>> OUR FRIENDS FT.COM ON EU WATCH...

'Mess, what mess?' asks chummy troika
By Hugh Williamson in Berlin
Published: February 18 2004 19:37 | Last Updated: February 18 2004 19:37


To an innocent observer, the mood in Gerhard Schr?der's chancellery on Wednesday afternoon appeared more a cosy-fireside-chat than a European-summit.
Seated at a UN Security Council-style round table, Mr Schr?der opened the main session by greeting his guests simply as Tony and Jacques.
Tony also appeared in a relaxed mood, on first name terms with Gerhard and Jacques, while Jacques Chirac, perhaps significantly, switched between Gerd and Tony Blair (was this Jacques' sign of how far the new trilateral spirit really goes?).
So, the three leaders appeared determined to play up the informality of their gathering, and play down the threat it posed to anyone else.
"Fuss, what fuss?" was the motto (or, to paraphrase Silvio, their Italian friend, "mess, what mess?"). Gerd explained the aim was to exchange information in order to help Europe along on mundane things such as job schemes and pensions. "It's not more than that, just to make that clear," he stressed.
Tony argued that finding solutions to common problems between the three "would be a great solution for all other EU countries".
Jacques said it was "completely normal that countries that produce over 50 per cent of the EU's GDP should come together to find common ground".
But the leaders were their usual divergent selves when it came to highlighting the priorities. While Tony made his usual effort to square the circle between the need for both social justice and market liberalisation, Jacques was brimming over with grand EU-wide economic projects and greater European solidarity to beat off international competitors (who could he mean?).
One group of politicians appeared a little lost - the four cabinet ministers (or their deputies) that Tony, Gerd and Jacques had each brought along. This was the first time in five such three-way summits that they had been invited.
A spokeswoman for the German health ministry tried gallantly to explain that the big topics, such as the EU constitution and Iraq, were of course linked to the concerns of her minister, so of course it made sense for her minister to take part. "In Europe, everything is connected to everything else," she said. Tell that to Silvio.

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Europe's big three set out plans for reforms
By Bertrand Benoit, Ben Hall and Jo Johnson in Berlin
Published: February 18 2004 20:50 | Last Updated: February 18 2004 20:50
Germany, France and Britain have set out a joint programme calling for renewed economic reforms in Europe.
The proposals were drawn up on Wednesday at a summit in Berlin that sought to establish unprecedented co-operation among the European Union's biggest economies. In a letter to their European Union partners, Jacques Chirac, president of France, Gerhard Schr?der, German chancellor and Tony Blair, British prime minister outlined proposals on globalisation and demographic and technological change.
As well as stressing the need for more investment in research, higher education and training, the leaders called for the appointment of a vice-president of the European Commission to act as economics minister for Europe.
The three brushed aside criticism from Italy and other EU states that have claimed the three countries were seeking to establish a directoire that would attempt to impose its own agenda on EU affairs. "This is not about trying to dominate anyone, let alone Europe," Mr Schr?der said. "I will brief the Irish presidency of the EU to make it clear that our discussions have taken place in an open and transparent way."
But national interests were never far from the surface, despite claims that the summit could re-invigorate the Lisbon reform agenda agreed on in 2000 with the aim of making Europe the world's competitive economic area by 2010.
Mr Chirac trumpeted the fact that he had extracted a commitment from Mr Schr?der to support lowering the value added tax on sit-down restaurant meals in 2006, a French proposal that Germany had been blocking.
The impression of a fait accompli appeared to undermine the "big three's" insistence that they were acting solely in the common interest. With elections due in France next month, Mr Chirac can now claim to be honouring a key electoral pledge.
One British official said the VAT reduction had not been discussed in the plenary session that preceded the leaders' informal dinner, suggesting a bilateral agreement between the French and German leaders.
But despite the hugs, "lieber Tonys" and "cher Gerhards", deeper differences among the three countries' objectives emerged during the afternoon. Mr Chirac called on EU competition authorities to show more flexibility to allow Europe to create industrial champions, a term that disappeared from British political discourse in the 1970s.
One British participant described Mr Chirac's words as "a little reassurance for the domestic French audience" worried about market liberalisation.
Mr Blair said the three had "come together after a very difficult period in international relations" following differences over Iraq. They had worked for the benefit of the whole world to persuade Iran to open its nuclear research to scrutiny.
But Mr Chirac rejected as inappropriate suggestions that trilateral meetings could replace the special relationship between France and Germany. "It's an intense relationship", that was "deep and almost daily" and "not something you can export in the short term," he said.
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>> AHEM IN URDU...

Pakistan denies nuclear scientist had heart attack
ISLAMABAD - Government officials yesterday denied reports that Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the disgraced architect of Pakistan's nuclear programme, has had a heart attack.
A front-page report in the respected English daily, Dawn, quoted sources at the Khan Research Laboratories hospital as saying that a heart specialist and a cardiac machine were secretly sent to Dr Khan's house on Jan 8.
It claimed Dr Khan had been suffering from pain in his left hand since being questioned by an intelligence agency for his involvement in transferring nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.
The report said Dr Khan had suffered a heart attack and his condition was 'stated to be critical' when he was treated.
However, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry denied the report and said Dr Khan was in good health.
'This is fabrication. He is in good health and the report that he suffered a heart attack is baseless,' Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan said.
Dr Khan's personal physician, Dr Shafiqur Rehman, said he last visited the scientist at his residence at the end of January when he found him in 'poor health'.
'He has a history of hypertension and I had been visiting him regularly until I was stopped by the authorities on Feb 4 after the last visit,' the doctor said.
Dr Khan publicly confessed on Feb 4 to transferring nuclear technology abroad and begged for clemency.
President Pervez Musharraf had given him a conditional pardon. Since then, the authorities have imposed strict restrictions on his movement and tightened security around his residence in Islamabad.
Officials have said that investigations into the proliferation scandal were continuing. -- AFP
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Paper trail links 'arms dealer' to Abdullah's son
KUALA LUMPUR -- A Sri Lankan accused of being the chief financial officer for an international nuclear black market sat on the board of a company owned by the Malaysian Prime Minister's only son, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
The connection indicates that alleged senior members of the network established by Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, were able to woo partners in the highest levels of society.
In the Malaysian case, the partners said they had no idea deals were being made to fashion parts that could be used to make nuclear weapons.
The documents, obtained by AP via searches of publicly accessible files, reveal a paper trail through privately held and publicly listed companies that outlines ties between the Prime Minister's son, Mr Kamaluddin Abdullah, and the Sri Lankan, Mr Buhary Syed Abu Tahir, as well as his Malaysian wife.
The documents show that the men were top executives at Kaspadu Sdn Bhd when Mr Tahir negotiated a deal for a company linked to Kaspadu, Scomi Precision Engineering, to build components that Western intelligence agencies allege were for use in Libya's nuclear programme.
US President George W. Bush last week called Mr Tahir the 'chief financial officer and money launderer' of the black market network led by Dr Khan, who has admitted selling nuclear technology and know-how to Iran, North Korea and Libya.
Mr Kamaluddin's company, the Scomi Group, previously acknowledged that its subsidiary Scomi Precision Engineering fulfilled a contract for machine parts that was negotiated by Mr Tahir.
Non-proliferation authorities say the parts were for centrifuges - sophisticated machines that can be used to enrich uranium for weapons and other purposes - but Scomi says it did not know what the parts were to be used for.
Ms Rohaida Badaruddin, a Scomi spokesman, confirmed on Tuesday that Mr Tahir was a Kaspadu director until early last year, and said it was likely Mr Kamaluddin encountered Mr Tahir at business meetings.
She added that Mr Kamaluddin was 'shocked and surprised' to learn late last year of Mr Tahir's alleged role in the nuclear network and broke ties with the Sri Lankan -- including asking Mr Tahir's wife, Nazimah Syed Majid, to sell her shares in Kaspadu.
Mr Kamaluddin has not spoken publicly about the matter and was not available for comment on Tuesday. A security guard at the house listed on company documents as his residence told AP it was owned by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, but that nobody lives there now.
Police say they have interviewed the Mr Tahir but he is not in custody because he has not committed any crime in Malaysia.
Mr Abdullah took office last October and was deputy prime minister at the time of the business dealings between his son and the Sri Lankan.
The revelations of deeper links between Mr Tahir and Mr Kamaluddin come as Malaysian officials complain that the country has been unfairly singled out by Washington for its role in the nuclear black market. -- AP
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/latest/story/0,4390,235850,00.html?

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Malaysian minister in corruption probe resigns
KUALA LUMPUR - A Malaysian minister has resigned after being charged with an illegal share deal, falling victim to a major anti-corruption campaign launched by new Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Kasitah was charged with two counts of corruption involving the sale of shares valued up to RM40 million (US$10.5 million) in a plantation company.
Kasitah Gaddam, the land and cooperative development minister, handed in his resignation on Tuesday just before Mr Abdullah left on an official visit to Iran, the Premier told journalists travelling with him.
Kasitah is the highest-ranking official to fall under the anti-corruption drive Mr Abdullah launched after taking office on Oct 31 from the long-serving Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who was frequently accused of allowing corruption to spread during his 22-year rule.
Kasitah was charged last Thursday with two counts of corruption involving the sale of shares valued up to RM40 million (US$10.5 million) in a plantation company held by the Sabah Land Development Board, which he chairs.
Mr Abdullah told journalists that the disgraced minister, who is free on RM1 million (US$262,000) bail, left office to concentrate on the case. He has pleaded innocent and demanded his right to trial. -- AP
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>> WHY NOW?


Disarming the nuclear Brahmins
By SUNANDA K. DATTA-RAY
FOR THE STRAITS TIMES
THE commendable raft of anti-proliferation measures that United States President George W. Bush announced in the wake of the Pakistani scandal would be more effective if the five nuclear Brahmins in the global caste system also demonstrated respect for their legal and moral obligation to disarm under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The nuclear black market flourishes because rulers covet the bomb for political rather than military reasons. It looms large in their consciousness as a symbol of unity, determination and self-respect: the ultimate circus in lieu of bread.
Given the jungle values of our civilisation, a nation with the power of annihilation is regarded as more important than one without it. Tragically, realpolitik does nothing to correct such perverse thinking.
The very fact that the only permanent members of the United Nations Security Council are also the only acknowledged nuclear states, and that the US, with the deadliest arsenal of all, sets the global agenda, further identifies might with right in the eyes of many developing nations.
They suspect the nuclear haves of using institutions and systems like the UN, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Nuclear Suppliers Group, Missile Technology Control Regime, dual-use technology restrictions, export controls and sophisticated monitoring to keep the have-nots in permanent deprivation. They also see India, Pakistan and Israel getting away with it. Scoldings and pleadings cannot wish away this evidence.
What The New York Times called the 'elaborate charade' of the televised confession and pardon of Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, Pakistan's 'larger-than-life national hero', citing President Pervez Musharraf, strengthens scepticism.
Pakistan's nuclear programme has been no secret since 1972 when former prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto famously vowed to eat grass to build the bomb. It was his response to defeat in the Bangladesh war.
Addressing posterity from his death cell in 1979, Mr Bhutto made two significant points about his nuclear programme. He acknowledged Chinese assistance, claiming Pakistan's 1976 agreement with China as his 'greatest achievement and contribution to the survival of (his) people and nation'.
And he vigorously defended an 'Islamic bomb' - 'We know that Israel and South Africa have full nuclear capability. The Christian, Jewish and Hindu civilisations have this capability. The communist powers also possess it. Only the Islamic civilisation was without it, but that position was about to change'.
IAEA chief Mohamed El Baradei believes the controversy over Dr Khan is only the tip of the iceberg. Most of the facts were already well-known. There were early thefts of nuclear secrets from the Netherlands, Britain, Canada and the US. Iranian and Pakistani scientists (including Dr Khan) collaborated openly.
TEACH BY EXAMPLE
TRANSFERS of Chinese nuclear technology and equipment and Taiwanese interceptions of North Korean missile shipments have both been reported. So has Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's US$50 million (S$84 million) expenditure on the technology. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace claims that Pakistan obtained its first atomic weapon in 1986.
But the Reagan and first Bush administrations suppressed the evidence collected by the US Central Intelligence Agency so long as Pakistan was needed to organise the Afghan mujahideen, including Osama bin Laden. It was only after the Soviets left Afghanistan that then president George Bush Senior refused in 1990 to certify that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear device, a condition for continued aid.
Rogue states and terrorists cannot have failed to note this subordination of proliferation requirements to US strategic imperatives. Supporting Mr George W. Bush's call for stricter vigilance, Mr El Baradei now seeks a more objective effort to prevent proliferation. He wants a strengthened NPT, resumed negotiations on a Fissile Materials Control Treaty, enforcement of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and a road map for disarmament.
Article VI of the NPT, which the International Court of Justice has upheld, already demands 'general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control' and calls on signatories 'to make progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally with the ultimate aim of eliminating those weapons'. In 1996, the UN's Group of 21 (developing countries) voted for an ad hoc committee on nuclear disarmament in terms of the original Geneva conference. It was shot down.
It is time to revive that initiative. Example remains the best teacher. We need some salutary move by the Big Five to demonstrate that rogue states and terrorists alone are not expected to make the world a safer place for us all.
The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of South-east Asian Studies. The views expressed here are his own.
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>> THEN AGAIN...

Old ICBMs, Old Thinking
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/02/17/009.html
By Pavel Felgenhauer
The Russian military has begun a strategic exercise heralded as the biggest since Soviet times. Nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles will be fired from land and from a nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea; strategic bombers will fly simulated combat missions and fire long-range cruise missiles; Army, Air Force, Navy and airborne conventional forces will also be involved.
is expected that President Vladimir Putin will travel the several hundred meters from the Kremlin to the General Staff and Defense Ministry building on Arbatskaya Ploshchad. There, from the crisis room of the armed forces' central command post, Putin will personally authorize the launch of one or more nuclear ICBMs at Russia's potential "enemies." The exercises will end in a resounding victory that will repel the "aggressors." Footage of Putin at the helm as commander-in-chief may well be used as electioneering fodder.
The war game is very Soviet in style and content, acting out a possible confrontation with the United States and its allies. Putin constantly states that Russia has chosen the path of democracy and market economic reforms, so why spend money preparing to fight a nuclear war with Western democracies and why suddenly this year? Does it reflect a sudden deterioration in relations with the West?
In fact, similar strategic exercises have been held year after year. The need to test-fire ICBMs is technical and does not in itself reflect anything.
The nuclear forces are armed with very old ICBMs: Some have been in service in underground silos for over 27 years. Russia officially has 728 land-based and 472 sea-based ICBMs. New land-based SS-27 (Topol-M) ICBMs are produced at a rate of approximately six per year. An undisclosed number of older-version SS-25 (Topol) and sea-based ICBMs has also been produced recently, but informed sources say no more than 10 to 20 per year.
The number of ICBM replacements is inadequate. Each year the ICBM inventory is getting older and older. The life span of most Russian ICBMs, as guaranteed by their producers, has long expired.
To ensure that the nuclear strategic deterrent is still credible, each year some of the oldest ICBMs need to be test-fired to show the world that they can still fly and hit their target. Last year, an 18-year-old land-mobile SS-25 was successfully launched from the Mirny launch pad in the north, near Plesetsk. The dummy warhead successfully hit its target at the Kamchatka missile-receiving facility.
A 27-year-old SS-18 and an SS-19 were extracted from silos, transported to Kazakhstan and launched in the direction of Kamchatka from silos at the Baikonur space center. (Russia does not launch liquid-fuel ICBMs from silos on its territory because debris containing highly poisonous "geptil" fuel may fall on populated areas.)
If a test firing of an aging ICBM is successful, the warranted life span of all the other ICBMs of the same class is extended by a year. Typically, one of the oldest ICBMs of a class is launched each year. If the launch fails or there are serious problems, it is repeated. Every year, the test should be repeated in any case.
The current test-firing routine began in the 1990s. In Soviet times, aging ICBMs were simply replaced by new ones, and the test pads at Mirny and Baikonur were busy testing new missiles. Sometime in 1994, a military chief told me that since they had to fire the ICBMs anyway and spend the money, they decided to organize a strategic exercise with a simulated nuclear war, in which they would test submarine ICBMs and cruise missiles.
That is how it has been now for a decade. In 1996, an election year, Boris Yeltsin used the occasion to pose as commander-in-chief in the crisis room at Arbatskaya Ploshchad. This year Putin may do the same thing. This year's exercise will also have the staffs of conventional forces simulating war activities, but not many real soldiers will be involved.
The main point of the exercise is to test aging ICBMs and bombers and the war-game scenario is also antiquated, involving the West (the United States) as the potential foe.
The military is caught in a time warp: Its hardware is old, its strategic ideas are outdated, it does not want to change nor does it seem able to -- irrespective of what happens politically in Russia or the world.
Now Putin has announced that some SS-19s will be in operation until 2030 and that they will be test-firing them each year. It's not a good omen.
Pavel Felgenhauer is an independent defense analyst.
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http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/02/17/012.html

President Takes a Submarine Ride
By Simon Saradzhyan
Staff Writer
Itar-Tass / Reuters
Putin, flanked by Ivanov and Navy commander Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov, walking on a pier in Severomorsk on Monday evening.
President Vladimir Putin boarded a Northern Fleet submarine Monday to observe first-hand ongoing nuclear war games that are to culminate this week with the flights of strategic bombers and launches of ballistic missiles.
Putin arrived at the fleet's headquarters in Severomorsk on Monday evening and shortly afterward was shown on television boarding the Arkhangelsk ballistic missile nuclear-powered submarine. The president, wearing a heavy naval coat and cap, was accompanied by Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who is commanding the strategic exercises.
The Akula-class submarine, which is armed 20 RSM-52 ballistic missiles along with other armaments, was then towed away from the dock with Putin on board, Interfax reported.
Putin was to stay on board until Tuesday afternoon to observe the launches of missiles in the Barents Sea, Rossia television reported.
The launches are part of military exercises that have been under way since late January and entered what the Defense Ministry described as the active stage Monday evening.
In addition to Northern Fleet submarines, Russia's only aircraft carrier -- the Admiral Kuznetsov -- also put out to sea to participate in the exercises Monday, Interfax reported. The carrier had been docked at a Northern Fleet base for four years.
Virtually all branches of the country's armed forces are participating in the war games, including the Navy, Air Force, Strategic Missile Forces, Airborne Troops and Army, national news agencies reported.
This week, at least two ballistic missiles will be test-fired across the country, two satellites will be launched and more than a dozen long-range Tu-160 bombers will take part in sorties that include the firing of cruise missiles over the Atlantic Ocean, according to local media reports.
Among other maneuvers, units of the Siberian Military District and the Volga-Urals Military District are being deployed westward, while airborne units are being dispatched by air and rail to unspecified destinations.
In April 2000, Putin boarded a Northern Fleet submarine, the Delfin-class Karelia, to watch the launch of a ballistic missile. A month earlier, he flew in a two-seat Sukhoi jet over Chechnya in what some observers called a ploy to boost his popularity.
Putin, who is widely expected to win the presidential election next month, told a gathering of his campaign activists in Moscow on Thursday that war games are important as they allow the world "to conceive our military might as an element of strategic security."
A senior military commander told reporters last week that the exercises are not aimed against the United States. He conceded, however, that they were prompted in part by Russia's concern about the United States' development of low-yield nuclear weapons.
He also said the war games will help to develop defense systems "capable of providing an asymmetric answer to existing and prospective weapons systems, including missile defense."
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>> THEN AGAIN...

Navy Again Fails to Launch Missile in Exercises
By Vladimir Isachenkov
The Associated Press
Mikhail Metzel / AP

>> VLAD WITH TOY...
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/02/19/011.html
Putin holding a model rocket after Wednesday's launch at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.


In a new blow to military prestige, the Navy failed for the second consecutive day Wednesday to launch a ballistic missile from a Northern Fleet submarine during maneuvers attended by President Vladimir Putin.
But Putin pronounced the strategic nuclear exercises -- the largest in more than 20 years -- a success and said they would facilitate the deployment of a new generation of strategic weapons.
"The experiments conducted during these maneuvers, the experiments that were completed successfully, have proven that state-of-the art technical complexes will enter service with the Russian Strategic Missile Forces in the near future," Putin said after watching the launch of a military satellite from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia, which was part of the massive exercises.
The new weapons will be "capable of hitting targets continents away with hypersonic speed, high precision and the ability of wide maneuver," Putin said, adding that the new weapons -- unparalleled in the world -- would "reliably ensure Russia's strategic security for a long historical perspective."
Putin insisted that the designing of new weapons was not directed against the United States. "Modern Russia has no imperial ambitions or hegemonist strivings," he said.
Russia is continuing research in missile defense systems, and may build a new missile shield in the future, Putin said. Russia currently has a missile defense system protecting Moscow that was designed in the 1970s.
Despite the ambitious statement by Putin, the exercises he attended were tarnished by the Navy's failure on two consecutive days to launch missiles from nuclear submarines.
The Navy on Wednesday sent a Northern Fleet nuclear submarine to repeat Tuesday's unsuccessful launch -- only to fail again.
The missile launched from the Karelia submarine started erring from its designated flight path 98 seconds after the launch and was blown up by its self-liquidation system, Navy spokesman Captain Igor Dygalo said.
No one was hurt, he said in a telephone interview.
An official investigation has begun.
Some Russian media described the Navy's attempt on Wednesday as an effort to rehabilitate itself after the previous day's failure.
Putin went to the Barents Sea on board the giant Arkhangelsk nuclear submarine to observe that missile launch firsthand. But the launch from the Novomoskovsk submarine, which military officials had announced in advance, and which was described on the front page of Tuesday's official military daily, Krasnaya Zvezda or Red Star, did not take place.
Russian officials and media made conflicting statements about the reason for the failure. The naval chief, Admiral Vladimir Kuroyedov, ended up saying Tuesday that the Navy had never planned a real launch and successfully conducted what he described as a simulated one.
Many Russian newspapers, however, assailed what they described as a clumsy cover-up of Tuesday's failed launch, saying that Kuroyedov's statement resembled official lies about the August 2000 sinking of the Kursk nuclear submarine in the Barents Sea, which killed all 118 aboard and badly dented the Navy's prestige.
"Apparently they decided not to smear President Vladimir Putin's participation in the exercise with negative information," Kommersant said.
The exercises are widely seen as part of campaign efforts in the run-up to the March 14 presidential election aimed at playing up Putin's image as a leader bent on restoring Russia's military power and global clout.
Putin, who is expected to easily win the election, swapped the naval officer's garb he wore on the submarine for the green uniform of an officer of the Strategic Missile Forces on his visit Wednesday to the Plesetsk launch pad.
While there he watched the successful launch of the Molnia-M booster rocket, which carried a Kosmos military satellite into orbit. He also viewed the trouble-free liftoff of an RS-18 ballistic missile from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, which Russia leases from Kazakhstan, via video hookup.
State-run television channels, which are lavishly covering the daily activities of Putin, ran footage of the president watching the launches and congratulating officers in Plesetsk, but kept mum about the failed launches.


? Copyright 2002, The Moscow Times. All Rights Reserved.

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>> RUSSIA FILES CONTINUED...

