauche, qui d?nonce la ?berlusconisation? de la droite, eut elle aussi des envies de meurtre (symbolique) ? l'?gard des juges insoumis. On se souvient de Thierry Jean-Pierre, dessaisi in extremis par sa hi?rarchie alors qu'il s'appr?tait ? perquisitionner, au si?ge d'Urba, le bureau d'?tudes du Parti socialiste, ? la fin des ann?es 1980. Du juge Renaud Van Ruymbeke hu? lors d'un congr?s socialiste en 1992 pour avoir inculp? Henri Emmanuelli, le tr?sorier du PS. De Lionel Jospin, alors num?ro un du PS, d?non?ant une ?d?cision inique? apr?s la condamnation du m?me Emmanuelli, en 1996, ? dix-huit mois de prison avec sursis et deux ans de privation des droits civiques... Mais en mati?re d'interventionnisme et de manipulations en tout genre la chiraquie d?tient tous les records. On citera pour m?moire la pitoyable affaire Schuller-Mar?chal destin?e ? faire tomber le juge Halphen, en 1994. Mais l'histoire de l'h?licopt?re affr?t? par la chancellerie en octobre 1996 pour tenter de retrouver le procureur d'Evry, en trekking dans l'Himalaya, afin de lui intimer de bloquer l'ouverture d'une information judiciaire visant Xavi?re Tiberi restera incontestablement dans les annales de la justice. Le garde des Sceaux de l'?poque, Jacques Toubon, autre soldat de Jacques Chirac, assumera seul cette guignolesque ?pop?e. Politiquement, il ne s'en remettra jamais - encore un ?fils? sacrifi? - mais, avant de quitter la chancellerie, il aura eu le temps d'installer des hommes s?rs aux postes cl?s du parquet. Objectif: d?miner les enqu?tes dangereuses, ?saucissonner? les proc?dures pour mieux les ralentir... Cela n'emp?chera pas une autre affaire sensible, celle des emplois fictifs de la Mairie de Paris, de menacer la chiraquie ? travers un homme dont le destin est li? depuis des ann?es ? celui de Jacques Chirac: Alain Jupp?. D?s le d?but, c'est au ?ch?teau?, sous la houlette de Dominique de Villepin, alors secr?taire g?n?ral de l'Elys?e, que s'organise la d?fense de l'ancien bras droit de Chirac ? l'H?tel de Ville. Il s'agit de prot?ger ?l'h?ritier?, et bien s?r aussi son ?p?re spirituel?, Jacques Chirac, menac? par cette enqu?te, comme par beaucoup d'autres. A partir de ce moment-l?, l'?p?e de Damocl?s suspendue au-dessus de la t?te du chef de l'Etat va plomber les relations entre justice et politique pour des ann?es.
En 2002, pour tenter de sauver Alain Jupp?, les derni?res cartouches sont br?l?es. Opportunes promotions du magistrat instructeur et du procureur de Nanterre, Yves Bot. Miracle, son successeur, Bernard Pag?s, abandonne quelques mois avant le proc?s la moiti? des charges retenues contre l'ancien secr?taire g?n?ral du RPR. Tous ces efforts ont pourtant ?t? vains, puisque Alain Jupp? a ?t? condamn? par le tribunal de Nanterre... Aujourd'hui il fait appel, et c'est son droit le plus strict. Comme tous les justiciables, Alain Jupp?, pr?venu puis condamn?, a tous les droits. Celui de trouver que ?c'est trop?, d'affirmer qu'il ne ?m?rite pas d'?tre ray? d'un trait de plume?. Celui de se d?fendre avec la derni?re ?nergie pour obtenir en appel une sanction moins lourde et, pourquoi pas, pour ?tre relax?. Celui de mentir m?me, ou de changer de d?fense, d'affirmer qu'il n'?tait pas au courant puis qu'il n'a peut-?tre pas ?t? assez ?rigoureux?. De m?me, son avocat Francis Szpiner a le droit de critiquer, sur le fond comme sur la forme, la d?cision du tribunal... Mais comment admettre, en revanche, les tr?pignements des responsables de la majorit? pr?sidentielle? M?me s'il faut y lire la col?re d'un pr?sident de la R?publique qui risque d'?tre rattrap? par l'affaire quand il ne sera plus prot?g? par son immunit? (voir encadr?)?
Pendant ces quelques jours de folie qui vont suivre la condamnation d'Alain Jupp?, chiraquiens et jupp?istes vont pourtant s'appliquer ? nier la r?alit? avec un aplomb qui frise l'autisme. A les entendre, on pourrait m?me se demander si Alain Jupp? n'a pas ?t? victime d'une catastrophe naturelle. D'une vengeance divine. Oubli?e, la guerre de tranch?es contre les juges qui dure depuis des ann?es; escamot?es, les raisons de sa condamnation; zapp?s, ces mots grossiers: ?prise ill?gale d'int?r?t?. Alors qu'il ?tait adjoint aux finances de Paris (et secr?taire g?n?ral du RPR), alors qu'il avait pour mission de contr?ler les finances de la municipalit?, Alain Jupp? a fait prendre en charge par la Ville les salaires de sept permanents du RPR, en toute connaissance de cause, estiment les juges. C'est cette r?alit? brute que ses d?fenseurs s'acharnent ? faire dispara?tre. D?s lors, on disserte sur les larmes de Jupp?, sur son c?ur bris? alors qu'on pensait qu'il n'en avait pas. Sur son courage face ? l'?adversit??. Comme si la douleur (sinc?re, personne n'en doute) d'un condamn? effa?ait le d?lit commis.
Quant aux dix ans d'in?ligibilit? auxquels le tribunal le condamne, ce serait une autre preuve de l'acharnement de ses juges. La preuve qu'ils veulent la peau des politiques, qu'ils s'estiment au-dessus de la ?repr?sentation nationale?. Bienheureuse amn?sie! C'est le gouvernement Balladur (dans lequel Jupp? ?tait ministre) qui a fait voter en 1994 la loi qui aboutit automatiquement ? cette tr?s lourde sanction (une d?cennie d'in?ligibilit?!). Secou?s par le tourbillon des affaires, les parlementaires voulaient alors montrer ? l'opinion publique qu'ils ne l?sineraient plus sur les r?gles du financement politique! La stup?faction d'une partie de la droite, apr?s la sentence qui a frapp? Alain Jupp?, ne fait donc qu'?corner un peu plus la cr?dibilit? des politiques: ils concoctent des lois d'affichage en pensant qu'elles ne s'appliqueront jamais. Et surtout pas ? eux... La garde rapproch?e de Jacques Chirac aurait voulu que l'on am?nage la loi pour le pr?sident de l'UMP. Elle reproche aux juges de Nanterre de ne pas avoir suivi les sages conseils du procureur qui avait requis, en toute mod?ration, contre Alain Jupp? en automne dernier. Que sugg?rait alors le repr?sentant du parquet? Il sugg?rait aux magistrats de ne pas inscrire la condamnation d'Alain Jupp? au bulletin n?2 de son casier judiciaire. Une mesure technique qui aurait pu lui ?viter l'in?ligibilit? automatique. ?Une mesure qui ne b?n?ficie m?me pas ? 1% des condamn?s, assure un magistrat habitu? des proc?s en correctionnelle. Fallait-il accorder ce r?gime d?rogatoire ? cet homme dont la France ne pourrait, para?t-il, se passer? Tous les fonctionnaires radi?s parce qu'ils ont commis des fautes dans l'exercice de leurs fonctions, tous les chefs d'entreprise interdits de g?rance appr?cieront...?
Troisi?me argument: les attendus du jugement de Nanterre seraient ?scandaleux? (dixit Patrick Stefanini, ex-directeur de cabinet d'Alain Jupp?, lui-m?me condamn?). ?Un tribunal est-il fond? ? dire que quelqu'un a "tromp? la confiance du peuple souverain"?, s'interroge plus subtilement Patrick Devedjian, le ministre des Libert?s locales (c'est l'un des reproches formul?s par les juges ? l'?gard d'Alain Jupp?). ?Ces indignations sont des ?mois de chaisi?re, lance Jean-Pierre Mignard, l'avocat de la Mairie de Paris, partie civile au proc?s. La notion de "peuple souverain" est une notion de droit. Quand un mandat (en l'occurrence celui de maire adjoint charg? des finances d'une ville) est exerc? ? d'autres fins que l'int?r?t public, il y a bien trahison de la confiance qui vous a ?t? donn?e par les ?lecteurs, donc par le peuple... Tous les jours, des juges motivent leurs d?cisions avec des mots tr?s durs. Ils parlent d'"atteinte ? l'autorit? de l'Etat", d'"extr?me gravit? sociale des faits" pour des d?lits que leurs auteurs consid?rent ?videmment comme b?nins.?
Les mots des juges de Nanterre sont en effet cinglants comme les articles du Code p?nal, s?v?res comme la loi qu'ils appliquent. Les magistrats de Nanterre ne sont pas des diplomates, encore moins des ?politiques?. Si peu qu'? peine leur jugement rendu certaines de leurs confidences faisaient na?tre une ?affaire dans l'affaire? (voir encadr?). Tous les trois auraient ?t? victimes de pressions, d'intimidations, de menaces m?me. Il est possible que cette nouvelle ?affaire? fasse ?pschitt?, comme dirait Jacques Chirac. Il est possible surtout qu'elle serve Alain Jupp? et tous les autres condamn?s du proc?s. Aussit?t le chef de l'Etat a d?cid?, en effet, de cr?er une commission d'enqu?te administrative pour ?faire la lumi?re? sur la r?alit? de ces pressions. Au lieu de s'en remettre, comme il aurait d? le faire, au Conseil sup?rieur de la Magistrature. Du coup, un acteur judiciaire proche de l'UMP r?ve tout haut: ?Les conseillers de l'Elys?e ont eu une riche id?e en cr?ant cette commission administrative qui ne ressemble ? rien. Ce machin n'a aucun pouvoir et un seul but: rendre au plus vite ses conclusions, avant fin f?vrier. Evidemment, la commission ne trouvera trace d'aucune effraction ou d'?coutes (qui de toute fa?on sont ind?celables apr?s coup). Ce qui jettera un s?rieux discr?dit sur les magistrats de Nanterre, sur la s?r?nit? de leur d?cision. Ce qui permettra peut-?tre de demander l'annulation de leur d?cision!? En attendant, le ?machin? semble d?j? avoir du plomb dans l'aile. Plus ou moins boycott? par les magistrats de Nanterre, critiqu? par le CSM, qui supporte mal de devenir le symbole du m?pris dans lequel est tenue l'institution judiciaire. Cette commission ad hoc a ?t? imagin?e contre l'avis de Dominique Perben, assure-t-on ? la chancellerie, par le think tank judiciaire de l'Elys?e (en particulier Laurent Lemesle, le conseiller pour la justice du pr?sident, et Dominique de Villepin, qui continuerait ? suivre de pr?s les affaires tout en officiant au Quai-d'Orsay).
C'est le genre d'acrobatie institutionnelle que la loi Perben rendra peut-?tre inutile. Gr?ce ? l'instauration du ?plaider-coupable?. Inspir?e du droit anglo-saxon, cette proc?dure de jugement simplifi?e permettra ? un procureur de n?gocier une peine avec l'auteur de l'infraction s'il reconna?t sa culpabilit?. Une n?gociation qui pourrait certes simplifier la marche de la justice mais aussi autoriser tous les arrangements. ?Finies, les affaires embarrassantes qui empoisonnent la vie politique, explique un magistrat du p?le financier. Ecart?s, les juges d'instruction ind?pendants qui enqu?tent pendant des ann?es ou les juges du si?ge incontr?lables (comme ceux de Nanterre).? Le plaider-coupable est rapide et pragmatique. Il ne cherche pas forc?ment ? s'approcher de la v?rit?. Il ent?rine un rapport de force, il entend la ?raison d'Etat?, Un peu comme si, dans l'affaire Jupp?, l'ancien Premier ministre ?tait venu discuter de sa peine avec le repr?sentant de Dominique Perben... Sans doute plus raffin? et plus efficace que le c?l?bre h?licopt?re de Jacques Toubon.MARIE-FRANCE ETCHEGOIN

Marie-France Etchegoin

Dominique Barella *

?Les politiques en guerre contre les juges?