Study Triples Oil's Share of GDP

By Alex Fak
Staff Writer The economy is nearly three times more dependent on oil and gas than official statistics indicate, making the country much more vulnerable to oil price swings than previously thought, the World Bank said Wednesday.
The State Statistics Committee doesn't properly account for the tax avoidance schemes used by oil and gas companies, the bank concluded in its annual report on the Russian economy. But if it did, the numbers would show that oil and gas accounts not for 9 percent of gross domestic product, but 25 percent, and that services account for just 35 percent of GDP, not 55 percent.
Russia's purported shift to a service-driven economy is "mythical," said Christof RЯhl, the World Bank's chief economist for Russia and the author of the report. "The government shouldn't expect services to take the lead in economic growth."
RЯhl said he recalculated official figures to negate the affect of transfer pricing -- when an oil or gas company sells to a trading affiliate at knock-down prices to minimize profit taxes.
The new figures show that the oil and gas sector, despite employing less than 1 percent of the workforce, makes up half of all industrial production. Transfer pricing also artificially inflates the services sector, a major component of which is trade. Oil and gas production is statistically disguised as trade when producers sell to affiliated traders who turn around and sell abroad at an enormous profit, with the difference considered "value added" in the services sector.
"Recent productivity gains in services remain very limited, compared to industrial productivity, and this holds in particular for the very low-productivity (but growing) non-market services," the report said.
This non-market, or public, services sector also depends on subsidies, which in turn depend on oil prices, he added.
The government has moved to close transfer-pricing loopholes, but that's no guarantee that the practice will not continue, he said.
That the economy is over-reliant on oil is not disputed -- oil and other natural resources account for 80 percent of all exports, and taxes on the oil and gas sector generates two-fifths of all government revenues. And a forthcoming study by Peter Westin, chief economist at investment bank Aton, found that the oil and gas sector accounts for up to 30 percent of GDP if measured by world prices. The State Statistics Committee uses domestic prices, which are much lower, in its calculations.
International debt rating agencies Standard and Poor's and Fitch consistently cite Russia's vulnerability to oil price swings among their reasons for not raising Russian debt to investment grade.
"This has always been the same [and] you cannot overcome this dependence in the short run," said Yevgeny Gavrilenkov, chief economist at Troika Dialog. When oil prices collapsed in the 1980s, the Soviet Union was forced to borrow massive sums abroad, which contributed to the collapse of the country, he said.
The World Bank report, however, highlights just how deep this dependency runs. Officially, the economy grew 7.2 percent last year, but if oil prices had not been unusually high, the growth would have been more like 4 percent, RЯhl said.
"Since 1991, the economy hasn't grown more than 5 percent without oil prices being high," he said.
Some economists took issue with the World Bank's findings.
Al Breach of Brunswick UBS, for example, said the 25 percent figure for the oil and gas sector's share of the economy "seems very high," even when export prices are taken into account.
Other economists, however, said the World Bank's number-crunching demonstrated with figures what many already believed.
Troika's Gavrilenkov said most economists ignore official GDP sector statistics in favor of other indicators, such as the balance of payment figures.
"Economic statistics are like a bikini: what they reveal is important, but what they conceal is vital," Gavrilenkov quipped.
Some economists also took issue with RЯhl's claim that it is a "myth" that a structural shift in the economy to the services sector is occurring.
Aton's Westin, for example, said many services that could not possibly be inflated by transfer pricing, such as telecoms, have grown as much as 400 percent in the last five years.
In addition, the comparatively small role that the services sector plays in the economy is more a sign of development than a drag on growth, said Natalya Orlova, senior economist at Alfa Bank.
Developed economies are generally two-third services and one-third industry, she said.
Orlova said services actually account for as much as 50 percent of the economy, not the 35 percent the World Bank claims. But either way, she said, any increase would indicate "a faster transition to the developed stage."


? Copyright 2002, The Moscow Times. All Rights Reserved.
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Gazprom Cuts Supplies to Europe

By Catherine Belton and Valeria Korchagina
Staff Writers Gazprom took the unprecedented step Wednesday of cutting all gas supplies to Belarus and via its territory to Germany and Poland, a hardball move in a conflict over prices and pipelines that is likely to seriously rock relations between Moscow and Minsk.
Gazprom said it was forced to block the Belarus transit route because Belarus had started siphoning off gas from its export pipeline into Europe. The alleged theft came after Minsk failed to clinch a new deal on gaining its own domestic supplies amid an escalating price dispute with Gazprom.
Gazprom supplies one quarter of all Europe's gas needs. About 17 percent of that amount, or 22 billion to 24 billion cubic meters, is supplied via Belarus. Poland has enough stored gas and alternative supply sources to keep going without any problems for several weeks, while Germany has enough for many months, analysts said.
Gazprom said it could compensate for the loss by using reserve capacity in its pipelines into Europe via Ukraine, but only partly. It would not specify how much.
"Belarus began siphoning off gas from transit pipelines. There is no longer any gas going into Belarus, or to Germany or Poland via Belarussian territory," Gazprom spokesman Sergei Kupriyanov said Wednesday evening.
He said the gas was cut off at 6 p.m. and could not say when it would be switched back on.
"We are in a very complicated situation that has been totally provoked by Belarus because it will not enter into normal, transparent relations for the transit of gas. The situation is very unpleasant. But it is just impossible to supply more gas via Belarus."
Gazprom released a statement a few minutes later blaming Belarus for having to break its contracts with its European partners. "Responsibility for Gazprom's breach of contract with its foreign consumers lies fully on the Belarussian side," it said.
Gazprom could face fines and penalties from its clients if it fails to deliver volumes promised in long-term contracts, but analysts said the buyers were not likely to take action against Gazprom for some time and were likely to side with Russia in blaming Belarus.
A spokesman for Ruhrgas, the German gas giant that is one of Gazprom's major clients and a shareholder in the company, said it was not affected yet by Wednesday's cutoff.
"At this point we are not concerned. We get over 90 percent of our Russian gas supplies through the route that goes through Ukraine," the spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said by telephone from Essen, Germany.
He added that he could not comment on Russia's relations with Belarus.
The Belarussian government held an urgent meeting to discuss the gas-supply interruption, Channel One television reported.
A spokeswoman for Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko said by telephone from Minsk that the government had no immediate comment.
A representative of the Russia-Belarus Union, however, lashed out at the decision as blackmail.
"This is political and economic blackmail capable of dealing a serious blow to relations between Russia and Belarus and to the building of our union," said Alexei Vaganov, the deputy head of the Russian-Belarussian parliament's budget committee, Interfax reported.
Minsk residents on Wednesday night were not aware of Gazprom's decision and the threat of a looming gas shortage, Channel One said.
A Belarussian gas official insisted that households would not suffer. "People have absolutely nothing to worry about. ... We will match demand in full," Vitaly Khlopenyuk, the head the gas supplies department of Minskgaz, a local gas distribution company, told Channel One.
"But, yes, many industrial enterprises could get cut off," he added.
Belarus only has enough gas in storage to last 10 days without new supplies, and 15 to 20 days if it makes energy cutbacks -- leaving it no choice but to find a compromise with Gazprom, said Valery Nesterov, oil and gas analyst at Troika Dialog.
"I am sure this will be resolved in less than a week, because otherwise there will be a political scandal and Belarus' neighbors in Poland and Germany will start to put international pressure on Lukashenko as well, " Nesterov said.
"Gazprom also is not interested in this conflict going for a long time. It has promised stable supplies to its European partners," he said. "This is a measure to make sure Belarus understands the seriousness of [Gazprom's] intentions."
But Jonathan Stern, director of gas research at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, said the standoff may have already provoked new doubts about the stability of Russian gas supplies.
"The really bad thing about the whole episode is that now there is huge doubt in the minds of everyone as to whether [Russia's] transit countries can be trusted," Stern said.
"Now that Belarus has been found to be up to the same as Ukraine, that's very serious. If there is no stability between Russia and the transit country, there is a question about the security of supplies. We had hoped relations had stabilized."
Most of Gazprom's shipments to Europe go via Ukraine. But Gazprom started shifting some supplies via Belarus by building the Yamal-Europe pipeline several years ago, a move that came as an attempt to ensure stable supplies at a time when Gazprom was accusing Ukraine of siphoning off gas.
Nesterov said Germany has enough underground storages and alternative suppliers in Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands and Britain. It receives 35 bcm of gas from Gazprom, almost 40 percent of its total gas supplies, and most of that is through Ukraine, he said.
Poland, however, could have more difficulties. Gazprom supplies 7.4 bcm per year -- nearly 80 percent of its annual needs -- and most of that amount goes through Belarus, Nesterov said. The alternative suppliers for Poland are Ukraine and Germany, and both of those countries currently supply only a small amount.
"Poland is probably the most serious case," Stern said. "If this lasts a few more weeks and the weather stays cold, then it could get serious."
Gazprom stopped shipping gas to Belarus in January after Minsk refused to agree to a price hike from $30 per thousand cubic meters last year to $50 per thousand cubic meters, an increase that would have drawn the tariff in line with domestic Russian prices.
In the meantime, independent suppliers Trans Nafta and Itera moved to fill the gap, agreeing to supply gas at $46.60 per thousand cubic meters. But neither supplier can fully meet Belarus' annual gas needs, and each signed a series of short-term contracts. Last year Belarus imported 18.5 bcm, 10.2 bcm of which came from Gazprom.
The gas standoff escalated Wednesday when Belarus' only remaining supply contract, with Trans Nafta, expired at 10 a.m. and the two sides were unable to reach agreement on the next contract. This left Belarus without any new source of supplies and Gazprom with an excuse to turn off the pipeline.
Kupriyanov, the Gazprom spokesman, said his company believes Minsk started to siphon off gas from its export pipeline in exact proportion to the amount it lost in the Trans Nafta contract.
The conflict also centers around the possible sale of Belarus' pipeline company, Beltransgaz, to Gazprom. In an intergovernment agreement signed last year, Russia and Belarus decided that Gazprom would set up a joint venture to run Beltransgaz in return for keeping Belarus' gas prices at the same level as domestic Russian prices.
That deal, however, stalled because the two sides failed to agree on a price. Belarus values Beltransgaz at $5 billion, while Gazprom values it at $600 million.

? Copyright 2002, The Moscow Times. All Rights Reserved.

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Ministry: Oil Exports to Asia to Rise Tenfold

Bloomberg Russia, the world's biggest oil supplier after Saudi Arabia, expects to raise crude exports to the Asian-Pacific region tenfold by 2020 as the country plans to tap oil and gas fields in eastern Siberia and the Far East.
The government will increase oil exports to the region so that they comprise a third of shipments abroad in 2020, when the country expects to supply as much as 310 million tons per year (6.2 million barrels per day) to world markets, the Natural Resources Ministry said in a statement e-mailed to news services Wednesday.
The country plans to explore new fields and produce 80 million tons of oil per year in 2020 in eastern Siberia, the ministry said.
Output from the Sakhalin Island shelf off the Pacific coast is expected to rise to as much as 26 million tons per year by 2010 and change little over the ensuing decade.
In August the government said it expects oil output will rise as much as 24 percent by 2020 to 520 million tons, compared with 2003.
Gazprom, the world's largest natural gas producer; Transneft, the country's oil pipeline monopoly; Rosneft, the largest state-owned oil producer; BP venture TNK-BP and Surgutneftegaz are discussing with the ministry plans to develop fields in eastern Russia that may hold at least 2.4 billion tons of oil and 9.4 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves.
Russia expects the Asian-Pacific region to receive 15 percent of its gas exports in 2020, when the country's total gas shipments abroad may reach as much as 280 billion cubic meters. The country does not ship gas to the region now.
The government plans to raise gas production by 13 percent to 700 billion cubic meters in 2020, up from 617 billion cubic meters extracted in 2003.
The Energy, Economic Development and Trade, and Natural Resources ministries regulate the development of oil and gas resources and review proposals to build new pipelines to export the fuels.
Asian refiners, especially in energy-starved China, are boosting purchases of Russian crude oil as declining demand in Europe makes the oil cheaper than competing grades from the Middle East.
Asian refiners have bought as much as 2 million barrels of Russia's Urals crude oil for loading in March, the first Russian cargoes to be shipped to the region in more than four months, according to a survey of six trading companies in Asia.
The price of Urals crude oil has fallen as demand for heating fuel drops toward the end of the European winter and supplies of Iraqi crude oil increase.
Higher Asian demand for Russian crude oil is helping to drive down prices of Oman and other Middle East grades.
Russia sells most of its output in the Mediterranean and northwest Europe, but it is becoming a cheaper alternative for Asian buyers, even though the journey from the Black Sea is twice as long as the route used to ship oil from the Middle East.
The region's refiners also buy Russian crude oil to help reduce their dependence on Middle East producers, which supply nine out of every 10 barrels of oil sold to Asia.
At current rates of growth, China is set to overtake the United States as the world's biggest energy consumer within a decade.

? Copyright 2002, The Moscow Times. All Rights Reserved.
------------------------------------------------------------
UBS Says Oil Boom Will Last at Least a Decade
Reuters Brunswick UBS, one of the leading Western investment banks in Russia, said Wednesday that it expected the world's second-largest oil exporter to maintain very strong production and exports growth for a least a decade.
The bank said it had raised the forecast it published last year, already considered bullish, and expected output to rise to 12 million barrels per day from 9 million bpd now, strengthening its position as the world's top crude producer.
The country's oil and refined product exports could rise close to 10 million bpd by 2010, outpacing its main rival Saudi Arabia.
"In contrast to some expectations that growth rates will decline precipitously this year, we continue to believe output and exports will see extraordinary growth before settling at a 'normalized' basis of 4 percent annual growth at the end of this decade," it said.
Low oil prices still represented the main risk, but even if the price falls below $20 per barrel, cash-rich Russian producers would have enough resources to maintain the growth.
A possible stand-off with OPEC, increasingly unhappy about losing its market share to Russia, could also be a problem.
"We believe growing demand far in excess of Russian production offers the most realistic and probable outcome that would alleviate OPEC of the need to confront Russia dramatically, although the risk is present."
Many analysts have said Russia's impressive output growth, which propelled production to 9 million bpd from 6 million in 1999, may slow down amid the lack of export capacities, reserves depletion and a judicial attack on oil major Yukos.
But Brunswick UBS, part of Swiss giant group UBS, the world's largest asset manager, played down these concerns.
"The export system is facilitating Russia's rapid ascent to becoming a 10 million bpd producer, and could even take it to an eye-popping 12 million bpd by the end of this decade," it said.
This year, output should grow by 8.7 percent to above 9 million bpd, will rise to slightly above 10 million bpd by 2006, above 11 million by 2008 and slightly above 12 million by 2010.
Russia's total export capacity stood at 6 million bpd in 2003, of which crude accounted for 4.41 million bpd and refined oil products for 1.59 million bpd.

? Copyright 2002, The Moscow Times. All Rights Reserved.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

>> PORTRAIT OF AN OLIGARCH BEHIND BARS...
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/02/19/041.html

Khodorkovsky Wants Public Trial
By Valeria Korchagina
Staff Writer
AP
Ex-Yukos CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the imprisoned ex-CEO of Yukos, will not cut any deals with the state to secure his freedom and regards a public trial as the only way to clear his name, his lawyer Anton Drel said Wednesday.
Khodorkovsky's wishes came in response to an offer by his allies to exchange their stake in Yukos for his release from prison.
"The offer was not agreed with Khodorkovsky. All he wants is to have a public trial where he can defend his name. Clearing his name is more important for him than money, or property, or cutting some sort of deals," Drel said.
Drel visited Khodorkovsky on Tuesday at Moscow's Matrosskaya Tishina prison, where the billionaire has been held since his detention in October.
Khodorkovsky was arrested on a multitude of charges related to fraud and tax evasion.
As he awaits trial, he is getting acquainted with the 227 volumes - each containing between 300 and 500 pages - of the criminal case against him, Drel said.
The offer to swap chunks of the Yukos oil major for the release of Khodorkovsky and his imprisoned ally Platon Lebedev was voiced by core Yukos shareholder Leonid Nevzlin earlier this week.
Nevzlin said he and two other shareholders, Vladimir Dubov and Mikhail Brudno, were willing to trade stakes in Yukos for their partners' freedom.
The authorities ignored the offer, which has little, if any, legal basis.
In another development, it has emerged from recently published company financials that Yukos' debt to entities affiliated with its shareholders has increased.
In December, Yukos received a $1.25 billion loan from its affiliate Yukos Capital S.a.r.l.
Another loan, for $1.6 billion, was facilitated by Societe Generale in September. It came from Yukos parent company Group Menatep, which controls a stake of about 50 percent in the oil major.
Although the second loan was taken before Khodorkovsky was arrested and the Prosecutor General's Office froze a roughly 40 percent stake in Yukos, it could serve as an extra protection measure for shareholders should Yukos face bankruptcy, analysts said.
Such a threat could come either by way of authorities seizing a stake in Yukos as compensation for the alleged financial crimes of its owners, or if the company ends up having to pay the $3.4 billion tax bill produced by the Tax Ministry at the end of last year.
"It is largely speculation so far. But if it really comes to it, right now up to 70 percent of Yukos debt is held by structures affiliated with its shareholders," said Lev Snykov, oil and gas analyst with NIKoil investment bank.
"And if so, they will be first in line after the state gets its share in the bankruptcy."


Related Articles
Nevzlin Offers Shares for Freedom (Feb. 17, 2004)

Khodorkovsky No Longer a Menatep Owner (Feb. 12, 2004)

? Copyright 2002, The Moscow Times. All Rights Reserved.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> HHMM...

Transvaal Exposes Dark Side of Building Boom
By Denis Maternovsky
Staff Writer
AP
Relatives of those who died in the Transvaal collapse leading a funeral procession Wednesday at the Vostryakovskoye Cemetery.
In the aftermath of the Transvaal water park tragedy Saturday, Mayor Yury Luzhkov held construction companies and designers accountable for the building's collapse.
Yet if his claim turns out to be true, City Hall -- which lords over building permits and property rights -- will have nobody but itself to blame.
No large construction project can be completed without the city's approval. The high-profile Transvaal water park opened in Luzhkov's presence during City Day celebrations in September 2002, and was later dubbed "project of the year" by a city-appointed jury.
Whether or not shoddy construction was at fault for the disaster, the spectacular rise and fall of the Transvaal project illuminates the dark side of Moscow's building boom: labyrinthine bureaucratic procedures that often lead to corruption and the cutting of corners.
"Nine out of 10 bureaucrats involved in construction take bribes," one senior real estate consultant said.
On average it takes a year of consultations with various city bodies -- committees on land, architecture, utilities and ecology, among others -- before construction can even begin, builders said.
Not surprisingly, few companies are willing to wait that long in the cutthroat world of Moscow real estate.
"The faster you build, the higher the profitability," said Vladimir Pinayev, associate director at Jones Lang LaSalle.
It is an open secret that construction on most Moscow projects begins well before they are officially approved; the missing permits are obtained after the fact. It has become common for builders to construct higher than allowed and strike a deal with City Hall only later.
While obtaining all the necessary paperwork can take a similar amount of time in Western cities, it is the number of permits required and a lack of transparency that sets Moscow apart.
As many as 250 documents are needed to gain approval for a high-rise in Moscow, according to the representative of a large construction company. For Transvaal Park, roughly 200 approvals were required, media reported.
"In each country you need a lot of permits, but the procedures need to be clear," said Peter Partma, IKEA's expansion manager for Russia.
"But in Moscow there is no clear guideline how to proceed and there are no set deadlines -- a certain approval may take a day or a month."
Too much is controlled by "specific individuals," which, in the absence of a set approval procedure, makes "personal connections" in City Hall essential, Pinayev said.
Lack of connections in various approval bodies often leads to projects being delayed or rejected.
"All designs must go through Moskomarkhitektura [the Moscow Architectural Committee] ... You have the situation where an architect does a project and also sits on Moskomarkhitektura and approves the project," said a real estate lawyer with a Western law firm.
Not only are bureaucratic procedures time-consuming, they are very complicated and often impossible to follow, builders said.
Lack of coordination between different agencies and overlapping or contradictory regulations sometimes mean that developers "get to choose what rules they are going to follow," opening up a source of corruption, said Darrell Stanaford, senior director at Noble Gibbons in association with CB Richard Ellis.
"There is so much bureaucracy that things become disconnected. You don't know who is doing what," said one senior project manager with an international construction and engineering firm.
In the case of Transvaal Park, a lack of control was probably more to blame than excessive red tape.
One reason for the tragedy could be that certain inspections were conducted too fast, as the building was being raised with the city's blessing, the source added.
City Hall's involvement in construction is not limited to giving out licenses and permits -- it also gets to allocate land.
"Currently in Moscow there is a lack of empty land plots for construction," said Dmitry Rayev, a lawyer with Swiss Realty Group. "This means you either should win a tender to lease land, or you should sign an investment contract with the city to renovate old buildings."
Land in Moscow cannot be owned -- it can only be leased for a 49-year period from City Hall. Although the practice violates the 2001 Land Code, the city has resisted parting with this lucrative source of income.
When developers sign an investment contract with City Hall, the city receives an ownership share in the new building. Such deals usually stipulate that the investor cannot buy the city's share for several years, Rayev said.
City Hall's dominance over the construction sector does not always translate into building quality, however.
Many of the existing construction norms and regulations, known as SNIPs by their Russian acronym, have not been updated for decades.
But even these outdated standards, which do not take modern construction techniques into account, are not always followed.
"A system of endemic corruption is flourishing on virtually all construction sites in the city," said Alexei Klimenko, member of City Hall's architectural council, according to Izvestia.
Anything -- from construction permits to replacing quality cement with a cheaper brand -- can be done by way of bribes, he added.
Despite the wide range of construction quality in Moscow, the situation is "not catastrophic," Pinayev said.
In fact the quality of construction has been rising over the past decade, as "real tenders force builders to constantly improve quality and adopt new standards and technologies," said Ilya Shershnev, development director at Swiss Realty Group.
But Jack Keller, director of Noble Gibbons real estate consultants, said that Moscow's construction boom has outpaced safety considerations.
"From a broad perspective, over the last 10 years, some modern construction technology has entered the market which wasn't used in the Soviet Union," he said.
"From design and maintenance standpoints it has taken some time to be assimilated."
Staff Writer Alex Nicholson contributed to this report.


Related Articles
Shoigu Clears Transvaal's Foundation (Feb. 18, 2004)

Putin Promises Justice in Park Tragedy (Feb. 17, 2004)

Mayor: Up to 38 Dead at Water Park (Feb. 17, 2004)
? Copyright 2002, The Moscow Times. All Rights Reserved.

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

>> HHMM...2

4 Years of Reforming the Federal System

By Nikolai Petrov To Our Readers
At the start of Vladimir Putin's first term as president, the question was: "Who is Mr. Putin?" As his first term comes to a close, the time has come to assess the results of his first and most important policy initiative: reform of the federal system.

Putin launched his program of essentially "anti-federal" reforms immediately after his inauguration in May 2000. The main points of this program were:

* The creation of seven federal districts headed by envoys appointed directly by the president;

* The weakening of the Federation Council as the focus of gubernatorial power in Moscow, achieved by moving the governors into the State Council, a consultative body that meets with the president four times per year;

* The creation of a mechanism allowing federal intervention in regional affairs, including the power to remove elected regional leaders from office and to dissolve regional legislatures.

Federal reform got underway quickly and with very little public debate. The newly-formed federal districts were designed to coincide with the Interior Ministry's troop districts. As his envoys, Putin chose five generals and two top-level (or former top-level) government officials. Their offices, like those of the chief federal inspectors who represent the president in each of Russia's 89 regions, were staffed largely with former agents of the security services. The seven envoys have enjoyed varying degrees of success, but only one district -- the Northwest District -- has seen leadership changes (twice in 2003).
The envoys are members of the Security Council, reporting to the president twice annually on their districts. The president meets biannually with all of his envoys and federal inspectors, and also meets regularly with the envoys on an individual basis. Once the envoys' offices were up and running, district-level branches of all security and law enforcement agencies were created with the exception of the FSB, which provided oversight of the federal reform process. And many other federal agencies have followed suit.
The aims of Putin's federal reform are not yet entirely clear, but policy statements made over the years have stressed five main points: bringing regional laws into line with federal legislation; coordinating operations of the regional branches of federal agencies; improving the investment climate and developing small and medium-sized businesses in the regions; clearly demarcating the powers and competencies of federal, regional and local authorities; stepping up the war on crime.
None of these goals necessarily requires the appointment of generals or the creation of a burgeoning district-level bureaucracy. And this suggests that the federal districts are destined to play a greater and perhaps a very different role in future than they do at present.
The seven federal districts are quickly emerging as a new level in Russia's state structure aimed at consolidating economic and cultural activity, and the flow of information within their boundaries. The proliferation of district-level branches has created not a single chain of command but a complex tangle of such chains within the various federal agencies. In order to extend this structure downward, a network of local "outreach" offices is being developed to cater to the public. Regional authorities have lost control over the regional field offices of federal agencies. Employees are now regularly rotated to disrupt local ties and promote loyalty to Moscow. The former links between regional authorities and law enforcement agencies, the courts and business have been broken.
The presidential envoys are the primary conduit between Moscow and the regions, pushing the implementation of federal programs and arranging nearly all contacts between governors and the president. Increasingly they control business contacts in their districts, even at the international level. Economic development plans for all seven districts have been drawn up.
The Kremlin has made good use of gubernatorial elections to strengthen its hand in the regions. Putin's envoys pushed successfully to install FSB bigwigs in the governor's mansion in the Voronezh and Smolensk regions and Ingushetia, although similar hardball tactics backfired in the Kursk and Tver regions. But even without a change of governor, Moscow has tightened its grip on the regions by beefing up the regional offices of federal agencies, sending its hand-picked candidates to the Federation Council and taking control of regional business.
All the same, it should be stressed that the envoys are intermediaries, not independent powerbrokers. For all their trying, they have never gotten direct control over financial flows in their districts.
The question of power lies at the heart of reform of the federal system. This does not mean declaring war on the governors, but establishing control over the so-called power agencies (the armed forces, security and law enforcement agencies) and the regions while bypassing the presidential administration, where the influence of Yeltsin-era officials has until recently remained strong.
Taking control of the power agencies at the regional level required more than just a change of leadership, their ties to the regional authorities had to be broken. The first step was a major shake-up within the regional power agencies. The second step, carried out between April 2001 and March 2003, involved wholesale leadership changes in these agencies and the reorganization of the power agencies as a whole. The reform effort was directed at first from the Security Council, drawing heavily on the human resources of the FSB. The federal districts were matched to the Interior Ministry's troop districts because these forces were not under Defense Ministry control and enjoyed significant autonomy within the Interior Ministry itself.
So why do the envoys wear epaulets? The siloviki have been behind the reform program from the beginning. Generals are needed to issue and carry out orders. And besides, who else could manage the siloviki in the regions and on the staff of the envoys and the federal inspectors?
We can say now that the envoys have accomplished the main tasks initially set before them. They are now thrown into all of the president's major initiatives, from the census to doubling GDP and reviving Russian culture -- although generals aren't needed for this kind of work. We have seen one general replaced by a former cabinet member in St. Petersburg. Rumor has it that Viktor Kazantsev will soon be replaced in the Southern Federal District.
But it seems to me that the districts will be around for a while yet. As the nexus of innumerable federal agencies, they have acquired enormous inertia. The districts are the key element in a new, centralized network consisting of three levels: envoys, inspectors and local "outreach" offices that are open to the public. Most importantly, the districts have become so ingrained in the political system that ripping them out could cause the entire structure to collapse.
But the presidential envoys' glory days are behind them. Federal reform is entering a new phase of more routine work on strengthening the vertical and horizontal structures of power, consolidating the regions, forming municipal districts and smoothing the functioning of "managed democracy" at all levels.
It's worth bearing in mind that the seven federal districts are not merely an extension of the power agencies -- they are the foundation of the Putin regime.
They are essential to his vision of a monolithic society organized along more or less military lines -- strict subordination, the clear division of responsibilities, chain of command and state control of business and the institutions of civil society. The point of Putin's federal reform policy is to divert all power to the federal center in order to bolster the power of the Kremlin and force regional law enforcement agencies to toe the line.
The success of this policy means that Putin is well on the way to achieving the primary goal of his first term: absolute power.

Nikolai Petrov, a scholar-in-residence at the Carnegie Moscow Center, contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.


? Copyright 2002, The Moscow Times. All Rights Reserved.

----------------------------------------------------
>> KATRINA WATCH...
http://thenation.com/edcut/index.mhtml?bid=7

Tax Cheats

02/13/2004 @ 3:41pm [permalink]
E-mail this Post
We all know that Halliburton is gouging taxpayers--according to the Pentagon, Vice President Cheney's old company overcharged the US government by as much as $61 million for fuel in Iraq. But now we learn that more than 27,000 military contractors, or about one in nine, are evading taxes and still continuing to win new government business.
According to the General Accounting Office, these tax cheats owed an estimated $3 billion at the end of 2002, mainly in Social Security and other payroll taxes, including Medicare, that were diverted for business or personal use instead of being sent to the government. (Lesser amounts were owed in income taxes).
In one 2002 case, the New York Times reports, a company providing dining, security and custodial services to military bases received $3.5 million in payments from the Defense Department despite owing almost $10 million to the government. (Shockingly, the GAO estimated that the Defense Department could have collected $100 million in 2002 by offsetting payments to delinquent companies still on its payroll.)
The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has scheduled a hearing this Thursday to look into what committee chair Norm Coleman calls "an outrageous situation." At present, federal law does not bar contractors with unpaid federal taxes from obtaining new government contracts. (The GAO has recommended policy options for barring contracts to those who abuse the federal tax system.)
At a time when $200 million would purchase enough ceramic body armor--the kind that usually works, the kind the Pentagon wouldn't splurge for--to protect almost 150,000 GIs in Iraq, Republicans and Democrats should demand that these tax cheats pay up.

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

>> LEFT WING WATCH...

This article can be found on the web at
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040301&s=schell

Letter From Ground Zero
by JONATHAN SCHELL
[from the March 1, 2004 issue]
John Kerry has been twice a hero. First, as a soldier in Vietnam, he displayed extraordinary physical courage, winning the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. Once, injured and under heavy fire, he turned back his river boat to rescue a wounded comrade, who now credits Kerry with saving his life. Second, displaying civil courage at home equal to his physical courage in battle, he embarked on a campaign of protest against the war in which he had fought, becoming a spokesperson for Vietnam Veterans Against the War. In 1971, the VVAW camped out on the Mall in Washington. President Nixon's Justice Department then sought and obtained a court injunction forbidding the groups from using the Mall. Immediately and spontaneously, the veterans, as if re-enacting the American Revolution, assembled in caucuses by state to deliberate and vote--and so created, at the symbolic center of the Republic, a kind of instant, ideal mini-republic of their own. They decided to defy the injunction and appeal their case to the Supreme Court, which reversed the lower court decision and permitted the protest to continue.
Kerry's subsequent words in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 23, 1971, still have the power to startle, in our time of general disorientation and muted speech, with their brave candor. He described the wrong done to the Vietnam veterans but did not fail also to discuss the wrongs they had committed. "I would like," he said, "to talk on behalf of all those veterans and say that several months ago in Detroit we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged, and many very highly decorated, veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia. These were not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.... They told stories that at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country." He added, "We call this investigation the Winter Soldier Investigation"--invoking Thomas Paine's description of the soldiers at Valley Forge. And he said, referring to the policy that had led to these crimes, "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?"
More than two decades later, Kerry made a decision that in the view of many observers failed to demonstrate the heroism of these earlier actions: On October 11, 2002, he voted, as did every other Democratic legislator with presidential ambitions but one--Representative Dennis Kucinich--to license George W. Bush to go to war against Iraq if he saw fit. Yet soon after the vote it turned out that the temper of the Democratic primary voters was antiwar, even angrily so, and Governor Howard Dean, who had opposed the war from the beginning, began his climb in the polls and became the generally acknowledged front-runner for the Democratic nomination. Kerry, previously considered the front-runner by many in the press, appeared to watch his longstanding presidential ambitions go down the drain. But then, in the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary, came the remarkable reversal of fortune in which Democratic voters, inspired by an almost palpable resolve to defeat Bush in the fall, switched their allegiance from the fiery Dean to the more phlegmatic and "electable" war hero Kerry, who soon won his long string of primary victories. In a peculiar act of political transplantation, the voters, energized by Dean, seemed by this switch to want to infuse the spirit of Dean into the body of Kerry, who then, Lazarus-like, came to life both as a person and as a candidate.
Left pending in all this maneuvering by ordinary citizens, however, was the question of Kerry's position on the war. Had our warrior-protester, now in pursuit of the presidency, sacrificed principle for ambition by voting for the Iraq war? Had the winter soldier abandoned his post? Had he by his vote asked American soldiers to die for a mistake? Only the Searcher of Hearts can know for sure. Kerry himself asserts that his vote to enable the war was a vote of conscience. What the rest of us can see, however, is that ever since his vote he has trapped himself in a morass--a little quagmire in its own right--of self-contradictory, equivocating, evasive, incomplete, unconvincing explanations of his stand.
Kerry has often said his position has been consistent, and this is true in the sense that he has said the same thing over and over. But it is in part precisely in this rigidity that the problem lies. Kerry voted for the war, he said at the time, because he believed that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and must be disarmed. He favored "regime change" but did not regard it as a justification for war. He rejected the allegation of Iraqi ties with Al Qaeda as unproven. "Let me be clear," he said in his Senate speech announcing his vote for the war resolution. "The vote I will give the President is for one reason and one reason only: to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, if we cannot accomplish that objective through new, tough weapons inspections in joint concert with our allies." He lengthily detailed the intelligence findings he had seen, concluding, "These weapons represent an unacceptable threat." Disturbingly, he did not address the constitutional problem raised by the fact that, as his Massachusetts colleague Ted Kennedy said, "The most solemn responsibility any Congress has is the responsibility given the Congress by the Constitution to declare war." Therefore, "we would violate that responsibility if we delegate that responsibility to the President in advance before the President himself has decided the time has come for war."
The measure was the only substantive one that Kerry or any senator would pass before the war, yet Kerry claimed to believe that his vote was conditioned on fulfillment of "promises" that the Administration had made. The promises were to exhaust all diplomatic possibilities before going to war and thereby to assemble a large international coalition to fight the war and help run Iraq when the war was over. Indeed, so great was his faith in these promises that he would later claim of himself and his fellow Democrats, "Nobody on our side voted for the war." What did they vote for, then? "We needed the legitimate threat of [war] to get our inspectors into Iraq." Kerry voted, it seems, for inspectors, not war. He and all of us got war.
Kerry's entire argument against the Administration therefore is not that it waged a mistaken war but that it waged a necessary war in the wrong way. Several interviewers have pushed him hard to explain his position. In August Tim Russert, on Meet the Press, noted that he was accusing the President of having "misled" the country and commented that this did not sound like someone who supported the war. Kerry disagreed. "Wrong," he said. "I supported the notion that we must as a country hold Saddam Hussein accountable for what he was doing." Only the conduct of the war bothered him. "And so I'm running because I'm angry at the mismanagement of how we worked with our colleagues in the world and how we, in fact, have conducted the war."
Russert proceeded to the key question: "No regret over your vote?" To which Kerry, dodging the question, answered, "My regret is that the President of the United States didn't do what he had said he would do"--namely go to war only when diplomacy was exhausted and allies were on board.
"Were you misled by the intelligence agencies?" Russert asked shortly.
Kerry wavered: "No, we weren't--I don't know whether we were lied to. I don't know whether they had the most colossal intelligence failure in history."
Chris Matthews of Hardball tried again in October. "Were we right to go to Iraq?" he asked.
"Not the way the President did it," answered Kerry.
Matthews pushed: Some other way, then? Would Kerry have gone to war if France--the symbol of the recalcitrant international community--had agreed? Kerry retreated as usual into generalities: "I would do whatever is necessary to protect the security of the United States."
Missing in all these responses and others Kerry has given is the answer to a simple, fair, necessary question--the one Kerry answered so memorably in regard to the Vietnam War: Was the war in Iraq a mistake? Disarming Saddam had been Kerry's only reason for going to war. If Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction, then wasn't the war a mistake, and wasn't a vote to authorize it a mistake, and hadn't he made that mistake? And wouldn't American soldiers (now totaling more than 500) as well as Iraqis (in their uncounted thousands) be once again dying for a mistake?
But--I can hear some readers asking--why talk about the past? Why jeopardize the famous "electability" that Kerry (whether intending to or not) acquired by voting for the war and turn the likely Democratic candidate (now ahead of George Bush in certain polls) into an antiwar man, "another McGovern"? Those risks are real, but so is the gain. For one thing, the issue of the war will not disappear even if, as seems likely, Dean fails to win the nomination. On the contrary, it is likely to grow in importance as the absence of weapons of mass destruction sinks in with the public and disorder in Iraq mounts. The essence of democracy is accountability. Kerry knows it. Of the President, he has rightly said, "George Bush needs to take responsibility for his actions and set the record straight. That's the very least that Americans should be able to expect from the President of the United States. Either he believed Saddam Hussein had chemical weapons--or he didn't. Americans need to be able to trust their President--and they deserve the truth."
They deserve accountability and truth from opposition candidates as well. Someone who is ducking responsibility for his own actions is hardly in a strong position to call someone else to account. The Kay report can even be seen as an opportunity for Kerry. Kerry made a terrible error when, credulously trusting the dubious intelligence proffered by an Administration even then obviously hellbent on war, he voted to authorize that war, but his responsibility is nowhere near as great as that of the President. He might even discover a political dividend. If he were to state that had he known in October 2002 what he knows now about Iraq's weapons program he would not have voted for the resolution, he would immediately win the enthusiasm of the antiwar Democrats, whose passion and resolve, thanks in great measure to Howard Dean, has brought a fighting spirit to the Democratic Party. Nor should he entirely shift blame to the Administration for lying to him. He should hold himself accountable for his own mistake. We need the winter soldier, now more than ever, back at his post.

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

>> BARCODE FOR HUMANS?

This article can be found on the web at
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040216&s=garfinkel


The Trouble with RFID
by SIMSON L. GARFINKEL
[posted online on February 3, 2004]
On November 15, fifteen privacy and consumer organizations called for manufacturers to voluntarily hold off on their plans to equip consumer goods with wireless tracking devices. These devices, called Radio Frequency Identification tags, are based on the same technology that lets cars pay E-ZPASS tolls without stopping. The fear of these activists is simple: They're worried that instead of being used to track boots, bluejeans and books, these so-called RFID systems will be used to track us.
RFID isn't a household word today, but within the next few years manufacturers hope to put it into many household products. Last January Gillette announced plans to order 500 million RFID chips from a California manufacturing firm called Alien Technology; Gillette plans to put the tags into packages of its razors and blades so that the high-value consumer goods can be tracked as they move from the factory through distribution and eventually to the store shelf. Last March Benetton announced similar plans to weave RFID tags into its designer clothes; the company reversed itself after a grassroots consumer group launched a worldwide boycott of Benetton products.
As its name implies, RFID systems are based on radio waves. Each tag is equipped with a tiny radio transmitter: When it "hears" a special radio signal from a reader, the tag responds by sending its own unique serial number through the air.
This wireless technology could save American businesses billions of dollars. With RFID readers at the loading docks and on the store shelves, retailers could know precisely how many packages of, say, lipstick had been received and how many had been put on the shelves. And once every product in the store is equipped with an RFID tag, stores might even be able to have an automated checkout: Shoppers could just push their carts through a doorway and have all the items in the cart automatically totaled and charged to the RFID-enabled credit card in their pocket.
Both Wal-Mart and the US military have already told their hundred largest suppliers that cartons and pallets must be equipped with unique RFID tags by January 2005. Meanwhile, MasterCard and American Express have been testing RFID-enabled credit cards. Mobil has been pushing its RFID-based "Speedpass" since 1997. And most high-end cars now come with RFID "immobilizer" circuits that won't let the cars start unless the correct RFID-enabled car key is in the ignition.
So why did the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, The World Privacy Forum and a dozen other organizations ask for a voluntary moratorium on RFID technology in consumer goods? Because this use of RFID could enable an omnipresent police surveillance state, it could erode further what's left of consumer privacy and it could make identity theft even easier than it has already become.
RFID is such a potentially dangerous technology because RFID chips can be embedded into products and clothing and covertly read without our knowledge. A small tag embedded into the heel of a shoe or the inseam of a leather jacket for inventory control could be activated every time the customer entered or left the store where the item was bought; that tag could also be read by any other business or government agency that has installed a compatible reader. Unlike today's antitheft tags, every RFID chip has a unique serial number. This means that stores could track each customer's comings and goings. Those readers could also register the RFID tags that we're already carrying in our car keys and the "prox cards" that some office buildings use instead of keys.
The problem here is that RFID tags can be read through your wallet, handbag, or clothing. It's not hard to build a system that automatically reads the proximity cards, the keychain RFID "immobilizer" chips, or other RFID-enabled devices of every person who enters a store. A store could build a list of every window shopper or person who walks through the front door by reading these tags and then looking up their owners' identities in a centralized database. No such database exists today, but one could easily be built.
Indeed, such warnings might once have been dismissed as mere fear-mongering. But in today's post-9/11 world, in which the US government has already announced its plans to fingerprint and photograph foreign visitors to our country, RFID sounds like a technology that could easily be seized upon by the Homeland Security Department in the so-called "war on terrorism." But such a system wouldn't just track suspected Al Qaeda terrorists: it would necessarily track everybody--at least potentially.
Despite these fears, the privacy activists aren't saying that RFID technology should be abandoned. As it is, the technology is already in broad use currently for the tracking of pharmaceuticals (and the elimination of dangerous drug counterfeits), for tracking shipments of meat (so that contaminated batches can be rapidly identified and destroyed) and even for tracking manufactured goods to deter theft and assist in inventory control.
But companies that are pushing RFID tags into our lives should adopt rules of conduct: There should be an absolute ban on hidden tags and covert readers. Tags should be "killed" when products are sold to consumers. And this technology should never be used to secretly unmask the identity of people who wish to remain anonymous.
I was proud to be one of the people endorsing the position statement on the use of RFID in consumer products. If companies do not voluntarily abide by these principles, we should push to have them incorporated into the laws that protect our privacy rights at the state and federal level.

>> AL-WALEED WATCH CONTINUED....


Prince Al-Waleed receives Tunisian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia
Saudi Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal Bin AbdulAziz Al-Saud, chairman of Kingdom Holding Company, received in his office in Riyadh, the Tunisian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Salaheddine Maawi.

Several topics that concern Saudi Arabia and Tunisia were discussed during the meeting. Prince Al-Waleed and the ambassador reviewed the latest regional and international developments and the financial and political situation in Tunisia.

Ambassador Maawi presented to Prince Al-Waleed a letter from the Tunisian President Zein Al-Abideen Bin Ali thanking the Prince for his last visit to Tunisia to attend the opening of the Al-Abideen Mosque in Carthage, and for his generous donation of four million dollars for the completion of the project. The ambassador also presented a mini-replica of the Al-Abideen Mosque as a token of appreciation from the government and people of Tunisia.

Prince Al-Waleed, on his part, confirmed to the ambassador the strong relations between Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, referring to Tunisia as his second country. The Prince added that his friendship with the Tunisian President, whom he met several times in the past few years is an extension to the ideal diplomatic relationship between both countries. -- (menareport.com)
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Saudi authorities arrest ''terrorist'' east of capital
Saudi security authorities arrested a wanted man at Al-Salam suburb east of Riyadh, according to a ?Wednesday report. ?

Al-Jazeera reported that after receiving the information required, security officials intensified their presence, cordoned off the Al-Salam suburb and ?
?arrested the wanted "terrorist" without any resistance or shooting.?(Albawaba.com)
?
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Official: Investment in Saudi Eastern Province is booming
Saudi Arabia's Eastern province is experiencing an industry boom, according to Minister of Trade, Hashim A. Yamani. Close to 40 new Dammam project licenses have already been issued this year, the majority of which are petrochemical support ventures, reported Arab News.

Business experts predict that the liberalization policy adopted by the Kingdom will yield positive results with many foreign investors showing keenness to join their Saudi counterparts in setting up new joint ventures, particularly in the petrochemical sector. -- (menareport.com)
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Saudi army chief receives South Korean counterpart
Saudi Arabia's Deputy Chief of the General Staff General Sultan Al-Mutairi received in Riyadh Wednesday the South Korean Chief of the General Staff, General Nam Jae John, according to the official Saudi Press Agency.

The agency reported that during the reception, the two officials exchanged cordial talks and discussed topics of joint concern. No further details were provided. (Albawaba.com)

Testing the Saudi "Will to Power": Challenges Confronting Prince Abdallah
http://www.mepc.org/public_asp/journal_vol10/0312_kechichian.asp
Joseph A. Kechichian

Dr. Kechichian is the author of Succession in Saudi Arabia (New York: Palgrave, 2001) and (Beirut and London: Dar Al Saqi, 2002 [in Arabic]); and co-author, with R. Hrair Dekmejian, of The Just Prince: A Manual of Leadership (London: Saqi Books, 2003), which includes a full translation of the Sulwan al-Muta by Muhammad Ibn Zafar al-Siqilli. For a printable pdf version of this article, click here.

If the Al Saud faced the wrath of extremist elements in November 1979, when the Makkah Mosque was occupied for three long weeks by hundreds of neo-Ikhwan supporters, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia faced a double rage in 2003. Riyadh confronted the fury of Western authorities in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on American soil and, after the May 12, 2003, terrorist bombings, the vengeance of radical Islamists at home. Although surrounded by a very large retinue, the heir apparent and regent, Abdallah bin Abd al-Aziz, faced these challenges more or less alone. Epoch-making changes have unfolded on his watch, and how he "guides" them will probably mark the fate of the kingdom and the Al Saud for at least a generation. What confronts the affable Abdallah, much like what faced his half-brother the late King Faysal bin Abd al-Aziz in the early 1960s, is a test of will. How he responds to accusations that Saudi Arabia supported terrorist activities throughout the Muslim world and how successfully he introduces sorely needed sociopolitical reforms, will surely shape the kingdom's immediate future. Yet, much like his older brother, who saved the Al Saud dynasty in 1964, Abdallah may well restore the ruling family's tarnished image in the West as well as reinstate its influence throughout the Muslim world.1

THE 9/11 WRATH
According to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 15 of the hijackers believed to have taken part in the coordinated suicide missions on September 11, 2001, were Saudi nationals. This claim was quickly disputed by Interior Minister Nayif bin Abd al-Aziz, and at least two Saudis whose names were on the FBI's initial terrorist tally sheets received official apologies from Washington. Others were less fortunate because undeniable facts pointing to the active participation of several Saudi nationals soon emerged. Dozens were held and questioned for long periods of time, even if the main designated culprit, Osama bin Laden (who was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994), was unaccounted for in late 2003. The relentless bombardment of Afghanistan from October 7, 2001, onwards may well have dismantled bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, but it failed to produce the hermit or the Taliban regime's self-declared leader, Mullah Omar. Likewise, the American decision to remove the Baathist regime in Baghdad, allegedly because Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) represented an "imminent threat" to the security of the United States (as well as to that of its junior partner, Britain), added pressure on Saudi Arabia to follow the American-British "logic," even if conclusive evidence was lacking several months after Saddam Hussein was toppled on March 9, 2003.

For much of the past two years, senior U.S. officials have voiced their general displeasure with Saudi Arabia, even if most were aware of how critical the kingdom remained to U.S. national security. Simply stated, Riyadh controls 25 percent of the world's proven oil reserves, a truism that did not alter the undeniable fact that U.S.-Saudi relations were severely bruised because of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The kingdom's reputation was further damaged after a U.S. Congressional Report implied that Riyadh played a role in the attacks.2 Washington deleted a substantial section detailing alleged Saudi complicity, and, while Riyadh made a bid to have these sections made public, it was unsuccessful. In fact, it is now clear that no amount of diplomatic finesse will likely eliminate the mistrust on either side that, unless carefully managed, could generate new clashes. Although U.S. government officials measured their criticisms of Saudi Arabia, its Wahhabi creed and Islam in general, gratuitous remarks abounded in the media and the instant-analysis industry.