?Les violentes attaques contre les magistrats de Nanterre prouvent que les politiques n'ont toujours pas int?gr? psychologiquement l'id?e d'une justice ind?pendante. Il n'est pas innocent que la Constitution de la Ve R?publique parle d'"autorit?" et non de "pouvoir" judiciaire, contrairement aux textes qui r?gissent la plupart des autres d?mocraties. En France, on assiste ? un rabaissement permanent du judiciaire. Comme si le pouvoir ex?cutif n'avait jamais renonc? ? le soumettre. On nage encore en pleine tradition bonapartiste. Contrairement ? ce que l'on dit trop souvent, il n'y pas de bras de fer entre les juges et les politiques. Les juges ne sont pas en guerre contre les politiques. Ce sont les politiques qui sont en guerre contre les juges. Ce sont les politiques qui font une crise de nerf chaque fois que les juges appliquent la loi ? leur encontre. Ce sont les politiques qui jettent le discr?dit sur l'institution judiciaire. En cr?ant par exemple cette mission d'enqu?te administrative ind?pendante, cens?e faire la lumi?re sur ce qui a pu se passer au tribunal de Nanterre pendant le d?lib?r?.?
(*) Pr?sident de l'Union syndicale des Magistrats, majoritaire et mod?r?e.


Patrick Maisonneuve*

?La loi Perben: renforcer les pouvoirs d'un parquet aux ordres?


?J'ai d?j? fait mon auto- critique! Au d?but des ann?es 1990, il aurait ?t? pr?f?rable de dire et d'assumer qu'Urba prenait en charge une partie du financement du PS. Pr?s de quinze ans plus tard, la droite n'a plus cette excuse. Pourtant elle a conserv? cette strat?gie d'affrontement avec les juges que la gauche a abandonn?e depuis longtemps. Si on ?coutait, les chiraquiens, c'est tout juste s'il ne faudrait pas appliquer l'immunit? pr?sidentielle ? l'ensemble des ?lus UMP et non plus seulement au chef de l'Etat!C'est aussi dans ce contexte qu'il faut analyser la loi Perben. Elle vise ? supprimer les juges, ? renforcer les pouvoirs d'un parquet aux ordres. Et in fine, ? prot?ger les proches du pouvoir en endiguant les affaires. Exemple? Gr?ce au plaider-coupable, Alain Jupp? aurait pu n?gocier sa peine directement avec un procureur, sans proc?s public, sans contr?le d'un juge ind?pendant. On peut imaginer que ce procureur, dans le secret du t?te ? t?te, aurait ?t? au moins aussi mod?r? que celui qui a requis au proc?s des emplois fictifs ? l'automne dernier. On se souvient qu'il avait sugg?r? un moyen pour ?viter l'in?ligibilit? ? Alain Jupp?. Avec le plaider-coupable, il n'y aurait plus eu de juges du si?ge pour se mettre en travers de la route!
(*) Avocat, d?fenseur notamment d'Henri Emmanuelli, l'ex-tr?sorier du PS.


Philippe Bilger*

?La hi?rarchie aurait du d?fendre les juges de Nanterre?




?Je suis scandalis? par l'inadmissible absence de r?action de notre hi?rarchie apr?s les critiques inqualifiables que nous avons entendues, ces derniers jours, ? l'encontre des magistrats de Nanterre. Pas un mot pour appeler ? la raison et ? la mesure, pas un mot pour d?fendre ces juges qui ont pris une d?cision sur la base d'un dossier et appliqu? une loi vot?e en 1995 par le gouvernement Balladur. Comment voulez-vous que l'institution judiciaire ne soit pas bafou?e si ses plus hauts repr?sentants se taisent quand elle est attaqu?e. Comment voulez-vous que la justice soit respect?e, si elle ne se respecte pas elle-m?me? Je ne suis pas un gardien fr?n?tique de la "puret? judiciaire". Je ne d?nie pas aux politiques le droit d'exprimer leurs commentaires. Mais tout de m?me, quel d?cha?nement! Maladroit et contre-produc-tif en plus, surtout pour l'appel ? venir. On ne peut pas ? la fois proclamer que la justice est ind?pendante et s'offusquer d?s qu'un jugement d?pla?t. Finalement, la classe politique dans son ensemble, malgr? toutes ses d?clarations d'intention, continue ? la fois ? avoir peur de ses juges et ? les m?priser.?
(*) Avocat g?n?ral ? la cour d'assises de Paris. Magistrat r?put? ? droite et iconoclaste.



Derri?re Jupp?, Chirac




C'est une petite phrase qui n'a l'air de rien. Elle figure dans le jugement de Nanterre et indique qu'Alain Jupp? ?tait, au moment des faits, ?directement subordonn? au pr?sident du mouvement?. A savoir Jacques Chirac. Une ?vidence et une piq?re de rappel. En effet, seule son immunit? pr?sidentielle a ?vit? ? Jacques Chirac de devoir s'expliquer devant le juge, dans l'affaire des emplois fictifs. Mais ? Nanterre, un dossier disjoint et le visant express?ment est ouvert depuis 2002. Le jour o? il ne sera plus pr?sident, il devrait ?tre automatiquement mis en examen.
C'est d?sormais l'une des enqu?tes qui menacent v?ritablement le chef de l'Etat. La deuxi?me dite des ?HLM de la Ville de Paris? concerne des d?tournements de fonds lors de l'attribution de march?s publics (d?taill?s notamment par le promoteur Jean-Claude M?ry dans sa fameuse cassette). D'abord instruite par Eric Halphen (qui avait os? convoquer le pr?sident comme t?moin), elle ?t? transmise et cl?tur?e ? la mi-janvier par le juge Armand Riberolles.
Plusieurs autres affaires semblent d?finitivement enlis?es ou enterr?es. L'enqu?te sur les march?s truqu?s d'Ile-de-France s'est rapproch?e de l'Elys?e en 2000, apr?s la d?couverte de voyages faits par Jacques Chirac et son entourage, et pay?s en esp?ces (des fonds secrets selon l'entourage du chef de l'Etat).
Le dossier des charg?s de mission du maire de Paris est une autre affaire d'emplois fictifs instruite par la juge Colette Bismuth-Sauron. Cinq ex-directeurs de cabinet de Jacques Chirac, puis de Jean Tiberi ? l'H?tel de Ville sont poursuivis. Dont Michel Roussin. En d?cembre dernier, la cour d'appel a consid?r? que la plus grande partie des faits ?taient prescrits.
Publicit?

Dans l'affaire des faux ?lecteurs, Xavi?re Tiberi, l'?pouse du maire du 5e arrondissement, et Jacques Dominati , ex-maire du 3e, sont, parmi d'autres, mis en examen. Jacques Chirac n'est pas directement mis en cause. M?me si plusieurs t?moins ont expliqu? que leurs inscriptions frauduleuses sur les listes ?lectorales devaient lui permettre de remporter le ?grand chelem? lors des municipales de 1989. Reste les ?frais de bouche?, l'un des dossiers les plus ennuyeux pour Jacques Chirac, judiciairement et symboliquement. Quelque 14 millions de francs (2,14 millions d'euros) auraient ?t? pay?s par la questure de Paris, entre 1987 et 1995, pour r?gler les ?frais de r?ception? du couple Chirac. Mais le parquet de Paris et le juge Philippe Courroye, en charge de l'instruction, estiment que la majeure partie des faits vis?s tombe sous le coup de la prescription.

Marie-France Etchegoin

Malaysia: Bush Overplaying Nuclear Role
By ROHAN SULLIVAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Malaysia's leader on Thursday questioned U.S. intelligence on this country's role in a global nuclear trafficking network, and said the man President Bush called its "chief financial officer and money launderer" would not be arrested, for now.
"He is on his feet and free to move around," Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said of B.S.A. Tahir, allegedly a middleman who helped Pakistan's top nuclear scientist sell equipment and know-how to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
Malaysia has said Bush is unfairly singling out this Southeast Asian country with his assertions about its role in the network run by the scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan.
"There is no such thing as Malaysia's involvement," Abdullah told reporters Thursday, when asked to respond to the remarks Bush made in a speech. "We are not involved in any way. I don't know where Bush is getting his evidence from."
Bush said Khan and his associates used a company in Malaysia to make parts for centrifuges - which can be used to enrich uranium for weapons - and that front companies had been used to "deceive legitimate firms into selling them tightly controlled materials."
The Malaysian company doesn't deny making the parts, but says it didn't know what they were for.
Both U.S. officials and the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency say the components were clearly for nuclear use, disputing Malaysian police assertions that they could have had other purposes.
Tahir, a Sri Lankan based in the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, operated a computer company to order centrifuge components from a Malaysian factory - using designs from Pakistan - Bush said. Other parts came from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, he said.
"Tahir acted as both the network's chief financial officer and money launderer," Bush said. "He was also its shipping agent, using his computer firm as cover for the movement of centrifuge parts to various clients."
In his speech Wednesday, Bush demanded tougher laws to stop the illicit spread of weapons technology.
The Malaysian-made parts were seized in October in a shipment of items bound for Libya. The seizure was central to uncovering Libya's nuclear program, which was allegedly helped by Khan.
The Malaysian company, Scomi Precision Engineering, says it supplied 14 semifinished machine components, ordered by Tahir, to Dubai. It says it understood the parts were for use in the oil and gas industry.
The company's parent, Scomi Group, is majority-controlled by Kamaluddin Abdullah, the prime minister's only son, who does not play an official management role in the company.
Malaysia's leader has promised that the current police investigation into the matter will be conducted "without fear or favor." Police say they have found no evidence of wrongdoing by Scomi.
Malaysian police have been investigating Tahir, who is married to the daughter of a former Malaysian diplomat, said a senior official.
"Malaysian police have spoken to him and asked him a lot of questions," Abdullah said.
Police say they're not detaining Tahir because he has apparently broken no local laws. Malaysia has ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but it is unclear whether its laws allow criminal prosecution for nuclear parts trafficking.