Laurent Murawiec, a RAND Corporation analyst specializing in the kingdom, briefed the powerful Defense Policy Board at the Pentagon in July 2002, describing Saudi Arabia as "the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent" in the Middle East.3 Murawiec labeled Saudi Arabia an "enemy" of the United States and reportedly argued in his briefing that the United States should demand Riyadh end all funding of fundamentalist groups, stop all anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli statements in the kingdom, and "prosecute or isolate those involved in the terror chain," including in the Saudi intelligence services. If the Saudis refused to comply, the briefing emphasized, Saudi oil fields and overseas financial assets should be "targeted," although specifics were not outlined. The Saudis, maintained the analyst, were active "at every level of the terror chain" and, clearly, needed to be reminded of their limitations.4

Others identified the kingdom's religious beliefs as defective, going so far as to declare that "Wahhabism has been a movement of total intolerance toward those who did not adopt its principles, including other Muslims."5 For Americans who considered Saudi Arabia as Washington's "anchor in the Arab Middle East [that] banked our oil under its sand," a frontal assault was necessary to tame Saudis who had strayed.6 Instantaneously, the primary focus centered on the kingdom's education system, which purportedly taught nothing but hatred, especially hatred of the United States.7 When religion and education were discussed in tandem, the resulting assessments bordered on the highly subjective, a litany of emotional sermons.8

The sum total of such negative publicity fundamentally altered American public opinion of the kingdom. On February 26, 2002, The Washington Post reported that 54 percent of Americans viewed Saudi Arabia as a state supporting terrorism, compared with a mere 35 percent who had a similar perception of Syria, a country long on the State Department's "Terrorism List."9 This general view remained constant for the balance of the year and, after the spring 2003 American-British war on Iraq, anti-Saudi perceptions solidified.10 A less charitable British commentator predicted a total collapse of the long-standing relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia, as gloom and doom forecasts dominated media as well as scholarly outlets.11

THE WRATH OF MAY 12, 2003
Then on May 12, 2003, powerful bombs ripped through three foreign compounds in Riyadh, killing 34 people, including eight Americans, along with 9 attackers. Another 194 people were wounded. The terrorist bombings stung senior Saudi officials, as most were criticized for doing little to combat militancy in the kingdom and throughout the Muslim world. After this tragedy, Saudi officials displayed unusual openness and determination to confront extremist militants. "Saudi Arabia must deal with the fact it has terrorists inside its own country," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer declared.12 Cautious Saudi commentators and officials quickly concluded that radical elements represented as much of a threat to Saudi Arabia as to the United States. Heir Apparent Abdallah went on national television vowing to "confront the murderous criminals" and their supporters behind the attacks, a very bold statement that expanded the circle by taking on the militants' sympathizers. He pledged to remain "vigilant about security" and "to confront and destroy the threat posed by a deviant few."13 In fact, Saudi newspapers, which are government controlled even if privately owned, carried editorials using unusually harsh language. Most lashed out at extremists who, they posited, used religion to rally misguided and mostly unemployed youths to carry out suicide attacks.14

Within a few days, Saudi Arabia linked a 19-member al-Qaeda team to the carnage, as a direct connection was made between these latest attacks and a May 6, 2003, gunfight between police and al-Qaeda operatives in the same part of Riyadh. According to Saudi authorities, the 19 who escaped included 17 of its nationals, a Yemeni, and an Iraqi with dual Kuwaiti and Canadian citizenship. Interior Minister Nayif declared that they were believed to take orders directly from Osama bin Laden.15 Speaking to the daily Ukaz, Nayif did not rule out the possibility of more attacks: "We must not sit back and say this will not happen," he said. "This is life, and incidents occur in every country and we are in a period of anxiety and terror acts. The kingdom is one of the countries being targeted."16

By late 2003, Riyadh successfully apprehended most of those on its initial list of al-Qaeda suspects, and then some. Dozens were hunted down and hundreds were arrested. Heir apparent Abdallah's pledge that he would go after terrorists with a vengeance, proved true. Various sweeps in Riyadh but also in Makkah, Madinah, Abha and elsewhere throughout the kingdom netted potential terrorists who stood accused of collaborating with al-Qaeda. Equally important, several hundred clerics were fired from their highly visible posts and, according to an official spokesman, Riyadh actually suspended many preachers for allegedly promoting hatred and intolerance.17

WHAT AILED THE KINGDOM
The firing of several hundred clerics from their state-appointed posts and the "retraining" of many others in special religious schools illustrated what ailed the kingdom. Indeed, much of what hurt Saudi society may well be traced to its complex socioeconomic makeup and the myriad problems it has helped create since 1932.18 Although the Al Saud did not face an imminent risk of instability, they entered the twenty-first century in the midst of significant political, social, economic and military transitions.

Political transitions
The most critical internal transition facing the Al Saud in 2003 was the question of who might succeed a frail King Fahd. In fact, Riyadh was likely to have a non-Sudayri at the helm, in the person of Heir Apparent Abdallah. That is, a son of King Abdul Aziz whose mother was not a member of the Sudayri family. Almost inevitably, this has raised a succession question among policy makers, focusing attention on how the Saudi regime might change under his rule and whether there might be significant shifts in Saudi foreign and domestic policies. Irrespective of how this transition develops, Abdallah's accession to the throne seems assured (assuming good health), even if the number-two post "promised" to Defense Minister Sultan bin Abd al-Aziz has not been etched in stone. Questions of this forthcoming succession aside, Saudi Arabia could face a political crisis, once the winnowing of senior Al Saud family members accelerates.19

Abdallah, who assumed authority to run the day-to-day affairs of the kingdom in December 1995, when King Fahd bin Abd al-Aziz suffered a debilitating stroke, was sensitive to this central question. Although he became regent in 2000, the heir apparent probably represents a minority voice within the ruling family. Defense Minister Sultan and several of his full brothers, the so-called Sudayris, tend to be far more conservative. They also reject any changes in the alliance that stands at the center of the family's legitimacy in the eyes of the religious establishment. It may thus be safe to assume that while Fahd is alive, even if barely, Abdallah cannot rely on the full complement of brotherly support that he desperately needs to solidify his position. Needless to say, such support is critical if one is simultaneously to accede to rulership, win a war against terrorism, and -- no small feat -- introduce social, economic and political reforms.

Another important transition was earmarked for the Majlis al-Shura (Consultative Council), which was enlarged to 120 members at the end of May 2001, as it was called upon to offer genuine advice rather than rubber stamp government policy. Observers of the kingdom's political scene perceived the expanded Council as a way for technocrats to enter government service rather than act as real parliamentarians.20 Nevertheless, Riyadh sought to empower the institution, even if it hesitated. "We need political reform first of all. Parliament has to have the right to hold government to account," insisted Talal bin Abd al-Aziz, a half-brother of the custodian of the two holy mosques, to Reuters in early July 2003.21

Talal, never the shy royal, went even further in his assessment of what ailed the kingdom. "So far the intellectuals agree on the unity of the Kingdom, that we should have an Islamic Shari'ah law but an enlightened version, and that we retain the royal family but with reform." These were powerful words that could only be voiced after being vetted with the country's senior leaders. What Talal and, through him, Heir Apparent Abdallah were clearly seeking was to curtail the immense power of the religious establishment. Moreover, what the regent sought was to institute substantial reforms to overcome whatever political problems Saudi society may have to face, including terrorism, to ensure Al Saud rule. Talal was specific in his criticism of the religious police, and he called on the government to rein in the Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, known as the mutawwain or "enforcers," a semi-independent institution created and supervised by the ruling family. According to this logic, the enforcers would no longer have free license to arrest at will but would be accountable to the police. "If," clarified Talal, enforcers of public morality "see violations, it is not they who should take action; they should just tell the police."22 Few Saudis and even fewer members of the Al Saud had ever spoken with such clarity of purpose on a topic this sensitive.

The call to further institutionalize religious activities was not limited to members of the ruling family. Shaykh Abd al-Aziz bin Abdallah Al Shaykh, the kingdom's grand mufti and chairman of the Council of Senior Ulama [religious scholars], declared in May 2003 that "terrorism ha[d] nothing to do with Islam [and that] Islam should not be blamed for the acts of other people." "People," underscored the learned scholar, "should be held responsible individually for their own acts." In August 2003, Al Shaykh cautioned believers to abandon extremism and fanaticism, emphasizing that "Muslims must understand that the path of reform never comes through violence. Islam is not a religion of violence. It is a religion of mercy for everyone."23 Speaking in Makkah in early September 2003, he further indicated that Friday sermons should address the interests of the entire Muslim community.24 For his part, the minister of Islamic Endowments, Dawa, Awqaf and Guidance Affairs, Shaykh Salih bin Abd al-Aziz Al Shaykh, cautioned Saudi youth to remain vigilant about religious and political deviations. Shaykh Salih called on Saudis to oppose hatred in all its forms and pledged to allocate a larger portion of his ministry's resources to programs that will propagate truth.25

Needless to say, such a global perspective required coordination and, more important, cooperation among religious authorities, who would have to accept a certain degree of uniformity. Yet, and it may be worth underscoring, the kingdom's religious figures would neither utter such declarations nor embark on radical approaches were it not for the heir apparent's specific instructions. In fact, Abdallah's outlook on religious tolerance was changing so quickly that, at the end of his historic September 2003 visit to Russia, he called on Muslims and Christians in that country to preserve "social harmony." Receiving members of the Russian Orthodox Church, he forcefully declared that Russians were capable of opposing evil that sought to separate or harm their respective religions.26 At a time when Saudis were accused of doing little to promote concord among various religious communities, Abdallah was certain that Russian Muslims and Christians were capable of preventing divisions. Although this statement was meant to be supportive of Russia's estimated 20 million Muslims, it also reflected the heir apparent's desire for tolerance among all believers. By making such a statement in Moscow, Abdallah further cautioned radical Islamists at home, insisting that extremism and intolerance would not be condoned.

Economic transitions
Abdallah faced equally daunting challenges on the economic front that pre-occupied him far more than generally assumed. He realized that the kingdom's estimated 30-percent unemployment rate stood as a stark reminder of past failures. Unless major economic reforms were implemented, and sooner than many wished, Riyadh could not hope to emerge out of its sociopolitical doldrums.

In 1973, before the beginning of the infamous oil boom, Saudi Arabia had a population of roughly 6.8 million. It grew to 15.8 million by 1990 and 22 million by 2000. It is currently projected to reach 25.8 million in 2005 and over 30 million in 2010. At an annual growth rate of 3.7 percent, the Saudi population will have nearly doubled between 1990 and 2010. The World Bank forecasts that Saudi Arabia's population will grow by about 3.3 percent per year over the next few years. As a result, even conservative estimates project a total Saudi population approaching 30 million in 2010. This will add substantial pressures on Riyadh.27 What the kingdom's demographic data clearly illustrate is that Saudi Arabia is a very young country ruled by old men. Abdallah, who is 80, must therefore rule with a young heart if he is to address the concerns of his people.

Similarly, in 1973, Riyadh's gross domestic product (GDP) stood at less than 100 billion riyals (approximately $35 billion), and per capita income was less than $2,500. The economy was largely rural and pre-industrial. By 2002, however, the Saudi GDP rose to 700 billion riyals (approximately $200 billion) with per capita income hovering around $9,000 (having peaked at $15,000 in 1981). These figures indicated that a largely agricultural entity had slowly become a heavily urbanized welfare state with a significant service sector. Yet, because of dramatic transitions, Saudi Arabia faced a critical threat to the welfare state it created after 1974, especially because the anticipated population growth was not matched by liberalized economic policies. Clearly, oil income alone would not -- and will not -- offset a steady drop in per capita income, as Riyadh encourages rapid diversification and prepares for the day when many subsidies, a significant drain on its unbalanced budgets, are permanently removed.28

To some extent, these changes explained why Heir Apparent Abdallah continued his efforts to seek major reforms in the Saudi economy, to reduce dependence on foreign labor, encourage private domestic and foreign investment, and open up the nation's economy to help make it globally competitive (as well as qualify for membership in the World Trade Organization). In fact, the need for substantial foreign investment, especially in the oil and gas industries, was deemed a priority. Towards that end, Abdallah invited leading oil-industry titans to return to the kingdom, even if no agreement had been reached by the fall of 2003.29 The heir apparent understood that Saudi Arabia remained far too heavily dependent on oil revenues (for around 90 percent of total export earnings, about 70 percent of state revenues and 40 percent of GDP), despite repeated attempts to diversify. Still, without high oil prices, Riyadh was poised to face budget and investment problems, the major challenge on this front being whether Abdallah could fund both entitlements and development programs simultaneously.30

Military transitions
The kingdom's military transition was even more complicated. Despite large defense expenditures and vast programs to absorb Western military hardware, the Saudi military remained relatively weak against its opponents, chiefly because Riyadh lacked the minimum manpower required to defend Saudi Arabia. Pressure on the Al Saud to form a capable fighting force increased after the 1991 war for Kuwait, not only because of the country's small population base, but also because able-bodied Saudi men have in large part stayed outside the military, essentially to manage businesses. To compensate for chronic manpower shortages among the kingdom's population, the Al Saud have now opened military service to various tribal elements, in order to maintain the armed forces at a reasonable level. Tribal and cultural aversions, combined with a lack of technical education, have severely limited Riyadh's ability to raise an efficient force, one capable of using its sophisticated weapons without massive and unabated outside assistance. In this instance as well, Heir Apparent Abdallah encouraged a different approach.31

If the Al Saud mistrusted their military before 1990, the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait and the 2003 war in Iraq have dramatically altered their assessments. Although Riyadh spent some $18 to $22 billion annually on defense during the past decade, new financial austerity measures were implemented after 2000. To be sure, Saudi Arabia signed new arms agreements, but these paled in comparison to what was purchased earlier.32 What preoccupied Al Saud officials in 2003 were the preparedness levels of many units rather than the latest sophisticated equipment. Even the Royal Saudi Air Force, certainly the crown jewel of the Saudi military, faced austerity measures.33

Abdallah insisted that the military prove itself and, in so far as it may be possible, rely less on outsiders for training and maintenance. The heir apparent maintained the longstanding cooperation accords with the United States, which allowed the latter's Special Operations Forces to operate out of key Saudi bases during the attack on Iraq but simultaneously welcomed Washington s decision to redeploy a U.S. Air Force Wing out of Sultan Air Base at Al Kharj in the summer of 2003.34 Abdallah understood that his "will" and massive military expenditures notwithstanding, such austerity measures were absolutely necessary, as he concentrated on internal and regional disturbances.

THE DOMESTIC WAR ON TERRORISM
Critics of the heir apparent view his pledges and limited actions to date with skepticism. Many have concluded that Abdallah is window dressing and that there is little substance to his promises. Yet significant changes have already taken place, and, while hardened perceptions are difficult to dissipate, the desire to reform while conducting a full-fledged war on terrorism is genuine. To be sure, some diehard Al Saud members may have little interest in introducing modernizing features, but the regent has probably crossed the Rubicon. There is no going back, even if Abdallah knows all too well that there are few "liberals" throughout the kingdom that stand ready to support him in his many endeavors.

Internally, Riyadh now faces the prospect of sustained turbulence, even if not all of the countrys difficulties are socioeconomic. As the demographic bulge cited above illustrates, half of the population (which is under the age of 15) will continue to demand increasing political accountability. Moreover, opposition groups link Al Saud policies on the domestic front with Saudi Arabia's standing at the international level. Within the Arab world, Riyadh is criticized for paying lip service to the core concern of Palestine and, within the world at large, for kowtowing to American policies. The regent's declaration of war on terrorism must, therefore, be assessed within these parameters. At stake is Al Saud rule itself.

Although the tragedy of September 11, 2001, dramatically altered Abdallah's perceptions of the war on terrorism, the fact remained that the Bush administration had squandered several peacemaking opportunities during its first year in office. At the height of the Palestinian intifada Abdallah was dismayed by how callous the new president was towards the Palestinians. According to The Washington Post, the regent drafted a 25-page letter to President George W. Bush in late August 2001, in which he vociferously complained about U.S. policy on Israel. Abdallah noted that repeated American vetoes at the U.N. Security Council illustrated this bias.35 In fact, Arab and especially Saudi perceptions were so negative that the heir apparent turned down an invitation to visit Washington in June 2001. Interior Minister Nayif, for his part, regretted that Washington came at the top of the list of countries that have an unfair stance as regards the cause of the Arabs and the Palestinians in particular.36

Whether the letter and such comments were meant to assuage a growing anti-American sentiment throughout the Arab world -- in fact, throughout the Muslim world -- was difficult to determine.37 What was irrefutable, however, was Heir Apparent Abdallah's frustration with U.S. Middle East policy. When Abdallah turned down the invitation to visit Washington, he announced that Riyadh must abide by principled stands on behalf of Palestinians. He voiced his bewilderment at international inaction while visiting several European capitals. He insisted that Israeli violence was a kind of "state terrorism," highlighting the dangers associated with Israel's aggressive retaliatory measures, along with confiscating land, building settlements and laying economic siege to an entire captive population. The heir apparent called for a more balanced U.S. position to better protect vital American interests throughout the region.38 Riyadh's unrelenting criticism of Washington necessitated an intervention by George H.W. Bush (who nurtured special contacts with senior Al Saud figures during his own political career). The former president telephoned Abdallah in June 2001 to reassure the Saudi that his son was "going to do the right thing." He reportedly confided to Abdallah that his son's heart was "in the right place" as far as the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel was concerned.39

Such assurances notwithstanding, Al Saud rulers were not overjoyed by the U.S. decision to limit its direct involvement in the peace process, as Washington argued that it was up to the two parties to resolve long-standing differences. It may well be that Abdallah then took the decision, before September 11, 2001, to reduce the U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia. In other words, Abdallah had to contend with growing anti-U.S. sentiment across the kingdom, directly related to developments elsewhere in the Middle East. While the Al Saud have never allowed the Arab-Israeli conflict to infringe on their special relationship with successive American administrations, Abdallah and several other senior ruling-family members were finally reconsidering whether existing strategic ties could proceed as in the past.

Saudi Arabia then embarked on a major peace initiative to collectively commit the entire Arab world to normalizing relations with Israel in exchange for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. It was probably designed with full American blessings.40 The fanfare that preceded the plan's formal unveiling at the League of Arab States Beirut Summit bordered on the comical.41 It was entirely possible that the United States sought Saudi assistance -- through the kingdom's religious clout within the larger Muslim world -- to advocate an acceptance of Israel. Riyadh, for its part, was eager to ingratiate itself with Washington in a full-fledged rehabilitation effort. Yet, although the Saudi plan was unanimously adopted by the League on March 28, 2002, Israeli "conditions" ensured its premature death.42 When, a few months later, Washington turned to its latest peace initiative, the so-called Roadmap (which was also derailed), Saudi Arabia's role was significantly marginalized. Although Abdallah s initiative flopped, the heir apparent had taken a calculated risk in Beirut when he promoted inter-Arab reconciliation, including a thaw in Iraqi-Kuwaiti and Iraqi-Saudi ties.

These significant measures were followed by a major rapprochement effort with the Bush administration in April 2002. The Saudi regent visited Crawford, Texas, where he confided his personal views on the Middle East peace process, Afghanistan, Iraq and the war on terrorism. He pleaded for action on the Palestinian-Israeli front and promised to muzzle radical Islamists in the kingdom. By all accounts, the meetings were fairly blunt and did not go as well as many anticipated. The two determined men stood their ground.43

Riyadh then took several practical steps to address intrinsic internal problems ranging from measures to prevent money laundering to ordering banks and other financial institutions to strictly monitor any large transactions. Against a plethora of evidence, Friday sermons throughout the kingdom's mosques stressed the need to combat terrorism, offering support to the coalition to defeat Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Iraq situation was more delicate, as it necessitated a sophisticated response. In fact, Saudi officials went out of their way to differentiate between Iraq and the Baathist regime. They opposed Saddam Hussein but strongly objected to the economic sanctions that were strangling a hapless population. Equally important, Saudi and Gulf leaders were -- like their own residents -- exposed to television reports from Iraq that displayed the horrible impact that sanctions had visited on the Iraqi public.44 Consequently, the flood of anti-American sentiment increased; pro-American Saudi elites were not able to stem the tide.

Throughout the kingdom, sermons routinely raised these critical nuances. Even if some preachers warned against "unmeasured" responses, radical clerics routinely issued critical statements on the American wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Abdallah, for his part, knew that his decision to crack down on Islamists would actually increase their popularity within the kingdom.45 Even before the polarizing debate over Iraq, leading Saudi clerics openly challenged Riyadh to distance itself from the West in general and the United States in particular. Shaykh Hammud Al-Shuaybi of Burayda, for example, wrote that "helping the infidels against Muslims is defecting from Islam," and that "whoever helps America and its fellow infidels against our brothers in Afghanistan is an apostate."46 Another Saudi cleric, Shaykh Abd al-Aziz bin Salih al-Jarbu, penned a fiery pamphlet that concluded that Osama bin Laden was Muhammad bin Abd al-Wahhab's natural inheritor.47 This was a clear affront to the Al Saud.

Not surprisingly, and in the aftermath of the American-British attacks on Iraq, the fiery radical Islamist message increased once again, escalating into armed confrontation. By the time the May 12, 2003, terrorist attacks hit the capital, Riyadh was embarked on a full-fledged internal war against radical Islamists.

These facts, as well as the overall criticism of the ruling family, riled the Saudi government because they struck at the very heart of its claim to legitimacy. Moreover, such arguments echoed Osama bin Laden's view of the ruling dynasty as too doctrinaire, too corrupt and too un-Islamic to rule. From an internal Saudi perspective, what the suicide bombings revealed was the extent to which some Saudis were ready to defy the Al Saud, especially in light of the latter's discreet but sustained support of the United States over the years. The regent's mission was and is to conduct a war on terrorism without appearing to conduct a war on religion. Riyadh certainly favored a public distance between its policies and American demands for more action. It was paramount to ensure that anti-American criticisms did not translate into anti-Al Saud measures.

CONCLUSION
Heir Apparent Abdallah faced several key transitions in 2003. Within the region, these challenges ranged from the removal of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, a major force in Gulf security, to Iran's welcome shift towards political moderation and regional cooperation. While Saudi-Iraqi ties, which had deteriorated throughout 2001 and 2002 due to continued border skirmishes, cannot but improve in the future, diplomatic strains with the United States have continued. Simply stated, the United States is now a Gulf power that shares a border with Saudi Arabia, a reality that weighs heavily in Riyadh. In fact, Washington's regional footprint in Iraq and throughout the Gulf region has changed perceptions that many Saudis had of the United States.

Likewise, while Saudi-Iranian ties were also improving, Riyadh was wary of Tehran's long-term political and military capabilities. Iran no longer played the role of a balancer in the Gulf (vis-?-vis Iraq) but risked a confrontation with the United States. Needless to say, such an outcome was not in Saudi Arabia's interest, as Abdallah did not wish to drag the Gulf region into a fourth war in less than two decades.

If the Saudi heir apparent appreciated Washington's "inclination to seek a just and comprehensive peace," in Iraq, as in Palestine after Mr. Bush vowed to support the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, Saudi Arabia remained suspicions of U.S. motives.48 Abdallah pledged to exert special effort to serve security and stability in the region but wondered whether Washington aimed solely to entice Arabs and Muslims into joining the campaign against terrorism. In his mind, as in the minds of many Arab and Muslim leaders, this duality was illustrated with strong steps in Afghanistan or Iraq and lukewarm, indeed reluctant, ones on the Arab-Israeli front. Nevertheless, even the Al Saud realized that the United States could no longer distance itself too far from obligations of its making, in Iraq for obvious reasons, but also on the peace process, because the Bush administration has committed the United States to supporting the principle of a Palestinian state.

Few doubt that Saudi relations with its erstwhile staunch American ally are now in dire straits. In fact, ties are so strained that Prince Bandar bin Sultan, son of the powerful defense minister and dean of the diplomatic corps in Washington, because of his long-established presence in the American capital, has sought advice from the president's father, as well as from Vice-President Dick Cheney. These urgent meetings were meant to halt the slide in Washington's confidence in Riyadh amid concerns that some Saudis, including some serving in the government, were linked to terrorists who may have targeted the United States. Prince Bandar left nothing to chance. He flew to Kennebunkport, Maine, in late August 2003, before going to Wyoming to meet the vice-president, both to show respect and to seek advice.49

These meetings followed a very strong statement by Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, who declared that terrorists attacking American troops in Iraq "were slipping across the border from Saudi Arabia." Although Riyadh denied the change, and called on the occupying forces to seal their border, the Saudis were dismayed that Armitage and other senior American officials would place Saudi Arabia on the same level with Iran and Syria. Even if an official State Department spokesman insisted that Armitage's comments about the kingdom were "overplayed" and that the deputy secretary "was not trying to lump Saudi Arabia in the same category as Iran," Bandar's visits were telling.50

To be sure, both Washington and Riyadh have managed their numerous differences with aplomb for over 50 years. Whether Saudi Arabia, or for that matter the United States, can afford to place the Al Saud ruling family at risk will be a key strategic question for both countries in 2004. Although some American and some Saudi officials may be fed up with each other's policies, inevitable and tangible progress in the Middle East peace process can only help preserve long-term interests. A modicum of evenhandedness will likely accelerate the process and, equally important, allow Heir Apparent Abdallah to introduce sorely needed economic and political reforms to his kingdom.

For Abdallah is aware that serious internal problems cannot be resolved by fiat. Acknowledging the existence of poverty in the kingdom, disparities between rural areas and urban sprawls, rising unemployment levels, intrinsic structural weaknesses within the economy, as well as unrepresentative government, all necessitated serious action. Much like his older brother, King Faysal bin Abd al-Aziz, the current regent took several key decisions even if most were long overdue. In fact, these were taken to address popular demand and ensure that Al Saud rule was preserved.

Towards that end, in the spring of 2003, Saudi Arabia's first independent human-rights organization was authorized. It held its first major conference on Human Rights in Peace and War in mid-October 2003, when some 70 papers were discussed.51 According to press reports, the conference emphasized the need to adopt common international standards for human rights that respect all religions, cultures and traditions. Significantly, one of the participants, Princess Hussa bint Salman, daughter of the powerful governor of Makkah, addressed Saudi Arabia's stand on human rights and clarified several recent changes in the law.52 Her participation as well as her interventions revealed the importance that the Al Saud have attached to this key question.

Simultaneously, a "National Dialogue Panel" as well as a 30-strong "Saudi Intellectual Dialogue" group emerged. The latter forwarded a series of recommendations to the heir apparent. They called on him to widen freedom of expression, broaden the decision-making process, improve communication lines between rulers and ruled, empower women, accept intellectual diversity within society, and balance economic and commercial development. They also asked the heir apparent to confront extremism by differentiating between terrorism and jihad, while paying more attention to youth concerns. Finally, they pleaded for an accelerated pace for the implementation of ongoing reform programs that recognize the impact of regional and global situations.53 A tall order indeed.

To his credit, Abdallah pushed through the Saudi Cabinet a number of measures that addressed several of these recommendations. In an earthshaking step, the Saudi cabinet announced that it was contemplating elections to choose half of the members of each of 14 municipal councils.54 Riyadh decided to widen participation of citizens in running local affairs through elections within one year.55 While long-overdue elections were perceived as a beginning, an al-Watan columnist in Riyadh hoped that they would lead to elections in the Shura Council, in universities, and [in] the right to form syndicates.56 Still, Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal insisted that Saudi leaders are not experimenters, and that they are only seeking to do what is the wish of the Saudi citizen.57

Another significant item, which could only have been addressed with the heir apparent's full consent, was the Shura Council debate on Saudi Arabia's naturalization laws. Although the Council could not reach a consensus, discussions were taking place on relaxing citizenship laws for foreigners, especially those who have lived in the kingdom for ten years or more.58 The need to alter existing regulations, including the much-despised sponsorship (kafeel) system, was first raised in public by Prince Abd al-Majeed bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud, the governor of Makkah. More recently, Shura Council members weighed how to change naturalization rules to narrow geographical gaps and remove differences based on gender, religion and color.59

In national addresses, Heir Apparent Abdallah referred to the need for such genuine debates on a slew of key questions, including tolerance, national unity and reform. As a listener willing and eager to learn from ordinary citizens as well as from intellectuals, Abdallah repeatedly insisted that Riyadh would combat regional, tribal and ideological discord. Much like his brother, the late King Faysal bin Abd al-Aziz, the current heir apparent relished the opportunity to confront the challenges that tested his will.

1 For a discussion of the key 1979 Makkah mosque takeover, see Joseph A. Kechichian, "Islamic Revivalism and Change in Saudi Arabia: Juhayman Al-Utaybi's `Letters' to the Saudi People," The Muslim World, Vol. 70, No. 1, January 1990, pp. 1-16; and, idem., "The Role of the Ulama in the Politics of an Islamic State: The Case of Saudi Arabia," International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 18, No. 1, February 1986, pp. 53-71. For an analysis of the will to power in a contemporary setting, see idem., "Saudi Arabia's Will to Power," Middle East Policy, Vol. 7, No. 2, February 2000, pp. 47-60.
2 S. Rept. No. 107-351, 107th congress, 2d session and H. Rept. No. 107-792, "Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001," Washington, DC: U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, September 2003.
3 Thomas E. Ricks, "Briefing Depicted Saudis as Enemies: Ultimatum Urged To Pentagon Board," The Washington Post, August 6, 2002, p. A1.
4 Jack Shafer, "The Power Point That Rocked the Pentagon: The La Rouche Defector who's Advising the Defense Establishment on Saudi Arabia," August 7, 2002, published online by Slate at http://slate.msn.com/id/2069119/.
5 Dore Gold, Hatred's Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2003), p. 12.
6 Robert Baer, Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude (New York: Crown Publishers, 2003), p. xxvii [emphasis added].
7 A carefully researched and analyzed study of the Saudi education system -- that debunks most of the instant analysis arguments -- is available in Eleanor Abdella Doumato, "Manning the Barricades: Islam According to Saudi Arabia's School Texts," The Middle East Journal, Vol. 57, No. 2, Spring 2003, pp. 230-47.
8 Many anti-Saudi reports are widely available on the Internet. For a more serious assessment, but still in the same "genre," see Stephen Schwartz, The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Saud from Tradition to Terror (New York: Doubleday, 2002).
9 "Saudis Seen As Supporting Terror, Poll Shows," The Washington Post, February 26, 2002, p. 19. The poll, by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research, ranked Saudi Arabia ahead of both North Korea and Syria as a supporter of international terrorism.
10 Lisa Beyer with Scott MacLeod, "Saudi Arabia: Inside the Kingdom," Time, September 15, 2003, pp. 38-51.
11 Paul Michael Wihbey, "The End of the Affair," The Spectator, September 6, 2003, pp. 20-21.
12 Quoted in Donna Abu-Nasr, "Saudis More Open About Recent Attacks," The Associated Press, May 15, 2003.
13 Press Release, "Address to the Nation by Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz," Washington, DC: Embassy of Saudi Arabia, May 13, 2003.
14 See, for example, Khalid al-Ghanami, "Al-Insan wal-Watan Ahamun min Ibn Taymiyyah" [The Human Being and the Nation are More Important than Ibn Taymiyyah], Al-Watan, May 22, 2003, p. 6. Al-Watan, which championed the anti-extremist cause, was mired in controversy and suffered significant setbacks when its editor in chief, Jamal A. Khashoggi, was eventually muzzled. See Neil MacFarquhar, "A Saudi Editor who Offended Clerics is Ousted from His Post," The New York Times, May 28, 2003, p. A1. This setback notwithstanding, the assault on extremists was ongoing. See R. Hrair Dekmejian, "The Liberal Impulse in Saudi Arabia," Middle East Journal, Vol. 57, No. 3, Summer 2003, pp. 400-13.
15 "Al-Qaida's Challenge," Mideast Mirror, May 14, 2003, section B.
16 "Interview with Interior Minister Prince Nayif bin Abd al-Aziz," Ukaz, May 14, 2003, p. 1.
17 Press Release, "Statement by Adel Al-Jubeir, Foreign Affairs Advisor to the Crown Prince," Washington, DC: Embassy of Saudi Arabia, June 12, 2003.
18 A discussion of how rapid changes associated with modernization inevitably imposes on traditional societies is beyond the scope of this essay. For a fascinating discussion of how modernization literally altered the conservative Saudi society, see the masterful trilogy by Abdelrahman Munif in Cities of Salt (New York: Vintage International, 1989); The Trench (New York: Pantheon Books, 1991), and Variations on Night and Day (New York: Pantheon Books, 1993).
19 Simon Henderson, "After King Fahd: Succession in Saudi Arabia," policy paper number 37, 2nd edition, Washington, DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 1995; and Joseph A. Kechichian, Succession in Saudi Arabia (New York: Palgrave, 2001), especially pp. 5-9, 61-65.
20 Abdallah al-Fawzan, "Exposing the Shura," Arab News, February 25, 2003.
21 Reuters, "Political Reform Essential for Saudi Arabia, Says Prince Talal," Gulf News, September 13, 2003, p. 15.
22 Ibid.
23 Press Release, "Saudi Arabia's Highest Religious Authority Warns Against the Dangers of Extremism," Washington, DC: Embassy of Saudi Arabia, August 21, 2003.
24 Jamil al-Ziabi, "Al Shaykh wal-Turki Yushadidan ala Ahamiyat al-Masajid" [Al Shaykh and Al Turki Underscore the Importance of Mosques], Al Hayat, Number 14772, September 3, 2003, p. 4.
25 Mustafa Shihab, "Al Shaykh Yadu ila Muharabat al-Ghilu Bikul Ashkaliha" [Al Shaykh Calls to Oppose Hatred in all its Forms], Al Hayat, Number 14777, September 8, 2003, p. 4.
26 Raid Jabar, "Al-Amir Abdallah: Al-Muslimun wal-Masihiyun Qadirun ala Dahadh Quwa al-Tafaruqat" [Prince Abdallah: Muslims and Christians Capable of Refuting Divisive Forces], Al Hayat, Number 14774, September 5, 2003, pp. 1 and 6.
27 World Development Indicators, 2002, Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2002, p. 50.
28 Brad Bourland, The Saudi Economy at Mid-year 2002 (Riyadh: Saudi American Bank, August 2002), pp. 2 and 32.
29 For an interesting take on decision making that led to the invitation, see Nawaf E. Obaid, "The Oil Kingdom at 100: Petroleum Policymaking in Saudi Arabia," Washington, DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2000. For the latest roadblocks that prevented an agreement, see Oliver Klaus, "Saudi Arabia: Challenging Times," Middle East Economic Digest, Vol. 47, No. 24, June 13, 2003, pp. 25-42. The Saudi Supreme Petroleum Council announced a $2 billion "agreement in principle" with Shell-Total on November 2, 2003 for the development of a gas project. Press reports highlighted that this may well be the first of several agreements. See Agence France Presse, "Riyadh Okays Gas Deal with Shell-Total," Gulf News, November 3, 2003, p. 37.
30 Robert E. Looney, "Saudi Arabia: Measures of Transition from a Rentier State," Iran, Iraq, and the Arab Gulf States, Joseph A. Kechichian, ed. (New York: Palgrave, 2001), pp. 131-159.
31 Anthony H. Cordesman, Saudi Arabia Enters the Twenty-First Century: The Military and International Security Dimensions (Westport, CT and London: Praeger [published in cooperation with the Center for Strategic and International Studies], Washington, DC, 2003), especially pp. 51-68.
32 For detailed yearly data, see ibid., pp. 71-86.
33 Ibid., pp. 203-235.
34 In addition to the U.S.A.F. air wing, Sultan Air Base housed a state-of-the-art command and control center that was extensively used during the war for Afghanistan for most of 2001-2002. An updated facility was created in neighboring Qatar from which American military officers conducted the war on Iraq. See Agence France Presse, "U.S. Military Presence in Al Kharj Ends," Gulf News, August 28, 2003, p. 12.
35 Robert G. Kaiser and David B. Ottaway, "Saudi Leader's Anger Revealed Shaky Ties," The Washington Post, February 10, 2002, p. A1.
36 "Iran Attacks Iraq-based Rebels as Saudi Minister Meets Iraqi Dissident in Tehran," Mideast Mirror, April 19, 2001, Section B.
37 In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, a number of research institutions have started to canvass Arab public opinion with some regularity. The attempt to answer semi-prophetic questions of the "why do they hate us" genre suddenly required attention as the need to know overwhelmed customary patterns of neglect. Not surprisingly, available results were telling, even if consistently devastating to Americans. See, for example, The Pew Global Attitudes Project, What the World Thinks in 2002 (Washington, DC: The Pew Research Center for The People and The Press, December 2002); idem, Views of a Changing World (Washington, DC: The Pew Research Center for The People and The Press, June 2003). Pew researchers did not poll in Saudi Arabia but they conducted detailed interviews in several Muslim countries. See Brian Knowlton, "A Rising Anti-American Tide," The International Herald Tribune, December 5, 2002, p. 6. When questioned about such anti-American feelings, President George W. Bush replied: "I hope the message that we fight not a religion, but a group of fanatics which have hijacked a religion is getting through. . . . We'll do everything we can to remind people that we've never been a nation of conquerors; we're a nation of liberators." See Richard Morin, "World Image of U.S. Declines," The Washington Post, December 5, 2002, p. A26. These assessments did not resonate and, even more telling, the American position -- despite undeniable post-9/11 sympathy best illustrated by the French daily Le Monde headline "Nous Sommes Tous Americains" [We Are All Americans] -- many dismissed the cartography painted by senior American officials. For the majority of world public opinion, dividing the world between good and evil was infantile or even comical. More recently, a study commissioned by Congress, under the chairmanship of former Ambassador Edward P. Djerejian, has concluded that the United States overlooks public diplomacy at its peril. See Report of the Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World, Changing Minds, Winning Peace: A New Strategic Direction for U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim World (Washington, DC: U.S. House of Representatives, October 1, 2003). See also Sonni Efron, "U.S. Advised to Invest in Its Image," The Los Angeles Times, October 1, 2003, p. A8; and Steven R. Weisman, "U.S. Must Counteract Image in Muslim World, Panel Says," The New York Times, October 1, 2003.
38 Michael Jansen, "Saudi Arabia: Displeasure with the U.S.," Middle East International, No. 653, June 29, 2001, pp. 10-11.
39 Jane Perlez, "Bush Senior, on His Son's Behalf, Reassures Saudi Leader," The New York Times, July 15, 2001, p. 6. See also Michael Jansen, "Saudi Arabia: Pressure on the U.S.," Middle East International, No. 655, July 27, 2001, pp. 12-13, and Reuters, "Bush Senior Calls Saudi on Mideast Report," July 15, 2001.
40 Lamis Andoni, "Saudi Arabia: The Prince's Peace Plan," Middle East International, No. 670, March 8, 2002, pp. 8-10.
41 Thomas Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times, just happened to uncover the carefully designed initiative during his interview with the heir apparent. See Thomas Friedman, "Dear Arab League," The New York Times, February 6, 2002, p. A21.
42 Israeli negotiators insisted that Riyadh use its full leverage to pressure Yasser Arafat to end the intifada and called on Palestinian leaders to acquiesce to an annexation of certain settlement blocks. See Michael Jansen, "Arab Summit: Palestine and Iraq," Middle East International, No. 672, April 5, 2002, pp. 7-9.
43 "America and the Arab World: A Delicate Balance," The Economist, 363:8271, May 4, 2002, pp. 27-28. See also Caroline Montagu, "Saudi Arabia: Crown Prince in U.S.," Middle East International, No. 674, May 3, 2002, p. 17.
44 Many of these reports highlighted the social humiliation that Iraqis endured, including long lines at food stores and disintegrating health services. Beggars emerged where the phenomenon was rare. Many Iraqis were forced to sell household goods and more personal items, including books -- and in the Iraqi context this represented a most visible sacrifice -- to purchase food. Saudis and others watched a relatively learned society lose the intrinsic capability to function, blaming Western-imposed sanctions on what befell their Arab brethren.
45 Radical Islamists became more popular since 2001, commanding the sympathy as well as support of the masses and, as noted above, the so-called liberal campaign -- criticizing the kingdom's religious institutions -- remained weak. Jamal Khashoggi, the influential editor of the daily Al-Watan, who wrote several articles against religious authorities and criticized Wahhabi doctrine, was summarily dismissed after a senior cleric issued a fatwa calling for a boycott of the newspaper. Khashoggi accepted an advisory post to Prince Turki al-Faysal who, in turn, was appointed ambassador to London.
46 Shaykh Al-Shuaybi, considered a learned scholar in the kingdom, was briefly imprisoned in 1995. In 2001, he threatened to excommunicate the king and senior members of the ruling family, especially if the latter were to support a military offensive against Afghanistan. What concerned the regent was the frequency with which junior clerics, many of whom sympathized with Al-Shuaybi, were resorting to issuing their own religious decrees, which turned the Al Saud into "legitimate targets." See Nicolas Pelham, "Saudi Clerics Issue Edicts Against helping `Infidels'," The Christian Science Monitor, October 12, 2001, p. 4.
47 Abd al-Aziz bin Salih al-Jarbu, "The Foundations of the Legality of the Destruction that Befell America," at www.saaid.net/book/kotop.htm.
48 Although the Bush and Blair administrations argued Iraq's WMDs were the most compelling reason for the United States and Britain to resort to war, in the summer of 2003, the emphasis changed. At first, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz testified to congressional committees that "the evil, dictatorial nature of former president Saddam Hussein's defunct government and the opportunity to turn Iraq into a beacon of hope for the rest of the Middle East," were equally valid reasons to go to war. See Michael Dobbs, "Wolfowitz Shifts Rationales on Iraq War: With Weapons Unfound, Talk of Threat Gives Way to Rhetoric on Hussein, Democracy," The Washington Post, September 12, 2003, p. A23. The logic of war shifted shortly thereafter, when Mr. Wolfowitz maintained that the WMD issue was a "bureaucratic fudge," and that the real reason was America's need to shift its military bases from Saudi Arabia. The nuance was not lost on Gulf pundits. A particularly perceptive commentator opined that "the world recognized what Washington refused to admit, that this was not a war of liberation but a war of occupation. Iraqis understood this immediately, which is why their relief at Saddam's departure has not translated into a welcome for American troops." See M. J. Akbar, "Bush has run out of ideas, but he had only one to begin with," Gulf News (online Edition), September 15, 2003.
49 Reuters, "Amid Tensions, Saudi Envoy Meets Bush's Father," Gulf News, August 29, 2003, p. 16.
50 Ibid.
51 Raid Qusti, "First Rights Conference in Kingdom," Arab News (online edition), October 14, 2003.
52 Raid Qusti, "Conference Ends With Call to Stress Islam's Protection of Human Rights," Arab News (online edition), October 16, 2003; and Idem., "Saudi Constitution Guarantees Human Rights," Arab News (online edition), October 22, 2003.
53 In September 2003, 300 Saudis signed a petition, the third of the year, urging "rulers to speed promised reforms to ward off the influence of militant Islam in the Kingdom," The Associated Press. "Saudi Arabia Announces First Local Council Elections, but No Date," The New York Times, October 14, 2003.
54 Reuters, "Saudi Announces Plans to Hold First Elections," The New York Times, October 13, 2003.
55 Isa Mubarak, "Saudi Arabia Says it will Hold First Elections," The Washington Post, October 14, 2003, p. A19.
56 Ibid.
57 Slobodan Lekic, "AP Interview: Saudi Touts Vote as Reform," The Associated Press, October 14, 2003. A day after Riyadh announced these anticipated elections, hundreds took to the streets in front of the Al-Mamlaka shopping mall in the capital city demanding political, economic and administrative reforms. According to Saad al-Faqih, the spokesman for the London-based Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA), protesters called for the freedom of jailed activists. An estimated 300 protesters were arrested, although the interior ministry reported 150 arrests. Shaykh Abd al-Aziz Al Shaykh, the grand mufti, condemned the demonstration "as an act of anarchism," and urged protesters to obey the law [that bans demonstrations]. See The Associated Press, "Saudis Protest for More Freedoms," October 14, 2003; see also Badr Almotawa, "150 Arrested During Demo: Naif," Arab News, October 16, 2003, p. 1.
58 Raid Qusti, "No Consensus on Citizenship Rules for Foreigners," Arab News, October 27, 2003, p. 2. See also "Majlis al-Shura al-Saudi Yuajilu Iqrar Tadilat ala Nizam al-Jinsiyat [Shura Council Postpones Calls to Amend Citizenship Laws], Al-Hayat, No. 14826, October 27, 2003, p. 3.
59 Mazen Balelah, "Scrap the Sponsorship System," al-Watan, October 26, 2003, reproduced in Arab News, October 27, 2003, p. 3.

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The centrifuge connection
By David Albright & Corey Hinderstein