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

Undeclared Centrifuge Design Found in Iran
By GEORGE JAHN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
VIENNA, Austria (AP) -
U.N. inspectors in Iran have discovered undeclared designs for an advanced centrifuge used to enrich uranium, diplomats said Thursday, another apparent link to the nuclear black market emanating from Pakistan.
Preliminary investigations suggest the design matches drawings of enrichment equipment found in Libya and supplied through the network headed by Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, the diplomats told The Associated Press.
The discovery came as Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, called on the United States and other countries to relinquish nuclear weapons to make it more difficult for such weapons to fall into the hands of terrorists.
"If the world does not change course, we risk self-destruction," ElBaradei said in an essay published Thursday in The New York Times.
On Wednesday, President Bush acknowledged loopholes in the international enforcement system and urged the United Nations and member states to draw up laws that spell out criminal penalties for nuclear trafficking.
While publicly accusing Khan of being the mastermind of the clandestine nuclear supply operation, Bush avoided criticism of the Pakistani government, a key ally in the fight against terror. Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf says his government knew nothing of Khan's network, even though the military controlled the nation's nuclear program.
Khan apparently relied on European businessmen already investigated - and in some cases convicted - for selling similar equipment to Pakistan in the 1980s, U.S. officials said. The present network allegedly evolved from Khan's black-market deals starting in the 1970s. Pakistan publicly declared itself a nuclear power in 1998.
Also Thursday, China declared its support for Bush's call for steps to halt illicit arms trafficking, saying it had a "common interest" with Washington in fighting the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said Beijing would take "effective measures" to enforce recently issued rules against exports of weapons technology by Chinese companies.
In Moscow, Russian nuclear energy minister Alexander Rumyantsev postponed a planned trip to Iran next week because the countries have not nailed down agreements involving the reactor that Russia is building in the city of Bushehr, a spokesman said. Russia has been under pressure from Washington to freeze the $800 million deal, with the United States saying the facility could help Iran develop weapons.
Khan, a national hero in Pakistan for creating a nuclear deterrent against archrival India, confessed on Pakistani television last week to masterminding a network that supplied Libya, Iran and North Korea with nuclear technology. Musharraf then pardoned him.
In a speech Thursday, Musharraf said help with nuclear proliferation had come from different countries - not just Pakistan - but conceded that Pakistan also shared blame.
"Everything did not happen from Pakistan. Everything happened from many other countries. But things happened from here also, and we need to correct our house," he said. "We are a responsible nation. We must not proliferate."
Musharraf didn't specifically address Bush's speech, but a statement from the Foreign Ministry thanked the U.S. president for acknowledging Pakistan's resolve in combatting proliferation.
"The international black market for proliferation is a common threat for the world," ministry spokesman Masood Khan said in a statement.
Beyond adding a link to the chain of equipment, middlemen and companies comprising the clandestine nuclear network, the find by U.N. nuclear inspectors reported Thursday cast doubt on Iran's willingness to open its nuclear activities to international perusal.
Accused of having nuclear weapons ambitions, Iran - which denies the charge - agreed late last year to throw open its programs to pervasive inspections by the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency and said it would freely provide information to clear up international suspicions.
"We're not convinced Iran has come completely clean," Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton told a security conference in Berlin. "There is no doubt in our minds that Iran continues to pursue nuclear weapons. They have not complied even with the commitment they made in October."
The diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Iran did not volunteer the designs. Instead, they said, IAEA inspectors had to dig for them.
"Coming up with them is an example of real good inspector work," one of the diplomats said. "They took information and put it together and put something in front of them that they can't deny."
At less-enriched levels, uranium is normally used to generate power. Highly enriched, it can be used for nuclear warheads.
Iran, which says it sought to make low-enriched uranium, has bowed to international pressure and suspended all enrichment. But it continues to make and assemble centrifuges, a development that critics say also throws into question its commitment to dispel suspicions about its nuclear aims.
The IAEA continues to negotiate with Iran on what constitutes suspension, but ElBaradei also is known to be seeking a commitment from Iran to stop assembling centrifuges.
The diplomats said Iran had not yet formally explained why the advanced centrifuge designs were not voluntarily handed over to the agency.
Also Thursday, Malaysia's leader questioned U.S. intelligence on his country's role in nuclear deals said B.S.A. Tahir, the man Bush called its "chief financial officer and money launderer," would not be arrested, for now.
"There is no such thing as Malaysia's involvement," Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said.
Bush said Khan and his associates used a company in Malaysia to manufacture parts for centrifuges and that front companies had been used to "deceive legitimate firms into selling them tightly controlled materials." The company doesn't dispute it made the parts, but says it didn't know what they were for.
Tahir, a Sri Lankan based in the Persian Gulf emirate of Dubai, operated a computer company and ordered centrifuge components from the Malaysian factory using designs from Pakistan, Bush said.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Le Pakistan est au c?ur du march? noir mondial du nucl?aire
LE MONDE | 12.02.04 | 13h18
Le scandale A. Q. Khan est en passe de d?stabiliser le r?gime d'Islamabad. "P?re" de la bombe atomique pakistanaise et h?ros national, A. Q. Khan appara?t au centre de r?seaux mondiaux ayant organis? la prolif?ration de technologies - voire de mat?riaux - nucl?aires. L'arm?e pakistanaise tente de se disculper apr?s avoir pourtant ?troitement contr?l?, durant trente ans, le programme nucl?aire du pays. Mercredi 11 f?vrier, George Bush a appel? ? renforcer la lutte contre la prolif?ration, proposant plusieurs mesures, dont une refonte de l'AIEA et une r?vision du Trait? de non-prolif?ration. En acc?dant ? des documents libyens, l'AIEA a p?n?tr? dans "un supermarch? de la prolif?ration", selon son directeur g?n?ral, o? l'on trouve des entreprises europ?ennes et des fili?res courant des Pays-Bas ? la Malaisie.
Islamabad de notre correspondante en Asie du Sud
Le Pakistan pourrait-il se r?v?ler plus dangereux que l'Irak en mati?re d'armes de destruction massive ? Au nom de son alliance avec le g?n?ral Pervez Moucharraf dans la lutte antiterroriste, le pr?sident George Bush a, pour l'instant, tranch? par la n?gative.
Le pardon de M. Moucharraf au "p?re" de la bombe pakistanaise, Abdul Qadeer Khan, est pourtant loin de clore le dossier de la prolif?ration nucl?aire. "Le pardon accord? est conditionnel aux faits jusque-l? connus : ce n'est pas un pardon global", a pr?cis? le porte-parole du minist?re des affaires ?trang?res, Masood Khan.
Confin? chez lui, M. Khan est quasiment en r?sidence surveill?e et six personnes - trois scientifiques, trois militaires en retraite - sont toujours d?tenues. "Les associ?s du Dr Khan ne retourneront pas ? leurs postes une fois l'enqu?te finie", a pr?cis? Masood Khan. Les autorit?s disposent de la confession de 12 pages ?crites par le Dr Khan. "Les enqu?teurs poursuivent les interrogatoires des autres membres de l'?quipe pour tenter de d?couvrir, d'une part, si d'autres personnes sont impliqu?es, d'autre part - avec le maximum de d?tails -, ce qui a r?ellement ?t? livr?, ? qui, quand et comment, et enfin, jusqu'? quelle date les fuites ont eu lieu", confie un proche de l'enqu?te. Sur ce dernier point, M. Moucharraf a affirm?, lors de sa conf?rence de presse annon?ant le pardon du Dr Khan, que les op?rations s'?taient ?tal?es de la fin des ann?es 1980 ? 2001. A cette derni?re date, sous la pression des Etats-Unis, le Dr Khan a ?t? relev? de ses fonctions de directeur du Khan Research Laboratory (KRL). M. Moucharraf a reconnu, dans un r?cent entretien au New York Times, qu'il suspectait depuis au moins trois ans le Dr Khan de "contacts ill?gaux, de mouvements suspects", tout en affirmant que "l'affaire ?tait trop sensible pour interroger imm?diatement le Dr Khan comme s'il ?tait un criminel ordinaire".
VOYAGE EN LIBYE
"En 2001, Moucharraf ne cachait pas son aversion pour le Dr Khan, mais il ne savait pas trop comment le traiter", confirme, par ailleurs, le professeur A. H. Nayyar, un physicien qui estime, en revanche, que les fuites se sont poursuivies jusqu'en 2003. "Abdul Qadeer Khan s'est rendu en Libye l'ann?e derni?re", dit-il. G?n?ral en retraite, sp?cialiste des questions de s?curit? nucl?aire, Mahmoud Durrani affirme toutefois que, "depuis 2001, les transferts d'?quipements ? partir du Pakistan n'?taient plus possibles. Le savoir-faire, les id?es, peut-?tre ; mais, ces deux ou trois derni?res ann?es, Khan se savait observ?". Selon plusieurs sources, le bilan des transferts organis?s par le Dr Khan pourrait ainsi se d?cliner par p?riode et par pays. A destination de l'Iran, vers la fin des ann?es 1980 ou au d?but 1990, il s'agirait des plans d'une centrifugeuse pour enrichir l'uranium ou de la machine elle-m?me, ainsi que des ?quipements. Une centrifugeuse aurait ?t? livr?e ? la Cor?e du Nord, tandis que la Libye aurait re?u des ?quipements et au moins les plans d'une bombe.
La r?ponse de l'avocat g?n?ral, Makhdoom Ali Khan, mercredi 11 f?vrier, ? des p?titions introduites par les familles des personnes d?tenues donne aussi des ?l?ments de r?ponse. Certains des d?tenus sont "responsables d'avoir transf?r? directement ou indirectement des codes secrets, du mat?riel nucl?aire, des substances, des machineries, des ?quipements, des composants, des informations, des documents, des dessins, des plans, des mod?les, des articles et des notes ? des pays ?trangers et ? des individus".
Le Dr Khan a-t-il travaill? avec d'autres pays ou, plus inqui?tant encore, avec des groupes ind?pendants, comme Al-Qaida ? Le porte-parole de l'arm?e pakistanaise, le g?n?ral Shaukat Sultan, "exclut" cette derni?re possibilit?. "Notre enqu?te ou celles men?es par d'autres services de renseignement n'ont rien r?v?l? l?-dessus", dit-il.
RELATIONS DOUTEUSES
Le Dr Khan entretenait les plus mauvais rapports avec Mohammed Bashir-ud-Din Mahmoud, le scientifique pakistanais, arr?t? et interrog? par le FBI au lendemain des attentats du 11 septembre 2001 pour avoir rencontr? Oussama Ben Laden en Afghanistan ? deux reprises au moins. Abdul Qadeer Khan avait commenc? sa carri?re sous les ordres de Bashir Mahmoud. Mais il s'?tait tr?s vite brouill? avec lui et avait obtenu du g?n?ral Zia ul-Haq (au pouvoir de 1977 ? 1988) de travailler seul avec sa propre ?quipe. En outre, A. Q. Khan n'est pas consid?r? comme un fondamentaliste islamique, au mieux "un nationaliste enrag?, marqu? par les horreurs de la partition -de 1947- avec l'Inde", souligne une connaissance qui souhaite garder l'anonymat.
Moins cat?gorique que le g?n?ral Sultan, le professeur Nayyar affirme : "A moins que l'on nous prouve qu'il n'a pas eu de contacts avec des groupes, je continuerai de suspecter que du nucl?aire a pu tomber dans de mauvaises mains", dit-il. "La preuve peut seulement venir d'une ?tude approfondie du combustible nucl?aire. KRL a produit 1 000 kg d'uranium enrichi. S'il en manque 10, 15, 20 ou 25 kg, nous devrons tous ?tre tr?s inquiets", pr?cise-t-il.
S'il n'est pas un fondamentaliste, le Dr Khan avait des relations pour le moins douteuses. "Il ?tait compl?tement connect? avec Daoud Ibrahim, et c'est ? travers les contacts de ce dernier qu'il faisait ses transferts", affirme le professeur Nayyar. Mafieux indien recherch? par l'Inde pour les attentats de Bombay en 1993, Daoud Ibrahim a construit une fortune gr?ce ? divers trafics. Apr?s sa fuite de Bombay, il a v?cu ? Karachi et a longtemps ?t? utilis? par les services pakistanais pour leurs basses ?uvres.
Recevant, mercredi 11 f?vrier, le vice-ministre japonais des affaires ?trang?res, le pr?sident Moucharraf a promis de livrer ? Tokyo au moins les r?sultats de l'enqu?te sur les fuites en direction de la Cor?e du Nord. Pour sa part, Pyongyang a d?menti avoir obtenu de la technologie d'Abdul Qadeer Khan. Le Pakistan attend de recevoir de l'Agence internationale de l'?nergie atomique (AIEA), en mars, les r?sultats des investigations faites par les inspecteurs en Libye et en Iran.
Fran?oise Chipaux
* ARTICLE PARU DANS L'EDITION DU 13.02.04
-------------------------------------------------------

>> PESHAWAR NOTES...