After Iran's first story of how it acquired uranium enrichment technology was rejected, evidence of a more complex procurement network began to emerge.
Iran has admitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it made secret efforts to procure the wherewithal to make sophisticated gas centrifuges to enrich uranium. But few believe that Iran has told the whole story of its extensive foreign procurements.
As of mid-January 2004, Iranian officials continued to insist that they obtained sensitive centrifuge drawings and components through "intermediaries," and that they did not know the original source of the items.
Recent Pakistani government investigations are undercutting that assertion and magnifying concerns that Iran has made only a partial declaration to the IAEA. Senior Pakistani gas centrifuge experts and officials have admitted to Pakistani government investigators that they provided centrifuge assistance to Iran, Libya, and North Korea. Details are sketchy at press time about who exactly was involved in these transfers, when they occurred, and how they were arranged. Although the Pakistani government has denied authorizing any of the transfers, characterizing them as the work of rogue scientists, evidence points to at least Pakistani government knowledge.
Iran had many other important suppliers. Individuals and companies in Europe and the Middle East also played a key role in supplying Iran's centrifuge program. China was the most important supplier to Iran's program to produce uranium compounds, including uranium hexafluoride, the highly corrosive gas used in centrifuges.
Although Iran encountered many difficulties in making and operating centrifuges, postponing by many years the construction of a pilot centrifuge plant, it appears to have secretly achieved self-sufficiency in centrifuge manufacturing by the mid-to late 1990s.
Although Western intelligence agencies detected many of Iran's sensitive procurements, they missed some key ones. Because it had only incomplete information, the United States had trouble convincing its allies until 2002 or 2003 that Iran's effort to build secret gas centrifuge facilities had reached an advanced state (see "What the United States Knew," ). Lacking actionable information or intrusive inspections, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was unable to determine until recently that Iran had significantly violated its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The program begins
Iran stated in its 2003 declarations to the IAEA that it began its gas centrifuge program in 1985 during its bloody war with Iraq. This decision is widely perceived as having been part of an effort to make highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.
Iran claimed that the only purpose of its centrifuge program was to make fuel for the German-supplied Bushehr power reactor--a claim that is highly dubious, given the reality that in 1985 Germany had suspended all work at the reactor, at least until the war ended. After the war, Germany never resumed construction. In early 1995, Russia signed a contract to finish the reactor. Yet throughout the decade, when the fate of the reactor at Bushehr was uncertain, Iran accelerated its gas centrifuge program.
Little information is available about Iran's initial efforts in 1985. What information did it already have about centrifuges, since modern designs are all classified? What design did the program first study? What were its initial plans? Had there been offers of assistance from Pakistanis or other individuals that encouraged the Iranians to start the program?
Iran quickly began procuring items. For example, in 1985 it acquired key "flow-forming" equipment, useful in forming steel and aluminum centrifuge tubes, from the German firm Leifeld. At least one Leifeld flow-forming machine is currently used in Iran's gas-centrifuge manufacturing complex. Leifeld personnel could have been knowledgeable about centrifuges when they sold the items to Iran. (It is known that around 1987, Leifeld demonstrated its flow-forming equipment in Iraq, showing a video containing sensitive information about producing maraging steel rotors for a Urenco-type gas centrifuge.)
In 1987, Iran made a significant breakthrough, obtaining a complete set of centrifuge drawings and some centrifuge components. This specific procurement may have been part of a much larger package that helped Iran understand and build centrifuges.
Acquiring the drawings and a few components was tremendously helpful. With detailed designs in hand, Iran could skip many difficult research steps. It was unlikely to have had the technical experience to discover the intricacies of a modern centrifuge or master the difficult manufacturing of centrifuge components on its own--Pakistan and Iraq also needed to obtain detailed centrifuge designs and assistance for their centrifuge programs to advance beyond a rudimentary level.
Armed with component specifications and drawings, Iran would be able to design and implement a strategy to develop a reliable centrifuge and create a manufacturing infrastructure to make thousands of centrifuges. It would be able to find foreign companies to make specific components, often unwittingly. In parallel, it could locate companies that would sell the equipment Iran needed to make the components itself.
Iran acquired drawings of a modified variant of an early-generation Urenco centrifuge built by the Netherlands. Some experts familiar with these drawings have assessed that, based on the design's materials, dimensions, and tolerances, it is a modified precursor to the Dutch M4 centrifuge. This design has four aluminum rotor tubes connected by three maraging steel bellows. The rotor has a diameter of 100 millimeters and the entire machine is about 2 meters tall.
However, inspectors noticed that someone modified the design in distinctive ways. In addition, the original drawings were shown to inspectors, and their labels are in English, not Dutch or German. According to intelligence information, the design resembles one built by Pakistan in the 1980s and early 1990s that is sometimes called the P1. In addition, the centrifuge components Iran bought match those bought by Pakistan.
There was other evidence that pointed to Pakistan as the source of the drawings and of at least some of the components. Much of the highly enriched uranium that the IAEA found in Iran by taking environmental samples may be consistent with material produced in Pakistan.
Who provided these drawings?
The media have reported that senior Pakistani gas centrifuge officials, including Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's centrifuge program, provided multiple centrifuge designs to Iran and other countries. As of late January, however, no charges had been filed against any of the officials.
Last fall, Iran provided the IAEA with a list of five middlemen and company officials who, it said, provided the drawings and other key items. Iran characterized these middlemen, who are European and Middle Eastern, as putting together orders--buying items from various companies and delivering them to Iran.
The exact role of some of these individuals is murky. Did they act as agents of their respective companies, or were they acting alone as consultants? They are also believed to have supplied or arranged shipments of items to Pakistan.
Of those named, three are Germans who were involved in selling a range of dual-use and other civilian and military items to Pakistan, many countries in the Middle East, and elsewhere.
Iran's statement to the IAEA implied that one or more of the three Germans obtained a classified centrifuge design from Pakistan and sold it to Iran.
It is more likely that a Pakistani or group of Pakistanis provided the drawings to Iran along with the names of those Iran could approach for help in acquiring components and essential items. Any Pakistanis involved in this scheme would likely have been from the Khan Research Laboratories, where the Pakistani centrifuge program is based.
The Pakistanis' main motivation would probably have been financial. In the mid-1980s, connections between Iran and Pakistan were growing in many areas. In addition, the Pakistani gas centrifuge program or its members may have needed money.
In any case, the drawings are unlikely to have been provided by themselves. Based on proven and alleged cases involving Iraqi and Pakistani centrifuge experts, the sale of centrifuge drawings is often a "sweetener" or accompanied by offers for the sale of other, more profitable items, such as materials, components, or machine tools to make components. Thus, Iran's statement about its procurements of drawings and some components in 1987 and the naming of a handful of individuals is consistent with the start of significant assistance from knowledgeable Europeans, Middle Easterners, and Pakistanis.
Iran's procurements
In the 1980s, Iran created an extensive procurement system to acquire necessary items for its centrifuge program from around the world. It used front companies to order the equipment and falsely declare non-nuclear uses, and it established secret transportation routes.
These efforts were not always successful. Alert government or company officials stopped many orders. Some of Iran's purchases involved defective centrifuge components. Nonetheless, over many years, Iran succeeded in acquiring thousands of sensitive centrifuge components and all the equipment it needed to be self-sufficient in the manufacture of centrifuges. In its quest, foreigners played key roles in organizing the purchase and shipment of items.
In late 2003 Iran provided the IAEA with a long list of equipment suppliers, including when the equipment was purchased. Iran has also not removed or otherwise hidden nameplates that contain company names and serial numbers.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, many of the items Iran wanted were loosely controlled by national or international export controls. Many were acquired legally, at least in the sense that suppliers did not knowingly break the then-lax export control laws and government bureaucracies did not scrutinize the exports for their actual purpose.
Iran acquired a long list of items, including high-strength aluminum, maraging steel, electron beam welders, balancing machines, vacuum pumps, computer-numerically controlled machine tools, and flow-forming machines for both aluminum and maraging steel. Many of these items were obtained in Europe, especially from Germany and Switzerland. Suppliers trained Iranians in the use of critical equipment and taught them associated technologies needed in a centrifuge program.
The assistance of at least some of the named middlemen would have been important. They would have known which companies could provide desired items and which would be willing to do business with Iran. If any of these individuals had extensive knowledge about centrifuges and their manufacture, their help could have been invaluable in identifying the right suppliers of equipment, materials, and the necessary know-how.
Components
During its initial procurement effort in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Iran acquired only a limited number of centrifuge components. The number was consistent with a program that was then focusing on trying to build and operate single centrifuges for testing.
But then, as Iran has said, between 1993 and 1995, it received through middlemen enough components to build 500 centrifuges. It is from centrifuges made from these imported components that traces of highly enriched uranium have been found by the IAEA, at both the site at Natanz and at Kalaye Electric in Tehran.
As of late January 2004, the manufacturer of these components has not been publicly identified, and Iran has yet to provide any documentation about this purchase. On the surface, Iran appears so far to be protecting the actual supplier of these components.
Putting in such a large order would imply, however, that Iran had now decided on a particular centrifuge design. It also indicates that by the mid-1990s Iran was ready to build a major cascade or pilot plant.
This order included large numbers of the most sensitive centrifuge components, including bellows, which raises troubling questions about the effectiveness of export controls at a time when they were being tightened throughout Europe--and after Pakistan had given the United States assurances it would not engage in such assistance.
There are several theories about the origin of these components, including:
European, Pakistani, or other companies made the components to specifications provided by middlemen, Iranian agents, or Iranians in the centrifuge program themselves; or
Pakistan sold off surplus components that it made itself or purchased in Europe or in developing countries. Pakistan is known to have replaced its P1 centrifuge with a more advanced P2, or all-maraging steel rotor machine, starting in the mid-1980s. By about 1995, Pakistan had probably phased out most of its P1 machines and had extra, unused components left over.
Questions of timing
Despite importing all these components, Iran said in its statements to the IAEA in 2003 that it had trouble getting the centrifuges to work. It has declared that it did not enrich any uranium until 1999, and then produced uranium enriched to no more than 1.2 percent uranium 235. This statement, however, is very much at odds with the process of settling on a design. Typically, before building a large number of centrifuges, program leaders want to test the design with uranium hexafluoride.
Iran told the IAEA that in addition to problems with the quality of the imported components and the difficulty it encountered making components of sufficient quality for high-speed centrifuges, it also had problems assembling and running centrifuges. These factors led to delays. In addition, the need for increased secrecy and security led to a decision in 1995 to move out of the existing facility in Tehran, causing further delays.
Shutting down the sophisticated operations in Tehran may have also been motivated by increased international scrutiny, particularly in 1995. In any case, before the IAEA accepts Iran's declaration, the timing of the program needs to be better understood.
Declared facilities and activities
According to Iranian declarations in October and November 2003, until 1997 the centrifuge program was centered at Iran's Atomic Energy Organization facilities in Tehran, with laboratory work conducted at the Plasma Physics Laboratory of the Tehran Nuclear Research Center. The first head of the gas centrifuge program was a former head of Iran's plasma physics program.
Iran told the IAEA that in 1997 the majority of the program was relocated to Kalaye Electric in Tehran. This move, which was motivated partly by the need for additional security, was difficult and caused further delays in the program. Nonetheless, from 1997 to 2002, Iran operated single machines and small cascades of 10-20 machines, achieved the ability to make all the components itself, and gained some success in testing centrifuges both with and without uranium hexafluoride. It also decided to construct enrichment facilities at Natanz.
In 2002, research, development, and assembly operations were moved to Natanz. This facility is now the primary site of the Iranian gas centrifuge program. It consists of centrifuge assembly areas and a pilot fuel-enrichment plant slated to hold 1,000 centrifuges. A production-scale fuel-enrichment plant is under construction at Natanz, and is scheduled to hold about 50,000 centrifuges. Before it voluntarily suspended activity in November 2003, Iran was operating both single machine tests and small cascades with uranium hexafluoride at the pilot plant.
Before the suspension, Iran was assembling four-rotor machines similar to the P1 design. Each has a separative capacity of roughly 3 separative work units (swu) per year. Earlier, based on information that the capacity was about 2 swu per year, we had speculated that Iran had a centrifuge with two aluminum rotor tubes connected by a bellows, and the machine was properly optimized to produce enriched uranium. Based on more recent information, our current understanding is that the Iranian machine is as described above and that it is not optimized.
Although the pilot plant is relatively small, if finished, it could produce about 10 kilograms of weapon-grade uranium a year, depending on the "tails assay" (the fraction of uranium 235 lost to waste) and the manner in which the centrifuges are organized into cascades. Because centrifuges are flexible, even if the cascades are arranged to produce only low-enriched uranium, weapon-grade uranium can be produced by "batch recycling"--sending the end product back into the feed point of the cascade over again until the desired level of enrichment is reached.
We project that the production plant could eventually have a capacity of at least 150,000 swu per year--enough capacity to provide annual reloads of the nearly completed power reactor at Bushehr, but far short of the enriched uranium it would need to provide fuel for all the civilian power plants Iran plans to build over the next 20 years.
Alternatively, the same capacity could be used to produce roughly 500 kilograms of weapon-grade uranium annually. At 15-20 kilograms per weapon, that would be enough for 25-30 nuclear weapons per year.
Natanz could be operated to make low-enriched uranium fuel until Iran decided it wanted to make weapon-grade material. It wouldn't take long to enrich the low-enriched material to weapon grade. For example, if Natanz was operating at full capacity and recycled the end product--low-enriched uranium (5 percent uranium 235)--back into the feed point, the facility could produce enough weapon-grade uranium for a single weapon within days.
Planning for the future
Iran's centrifuge procurement effort involved extensive secret procurement networks, both before and after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when nations were tightening their export controls on sensitive items. Understanding just what Iran did, how it got help, and who helped, are critical in verifying Iran's declarations to the IAEA, and in identifying and fixing weaknesses in existing national and international export controls.
There is as yet only a sketchy answer to the question of who, exactly, provided sensitive centrifuge drawings and components to Iran. The footprints are being traced, however. Complete declarations from Iran and honest investigations by Pakistan of its past activities are needed to fill out the picture of Iran's extensive procurement activities for its centrifuge program and Pakistani scientists' assistance to Iran's and others' secret nuclear programs.

David Albright is the president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) in Washington, D.C. Corey Hinderstein is a senior analyst at ISIS.





Sidebar: What the United States knew
A critical period in Iran's centrifuge program was the early and mid-1990s, before it became largely self-sufficient in making centrifuges. During this period, Western intelligence agencies, particularly U.S. agencies, obtained some evidence that Iran was attempting to acquire centrifuge technology. However, neither Russia nor any European government was sufficiently convinced to take action to stop Iran's centrifuge effort.
Most U.S. actions focused on trying to convince Russia to stop cooperating with Iran's nuclear program. The United States failed to get Russia to agree not to complete the power plant at Bushehr, but it did convince Russia not to sell Iran a centrifuge plant or other sensitive nuclear facilities (see my article "An Iranian Bomb?" July/August 1995 Bulletin). At the same time, the U.S. government did not believe or act as if Pakistan was a critical supplier of centrifuge know-how to Iran.
By the early 1990s, Iran was known to have acquired or tried to acquire many items that were indicative of a centrifuge program. These known procurements led U.S. intelligence agencies to conclude that Iran had at a minimum gained access to a list of German companies, indicating that the Iranians knew what items they should procure.
Some procurements were for centrifuge components or their "preforms," which had dimensions identical to Urenco designs. Italian intelligence reported that Sharif University in Tehran placed an order in 1991 for centrifuge components with the Austrian firm Tribacher. This firm does not make centrifuge components per se, but it does make ring magnets to a customer's specifications and these magnets can be used in the upper bearing of a Urenco-type centrifuge. Tribacher also made ring magnets for Iraq's Urenco-based centrifuge program before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. These procurements implied that Iran had acquired at least some Urenco designs.
One recurring complaint of skeptical Europeans and IAEA officials was that the information supplied by intelligence agencies often did not include whether Iran had successfully obtained a mentioned item, and foreign intelligence agencies were unable to verify that a transaction had occurred. Based on their interpretation of the evidence, several officials were willing to accept only that Iran was interested in centrifuges. They were unwilling to believe that Iran had a substantial secret program.
In early 1995, one senior U.S. intelligence official told me about some of the difficulties the United States faced in making its case about the existence of secret Iranian nuclear activities. The United States did not know where centrifuge activities were occurring in Iran. Instead, the United States had to base its case largely on the procurement activities it had detected. If someone doubted whether Iran had a significant secret nuclear program, he said, information of the type known to the United States was unlikely to sway skeptics to the U.S. position.
Interestingly, Pakistan was suspected as a source of the centrifuge designs by the early 1990s, although direct proof was lacking. One senior European with deep knowledge of European companies who secretly aided centrifuge programs, and who had also heard U.S. intelligence officials' briefings on Iranian procurement activities, told me in early 1995 that Pakistan might have sold Iran a drawing of a centrifuge assembly. He also said that U.S. intelligence believed that Iran acquired shipments of machine tools for its centrifuge program through Pakistan. Jim Hoagland of the Washington Post reported on May 17, 1995 that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapon acquisition "blueprint" drawn up at least four years before with the aid of Pakistani officials.
U.S. intelligence was aware of Iran's management problems and weaknesses in its science and technology sectors, and had concluded that Iran would need many years to build a pilot enrichment plant. The senior U.S. intelligence official mentioned earlier also told me that Iran was having difficulties with its centrifuge program and would need as many as seven years to build a pilot plant to make highly enriched uranium.
Increased scrutiny, however, appears to have affected the program in 1995. Iran told the IAEA that it shut down its operations in Tehran at a modern, well-equipped site because of concerns about security. The new site at Kalaye Electric was much better hidden from prying eyes. Even its name was non-nuclear and unobtrusive. In English, Kalaye Electric means roughly "electrical goods." The senior intelligence official later told me that after a period of frequent discoveries of Iranian procurement efforts, the number of detections radically decreased. The resulting assessment was that Iran had probably gotten better at hiding procurements of critical items. Newer evidence suggests that Iran had obtained the bulk of the manufacturing equipment it needed by the mid-1990s.
In the mid-1990s, intelligence agencies appear to have missed much of Iran's success in acquiring a large number of centrifuge components and underestimated the progress of the program. However, U.S. intelligence estimates about the time Iran needed to build a pilot plant have turned out to be reasonably accurate. Overall, the intelligence agencies correctly identified that they were seeing only the tip of the iceberg of Iran's centrifuge program and procurement efforts. But the "tip" was not viewed in Europe or Russia as convincing evidence of a secret, advanced gas centrifuge program warranting a significant response. After the mid-1990s, according to former senior U.S. government officials, U.S. intelligence agencies learned little concrete about Iran's centrifuge progress.
As a result, there was little concerted action until 2002 to stop Iran's secret centrifuge program or demand far more intrusive IAEA inspections in Iran. From 1995 until 2002, Iran moved relatively freely and secretly toward building a domestic centrifuge industry that could enrich significant quantities of uranium.

David Albright



? 2004 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Les plans d'armes atomiques trouves en Libye viendraient de Chine
LEMONDE.FR | 15.02.04 | 21h49
La Libye mais aussi l'Iran et la Coree du Nord se seraient approvisionnes sur un veritable marche noir international du nucleaire alimente pour partie par la Chine.
Des enqueteurs ont decouvert que des plans d'armes atomiques declares en 2003 par la Libye venaient de Chine, mettant au jour un nouveau maillon d'un reseau d'echange de technologies nucleaires transitant par le Pakistan, rapporte, dimanche 15 fevrier, le Washington Post.
Citant des responsables gouvernementaux et des experts en armements, le quotidien americain indique que les documents remis aux experts par la Libye contiennent des "preuves evidentes" du role joue par la Chine dans le transfert de technologies nucleaires au Pakistan au debut des annees 1980.
Ces plans presumes provenir de Chine ont ensuite ete revendus a la Libye par l'intermediaire d'un reseau pilote depuis le Pakistan, et figurant au c?ur d'une enquete sur le marche noir international du nucleaire, ecrit le journal, citant ces responsables et des experts officiant aux Etats-Unis et en Europe.
Les documents concernes, ou figurent notamment des textes en chinois, contiennent des instructions detaillees pour assembler une bombe nucleaire a implosion susceptible d'etre installee sur un gros missile balistique. Des instructions techniques pour la fabrication des composants necessaires y ont egalement ete decouvertes, ont fait savoir les memes sources au Post.
"C'est exactement le genre de documents que l'on aurait dans une usine. Il vous disent quelle torsion utiliser sur les vis et quelle colle appliquer sur les composants", a explique au journal un expert en armements ayant eu acces aux plans, qu'il a qualifies de "tres, tres vieux" mais "tres bien concus".
Une porte-parole de l'ambassade de Chine a Washington que Reuters a tente de joindre n'a pas pu etre contactee dans l'immediat. La CIA s'est quant a elle refusee a tout commentaire.
Des responsables des services de renseignement americains etaient parvenus a la conclusion, il y a plusieurs annees, que la Chine avait fourni une aide au Pakistan pour l'elaboration de sa premiere arme nucleaire, une collaboration qui semble avoir pris fin dans les annees 1980.
MARCHE NOIR DU NUCLEAIRE
Les experts en armements ayant eu acces aux plans fournis par la Libye ont neanmoins exprime leur etonnement face a cet apparent transfert de technologie nucleaire sensible a un pays tiers, ecrit le quotidien.
Des notes figurant parmi les documents examines par les experts semblent indiquer que la Chine a continue, pendant plusieurs annees, a renseigner les chercheurs pakistanais sur les subtilites de la fabrication des bombes nucleaires, ont indique les sources citees par le journal.
Les activites de Pekin dans ce domaine etaient "irresponsables et imprevoyantes, et soulevent des interrogations sur l'etendue des apports de la Chine au programme nucleaire pakistanais", a declare au Post David Albright, physicien nucleaire et ancien inspecteurs en armements de l'ONU en Irak.
La Libye a remis en novembre ces plans d'armes nucleaires a des responsables americains, son dirigeant Mouammar Kadhafi ayant decide de renoncer a son programme d'armes de destruction massive et d'ouvrir les laboratoires militaires de son pays a des inspections internationales, indique le journal.
Selon le Post, ces plans, arrives en janvier a Washington, ont ete analyses par des experts americains, britanniques et issus de l'Agence internationale de l'energie atomique, agence de l'ONU.
Les experts en armements ont egalement trouve en Libye de grandes quantites de materiel utilises dans l'enrichissement de l'uranium, ingredient indispensable a la fabrication d'armes nucleaires.
Cette decouverte a permis la mise au jour d'un veritable marche noir international du nucleaire qui, selon des responsables, aurait permis l'acquisition de technologies nucleaire et de materiel sensible par l'Iran et la Coree du Nord, en plus de la Libye.
Avec Reuters

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>> WAITING FOR THE NEW REPORT...
SEE ALSO...http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2002/18252.htm