2 al-Qaida Suspects Arrested in Pakistan
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) - Paramilitary troops and intelligence agents raided a home in a tribal village near the Afghan border Thursday and arrested two al-Qaida suspects - a Moroccan and his Pakistani host.
About 100 troops took part in the operation in Mir Khankhel village in Jamrud, an intelligence official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The area, dominated by Afridi tribesmen, is about 15 miles northwest of the regional capital of Peshawar.
The suspects were Abdur Rahman, 35, from Morocco, and Adnan Khan Afridi, a local tribesman believed to have sheltered the other al-Qaida suspect, the official said.
It was believed to have been the first such operation in Jamrud, which is on the road to Torkham, the main border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

---------------------------------------------------------------
>> MEDIA NOTES...

U.S.-Gov't TV Station Draws Arab Fire
By SALAH NASRAWI
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Even before its first broadcast, a satellite television station financed by the U.S. government and directed at Arab viewers is drawing fire in the Middle East as an American attempt to destroy Islamic values and brainwash the young.
Al-Hurra, or The Free One, is to start broadcasting Saturday. President Bush has promised the news station, which will build up to 24-hour programming within a month, will "cut through the hateful propaganda that fills the airwaves in the Muslim world."
It already has landed a one-on-one interview with Bush. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has said the interview allows Bush to tell of "his commitment to spreading freedom and democracy in the Middle East."
The Bush administration's hope is that a fashionably produced Arab-language station will help stem anti-Americanism fueled by the war on terrorism, the occupation of Iraq and U.S. support for Israel.
Al-Hurra will be broadcast from Washington but have facilities in several capitals, including Baghdad, and a largely Arab staff. It is publicly funded, costing about $62 million in its first year.
The station promises a balanced approach - a possibility critics dismiss - but it has a long way to go to capture some Arab hearts and minds.
"The main goals of launching such a channel are to create drastic changes in our principles and doctrines," said Jamil Abu-Bakr, a spokesman for Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood movement. "But the nature of Arab and Muslim societies and their rejection and hatred of American policies ... will ultimately limit the impact."
Abu-Bakr condemned al-Hurra as "part of the American media and cultural invasion of our region." Arab journalists also have widely criticized al-Hurra in editorials and columns as unwanted or even dangerous propaganda.
Norman Pattiz, a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which runs al-Hurra as well as the Voice of America radio network, dismissed the criticism, saying the station is about news, not propaganda.
"People can sit there and say whatever they want before it launches," Pattiz said, adding that people should watch and decide for themselves. "I think they may be interested in the fact that we may bring a different perspective."
He defended the Bush interview, saying it isn't a speech or welcoming address, but rather probes into subjects that will be of interest to people in the region. The station will also interview regional leaders in the Middle East, he said.
"Once people start watching us, we'll have to walk the walk - and we're going to have to prove that we are reliable and credible," Pattiz said. "Without credibility, we are lost."
The U.S. government has tried reaching out directly to Arabs in other ways, most recently through the Arabic-language Radio Sawa and a slick Arabic-English magazine, "hi," about American culture and life.
Radio Sawa - Sawa means Together in Arabic - began broadcasting shortly before Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was ousted in April. "hi" debuted in July in 14 Arab countries. Both also are accessible on the Internet.
Neither are smash hits, though many young Arabs say they enjoy Radio Sawa's Arabic and Western pop music even if they look elsewhere for news. Pattiz, however, said their polls indicate a favorable response to Sawa's news.
Rami G. Khouri, executive editor of Lebanon's The Daily Star, expects Al-Hurra to "exacerbate the gap between Americans and Arabs, rather than close it."
"Al-Hurra, like the U.S. government's Radio Sawa and 'hi' magazine before it, will be an entertaining, expensive, and irrelevant hoax. Where do they get this stuff from? Why do they keep insulting us like this?" he wrote.
Al-Hurra is America's answer to the popular all-news Arab satellite networks it accuses of fanning anti-American sentiments, such as Al Jazeera.
Over the past decade, the Arab world has witnessed an explosion of satellite TV stations, both state-sponsored and private, resulting in a previously unheard of range of broadcast opinions. Al-Jazeera in particular has been lambasted by nearly every Arab regime for airing views of government opponents.
Al-Hurra does have some Arab defenders.
"Everyone is entitled to express his or her opinion. This is an open sky and nobody should be afraid of that," said Samiha Dahroug, head of Egypt's Nile News Channel.
But Dahroug added that Washington's image won't improve among Arabs until it changes its policies toward them.
"America is judged by how it conducts itself in the world," she said. "The facts speak for themselves."
On the Net:
www.bbg.gov
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> OUR FRIENDS RFE/RL...

Ukraine May Deny Radio Liberty Airtime
By TIM VICKERY
ASSOCIATED PRESS
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - A radio station that rebroadcasts U.S.-funded Radio Liberty's shortwave programming onto more-accessible FM frequencies is threatening to cancel the service, prompting a harsh complaint from the U.S. Embassy and speculation the move was politically motivated.
The privately owned Radio Dovira sent a letter Wednesday threatening to deny the Radio Liberty FM airtime unless it makes format changes, said Radio Liberty spokeswoman Sonia Winter in Prague.
Radio Svoboda, the Ukrainian-language service of Radio Liberty, has until Tuesday to make the changes or have its broadcasts restricted to shortwave, Winter said Thursday. But she said the demanded changes were not specified, "and that's why it's such a strange decision."
Radio Dovira representatives declined to comment.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty president Thomas Dine condemned the decision as a "political act against liberal democracy, against free speech and press,"
In extraordinarily blunt comments, the U.S. Embassy in Kiev criticized the decision as "a blatant attempt to get Radio Liberty off the air," adding it was "especially deplorable in an election year in Ukraine when the need for news and information from a variety of independent sources is greatest."
Mykola Tomenko, chairman of Ukraine's parliamentary committee on press freedom, called the move an "active cleansing of the mass media" ahead of October elections, in a statement posted on the opposition Our Ukraine Web site.
Viktor Yushchenko, widely seen as the favorite to replace President Leonid Kuchma, called the decision "undeniably political," alleging it was approved by top government authorities, the Interfax news agency reported.
Kuchma's administration has come under increasing fire from Western governments, human rights groups and journalists who accuse him of muzzling the press.
Ukraine's media climate has been under scrutiny since the 2000 death of Heorhiy Gongadze, an Internet writer who crusaded against high-level corruption. His decapitated body was found in a forest outside Kiev.

Opposition groups allege Kuchma was involved in Gongadze's killing. Kuchma denies involvement.

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

>> L'AFFAIRE SUHA CONTINUED...

Arafat's Wife Blames Sharon for Reports
ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - The wife of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was behind reports of a probe by French prosecutors into alleged transfers totaling millions of dollars to bank accounts she holds, a newspaper reported Thursday.
The preliminary inquiry, opened by the Paris prosecutor's office in October, is looking into the alleged transfer of $11.4 million to Suha Arafat's accounts at the Arab Bank and at French bank BNP between July 2002 and September 2003, French judicial officials have said.
The probe was first reported by a weekly satirical newspaper, Le Canard Enchaine, on Wednesday.
In a phone interview with Suha Arafat from Paris, home to the Palestinian first lady, she told the Al-Hayat daily that Sharon was spreading "the malevolent press leaks" to cover up a bribery scandal that could force him out of office.
Sharon has denied wrongdoing, and has told investigators he did not know of a lucrative marketing contract his son, Gilad, signed with a real estate developer despite apparent lack of experience needed for the job, according to Israeli press reports.
"The predicament that Sharon and his sons are in resulting from investigations into corruption charges is behind such fabricated press reports that are entirely baseless," Arafat told the paper, responding to questions about the report published by Le Canard Enchaine.
"Sharon is trying to fabricate similar scandals (involving) the Arafat family to cover up his scandals," she added, according to Al-Hayat.
In Jerusalem, a senior Israeli official rejected Suha Arafat's allegations.
"We all know about the embezzlement. Sharon doesn't need to be behind it. The evidence is behind it," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Arafat said she has not been summoned for questioning by the French prosecutor, a French court or any bank, according to Al-Hayat. she told the newspaper she first learned of the probe from press reports.
"As long as there is a Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Sharon and the Israelis will not stop vilifying President Arafat and his family," Arafat told the newspaper. "They are trying to efface the Palestinian cause and kill Palestinian children, men and women."
Arafat told Al-Hayat that the money she receives is sent to her and spent legally. In the published interview, she did not specify how much she has received nor did she reveal the amount under investigation.
"What's strange about the Palestinian president sending any amount of money to his family and his wife who cares for Palestinian interests abroad?" Arafat said in the interview.
"All this money has come, and is coming, in a legal way and the way it's spent is legal," she added. "My husband and I are ready to respond to any questioning regarding the source of this money and they way it was spent."
French officials have stressed the investigation is only in its preliminary stages and that police are not involved. Nor has a full investigation been ordered, since the inquiry has not determined that the alleged funds came from illicit sources - a necessity if prosecutors are to file any charges of money laundering, French officials have said.
The investigation originated from a Bank of France inspection of the Arab Bank. The Bank of France found that nearly $1.27 million was allegedly transferred monthly from Switzerland to Suha Arafat's accounts in Paris, French judicial officials have said.
The Bank of France alerted the watchdog Banking Commission, which in turn alerted the Paris prosecutor's office in September, according to those officials. They said that Tracfin, a government organization that collates information about money laundering, confirmed the Bank of France's suspicions about the alleged transfers.

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

>> HAGUE WATCH...

Israel Opts Out of World Court Hearings
By LAURIE COPANS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
JERUSALEM (AP) -
Israel decided Thursday not to attend world court hearings on the legality of its West Bank separation barrier, saying there is no point in sending a team because it does not recognize the judges' authority.
The decision was made by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and five senior Cabinet ministers, according to an announcement by Sharon's office.
Hearings before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, are to begin Feb. 23. The U.N. General Assembly asked its highest tribunal in December to issue a non-binding ruling on the legality of Israel's separation barrier, a series of fences and walls built in the West Bank.
Israel says the obstacles, which will eventually stretch for 440 miles, are necessary to keep out suicide bombers. Palestinians charge that the barrier constitutes a land grab since it cuts deep into the West Bank at points.
Palestinian Cabinet minister Ghassan Khatib said the Palestinians would present their arguments to the world court - regardless of Israel's decision.
"The wall is destroying our land and our economy and we are looking forward to this court hearing to declare a legal opinion on that," Khatib said.
Israel has challenged the world court's authority to rule on the barrier, arguing that the issue is being manipulated for political ends.
A Sharon adviser, Zalman Shoval, said earlier Thursday that "the court should not be consigned to rule on political issues and this is clearly a political issue."
Alan Baker, the Foreign Ministry's legal adviser, said Israel had already made its views known in writing.
"After having examined all the written statements that were submitted by other countries, Israel does not feel it has anything to add," he said. "Israel has decided not to accept the invitation."
However, Israel will apparently not stay on the sidelines entirely.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry has said it will send spokespeople to the world court. The Israeli rescue service ZAKA wants to display the mangled skeleton of a Jerusalem bus outside the court to illustrate the threat of terrorism. And dozens of Israelis are expected to fly to the Netherlands to participate in demonstrations.
Shoval said any court ruling would pre-empt peace talks outlined in the U.S.-backed "road map" plan.
Several dozen countries, even those that have objections to the barrier, have submitted briefs saying the matter should not be brought before the court. In previous cases, if the court's jurisdiction was challenged, it has addressed the issue of jurisdiction in its final ruling.
A former chief of the Mossad security service, Ephraim Halevy, urged Israel not to participate in the hearings.
If Israel joins the process, "it will damage the struggle of liberty-seeking countries against terror," Halevy wrote in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper on Thursday.
The Palestinians cannot expect to proceed in efforts to reopen peace talks while trying on a legal track to back Israel into a corner, Halevy said.

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


Isra?l d?cide de boycotter les audiences de la Cour internationale de justice sur le mur de s?curit?
LEMONDE.FR | 12.02.04 | 20h44
Le gouvernement isra?lien d'Ariel Sharon a d?cid?, jeudi 12 f?vrier, de boycotter les d?lib?rations de la Cour internationale de justice de La Haye (CIJ), qui examinera ? partir du 23 f?vrier la l?galit? du mur de s?paration qu'Isra?l construit en Cisjordanie.
La commission minist?rielle pr?sid?e par M. Sharon "a d?cid? d'adopter les recommandations des ?quipes d'experts et de ne pas participer aux audiences de la CIJ qui d?buteront le 23 f?vrier", a indiqu? la pr?sidence du conseil dans un communiqu?.
Selon le texte, la commission a d?cid? "de s'en tenir au document ?crit" de 150 pages remis le 30 janvier ? la CIJ par Isra?l, qui y estime que ce tribunal "n'a pas comp?tence pour d?battre de la question de la cl?ture de pr?vention du terrorisme car il s'agit du droit fondamental d'Isra?l ? assurer sa d?fense".
"La recommandation des ?quipes d'experts a ?t? faite apr?s l'examen de la position des pays principaux, dont celle des Etats-Unis, de la Grande-Bretagne, de l'Allemagne, du Canada, de l'Australie et celle d'autres pays qui ont ?tabli que la CIJ n'avait pas comp?tence sur cette affaire", ajoute le communiqu?.
Ces pays ainsi que d'autres ont certes estim? que la CIJ n'?tait pas l'enceinte appropri?e pour examiner l'affaire, mais ils ont critiqu? le trac? de la barri?re qui s'enfonce en Cisjordanie occup?e et rend extr?mement probl?matique la cr?ation d'un Etat palestinien viable comme pr?vu par la "feuille de route", le dernier plan de paix international.
Dix-sept pays, pour la plupart arabes et musulmans, de m?me que les Palestiniens, ont en revanche affirm? que le dossier sur la l?galit? de la ligne de s?paration ?tait bien du ressort de la CIJ.
Un ministre palestinien a estim? que la d?cision d'Isra?l de boycotter les audiences de la CIJ traduisait son ?chec ? d?fendre cet ouvrage. "Ils ont anticip? leur ?chec ? convaincre le monde de leurs arguments, et pour cette raison ils ont d?cid? de boycotter" le tribunal, a dit le ministre des collectivit?s locales, Jamal Choubaki. "Cette d?cision d?montre qu'Isra?l ne peut pas affronter la v?rit? et la justice internationale, et qu'il se lance dans une bataille perdue", a d?clar? pour sa part Nabil Abou Roudeina, principal conseiller du dirigeant palestinien, Yasser Arafat.
Pour le ministre palestinien charg? des n?gociations, Sa?b Erakat, la d?cision d'Isra?l prouve sa d?termination ? "imposer des faits accomplis et des mesures unilat?rales". "Tous les pays doivent tenir compte de la d?cision de la CIJ. Quant ? Isra?l, il cherche par sa d?cision (de boycott) ? provoquer une escalade et imposer des faits sur le terrain", a-t-il ajout?.
"MUR DE L'APARTHEID"
Le premier ministre palestinien, Ahmed Qore?, qui effectue une tourn?e en Europe pour mobiliser l'opinion contre l'?dification du mur, a obtenu l'appui du pape Jean Paul II. "La Terre sainte a besoin de r?conciliation : de pardon, non de vengeance, de ponts, non de murs", a dit le Saint-P?re en recevant M. Qore? en audience au Vatican.
"De toute fa?on, la vraie bataille n'aura pas lieu devant la Cour mais vis-?-vis de l'opinion publique internationale. C'est pourquoi nous allons lancer une vaste campagne sur ce front en Europe et aux Etats-Unis", avait d?clar? ? l'AFP, fin janvier, un responsable isra?lien, parlant sous le couvert de l'anonymat.
Con?ue pour emp?cher l'infiltration de kamikazes palestiniens, la cl?ture de s?paration devait au d?part ?pouser la "ligne verte" s?parant Isra?l de la Cisjordanie, mais son trac? actuel s'enfonce profond?ment en Cisjordanie pour prot?ger des colonies juives.
Les Palestiniens la qualifient de "mur de l'apartheid". Des dizaines de localit?s palestiniennes et des faubourgs de J?rusalem-Est seront encercl?s par cette ligne qui isolera 350 000 Palestiniens, les annexant de facto.
La CIJ a ?t? saisie par l'Assembl?e g?n?rale de l'ONU, qui a vot? le 8 d?cembre 2003 une r?solution lui demandant de se prononcer sur les cons?quences juridiques de la construction de cet imposant ouvrage que l'ONU condamne. Ses avis n'ont pas d'effets contraignants, et il appartient aux institutions qui les ont demand?s de les ent?riner ou pas par les moyens qui leur sont propres.
Anticipant la d?cision isra?lienne, un porte-parole de la CIJ a affirm? mercredi que l'Etat h?breu avait parfaitement le droit de ne pas participer aux audiences sur la l?galit? de la ligne de s?paration, sans que cela remette en cause la proc?dure d'avis consultatif. "De mani?re g?n?rale, les Etats ont toute latitude pour choisir s'ils participent ? la proc?dure orale", a expliqu? un membre du service de presse de la Cour. "Si un Etat d?cide de ne pas participer ? la proc?dure orale, cela ne remet pas en cause cette proc?dure", a-t-il ajout?.

Avec AFP

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



French General Says He Warned Milosevic
By TOBY STERLING
ASSOCIATED PRESS
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) - The French general who declared Srebrenica a U.N. safe area before thousands of Muslims were massacred there in 1995 testified Thursday he asked Slobodan Milosevic two years earlier to pull back Bosnian Serb troops to avoid "something terrible."
At Milosevic's war crimes trial, retired Gen. Philippe Morillon recalled urging Milosevic to stop advancing Bosnian Serb forces in 1993, two years before more than 7,000 men and boys were executed while trying to flee mountainous eastern Bosnia.
Speaking on the second anniversary of the start of Milosevic's trial, Morillon provided some of the most direct testimony so far linking the then-Serbian president to neighboring Bosnia. He claimed Milosevic had power over Bosnian Serb leaders until at least May 1993 and used it to prevent a massacre then.
Milosevic, who is defending himself against 66 counts of war crimes allegedly committed during the Balkan wars of the 1990s, says he is innocent.
Milosevic denies responsibility for atrocities committed by troops under the command of Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic and his top general, Ratko Mladic. Mladic and Karadzic are fugitives since being indicted for genocide by the U.N. court more than eight years ago.
Morillon commanded the outgunned U.N. protection force in Bosnia from September 1992 to July 1993, when Bosnian Serb troops were attempting to carve out an independent Serb-dominated state within eastern Bosnia, including the Muslim enclave Srebrenica.
Morillon visited Srebrenica in March 1993, when it was already suffering sporadic shelling and a shortage of food and supplies because of Bosnian Serb blockades. He said the United Nations would protect the area and two other Bosnian enclaves under Bosnian Serb threat.
Morillon feared that attacks by Muslim forces on Serbian civilians had enraged the Bosnian Serbs and would result in fierce retaliation.
"I knew the only person who could assist me was Mr. Milosevic, and I went to tell him. I have a very clear memory of that," Morillon said.
He recalled telling Milosevic that "in Srebrenica something terrible could happen and it will block the peace process."
"Unfortunately two years later - and I'm still haunted by this - my fears came true," Morillon said.
Under-armed and inexperienced Dutch U.N. troops could not prevent Bosnian Serbs from advancing on Srebrenica in July 1995, when the massacres occurred. Srebrenica is now part of Republika Srpska, the Serb-dominated half of Bosnia.
In 1993, Karadzic and Mladic followed orders from Belgrade to prevent the massacres, proving that he did have power over them, Morillon said.
But in cross-examination, Milosevic said that only showed he deserved credit for preventing a massacre.
"The influence I could have yielded - and that was political influence - was used to stop the bloodshed over there ... Everything was stopped, isn't that right?" Milosevic asked.
"Precisely," Morillon replied.
Prosecutors are expected to conclude their case against Milosevic next week. Milosevic then will have three months to prepare his defense.
Also Thursday, Biljana Plavsic, the most senior political figure from the former Yugoslavia to be convicted of war crimes, was summoned from a Swedish prison to The Hague to testify in a war crimes case, but apparently will not be called to the stand, authorities said.
U.N. prosecutors have said previously they hoped Plavsic would testify in Milosevic's trial.
Plavsic, part of the troika of leaders in the Bosnian Serb government during the 1992-1995 Bosnian war, is serving an 11-year sentence in Sweden. She is the only woman among more than 120 people indicted by the tribunal set up in 1993.

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

>> OUR FRIEND VLADIMIR....