Syria

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2002
Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
March 31, 2003
Syria is a republic under a military regime with virtually absolute authority in the hands of the President. Despite the existence of some institutions of democratic government, the President, with counsel from his ministers, high-ranking members of the ruling Ba'th Party, and a relatively small circle of security advisers, makes key decisions regarding foreign policy, national security, internal politics, and the economy. All three branches of government are influenced to varying degrees by leaders of the Ba'th Party, whose primacy in state institutions and the Parliament is mandated by the Constitution. The Parliament may not initiate laws but only assesses and at times modifies those proposed by the executive branch. The Constitution provides for an independent judiciary, but security courts are subject to political influence. The regular courts generally display independence, although political connections and bribery may influence verdicts.
The powerful role of the security services in government, which extends beyond strictly security matters, stems in part from the state of emergency that has been in place almost continuously since 1963. The Government justifies martial law because of the state of war with Israel and past threats from terrorist groups. Syrian Military Intelligence and Air Force Intelligence are military agencies, while General Security, State Security, and Political Security come under the purview of the Ministry of Interior. The branches of the security services operated independently of each other and outside the legal system. The security forces were under effective government control. Their members committed serious human rights abuses.
The population of the country was approximately 17 million. The economy was based on commerce, agriculture, oil production, and government services. Economic growth was hampered by the still dominant state role in the economy, a complex bureaucracy, overarching security concerns, endemic corruption, currency restrictions, a lack of modern financial services and communications, and a weak legal system.
The Government's human rights record remained poor, and it continued to commit serious abuses. Citizens did not have the right to change their government. The Government used its vast powers to prevent any organized political opposition, and there have been very few antigovernment manifestations. Continuing serious abuses included the use of torture in detention; poor prison conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; prolonged detention without trial; fundamentally unfair trials in the security courts; an inefficient judiciary that suffered from corruption and, at times, political influence; and infringement on privacy rights. The Government significantly restricted freedom of speech and of the press. Freedom of assembly does not exist under the law and the Government restricted freedom of association. The Government did not officially allow independent domestic human rights groups to exist; however, it permitted periodic meetings of unlicensed civil society forums throughout the year. The Government placed some limits on freedom of religion and freedom of movement. Proselytizing by groups it considered Zionist was not tolerated, and proselytizing in general was not encouraged. Violence and societal discrimination against women were problems. The Government discriminated against the stateless Kurdish minority, suppressed worker rights, and tolerated child labor in some instances.
RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Section 1 Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom From:
a. Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life
There were no reports of political killings or other killings committed by government forces during the year.
In November 2000, a number of armed clashes occurred between Bedouin shepherds and Druze residents of Suwayda Province that required government military intervention to stop. Local press reported that between 15 and 20 Druze, Bedouin, and security forces personnel were killed (see Section 5). Some members of the security forces committed a number of serious human rights abuses. In its Annual Report, the Syrian Human Rights Commission stated that in 2001 and during the year three individuals died in detention (see Section 1.c.). The Government has not investigated previous deaths in detention.
b. Disappearance
There were no new confirmed reports of politically motivated disappearances during the year. Because security forces often did not provide detainees' families with information regarding their welfare or location, many persons who disappeared in past years are believed to be in long-term detention or to have died in detention. The number of new disappearances has declined in recent years, although this may be due to the Government's success in deterring opposition political activity rather than a loosening of the criteria for detention (see Section 1.d.).
Despite inquiries by international human rights organizations and foreign governments, the Government offered little new information on the welfare and whereabouts of persons who have been held incommunicado for years or about whom little is known other than the approximate date of their detention. The Government claimed that it has released all Palestinians and Jordanian and Lebanese citizens who reportedly were abducted from Lebanon during and after Lebanon's civil war. However, the Government's claim was disputed by Lebanese nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), Amnesty International (AI), and other international NGOs, as well as some family members of those who allegedly remain in the country's prisons (see Section 1.d.).
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
Despite the existence of constitutional provisions and several Penal Code penalties for abusers, there was credible evidence that security forces continued to use torture, although to a lesser extent than in previous years. Former prisoners, detainees, and the London-based Syrian Human Rights Organization reported that torture methods included administering electrical shocks; pulling out fingernails; forcing objects into the rectum; beating, sometimes while the victim is suspended from the ceiling; hyperextending the spine; bending the detainees into the frame of a wheel and whipping exposed body parts; and using a chair that bends backwards to asphyxiate the victim or fracture the victim's spine. In 2001 AI published a report claiming that authorities at Tadmur Prison regularly tortured prisoners, or forced prisoners to torture each other. Although it occurs in prisons, torture was most likely to occur while detainees were being held at one of the many detention centers run by the various security services throughout the country, especially while the authorities were attempting to extract a confession or information.
The Government has denied that it uses torture and claims that it would prosecute anyone believed guilty of using excessive force or physical abuse. Past victims of torture have identified the officials who tortured them, up to the level of brigadier general. If allegations of excessive force or physical abuse are to be made in court, the plaintiff is required to initiate his own civil suit against the alleged abuser. Courts did not order medical examinations for defendants who claimed that they were tortured (see Section 1.e.). There were no substantiated allegations of torture during the year.
In 2000 the Government apprehended Raed Hijazi, accused of a terrorist plot targeting American and Israeli tourists in Jordan during the millennium celebrations, and sent him to Jordan to stand trial. According to media accounts of the trial, doctors for both the defense and the prosecution testified that Hijazi's body showed signs of having been beaten, but witnesses, including Hijazi, made contradictory and inconclusive claims regarding whether the alleged abuse occurred while he was in Jordanian or Syrian custody. The Jordanian court has rejected the allegations that Hijazi's confession was coerced. In February the Jordanian authorities sentenced Hijazi to death. He has appealed the decision but remained in custody at year's end pending a decision.
Prison conditions generally were poor and did not meet international standards for health and sanitation. However, there were separate facilities for men, women, and children. Pre-trial detainees, particularly those held for political or security reasons, were usually held separately from convicted prisoners. Facilities for political or national security prisoners generally were worse than those for common criminals.
At some prisons, authorities allowed visitation, but in other prisons, security officials demanded bribes from family members who wished to visit incarcerated relatives. Overcrowding and the denial of food occurred at several prisons. According to Human Rights Watch, prisoners and detainees were held without adequate medical care, and some prisoners with significant health problems reportedly were denied medical treatment. Some former detainees have reported that the Government prohibited reading materials, even the Koran, for political prisoners.
In 2001 the London-based Syrian Human Rights Commission reported that three detainees died in prison and that their remains bore evidence of torture and extreme medical neglect.
The Government did not permit independent monitoring of prison or detention center conditions, although diplomatic or consular officials were granted access in high profile cases.
d. Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile
Arbitrary arrest and detention were significant problems. The Emergency Law, which authorizes the Government to conduct preventive arrests, overrides Penal Code provisions against arbitrary arrest and detention, including the need to obtain warrants. Officials contend that the Emergency Law is applied only in narrowly defined cases, and in January 2001, the regional press reported that the Information Minister claimed that the authorities had frozen "martial law." Nonetheless, in cases involving political or national security offenses, arrests often were carried out in secret. Suspects may be detained incommunicado for prolonged periods without charge or trial and are denied the right to a judicial determination regarding the pretrial detention. Some of these practices were prohibited by the state of emergency, but the authorities were not held to these strictures. Additionally, those suspected of political or national security offenses may be arrested and prosecuted under ambiguous and broad articles of the Penal Code, and subsequently tried in either the criminal or security courts, as occurred with the 10 civil society activists arrested in August and September 2001. During the year, two were tried and sentenced in criminal court and eight were tried and sentenced in secrecy in the Supreme State Security Court under the Emergency Law's authority. All were initially held incommunicado and in solitary confinement, though the criminal court trials and initial sessions of one of the other trials were open to the press and diplomats.
The Government detained relatives of detainees or of fugitives in order to obtain confessions or the fugitive's surrender (see Section 1.f.). The Government also threatened families or friends of detainees, at times with the threat of expulsion, to ensure their silence, to force them to disavow publicly their relatives, or to force detainees into compliance.
Defendants in civil and criminal trials had the right to bail hearings and the possible release from detention on their own recognizance. Bail was not allowed for those accused of state security offenses. Unlike defendants in regular criminal and civil cases, security detainees did not have access to lawyers prior to or during questioning.
Detainees had no legal redress for false arrest. Security forces often did not provide detainees' families with information regarding their welfare or location while in detention. Consequently many persons who have disappeared in past years are believed to be in long-term detention without charge or possibly to have died in detention (see Section 1.b.). Many detainees brought to trial have been held incommunicado for years, and their trials often have been unfair (see Section 1.e.). In the past, there were reliable reports that the Government did not notify foreign governments when their citizens were arrested or detained.
Pretrial detention may be lengthy, even in cases not involving political or national security offenses. The criminal justice system is backlogged. Many criminal suspects were held in pretrial detention for months and may have their trials extended for additional months. Lengthy pretrial detention and drawn-out court proceedings are caused by a shortage of available courts and the absence of legal provisions for a speedy trial or plea bargaining (see Section 1.e.).
In May 2001, the Government released prominent political prisoner Nizar Nayyuf, who had been imprisoned since 1992 for founding an unlawful organization, disseminating false information, and undermining the Government; he immediately was placed under house arrest. In June 2001, the Government allowed Nayyuf to leave the country for medical treatment. In September 2001, Nayyuf was summoned to appear before an investigating court to respond to a complaint against him filed by Ba'th party lawyers for "inciting confessionalism, attempting to illegally change the Constitution, and publishing false reports abroad." Nayyuf had not returned by year's end. The NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) claimed that the Government harassed and intimidated members of Nayyuf's family following the issuance of the summons. The Government reportedly fired two members of his immediate family from their jobs. The municipality threatened to expel members of Nayyuf's family if they did not disavow publicly his statements (see Section 4).
In August 2001, the Government arrested independent Member of Parliament Ma'mun Humsi during his hunger strike protesting official corruption, the excessive powers of the security forces, and the continuation of the Emergency Law. In a departure from previous practice, the Interior Ministry issued a statement justifying Humsi's arrest under Penal Code articles dealing with crimes against state security (see Section 3). In September 2001, the Government detained independent Member of Parliament Riad Seif shortly after Seif reactivated his unlicensed political discussion forum. The principal charge against both individuals was attempting to illegally change the Constitution (see Section 3). In March and April, Humsi and Seif were convicted in criminal court of attempting to change the Constitution illegally and each sentenced to 5 years in prison (see Section 1.e.).
In September 2001, the Government detained prominent political activist and longtime detainee Riad al-Turk for violations of Penal Code articles dealing with crimes against state security, after al-Turk made derogatory public comments about late President Hafiz al-Asad. In June Al-Turk was convicted in closed Supreme State Security Court of attempting to change the Constitution illegally and sentenced to 30 months in prison (see Section 1.e.). On November 16, President Asad ordered Al-Turk released on humanitarian grounds.
In September 2001, the Government detained seven additional prominent human rights activists who had issued statements in support of Humsi, Seif, and al-Turk. The Government reportedly charged the seven activists under Penal Code articles dealing with crimes against state security (see Section 2.a.). Although all of the 10 civil society activists were arrested for Penal Code violations, only Humsi and Seif were tried in criminal court while all the others were tried in the Supreme State Security Court under the authority of the Emergency Law (see Section 1.e.).
At year's end, the leaders of the Turkomen who reportedly were detained without charge in 1996, remained in detention.
In 1999 and 2000, there were reports of arrests of hundreds of Syrian and Palestinian Islamists. Most of those arrested reportedly were released after signing an agreement not to participate in political activities; however, some may remain in detention. At year's end, there were no new reports on those detained. There were no credible reports that the Government arrested Islamists on political charges during the year.
There were no reports of the arrests of minors on political charges during the year.
In January 2001, the Jordanian press reported the release from Syrian jails of six Jordanian prisoners of Palestinian origin, who had been imprisoned for membership in Palestinian organizations. Between May and July 2000, there were unconfirmed reports that a large number of Jordanian prisoners were released. However, according to AI, only three of the Jordanians released in 2000 had been held for political reasons.
In March 2001, Syrian intelligence officials in Lebanon arrested three Syrian Druze men who had converted to Christianity, possibly on suspicion of membership in Jehovah's Witnesses. The men were released after 2 months.
In July and August 2001, there were unconfirmed regional press reports that approximately 500 political detainees were moved from Tadmur Prison to Saydnaya Prison in preparation for the eventual closing of Tadmur. In 2000 the Government also closed the Mazzah prison, which reportedly held numerous prisoners and detainees. In August, AI reported the release of Communist Action Party member Haytham Na'al after 27 years in prison.
In 2000 the Government declared an amnesty for 600 political prisoners and detainees and a general pardon for some nonpolitical prisoners. The highly publicized amnesty was the first time the Government acknowledged detention of persons for political reasons. There were no credible reports of transfers of political prisoners during the year.
Most of those arrested during crackdowns in the 1980s, in response to violent attacks by the Muslim Brotherhood, have been released; however, some may remain in prolonged detention without charge. Some union and professional association officials detained in 1980 may remain in detention (see Sections 2.b. and 6.a.).
The number of remaining political detainees is unknown. In June 2000, prior to the November 2000 prison amnesty, Amnesty International estimated that there were approximately 1,500 political detainees; many of the detainees reportedly were suspected supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood and the pro-Iraqi wing of the Ba'th party. There also were Jordanian, Lebanese, and Palestinian political detainees. Estimates of detainees are difficult to confirm because the Government does not verify publicly the number of detentions without charge, the release of detainees or amnestied prisoners, or whether detainees subsequently are sentenced to prison (see Section 1.e.).
Former prisoners were subject to a so-called "rights ban," which begins from the day of sentencing and lasts until 7 years after the expiration of the sentence, in the case of felony convictions. Persons subject to this ban are not allowed to vote, run for office, or work in the public sector; they often also are denied passports.
The Constitution prohibits exile; however, the Government has exiled citizens in the past. The Government refused to reissue the passports of citizens who fled the country in the 1980s; such citizens consequently are unable to return to the country.
There were no known instances of forced exile during the year.
e. Denial of Fair Public Trial
The Constitution provides for an independent judiciary, but the two exceptional courts dealing with cases of alleged national security violations were not independent of executive branch control. The regular court system generally displayed considerable independence in civil cases, although political connections and bribery at times influenced verdicts.
The judicial system is composed of the civil and criminal courts, military courts, security courts, and religious courts, which adjudicate matters of personal status such as divorce and inheritance (see Section 5). The Court of Cassation is the highest court of appeal. The Supreme Constitutional Court is empowered to rule on the constitutionality of laws and decrees; it does not hear appeals.
Civil and criminal courts are organized under the Ministry of Justice. Defendants before these courts were entitled to the legal representation of their choice; the courts appoint lawyers for indigents. Defendants were presumed innocent; they are allowed to present evidence and to confront their accusers. Trials are public, except for those involving juveniles or sex offenses. Defendants may appeal their verdicts to a provincial appeals court and ultimately to the Court of Cassation. Such appeals are difficult to win because the courts do not provide verbatim transcripts of cases--only summaries prepared by the presiding judges. There are no juries.
Military courts have the authority to try civilians as well as military personnel. A military prosecutor decides the venue for a civilian defendant. There have been reports that the Government operates military field courts in locations outside established courtrooms. Such courts reportedly observed fewer of the formal procedures of regular military courts.
In September a military court charged lawyer and Chairman of the Syrian Human Rights Committee, Haytham al-Maleh, and three of his associates in abstentia for spreading false news outside of the country, belonging to a political association of an international nature without government approval, and publishing material that causes sectarian friction.
The two security courts are the Supreme State Security Court (SSSC), which tries political and national security cases, and the Economic Security Court (ESC), which tried cases involving financial crimes. Both courts operated under the state of emergency, not ordinary law, and did not observe constitutional provisions safeguarding defendants' rights.
Charges against defendants in the SSSC often were vague. Many defendants appeared to be tried for exercising normal political rights, such as free speech. For example, the Emergency Law authorizes the prosecution of anyone "opposing the goals of the revolution," "shaking the confidence of the masses in the aims of the revolution," or attempting to "change the economic or social structure of the State." Nonetheless, the Government contends that the SSSC tries only persons who have sought to use violence against the State.
Under SSSC procedures, defendants are not present during the preliminary or investigative phase of the trial, during which the prosecutor presents evidence. Trials usually were closed to the public. Lawyers were not ensured access to their clients before the trial and were excluded from the court during their client's initial interrogation by the prosecutor. Lawyers submitted written defense pleas rather than oral presentations. The State's case often was based on confessions, and defendants have not been allowed to argue in court that their confessions were coerced. There was no known instance in which the court ordered a medical examination for a defendant who claimed that he was tortured. The SSSC reportedly has acquitted some defendants, but the Government did not provide any statistics regarding the conviction rate. Defendants do not have the right to appeal verdicts, but sentences are reviewed by the Minister of Interior, who may ratify, nullify, or alter them. The President also may intervene in the review process.
Accurate information regarding the number of cases heard by the SSSC was difficult to obtain, although hundreds of cases were believed to pass through the court annually. Many reportedly involved charges relating to membership in various banned political groups, including the Party of Communist Action and the pro-Iraqi wing of the Ba'th Party. Sentences as long as 15 years have been imposed in the past. Since 1997 there have been no visits by human rights NGOs to attend sessions of the SSSC (see Section 4).
The 10 civil society activists arrested in August and September 2001 were tried in criminal and state security courts. In February independent Parliamentarians Mamun Humsi and Riyad Seif were tried in criminal court proceedings that were open, for the first time, to foreign observers and the press. AI noted that their parliamentary immunity was lifted without due attention to the procedures established by law. Humsi and Seif were denied confidential access to their lawyers throughout their detention and observers noted a number of procedural irregularities during the trials. In March and April, respectively, the Government sentenced Humsi and Seif to 5 years' imprisonment each for attempting to change the constitution illegally and inciting racial and sectarian strife.
During the year, the eight other civil society activists arrested in August and September 2001 were tried in secrecy by the Supreme State Security Court under authority of the Emergency Law. Only the first session of former political prisoner Riad al-Turk's trial was open to the media and international observers. Al-Turk was sentenced to 30 months for attempting to change the Constitution illegally but was released by presidential decree in November (see Section 1.d.). Lawyer and member of Seif and Humsi's defense team, Habib Issa, and physician and cofounder of the Syrian Human Rights Society, Walid al-Buni, were each sentenced to 5 years in prison for attempting to change the Constitution illegally. Economist and regime critic Arif Dalila was sentenced to up to 10 years for the same offense. Civil society activist Habib Saleh received a 3-year sentence for opposing the objectives of the revolution and inciting ethnic and sectarian strife. Hassan Sa'dun, physician and member of the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights, Kamal al-Labwani, and engineer Fawaz Tillu were sentenced respectively to 2, 3, and 5 years in prison for instigating armed mutiny against the Government (see Sections 1.d., 2.a., and 3).
The ESC tried persons for alleged violations of foreign exchange laws and other economic crimes. The prosecution of economic crimes was not applied uniformly. Like the SSSC, the ESC did not ensure due process for defendants. Defendants were not provided adequate access to lawyers to prepare their defenses, and the State's case usually was based on confessions. High-ranking government officials may influence verdicts. Those convicted of the most serious economic crimes do not have the right of appeal, but those convicted of lesser crimes may appeal to the Court of Cassation. The Economic Penal Code allowed defendants in economic courts to be released on bail. The bail provision does not extend to those accused of forgery, counterfeiting, or auto theft; however, the amendment is intended to provide relief for those accused of other economic crimes, many of whom have been in pretrial detention for long periods of time. These amendments to the Economic Penal Code also limit the categories of cases that can be tried in the ESC. In November 2001, the Government approved a general pardon for nonpolitical prisoners and a reduction of sentences by one-third for persons convicted of economic crimes, with a provision to commute sentences entirely for persons who return embezzled funds to investors within 1 year of the law's effective date.
At least two persons arrested when late President Asad took power in 1970 may remain in prison, despite the expiration of one of the prisoners' sentences.
The Government in the past denied that it held political prisoners, arguing that although the aims of some prisoners may be political, their activities, including subversion, were criminal. The official media reported that the 600 beneficiaries of the November 2000 amnesty were political prisoners and detainees; this reportedly was the first time that the Government acknowledged that it held persons for political reasons. Nonetheless, the Emergency Law and the Penal Code are so broad and vague, and the Government's power so sweeping, that many persons were convicted and are in prison for the mere expression of political opposition to the Government. The Government's sentencing of 10 prominent civil society and human rights activists for "crimes of state security" represented a retreat from recent modest attempts at political liberalization (see Sections 1.d. and 2.a.).
The exact number of political prisoners was unknown. Unconfirmed regional press reports estimated the total number of political prisoners at between 400 and 600. In April 2001, a domestic human rights organization estimated the number to be nearly 800, including approximately 130 belonging to the Islamic Liberation Party, 250 members and activists associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, 150 members of the pro-Iraq wing of the Ba'th Party, and 14 Communists. In its report for the year, the Syrian Human Rights Committee estimated that there were approximately 4,000 political prisoners still in detention.
f. Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence
Although laws prohibit such actions, the Emergency Law authorizes the security services to enter homes and conduct searches without warrants if security matters, very broadly defined, are involved. The security services selectively monitored telephone conversations and fax transmissions. The Government opened mail destined for both citizens and foreign residents. It also prevented the delivery of human rights materials (see Section 2.a.).
The Government continued its practice of threatening or detaining the relatives of detainees or of fugitives in order to obtain confessions, minimize outside interference, or prompt the fugitive's surrender (see Section 1.d.). There have been reports that security personnel force prisoners to watch relatives being tortured in order to extract confessions. According to AI, security forces also detained family members of suspected oppositionists (see Section 1.d.).
In the past, the Government and the Ba'th Party monitored and attempted to restrict some citizens' visits to foreign embassies and cultural centers.
Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
a. Freedom of Speech and Press
The Constitution provides for the right to express opinions freely in speech and in writing, but the Government restricted these rights significantly in practice. The Government strictly controlled the dissemination of information and permitted little written or oral criticism of President Asad, his family, the Ba'th Party, the military, or the legitimacy of the Government. The Government also did not permit sectarian issues to be raised. Detention and beatings for individual expressions of opinion that violate these unwritten rules at times occurred. The Government also threatened activists to attempt to control their behavior. In January 2001, novelist Nabil Sulayman was attacked outside his apartment in Latakia. Some observers believed the attack was a message from the Government to civil society advocates to moderate their pressure for reform. The attack came just after Information Minister Adnan 'Umran publicly criticized civil society advocates.
In a speech in February 2001, President Asad explicitly criticized civil society advocates as elites "from outside" who wrongly claim to speak for the majority and said that openness would only be tolerated as long as it "does not threaten the stability of the homeland or the course of development." The Government required all social, political, and cultural forums and clubs to obtain advance official approval for meetings, to obtain approval for lecturers and lecture topics, and to submit lists of all attendees (see Section 2.b.). During the year, several unapproved forums met, which while technically unhindered, were under government observation.
In January 2001, the regional press reported on a "Group of 1,000" intellectuals that issued a statement calling for more comprehensive reforms than those demanded by a group of 99 intellectuals in September 2000. The group's statement called for lifting martial law, ending the state of emergency that has been in effect since 1963, releasing political prisoners, and expanding civil liberties in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. Although the Government did not take action immediately against any of the signatories, in September 2001 it detained seven prominent human rights figures, reportedly charging them under articles in the Penal Code dealing with crimes against state security. A number of those detained were signatories of the "Group of 1,000" petition. The Government tried the 10 civil society and human rights activists in criminal and state security courts and sentenced them to 2 to 10 years in prison for crimes against state security (see Section 1.e.). In December 2000, a local human rights organization published an open letter in a Lebanese newspaper calling for the closure of the notorious Tadmur Prison.
The Emergency Law and Penal Code articles dealing with crimes against state security allow the Government broad discretion in determining what constitutes illegal expression. The Emergency Law prohibits the publication of "false information", which opposes "the goals of the revolution" (see Section 1.e.). Penal Code articles prohibit "attempting to illegally change the Constitution," "preventing authorities from executing their responsibilities," and "acts or speech inciting confessionalism." In August 2001, the Government amended the Press Law to permit the reestablishment of publications that were circulated prior to 1963 and established a framework in which the National Front Parties, as well as other approved private individuals and organizations, would be permitted to publish their own newspapers. However, the same amendments also stipulated imprisonment and stiff financial penalties as part of broad, vague provisions prohibiting the publication of "inaccurate" information, particularly if it "causes public unrest, disturbs international relations, violates the dignity of the state or national unity, affects the morale of the armed forces, or inflicts harm on the national economy and the safety of the monetary system." Persons found guilty of publishing such information were subject to prison terms ranging from 1 to 3 years and fines ranging from $10,000 to $20,000 (500,000 to 1 million Syrian pounds). The amendments also imposed strict punishments on reporters who do not reveal their government sources in response to government requests. Critics claimed that the amendment would increase self-censorship by journalists, and that it strengthened, rather than relaxed, restrictions on the press.
The Government imprisoned journalists for failing to observe press restrictions. Official media reported that journalist Ibrahim Hamidi was arrested on December 23 on charges of "publishing unfounded news," a violation of Article 51 of the 2001 Publication Law. Although the announcement did not specify the violation, it was believed to be a December 20 article in the London-based al-Hayat discussing the Government's contingency planning for possible hostilities in Iraq. At year's end, Hamidi still was detained by authorities and denied contact with his family. State security services were known to threaten local journalists, including with the removal of credentials, for articles printed outside the country. In April and May the Government refused to renew the press credentials and/or residency permits of several journalists for reasons including "ill-intentioned reporting" and "violating the rules for accrediting correspondents and the tradition of the profession of journalism."
The Ministry of Information and the Ministry of Culture and National Guidance censored domestic and imported foreign press. They usually prevent the publication or distribution of any material deemed threatening or embarrassing by the security services to high levels of the Government. Censorship usually was stricter for materials in Arabic. Commonly censored subjects included: The Government's human rights record; Islamic fundamentalism; allegations of official involvement in drug trafficking; aspects of the Government's role in Lebanon; graphic descriptions of sexual activity; material unfavorable to the Arab cause in the Middle East conflict; and material that was offensive to any of the country's religious groups. In addition most journalists and writers practiced self-censorship to avoid provoking a negative government reaction.
There were several new private publications in 2000 and 2001, but only one appeared during this year. In January 2001, the Government permitted publication of the National Progressive Front's (NPF) Communist Party newspaper, The People's Voice. It became the first private paper distributed openly since 1963. In February 2001, the Government permitted publication of the NPF's Union Socialist Party's private newspaper, The Unionist. Also in February 2001, the Government permitted the publication of a private satirical weekly newspaper, The Lamplighter, which criticized politically nonsensitive instances of government waste and corruption. In June 2001, the Government permitted the publication of the private weekly newspaper The Economist, which was critical of the performance of the Government.
In his July 2000 inaugural speech, President Bashar Al-Asad emphasized the principle of media transparency. Since July 2000, both the print and electronic media at times have been critical of Ba'th Party and government performance and have reported openly on a range of social and economic issues. While this relaxation of censorship did not extend to domestic politics or foreign policy issues, it was a notable departure from past practice. Some Damascus-based correspondents for regional Arab media also were able to file reports on internal political issues, such as rumored governmental changes, new political discussion groups, and the possible introduction of new parties to the Ba'th Party-dominated National Progressive Front.
The media continued to broaden somewhat their reporting on regional developments, including the Middle East peace process. The media covered some peace process events factually, but other events were reported selectively to support official views. The government-controlled press increased its coverage of official corruption and governmental inefficiency. A few privately owned newspapers published during the year; foreign-owned, foreign-published newspapers continued to circulate relatively freely.
The Government or the Ba'th Party owned and operated the radio and television companies and most of the newspaper publishing houses. The Ministry of Information closely monitored radio and television news programs to ensure adherence to the government line. The Government did not interfere with broadcasts from abroad. Satellite dishes have proliferated throughout all regions and in neighborhoods of all social and economic categories, and in 2001 the Minister of Economy and Foreign Trade authorized private sector importers to import satellite receivers and visual intercommunication systems.
The Ministry of Culture and National Guidance censored fiction and nonfiction works, including films. It also approved which films may or may not be shown at the cultural centers operated by foreign embassies. The Government prohibited the publication of books and other materials in Kurdish; however, there were credible reports that Kurdish language materials were available in the country (see Section 5).
In 2000 cellular telephone service was introduced although its high cost severely limited the number of subscribers. Internet access and access to e-mail was limited but growing. The Government blocked access to selected Internet sites that contained information deemed politically sensitive or pornographic in nature. The Government also consistently blocked citizens' access to servers that provide free e-mail services. The Government has disrupted telephone services to the offices and residences of several foreign diplomats, allegedly because the lines were used to access Internet providers outside the country.
The Government restricted academic freedom. Public school teachers were not permitted to express ideas contrary to government policy, although authorities allowed somewhat greater freedom of expression at the university level.
b. Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
Freedom of assembly does not exist under the law. Citizens may not hold demonstrations unless they obtain permission from the Ministry of Interior. Most public demonstrations were organized by the Government or the Ba'th Party. The Government selectively permitted some demonstrations, usually for political reasons. The Government applied the restrictions on public assembly in Palestinian refugee camps, where controlled demonstrations have been allowed.
During the year there continued to be numerous demonstrations, most of which were permitted or organized by the Government, and some of which were directed against diplomatic missions and international agencies in reaction to the Israeli Government's use of force against Palestinians in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza.
In 2000 there were large demonstrations in Suwayda province following violent clashes between Bedouin shepherds and Druze residents of the province (see Sections 1.a. and 5).
The Government restricted freedom of association. During the year, it required private associations to register with authorities and denied several such requests, presumably on political grounds. The Government usually granted registration to groups not engaged in political or other activities deemed sensitive. The Government required political forums and discussion groups to obtain prior approval to hold lectures and seminars and to submit lists of all attendees. Despite these restrictions, during the year several domestic human rights and civil society groups held meetings without registering with the Government or obtaining prior approval for the meetings.
The authorities did not allow the establishment of independent political parties (see Section 3).
The Government sentenced 10 human rights activists who had called for the expansion of civil liberties and organized public dialogue to lengthy prison stays for committing crimes against state security (see Sections 1.d. and 2.a.).
In 1980 the Government dissolved, and then reconstituted under its control, the executive boards of professional associations after some members staged a national strike and advocated an end to the state of emergency. The associations have not been independent since that time and generally are led by members of the Ba'th Party, although nonparty members may serve on their executive boards. At year's end, there was no new information on whether any persons detained in 1980 crackdowns on union and professional association officials remained in detention (see Sections 1.d. and 6.a.).
c. Freedom of Religion
The Constitution provides for freedom of religion, and the Government generally respected this right in practice; however, it imposed restrictions in some areas. The Constitution requires that the President be a Muslim. There is no official state religion; Sunni Muslims constitute the majority of the population.
All religions and orders must register with the Government, which monitors fund raising and requires permits for all meetings by religious groups, except for worship. There is a strict separation of religious institutions and the state. Religious groups tended to avoid any involvement in internal political affairs. The Government in turn generally refrained from becoming involved in strictly religious issues.
The Government considers militant Islam a threat and follows closely the practice of its adherents. The Government has allowed many new mosques to be built; however, sermons are monitored and controlled, and mosques are closed between prayers.
In 1999 and 2000, there were large-scale arrests, and torture in some cases, of Syrian and Palestinian Islamists affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Salvation Party (see Sections 1.c. and 1.d.).
Officially all schools are government run and nonsectarian, although some schools are run in practice by Christian, Druze, and Jewish minorities. There is mandatory religious instruction in schools, with government-approved teachers and curriculums. Religion courses are divided into separate classes for Muslim, Druze, and Christian students. Although Arabic is the official language in public schools, the Government permits the teaching of Armenian, Hebrew, Syriac (Aramaic), and Chaldean in some schools on the basis that these are "liturgical languages."
Religious groups are subject to their respective religious laws on marriage, divorce, child custody, and inheritance (see Section 5).
Government policy officially disavows sectarianism of any kind. However, in the case of Alawis, religious affiliation can facilitate access to influential and sensitive posts. For example, members of the President's Alawi sect hold a predominant position in the security services and military, well out of proportion to their percentage of the population, estimated at 12 percent (see Section 3).
For primarily political rather than religious reasons, the less than 100 Jews remaining in the country generally are barred from government employment and do not have military service obligations. Jews are the only religious minority group whose passports and identity cards note their religion.
There generally was little societal discrimination or violence against religious minorities, including Jews.
For a more detailed discussion see the 2002 International Religious Freedom Report.
d. Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation
The Government limited freedom of movement. The Government restricted travel near the Golan Heights. Travel to Israel was illegal. Exit visas generally no longer were required for women, men over 50 years old, and citizens living abroad. Individuals have been denied permission to travel abroad on political grounds, although government officials deny that this practice occurs. The authorities may prosecute any person found attempting to emigrate or to travel abroad illegally, or who has been deported from another country, or who is suspected of having visited Israel. Women over the age of 18 have the legal right to travel without the permission of male relatives. However, a husband or a father may file a request with the Ministry of Interior to prohibit his wife or daughter's departure from the country (see Section 5). Security checkpoints continued, although primarily in military and other restricted areas. There were few police checkpoints on main roads and in populated areas. Generally the security services set up checkpoints to search for smuggled goods, weapons, narcotics, and subversive literature. The searches took place without warrants.
The Government has refused to recognize the citizenship of or to grant identity documents to some persons of Kurdish descent. Their lack of citizenship or identity documents restricts them from traveling to and from the country (see Section 5). Emigres who did not complete mandatory military service may pay a fee to avoid being conscripted while visiting the country.
As of June, 401,185 Palestinian refugees were registered with the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the country. In general Palestinian refugees no longer report unusual difficulties travelling in and out of the country, as has been the case in the past. The Government restricted entry by Palestinians who were not resident in the country.
Citizens of Arab League countries may enter the country without a visa for a stay of up to 3 months, a period that is renewable on application to government authorities. Residency permits require proof of employment and a fixed address in the country.
The law does not provide for the granting of asylum or refugee status in accordance with the 1951 U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol. The Government cooperates on a case-by-case basis with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other humanitarian organizations in assisting refugees. The Government provides first asylum but is selective about extending protection to refugees; 2,260 persons sought asylum during the year. Although the Government denied that it forcibly repatriated persons with a valid claim to refugee status, it apparently did so in the past. In September there were 3,018 non-Palestinian refugees in the country, all of whom were receiving assistance from the UNHCR, including 1,812 refugees of Iraqi origin.
Section 3 Respect for Political Rights: The Right of Citizens to Change Their Government
Although citizens vote for the President and Members of Parliament, they did not have the right to change their government. The late President Hafiz Al-Asad was confirmed by unopposed referenda five times after taking power in 1970. His son, Bashar Al-Asad, also was confirmed by an unopposed referendum in July 2000. The Government is headed by a Cabinet, which the President has the discretion to change. Political opposition to the President is vigorously suppressed. The President and his senior aides, particularly those in the military and security services, ultimately make most basic decisions in political and economic life, with a very limited degree of public accountability. Moreover the Constitution mandates that the Ba'th Party is the ruling party and is ensured a majority in all government and popular associations, such as workers' and women's groups. Six smaller political parties are permitted to exist and, along with the Ba'th Party, make up the National Progressive Front (NPF), a grouping of parties that represents the sole framework of legal political party participation for citizens. While created to give the appearance of a multiparty system, the NPF is dominated by the Ba'th Party and does not change the essentially one-party character of the political system. Non-Ba'th Party members of the NPF exist as political parties largely in name only and conform strictly to Ba'th Party and government policies. In 2000 there were reports that the Government was considering legislation to expand the NPF to include new parties and several parties previously banned; however, at year's end, there were no new developments.
The Ba'th Party dominates the Parliament, which is known as the People's Council. Although parliamentarians may criticize policies and modify draft laws, the executive branch retains ultimate control over the legislative process. The Government has allowed independent non-NPF candidates to run for a limited allotment of seats in the 250-member People's Council. The allotment of non-NPF deputies was 83, ensuring a permanent absolute majority for the Ba'th Party-dominated NPF. Elections for the 250 seats in the People's Council last took place in 1998.
In March and April, the Government sentenced independent Members of Parliament Ma'mun Humsi and Riad Seif to 5 year prison terms for attempting to illegally change the Constitution (see Section 1.d.).
Persons convicted by the State Security Court may be deprived of their political rights after they are released from prison. Such restrictions include a prohibition against engaging in political activity, the denial of passports, and a bar on accepting government jobs and some other forms of employment. The duration of such restrictions is 7 years after expiration of the sentence in the case of felony convictions; however, in practice the restrictions may continue beyond that period. The Government contends that this practice is mandated by the Penal Code; it has been in effect since 1949.
Women and minorities, with the exception of the Jewish population and stateless Kurds (see Section 5), participated in the political system without restriction. There were 2 female cabinet ministers, and 26 of the 250 members of Parliament were women. No figures of the percentage of women and minorities who vote were available; however, citizens are required by law to vote.
Section 4 Governmental Attitude Regarding International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Violations of Human Rights
The Government did not allow domestic human rights groups to exist legally. Human rights groups have operated legally but ultimately were banned by the Government. The Government's sentencing of 10 civil society leaders this year to lengthy prison sentences stifled the activities of human rights activists and organizations (see Sections 1.d., 1.e., and 2.a.).
In February 2001, Human Rights Watch criticized the Government for restricting civil society groups from meeting. Human Rights Watch claimed that such groups had grown in popularity in the preceding months, but that on February 18, 2001 the Government informed many leaders of such groups that their meetings could not be held without government permission.
The Government has met only twice with international human rights organizations: Human Rights Watch in 1995 and Amnesty International in 1997.
As a matter of policy, the Government in its dealings with international groups denied that it commits human rights abuses. It has not permitted representatives of international organizations to visit prisons. The Government stated that it responds in writing to all inquiries from NGOs regarding human rights issues, including the cases of individual detainees and prisoners, through an interagency governmental committee established expressly for that purpose. The Government usually responds to queries from human rights organizations and foreign embassies regarding specific cases by claiming that the prisoner in question has violated national security laws.
Section 5 Discrimination Based on Race, Sex, Disability, Language, or Social Status
The Constitution provides for equal rights and equal opportunity for all citizens. However, in practice membership in the Ba'th Party or close familial relations with a prominent party member or powerful government official can be important for economic, social, or educational advancement. Party or government connections paved the way for entrance into better elementary and secondary schools, access to lucrative employment, and greater power within the Government, the military, and the security services. Certain prominent positions, such as that of provincial governor, were reserved solely for Ba'th Party members. Apart from some discrimination against Jews and stateless Kurds, there were no apparent patterns of systematic government discrimination based on race, sex, disability, language, or social status. However, there were varying degrees of societal discrimination in each of these areas.
Women
Violence against women occurred, but there were no reliable statistics regarding the prevalence of domestic violence or sexual assault. The vast majority of cases likely were unreported, and victims generally were reluctant to seek assistance outside the family. Battered women have the legal right to seek redress in court, but few do so because of the social stigma attached to such action. The Syrian Women's Federation offers services to battered wives to remedy individual family problems. The Syrian Family Planning Association also attempts to deal with this problem. Some private groups, including the Family Planning Association, have organized seminars on violence against women, which were reported by the government press. There are a few private, nonofficial, specifically designated shelters or safe havens for battered women who seek to flee their husbands.
Rape is a felony; however, there are no laws against spousal rape.
Prostitution is prohibited by law, and it was not a widespread problem.
The law specifically provides for reduced sentences in "honor" crimes (violent assaults with intent to kill against a female by a male for alleged sexual misconduct). Instances of honor crimes were rare and occurred primarily in rural areas in which Bedouin customs prevail.
The law prohibits sexual harassment and specifies different punishments depending on whether the victim is a minor or an adult. Sexual harassment was rarely reported.
The Constitution provides for equality between men and women and equal pay for equal work. Moreover the Government has sought to overcome traditional discriminatory attitudes toward women and encourages women's education. However, the Government has not yet changed personal status, retirement, and social security laws that discriminate against women. In addition, some secular laws discriminate against women. For example, under criminal law, the punishment for adultery for a woman is twice that as for the same crime committed by a man.
Christians, Muslims, and other religious groups are subject to their respective religious laws on marriage, divorce, and inheritance. For Muslims, personal status law on divorce is based on Shari'a (Islamic law), and some of its provisions discriminate against women. For example, husbands may claim adultery as grounds for divorce, but wives face more difficulty in presenting the same argument. If a woman requests a divorce from her husband, she may not be entitled to child support in some instances. In addition, under the law a woman loses the right to custody of boys when they reach age 9 and girls at age 12.
Inheritance for Muslims also is based on Shari'a. Accordingly Muslim women usually are granted half of the inheritance share of male heirs. However, Shari'a mandates that male heirs provide financial support to the female relatives who inherit less. If they do not, females have the right to sue.
Polygyny is legal but is practiced only by a small minority of Muslim men.
A husband may request that his wife's travel abroad be prohibited (see Section 2.d.). Women generally are barred from travelling abroad with their children unless they are able to prove that the father has granted permission for the children to travel.
Women participated actively in public life and were represented in most professions, including the military. Women were not impeded from owning or managing land or other real property. Women constituted approximately 7 percent of judges, 10 percent of lawyers, 57 percent of teachers below university level, and 20 percent of university professors.
Children
There was no legal discrimination between boys and girls in education or in health care. The Government provides free, public education from primary school through university. Education is compulsory for all children, male or female, between the ages of 6 and 12. According to the Syrian Women's Union, approximately 46 percent of the total number of students through the secondary level are female. Nevertheless, societal pressure for early marriage and childbearing interferes with girls' educational progress, particularly in rural areas, in which the dropout rates for female students remained high.
The Government provides medical care for children until the age of 18.
Although there are cases of child abuse, there is no societal pattern of abuse against children. The law provides for severe penalties for those found guilty of the most serious abuses against children.
Child prostitution and trafficking in children are rare; incidents that arise mainly involve destitute orphans.
The law emphasizes the need to protect children, and the Government has organized seminars regarding the subject of child welfare.
Persons with Disabilities
The law prohibits discrimination against persons with disabilities and seeks to integrate them into the public sector work force. However, implementation is inconsistent. Regulations reserving four percent of government and public sector jobs for persons with disabilities are not implemented rigorously. Persons with disabilities may not legally challenge alleged instances of discrimination. There are no laws that mandate access to public buildings for persons with disabilities.
National/Racial/Ethnic Minorities
The Government generally permitted national and ethnic minorities to conduct traditional, religious, and cultural activities; however, the Government's attitude toward the Kurdish minority was a significant exception. Although the Government contends that there was no discrimination against the Kurdish population, it placed limits on the use and teaching of the Kurdish language. It also restricted the publication of books and other materials written in Kurdish (see Section 2.a.), Kurdish cultural expression, and, at times, the celebration of Kurdish festivals. The Government tacitly accepted the importation and distribution of Kurdish language materials, particularly in the northeast region where most of the Kurds in the country reside. Some members of the Kurdish community have been tried by the Supreme State Security Court for expressing support for greater Kurdish autonomy or independence. Although the Government stopped the practice of stripping Kurds of their Syrian nationality (some 120,000 had lost Syrian nationality under this program in the 1960s), it never restored the nationality to those who lost it earlier. As a result, those who had lost their nationality, and their children, have been unable to obtain passports, or even identification cards and birth certificates. Without Syrian nationality, these stateless Kurds, who according to UNHCR estimates number approximately 200,000, are unable to own land, are not permitted to practice as doctors or engineers or be employed by the Government, are ineligible for admission to public hospitals, have no right to vote, and cannot travel to and from the country. They also encounter difficulties in enrolling their children in school, and in some cases, in registering their marriages.
In November 2000, a number of armed clashes occurred between Bedouin shepherds and Druze residents of Suwayda Province that required government military intervention to stop. Local press reported that between 15 and 20 Druze, Bedouin, and security forces personnel were killed. There were large demonstrations following the deaths (see Sections 1.a. and 2.b.).
In August President Asad became the first president in 40 years to visit Hasakeh province in the northeast, where most Kurds reside. In meetings with regional and Kurdish leaders, he reportedly acknowledged the importance of Kurds to the local cultural heritage and stated his willingness to discuss citizenship problems.
Section 6 Worker Rights
a. The Right of Association
Although the Constitution provides for this right, workers were not free to establish unions independent of the Government. All unions must belong to the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU), which is dominated by the Ba'th Party and is in fact a part of the State's bureaucratic structure. The GFTU is an information channel between political decision-makers and workers. The GFTU transmits instructions downward to the unions and workers but also conveys information to decision-makers about worker conditions and needs. The GFTU advises the Government on legislation, organizes workers, and formulates rules for various member unions. The GFTU president is a senior member of the Ba'th Party. He and his deputy may attend cabinet meetings on economic affairs. The GFTU controls nearly all aspects of union activity.
There were no reports of antiunion discrimination. Since the unions are part of the Government's bureaucratic structure, they are protected by law from antiunion discrimination.
The GFTU is affiliated with the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions.
In 1992 the country's eligibility for tariff preferences under the U.S. Generalized System of Preferences was suspended because the Government failed to afford internationally recognized worker rights to workers.
b. The Right to Organize and Bargain Collectively
The right to organize and bargain collectively does not exist in any meaningful sense. Government representatives were part of the bargaining process in the public sector. In the public sector, unions did not normally bargain collectively on wage issues, but there was some evidence that union representatives participated with representatives of employers and the supervising ministry in establishing minimum wages, hours, and conditions of employment. Workers serve on the boards of directors of public enterprises, and union representatives always are included on the boards.
The law provides for collective bargaining in the private sector, although past repression by the Government dissuaded most workers from exercising this right.
Unions have the right to litigate disputes over work contracts and other workers' interests with employers and may ask for binding arbitration. In practice labor and management representatives settle most disputes without resort to legal remedies or arbitration. Management has the right to request arbitration, but that right seldom is exercised. Arbitration usually occurs when a worker initiates a dispute over wages or severance pay.
The law does not prohibit strikes; however, previous government crackdowns deterred workers from striking. In 1980 the security forces arrested many union and professional association officials who planned a national strike. Some of them are believed to remain in detention, either without trial or after being tried by the State Security Court (see Sections 1.d. and 2.b.). During the year, there were no strikes.
There are no unions in the seven free trade zones. Firms in the zones are exempt from the laws and regulations governing hiring and firing, although they must observe some provisions on health, safety, hours, and sick and annual leave.
c. Prohibition of Forced or Bonded Labor
There is no law prohibiting forced or bonded labor, including that performed by children. There were no reports of forced or bonded labor by children, or forced labor involving foreign workers or domestic servants. Forced labor has been imposed as a punishment for some convicted prisoners.
d. Status of Child Labor Practices and Minimum Age for Employment
The Labor Law provides for the protection of children from exploitation in the workplace; however, the Government tolerated child labor in some instances. Independent information and audits regarding government enforcement were not available. The compulsory age for schooling is 6 to 12 years of age; however, in 2000 the Parliament approved legislation that raised the private sector minimum age for employment from 12 to 15 years for most types of nonagricultural labor, and from 16 to 18 years for heavy work. Working hours for youths of legal age do not differ from those established for adults. In all cases, parental permission is required for children under the age of 16. The law prohibits children from working at night. However, the law applies only to children who work for a salary. Those who work in family businesses and who technically are not paid a salary--a common phenomenon--do not fall under the law. Children under the age of 16 are prohibited by law from working in mines, at petroleum sites, or in other dangerous fields. Children are not allowed to lift, carry, or drag heavy objects. The exploitation of children for begging purposes also is prohibited. The Government claims that the expansion of the private sector has led to more young children working.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs monitored employment conditions for persons under the age of 18, but it does not have enough inspectors to ensure compliance with the laws. The Ministry has the authority to specify the industries in which children 15 and 16 years of age may work.
The Labor Inspection Department performed unannounced spot checks of employers on a daily basis to enforce the law; however, the scope of these checks was unknown. The majority of children under age 16 who work did so for their parents in the agricultural sector without remuneration. The ILO reported in 1998 that 10.5 percent of children under the age of 18 participate in the labor force, which amounts to 4.7 percent of the total work force.
The law does not prohibit forced or bonded labor by children; however, such practices were not known to occur.
e. Acceptable Conditions of Work
The Minister of Labor and Social Affairs is responsible for enforcing minimum wage levels in the public and private sectors. In May the Government increased public sector minimum wages by 20 percent to $69 (3,175 Syrian pounds) per month, plus other compensation (for example, meals, uniforms, and transportation). In August the Government announced a 20 percent increase in private sector minimum wages. The gain in minimum wage levels was largely cancelled out by the increase in prices. These wages did not provide a decent standard of living for a worker and family. As a result, many workers in both the public and private sectors take additional jobs or are supported by their extended families.
The statutory workweek for administrative staff is 6 days of
6 hours each, and laborers work 6 days a week of 8 hours each. In some cases a 9-hour workday is permitted. The laws mandate one 24-hour rest day per week. Rules and regulations severely limit the ability of an employer to dismiss employees without cause. Even if a person is absent from work without notice for a long period, the employer must follow a lengthy procedure of trying to find the person and notify him, including through newspaper notices, before he is able to take any action against the employee. Dismissed employees have the right of appeal to a committee of representatives from the union, management, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, and the appropriate municipality. Such committees usually find in favor of the employee. Dismissed employees are entitled to 80 percent of salary benefits while the dispute is under consideration. No additional back wages are awarded should the employer be found at fault, nor are wage penalties imposed in cases in which the employer is not found at fault. The law does not protect temporary workers who are not subject to regulations on minimum wages. Small private firms and businesses employ such workers to avoid the costs associated with hiring permanent employees.
The law mandates safety in all sectors, and managers are expected to implement them fully. In practice there is little enforcement without worker complaints, which occur infrequently despite government efforts to post notices regarding safety rights and regulations. Large companies, such as oil field contractors, employ safety engineers.
The ILO noted in 1998 that a provision in the Labor Code allowing employers to keep workers at the workplace for as many as 11 hours a day might lead to abuse. However, there have been no reports of such abuses. Officials from the Ministries of Health and Labor are designated to inspect work sites for compliance with health and safety standards; however, such inspections appear to be sporadic, apart from those conducted in hotels and other facilities that cater to foreigners. The enforcement of labor laws in rural areas also is more lax than in urban areas, where inspectors are concentrated. Workers may lodge complaints about health and safety conditions, with special committees established to adjudicate such cases. Workers have the right to remove themselves from hazardous conditions without risking loss of employment.
The law provides protection for foreign workers who reside legally in the country; but not for illegal workers. There were no credible estimates available on the number of illegal workers in the country.
f. Trafficking in Persons
There are no laws that specifically prohibit trafficking in persons; however, there were no reports that persons were systematically being trafficked to, from, or within the country. Standard labor laws could be applied in the event of allegations of trafficking. The Penal Code penalizes prostitution and trafficking of citizen women abroad.
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>> AAHH - THE LIBERAL CANADIANS?