Putin Laments Death of the Soviet Union
By ANNELI NERMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
MOSCOW (AP) - President Vladimir Putin used a campaign speech Thursday to declare the demise of the Soviet Union a "national tragedy on an enormous scale," in what appeared to be his strongest-ever lament of the collapse of the Soviet empire.
Putin, a former agent of the Soviet KGB spy agency, has praised aspects of the Soviet Union in the past but never so robustly nor in such an important political setting.
"The breakup of the Soviet Union is a national tragedy on an enormous scale," from which "only the elites and nationalists of the republics gained," Putin said in a nationally televised speech to about 300 campaign workers gathered at Moscow State University.
The president's language was sure to send a chill through the 14 other former Soviet republics that have been independent from Moscow rule for more than a decade.
In the past and to audiences from the former republics, Putin has sought to ease fears about Russia having designs on rebuilding the old empire.
In September remarks after a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States - the grouping of former Soviet republics - Putin said:
"The Soviet Union (was) a very complicated page in the history of our people," adding "that train has left."
But on Thursday, he spoke in a much stronger tone, appearing to play to Russian nationalism.
"I think that ordinary citizens of the former Soviet Union and the post-Soviet space gained nothing from this. On the contrary, people have faced a huge number of problems," he said.
"Today we must look at the reality we live in. We cannot only look back and curse about this issue. We must look forward," he said.
Across town, meanwhile, Putin challengers in the election next month refused to debate among themselves in a television program called for that purpose. The candidates said a debate was meaningless without Putin, who says he doesn't need the free television advertising.
At the taping of what was to be the first debate ahead of the March 14 vote, four of Putin's six challengers answered questions from the studio audience, but then rejected the host's appeal that they debate each other.
"Bring Vladimir Putin here and we will have a debate," independent liberal candidate Irina Khakamada said, winning applause from the audience.
Calling it pointless to debate with anyone but Putin, "my main competitor", Communist candidate Nikolai Kharitonov said that by ignoring the debates, "Putin is depriving the population of the right to choose."
Also at the taping were candidates Sergei Glazyev of the populist-nationalist Homeland Party and Oleg Malyshkin of Vladimir Zhirinovsky's ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party.
Regardless of Putin's public declarations about campaign advertising, state-controlled television channels already lavish him with extensive coverage - as on Thursday when state-run Rossiya showed his remarks live.
Addressing a packed auditorium at Moscow State University, Putin said: "The head of state should not engage in self-advertising."
"Nevertheless," he continued, "I am simply obliged before my voters and the entire country to account for what has been done during the past four years, and to tell people what I intend to do during the next four years."
Responding to a question after his state-of-the-nation-style speech, Putin said that the 1991 Soviet collapse - which most Russians regret - led to few gains and many problems for ordinary citizens.
Turning to global politics, Putin said that Russia must become a "full-fledged member of the world community" and assailed those in the West who still have a Cold War-era distrust of Russia. They "can't get out of the freezer," he said.
Putin reiterated his stated opposition to prolonging his time in office, limited to two terms. But he indicated he would choose a preferred successor, saying that the task of any top leader "is to propose to society a person he considers worthy to work further in this position."
Some Putin opponents had considered boycotting the presidential election, saying a fair vote was impossible in Russia today, and the refusal to debate in Thursday's program reflected the candidates' anger at the president's dominance of the campaign.
Some political analysts said, however, the public does not expect Putin to debate.
"They see the head of state as a monarch who shouldn't participate in discussions with those below him in the hierarchy," said Andrei Ryabov of the Carnegie Institute in Moscow said.
The Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe said the state-controlled media's parliamentary campaign coverage was slanted toward pro-Putin forces and accused the government of pressuring news media, to limit opposition views.

>> AHEM...GERMAN...

AP: Pakistan, Nuclear Black Market Linked
By MATT KELLEY
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) - The black-market network that supplied nuclear weapons technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea relied on European businessmen convicted or investigated in the 1980s for selling similar equipment to Pakistan, U.S. officials say.
The evidence developed by the United States points to at least two college friends of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist who admitted being the mastermind of the scheme, according to the officials familiar with the intelligence and to proliferation experts assisting the international effort. All spoke to The Associated Press only on condition of anonymity.
One of the friends, Henk Slebos of the Netherlands, was convicted there in 1985 of trying to sell equipment to Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. Slebos' wife told the AP this week he would not talk to reporters.
Some evidence came from Khan himself and from admissions that Iran made to U.N. inspectors, while other intelligence was developed during a covert CIA operation aimed at cracking the smuggling ring, the officials said.
Khan last week admitted selling nuclear secrets and equipment. He was pardoned by Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
U.S., international and Pakistani investigations continue into the extent of Khan's network and whether it provided equipment or information to anyone outside the three countries already named. President Bush said Wednesday the United States would "find the middlemen, the suppliers and the buyers" and stop them.
That black market figures already suspected of smuggling in the 1980s re-emerged to play a role in Khan's effort has alarmed some weapons experts.
"This should serve as a wake-up call for the need for much more alert and aggressive efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and materials to terrorists and other states," said Graham Allison, a Harvard professor and former top Pentagon arms control official under President Clinton.
CIA Director George Tenet said agents worked for years to penetrate Khan's nuclear network; their efforts paid off in the October seizure of a ship full of nuclear components headed for Libya. That seizure helped prompt Libya to reveal - and renounce - its nuclear weapons program in December.
The network Khan set up to peddle his nuclear knowledge became a comprehensive one-stop-shopping venue for countries wanting their own atomic bombs, experts from the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency and U.S. agencies have said.
From the high-speed centrifuges needed to make uranium bomb fuel to designs for the bomb itself, Khan's network provided the know-how, the materials, even 24-hour technical support if problems cropped up, diplomats and intelligence officials have said.
He even had glossy brochures - complete with his own photo - with color pictures and specifications of some of the centrifuge parts for sale.
The network provided Libya and Iran with equipment and know-how to make a large centrifuge plant to separate bomb fuel from ordinary uranium. Libya also got a relatively unsophisticated but workable nuclear warhead design from Pakistan, U.S. intelligence officials and diplomats allege.
The network evolved after Khan's black-market deals to supply Pakistan's nuclear program in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. The enterprise started with Khan stealing centrifuge designs while he worked in the early 1970s for Urenco, a European uranium enrichment consortium. He was convicted in absentia in the Netherlands for stealing the designs but the conviction was overturned because Khan was not properly served with court papers.
Several of the European businessmen Pakistan tapped for nuclear help also are believed to have aided Libya and Iran, according to senior U.S. intelligence officials and outside nuclear experts.
One of the businessmen was Slebos, who was convicted in 1985 of trying to ship high-tech equipment to Khan's laboratory in Pakistan. The U.S. officials said evidence points to Slebos as a participant in the Khan network that helped supply Libya with nuclear weapons equipment in the 1990s.
Slebos now runs a company called Slebos Research, which was a corporate sponsor of a conference organized by Pakistan's Khan Research Laboratories last year. Dutch officials have said they intercepted five shipments to Pakistan from Slebos Research and another company in 1998.
The Slebos Research Web site says it offers "solutions for unusual problems" and boasts, "We find hard to get objects for customers all over the world."
Slebos did not respond to telephone and e-mail messages left at his firm. A woman who answered Slebos' home telephone and identified herself as his wife said Slebos would not talk to reporters.
Iran identified to the IAEA three German businessmen among five middlemen who were sources for some of its centrifuge technology. The U.N. nuclear watchdog has not made their names public.
The U.S. officials and outside experts say they included two former executives, Otto Heilingbrunner and Gotthard Lerch, of a company that made centrifuge components. German prosecutors investigated them in the 1980s for allegedly selling equipment and blueprints to Pakistan's nuclear program.
The two men worked in the 1980s for Leybold AG, which got nuclear-related designs from Urenco while bidding on a centrifuge contract for the uranium enrichment consortium. Leybold has publicly acknowledged it also sold nuclear equipment directly to Iraq and Iran in the 1980s.
Heilingbrunner, reached by telephone at his home near Cologne, said he was involved in selling aircraft engine parts to Iran in the 1980s but denied any involvement with nuclear sales.
"I have nothing to do with Libya, Iraq, North Korea or any others," he said.
Lerch could not be located for comment.
Another German supplier named by Iran, the late Heinz Mebus, also was a college friend of Khan. Mebus worked in the early 1980s for Albrecht Migule, who was convicted in the former West Germany of selling equipment to Pakistan to help its uranium enrichment program.
Khan's network also used at least five factories in Malaysia and other countries to make centrifuge components, the U.S. officials and outside nuclear experts said.
The most sophisticated factory was near Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur, owned by Scomi Precision Engineering, or SCOPE. The majority owner of SCOPE's parent company Scomi Group is Kamaluddin Abdullah, the only son of Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Scomi officials have said they did not know that the precision parts they made were destined for uranium centrifuges. Centrifuge parts made by SCOPE were aboard the ship bound for Libya seized in Italy last October.
The middleman for that deal was B.S.A. Tahir, a Sri Lankan based in the United Arab Emirates port of Dubai, which is a hub for Khan's network, Bush said Wednesday. Malaysian authorities have questioned Tahir, Bush said.
Tahir ordered the centrifuge parts beginning in 2001 on behalf of a company called Gulf Technical Industries LLC, which calls itself a dealer in specialty steel products. The multi-million-dollar contract made GTI Scomi's biggest customer in fiscal 2002, according to Scomi's public financial reports.
Associated Press writers Tony Czuczka in Berlin, Toby Sterling in Amsterdam and John Solomon in Washington contributed to this report.

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

>> L'AFFAIRE ARAFATS FRAU...

Soha Arafat wegen Geldwascheverdachts im Visier der Pariser Justiz
Paris (AP) Wegen des Verdachts der Geldwasche hat die Pariser Staatsanwaltschaft Vorermittlungen gegen die Frau des palastinensischen Prasidenten Jassir Arafat aufgenommen. Wie am Mittwoch aus Justizkreisen verlautete, waren der franzosischen Zentralbank monatliche Uberweisungen von fast einer Million Euro aus der Schweiz auf Pariser Konten von Soha Arafat aufgefallen. Die Banque de France schaltete daraufhin im September die Staatsanwaltschaft ein. Die Zeitung "Le Canard Encha??ne" berichtete, die Justiz interessiere sich fur Uberweisungen in einer Gesamthohe von neun Millionen Euro, die zwischen Juli 2002 und Juli 2003 uber Konten der Arab Bank und der BNP Paribas geflossen sein sollen. Soha Arafat hat einen Wohnsitz in Paris.
? 2004 The Associated Press. Alle Rechte Vorbehalten - All Rights Reserved

Frankreich ermittelt gegen Arafats Frau
11. Feb 10:25
Auf Pariser Konten von Soha Arafat sind Millionenbetrage ungeklarter Herkunft verbucht worden. Die Staatsanwaltschaft leitete eine Untersuchung ein.
Gegen die Ehefrau von Palastinenserprasident Jassir Arafat hat die Pariser Staatsanwaltschaft Ermittlungen wegen dubioser Uberweisungen auf mehrere ihrer Konten in Frankreich eingeleitet. Die Justizbehorde bestatigte am Mittwoch einen entsprechenden Bericht der Wochenzeitung ,
Es gehe um den Transfer von ingesamt neun Millionen Euro auf Konten der Arab Bank und der franzosischen Bank BNP in Paris, hie? es. Woher das Geld stamme, sei bislang nicht bekannt.
EU ermittelt wegen Betrug
Im September hatte die franzosische Zentralbank Banque de France festgestellt, dass auf Soha Arafats Konten zwischen Juli 2002 und Juli 2003 hohe Betrage eingegangen waren. Daraufhin wurden im Oktober Untersuchungen eingeleitet.
Die Europaische Union pruft derweil, ob die palastinensische Autonomiebehorde Finanzhilfen in Millionenhohe veruntreut hat. Ermittler der Anti-Betrugs-Einheit der EU, Olaf, wurden dazu nach Jerusalem entsandt.
Laut einem Palastinenservertreter seien zwischen 1995 und 2000 insgesamt 900 Millionen Dollar auf einem von Jassir Arafat gelandet, schreibt die Zeitung. Moglicherweise habe Arafat damit seine Anhanger bezahlt. Der Palastinenserchef habe mit Hilfe der EU-Gelder ein System zur direkten Bezahlung seiner 100.000 Beamten geschaffen. (nz)

Posted by maximpost at 12:00 AM EST

Share This Post

Permalink

North Korea Must Include Uranium in Talks, South Envoy Says
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea must be prepared to discuss its uranium-based nuclear arms program in negotiations this month with the United States and neighboring countries, South Korea's ambassador to Washington said on Wednesday.
Ambassador Han Sung-joo told reporters in Seoul that the confession by Pakistan's top nuclear scientist that he had sold nuclear arms technology to Pyongyang had "further confirmed" the existence of the North's highly enriched uranium program.
Pyongyang said Tuesday that statements by the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, that he had sold nuclear secrets to North Korea, Libya and Iran were a "sheer lie" cooked up by the United States to justify an invasion.
Analysts said the combative North Korean reaction was designed to prevent discussion of the issue in negotiations aimed at ending a crisis that erupted in October 2002 when U.S. officials said that Pyongyang had admitted to pursuing an HEU program.
Pyongyang has since denied it had made such an admission. But Han said such denials wouldn't fly when North Korea sits down with the United States, South Korea, China, Japan and Russia for a second round of six-party talks beginning on February 25.
"Even among U.S. domestic critics of the Bush administration, nobody who has seen the evidence doubts that North Korea has an HEU (highly enriched uranium) program," Han said in a briefing with reporters.
"Previous intelligence, what has emerged from Pakistan and other information are more than enough to outweigh (doubts about U.S. intelligence) in the Kay Report," he said. The Kay Report said that the United States went to war in Iraq based on faulty intelligence about that country's weapons of mass destruction.
The HEU program makes North Korea's offer to freeze its plutonium-based nuclear program in exchange for compensation unacceptable to the South Korea, the United States and Japan, Han said.
"From the point of view of South Korea, the United States and Japan, North Korea has in the past already agreed to do that, and it will be difficult to compensate them for it," he said.
North Korea had frozen its plutonium-based program under a bilateral agreement with the United States in 1994 in exchange for energy aid. That deal unraveled last year and North Korea says it has reprocessed more plutonium for a "nuclear deterrent."
Dismantling the plutonium program, the HEU program and any atomic bombs North Korea created before the 1994 freeze was the ultimate goal of the United States and its allies, Han said.
The U.S. has said a verifiable commitment by North Korea to end all those programs would be met by "corresponding measures," include assurances against an American attack and measures to address the North's energy and economic problems.
"The U.S. stance is not that no compensation will be offered until the programs are entirely dismantled, but that North Korea will get aid from the parties at the six-way talks and other countries when it confirms it will do that and begins that process," the ambassador said.
The six countries met in Beijing last August but failed to go beyond stating their respective positions in the dispute.
Copyright ? Reuters 2004. All rights reserved.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Testimony of Pakistani scientist could influence impasse over North Korea
(AP)
11 February 2004
WASHINGTON - The United States and North Korea have been arguing for well over a year about the breadth of Pyongyang's nuclear program.
Ironically, US officials say that Pakistan's scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, for all of his admitted misdeeds, may be ideally positioned to clarify the North's nuclear capabilities. Officials hope that Khan, Pakistan's ace bomb-builder and confessed proliferator of nuclear secrets, will set the record straight before key talks on the North Korean nuclear impasse start Feb. 25.
Khan is uniquely qualified to address the issue, having been linked to the sale of nuclear secrets to North Korea, among other countries on the State Department's terrorism list.
Given his flouting of the US anti-proliferation campaign, it may seem out of character for the United States to accept without complaint the pardon that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf gave Khan last week. To the extent there is indignation about Khan, officials are keeping it to themselves. Nowadays, they see Khan as more of an opportunity than a problem.
At the same time, however, Secretary of State Colin Powell insisted this week that Pakistan tear out the nuclear black market network "by its roots."
China has refused to accept the US contention that North Korea is developing nuclear weapons based on highly enriched uranium. The United States first made the allegation in October 2002; Pyongyang has persistently denied it. Officials worry that North Korea, emboldened by China's backing, may not back away from those denials in the upcoming talks. If there is no break in the impasse, this could lead to the collapse of the prolonged US effort to seek a negotiated settlement based on the US demand that Pyonyang verifiably eliminate its nuclear weapons program.
The administration is looking to six-nation talks in China that start Feb. 25 for progress toward that goal. Participants will include the United States, the two Koreas, China, Japan and Russia.
As US officials see it, no agreement is possible if Pyongyang insists that it has no nuclear ambitions beyond the plutonium-based nuclear program, which it has publicly acknowledged. North Korea has expressed a willingness to dismantle that program under certain conditions.
More highly enriched uranium is needed to make a nuclear weapon than to make one from plutonium, but enriching uranium is easier to do clandestinely, since it does not require a nuclear reactor. Moreover, uranium-based bombs are considered more reliable.
Some experts believe that if the negotiations reach a dead end, a crisis could ensue, with the United States imposing a blockade on North Korea at some point - perhaps after the US elections in November. The administration has declined to speculate on contingency plans.
David Albright, head of the International Institute for Science and International Security, says Khan's links to North Korea involve assistance for a uranium program and not the country's plutonium program.
Albright says no one would object if Khan had helped the North Koreans with research and development on uranium enrichment. It would be another matter, Albright adds, if Khan were to concede that he has been involved in the construction of centrifuges, an essential element in the development of a uranium bomb.
Miriam Rajkumer, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said that if Khan confirms what US officials believe, "that would go a long way toward buttressing the US in its conflict with North Korea."
She adds that any such confession by Khan would have no meaning unless Pakistani investigators provide the details. US officials wonder how long China could support North Korea's denial in the face of contradictory information from Khan. On the other hand, if Khan professes ignorance about the North Korean program, that could reinforce Pyongyang's stand - as well as China's backing for it.
Last week, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher made clear the administration is counting on full disclosure from Pakistan concerning Khan's revelations to investigators.
He said the United States expects that Pakistan "will share information that they're unearthing in their ongoing investigation with the international community."


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

Malaysian minister arrested in anti-corruption investigation
KUALA LUMPUR : Malaysia's Lands and Cooperative Development Minister Kasitah Gaddam was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Agency, the attorney-general said.
He would be charged in court later in the day, attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail told AFP, but gave no further details.
This is the second high-profile arrest over corruption in Malaysia this week.
The former head of troubled steel giant Perwaja, Eric Chia, was charged Tuesday with fraud after an eight-year investigation by anti-corruption authorities into Malaysia's biggest and longest-running financial scandal.
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who took over from Mahathir Mohamad on October 31, has declared the fight against corruption to be a priority for his new administration.
The action this week against two such high-profile individuals has, however, surprised analysts who were sceptical of Abdullah's ability to tackle graft associated for years with the government and ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO).
Chia was close to former premier Mahathir, who retired on October 31 after 22 years in power, while Kasitah Gaddam was a Mahathir appointee.
Kasitah, 56, an UMNO senator from eastern Sabah state on Borneo island was appointed minister in 1998.
He was previously chairperson of the state-owned Sabah Land Development Board and also chaired the Sabah Development Bank and Sabah Finance Berhad.
Abdullah's move to clean-up graft comes as he gets ready to face general elections, which must be called by the end of the year but are widely expected to be held within months.
Asked during his early days in office why corruption seemed to make him angry, Abdullah replied: "It makes life difficult, it makes the government ineffective, and it creates a bad name for the government and for Malaysia. That's why I'm angry."
After Chia's arrest he said: "If investigations show that corruption had taken place, the law will have to take its course."
Asked then whether there would be more high profile arrests, he told reporters: "Wait, if the attorney-general has anything he will make an announcement.
"I have said the ACA must work hard. All the cases must be given due attention. They must focus on existing cases and where there is clear evidence that can be used for prosecution it is up to the ACA to act."
- AFP
-----------------------------------

>> l'affaire SUHA...

France probes bank accounts of Arafat's wife
By Arnon Regular and Sharon Sadeh, Haaretz Correspondents and Reuters
French prosecutors said Tuesday they had opened an inquiry into transfers totaling nine million euros into bank accounts held in their country by Suha Arafat, wife of Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat.
The Paris public prosecutor confirmed a report in Le Canard Enchaine weekly that an inquiry into financial matters connected to Suha Arafat, who lives in Paris, was launched last October, based on information provided by the Bank of France and a government anti-money laundering body.
The prosecutor's office said it would check transfers from a Swiss-based institution into two separate accounts held by Suha Arafat in Paris between July 2002 and July 2003.
The office said the investigations is at a preliminary stage. Suha Arafat could not be contacted for comment.
An International Monetary Fund report on Palestinian Authority accounts between 1997 and 2003 found that some $900 million in PA funds, some of them contributed by donor nations, had been diverted by PA officials to accounts overseas.
A hefty chunk of these funds, around $10 million, had reportedly been transferred to accounts owned by Suha Arafat in Paris. She allegedly used hundreds of thousands of dollars for personal matters and the rest of the money remained in the accounts.
The IMF report also found that a large sum of $74 million was earmarked for Yasser Arafat's office and there was no explanation of the uses to which this money was put.
In a parallel development, investigators from the European Union anti-fraud office (OLAF), who are looking into allegations that the PA diverted money from European donors into terror activity, have concluded that documents the IDF seized during Operation Protective Shield are authentic.
The documents suggested Arafat ordered that funds from European sources be used to support such activity - some of the money reportedly went to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, which has been involved in terror strikes.
Investigators from OLAF, an independent body authorized to review matters connected to all spheres of EU activity, came to Israel two weeks ago to collect data on allegations of PA involvement in terror, and to review the documents confiscated by the IDF.
After studying the materials, the OLAF investigators concluded the documents were genuine. Sources close to the investigation said findings based on the OLAF officials' trip to Israel will be incorporated in their final report, which should be completed in two months.
----------------------------------------------------

Carla del Ponte | Karadzic ? Belgrade
L'ex-leader des Serbes de Bosnie, Radovan Karadzic, ?se trouve ? Belgrade?, a d?clar? mercredi ? Bruxelles la procureure du TPI, Carla del Ponte. Selon elle, la capitale serbe est un ?refuge pour fugitifs?. Les autorit?s de Belgrade ont imm?diatement r?agi aux propos de Mme del Ponte. Le premier ministre serbe sortant Zoran Zivkovic a rejet? les affirmations de la procureure.


Karadzic en ligne de mire
Selon la procureure du Tribunal p?nal international, l'ancien leader politique des Serbes de Bosnie recherch? pour crimes contre l'Humanit? se cacherait ? Belgrade.
Par Thomas HOFNUNG
mercredi 11 f?vrier 2004 (Liberation.fr - 18:29)
nculp? depuis l'?t? 1995 de crimes contre l'Humanit? et de crimes de guerre commis durant la guerre en Bosnie (1992-1995), Radovan Karadzic ?chappe toujours ? la justice internationale. Mais la communaut? internationale semble d?cid?e ? resserrer l'?tau autour de l'ancien dirigeant des Serbes de Bosnie pour le d?f?rer devant le Tribunal p?nal international de La Haye (TPI).
Mercredi, la procureure du TPI, Carla del Ponte, a assur? que l'ancien leader politique des Serbes de Bosnie durant la guerre se trouvait ? Belgrade, la capitale de la Serbie voisine. La magistrate a dit tenir cette information d'une ?source cr?dible?. Les autorit?s de Belgrade ont d?menti, ignorant savoir o? il se trouvait. C'est la premi?re fois qu'un responsable du TPI de La Haye ?localise? Karadzic en Serbie. Jusqu'? lors, la communaut? internationale le traquait au sein de l'entit? serbe de Bosnie, la Republika srpska. A la mi-janvier, les soldats de l'Otan d?ploy?s en Bosnie avaient affirm? avoir failli appr?hender le fugitif lors d'une op?ration de grande envergure men?e dans l'ancien fief de Karadzic, ? Pale, sur les hauteurs de Sarajevo.
La d?claration de Carla del Ponte survient alors que la communaut? internationale redouble d'efforts pour tenter d'?ass?cher? le r?seau logistique qui pemettrait ? l'ancien dirigeant bosno-serbe de jouer ? cache-cache avec la justice internationale . Ces derniers jours, le Haut-repr?sentant de la communaut? internationale en Bosnie, le Britannique Paddy Ashdown, a gel? les avoirs de dix responsables bosno-serbes, dont un ancien membre de la pr?sidence coll?giale de Bosnie, qu'il accuse d'aider Karadzic ? se cacher. Trois policiers ont ?galement ?t? limog?s par le Haut-repr?sentant, sorte de proconsul de Bosnie.
Avec Ratko Mladic, l'ancien chef militaire des Serbes de Bosnie qui se terrerait lui aussi ? Belgrade, Radovan Karadzic est le principal inculp? qui ?chappe encore au TPI. Il est notamment recherch? pour son r?le dans le massacre de Srebrenica. En juillet 1995, au lendemain de la chute de cette enclave bosniaque cens?e ?tre prot?g?e par l'ONU aux mains des troupes bosno-serbes, pr?s de 8.000 hommes avaient ?t? liquid?s. En visite ? Belgrade, le sous-secr?taire d'Etat am?ricain pour les affaires ?conomiques et agricoles, Alan Larson, a r?affirm? que l'aide financi?re am?ricaine ? la Serbie ?tait conditionn?e ? la coop?ration de Belgrade avec le TPI.
? Lib?ration
---------------------------------------------------

Karadzic 'has safe haven' in Belgrade
Serbia sheltering 15 war crimes suspects, says Hague prosecutor
Ian Traynor in Zagreb
Thursday February 12, 2004
The Guardian
Europe's most wanted war crimes suspect, Radovan Karadzic, is sheltering with impunity in Belgrade, free from prosecution, Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor at the war crimes tribunal in the Hague, said yesterday.
"Belgrade is now a safe haven for our fugitives ... Karadzic is now residing in Belgrade," she said.
She has long argued that General Ratko Mladic, wanted on charges of genocide for the mass murder of up to 8,000 men and boys in Srebrenica, Bosnia, in 1995, is living in Serbia.
Cooperation between Serbia and the Hague tribunal was frozen, she added, a statement that could cost Serbia tens of millions of dollars in US aid.
Mr Karadzic had moved to the Serbian capital following a recent raid on his family home outside Sarajevo by Nato troops.
They carried out the search for Mr Karadzic last month in what was viewed by Bosnian observers as a feeble attempt to apprehend the man who has been on the run for more than eight years.
Ms Del Ponte complained that there were now 15 fugitives from the Hague tribunal in Serbia and showed little hope that the authorities in Belgrade would arrest and transfer the suspects.
Serbia's caretaker prime minister, the reformist Zoran Zivkovic, told Reuters that Ms Del Ponte had never given "either information or any other kind of help which would lead to locating or catching the suspects" or prove they were not on Serbian land.
The interior ministry said: "Serbia does not have information which would confirm the claims of Ms Carla Del Ponte."
Seven weeks after a general election in which the extremist nationalist Radical party, led by the war crimes suspect Vojislav Seselj, came out strongest, Serbia still does not have a government.
The conservative nationalist leader, Vojislav Kostunica, a bitter critic of Ms Del Ponte and the Hague, is frontrunner to become new prime minister, probably of a minority government which will not last long in office.
Mr Kostunica has caused a storm of controversy by recently sounding out the socialist party of Slobodan Milosevic for its tacit support for his minority government. Mr Milosevic, currently on trial in the Hague, is the first sitting European head of state to be indicted for war crimes. Last week Mr Kostunica's candidate for the post of parliament speaker in Belgrade was elected with the support of the Milosevic party.
With the extremist Radicals the biggest party in the new parliament and Mr Kostunica doing deals with the Milosevic acolytes, there seems little chance of the suspects facing international justice soon.
Ms Del Ponte has to close her investigations this year and there is mounting pressure for Mr Karadzic and Mr Mladic to be seized and taken to the Hague.
"Mladic is in Serbia. I could have him tomorrow if there was the political will to arrest him," Ms Del Ponte told the Guardian last week.
She added that there was growing international resolve, particularly from the US, to apprehend Mr Karadzic. "But it's more difficult than eight years ago. He has become an expert at hiding."
Sources in Bosnia believe that in the run-up to the US election in November, Washington could unleash a special forces operation to seize Mr Karadzic.
Mr Karadzic's close associate, Momcilo Krajisnik, went on trial in the Hague last week. But time is running out since the tribunal is under UN orders to wind up all its trials by 2008.
A dedicated trial chamber may, however, be established in the Hague solely to deal with three cases - Mr Karadzic, Mr Mladic, and the Croatian General Ante Gotovina - if they are not resolved within the deadline for closing down the tribunal.
Under a draft resolution at the United Nations in New York, Ms Del Ponte could be forced to forfeit some of her powers of deciding who gets charged with war crimes.
Yesterday, in response to a Guardian report, she and the tribunal president, Judge Theodor Meron, denied that judges at the tribunal were blocking any of her indictments.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

China Executes Former Provincial Vice Governor for Bribe Taking
The Associated Press
Published: Feb 11, 2004
SHANGHAI, China (AP) - A former Chinese provincial vice governor was executed on Thursday for taking more than $600,000 in bribes, the official Xinhua News Agency said.
Wang Huaizhong, 57, was put to death by lethal injection in the eastern province of Shandong after the provincial High People's Court rejected his appeal, Xinhua said. He was allowed to say farewell to his family, it said.
The execution comes amid gathering efforts by China's communist leaders to rein in rampant corruption. Yet, while publicizing cases such as Wang's in hopes of scaring other officials, the party has yet to push changes that would make it more accountable.
Earlier state media reports said Wang at first attempted to bribe investigators into dropping the case, but then admitted the charges at trial.
Wang, who served as vice governor of Anhui province from 1994 to 2001, was sentenced to death in December. He also had
Reports did not say what favors Wang provided in return for the bribes, but such payments are usually made in return for jobs, government contracts and use of state assets.
AP-ES-02-11-04 2249EST
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

>> AHEM...
Former Aide to Sen. Biden Pleads Guilty to Stealing Money From Campaign
By Randall Chase Associated Press Writer
Published: Feb 11, 2004
WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) - A former campaign aide to Sen. Joseph Biden pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to stealing money from Biden's campaign treasury.
Roger D. Blevins III, 33, pleaded guilty to one count of interstate transportation of stolen property and one count of aiding and abetting the making of a false statement to the government.
Blevins faces a maximum 15 years in prison and $500,000 in fines. He will be sentenced June 18.
In exchange for the guilty plea, prosecutors recommended a reduction in sentencing guidelines.
"We're happy to see that this will soon be resolved," said Margaret Aitken, a spokeswoman for Biden, D-Del.
Blevins, former assistant treasurer for Citizens for Biden, declined to comment after the hearing.
"This is the culmination of a very difficult time in my client's life," said public defender Penny Marshall. "He's very remorseful about what happened ... and extends apologies to Senator Biden."
Blevins pleaded guilty to transferring $80,000 from Biden's campaign treasury to a credit union in Florida in April 2003, the largest of 23 unauthorized transfers alleged by prosecutors.
He also admitted his involvement in submitting a false federal campaign finance statement a week later declaring that there was more than $300,000 in Biden's account.
Blevins allegedly knew the amount was substantially less because of his unauthorized transfers and withdrawals.
According to prosecutors, Blevins improperly transferred or withdrew almost $400,000 from Biden's account in 2002 and 2003.
Some money went to the bank accounts of three men in Florida whom Blevins met on the Internet, prosecutors said. Other money was used for personal and entertainment expenses, and to buy luxury items such as a Porsche Boxster, a BMW convertible and a plasma screen television.
"He apparently was forming or hopeful of a romantic relationship with one or more of the individuals," prosecutor April Byrd said.
AP-ES-02-11-04 2251EST
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>> LOL OF THE DAY...


Putin Nominates New Human Rights Chief
Feb 11, 4:11 PM (ET)
MOSCOW (AP) - President Vladimir Putin has asked parliament to appoint a former ambassador to the United States as Russia's human rights commissioner, the Kremlin said Wednesday.
Putin nominated Vladimir Lukin in a letter to the State Duma, or lower house of parliament, said a statement released by the presidential press service.
Lukin, a foreign affairs expert who served as Russia's ambassador to the United States in the early 1990s, later became a leader of the liberal Yabloko party and was elected to parliament several times. He lost his parliament seat after Yabloko failed to make it to the Duma in December's elections.
The tenure of Russia's first human rights commissioner, Oleg Mironov, expired in May, but he since has served as interim commissioner because the Duma failed to elect a successor.
Russia has been criticized by human rights organizations for alleged abuses in Chechnya during the war with separatist rebels there. Moscow, however, says the war is its contribution to the global war on terror.
-----------------------------------------------------
iran | mise en garde de Khatami

Le pr?sident iranien Mohammad Khatami a lanc? mercredi, ? l'occasion du 25e anniversaire de la R?volution, une mise en garde ? l'aile dure du r?gime. Il l'a accus?e de pousser la jeunesse ? s'?loigner des valeurs de la R?publique islamique. ?S'opposer aux d?sirs du peuple et ne pas tenir compte, au nom de la religion, de ses revendications (...) ne fera que susciter la d?ception de la jeune g?n?ration ? l'?gard de la R?publique islamique (...)?, a lanc? le pr?sident r?formateur.

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