No asylum in Canada for N Korean diplomat
By David Scofield

SEOUL - Canada, one of the world's most generous countries when it comes to immigration and political asylum, has said "no" to the request for refugee status from a defecting North Korean trade official with a high-level posting in China. Still, he won't be deported and might even become a Canadian resident in three years.

Though defector Song-dae Ri, pleading that he wanted freedom for his son, is likely to get a three-year stay and may never have to leave Canada, the case raises serious questions both about humanitarian issues and how to treat defectors who occupied positions of trust and influence in notoriously oppressive regimes.

Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board generated controversy last week by refusing Ri's request for official refugee status, generally known elsewhere as political asylum. His son, now six, was given permission to remain.

"While [Ri] may not have personally committed any atrocities ... I believe that on a balance of probabilities he was aware of the North Korean government's excesses ... and waited 10 years" to leave, said board member Bonnie Milliner in ruling on its behalf.

"He was a high-level North Korean government official with weighty responsibilities," she said, adding that he was "not deserving" of Canada's protection.

China is by far the most important economic and political ally of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Ri was posted to the embassy in Beijing before he defected to Canada with his wife and son in August 2001, saying he wanted to ensure for his child a future free of fear and oppression. He and his wife got out of Beijing using fake South Korean passports that he said he secured through a South Korean businessman.

His wife returned to North Korea and was executed, he said, arguing that he has a well-founded fear of persecution, or execution, if he returns from Toronto. And the Canadian government indicates it agrees that he would probably be executed for treason if he returned; as the case unfolds, Ri may well be eligible for residency in three years.

Those who aid and abet despots not (usually) welcome
Ri's application for political asylum raises issues of eligibility and access that must be addressed by all countries settling the world's legitimate refugees. In Canada the message was clear: non-members of the Pyongyang regime are welcome, but those who aid and abet despots are not - or not usually.

Canada's refugee classifications are among the worlds's most liberal. While helping thousands to acquire new lives free of persecution and fear, immigration officials have also been duped by some who exploited the system for gain or to promote personal, sometimes violent agendas abroad. In 1993, for example, Canadians were stunned to learn that a Somali refugee claimant was sending her US$2,000 monthly welfare allotment back to her husband, a Mogadishu warlord who used the funds to buy weapons and promote violence and instability. It was not the finest hour for Canada's immigration authorities.

The embarrassing incident drove home the necessity of strict adherence to refugee guidelines, specifically those that relate to the handling of former members of unsavory regimes. As a general rule, those who help a regime maintain its grip on power or fortify its ability to oppress its people are not eligible for refugee status. The Somalia example illustrates how well-meaning programs can be perverted into protecting and funding some of the world's most dangerous individuals and reviled leaders.

To some observers, however, Canada's ruling against the North Korean asylum-seeker appeared unnecessarily harsh.

Ri, the trade official, maintains that he was a low-level government functionary, unaware of and unable to counter the injustice and abuse that pervades the system he worked for. His resume, however, suggests otherwise. Ri was a diplomat, a rare find in itself given that North Korea maintains only 16 missions globally. Furthermore, far from functioning on the remote frontiers, Ri was posted to the DPRK's most important trading partner, China.

Within the DPRK foreign-policy arena, his responsibilities were among the most important and his work in "trade" was crucial to North Korea's inner circle. In the case of North Korea, trade might better be described as the acquisition and proliferation of products and services - both legal and illicit - vital for the maintenance of the regime.

Ri's claims risible
Ri declared he was insignificant, a cog in the wheel, merely "number 7 million" in the regime's bureaucratic organization, in which leader Kim Jong-il is No 1. Critics call his statements disingenuous, inviting speculation about what else he might have been less than forthcoming about.

Ri competed to join a government system that classifies at least half the country's population of 26 million as "untrusted" - unreliable or disloyal - but he was awarded an international position of trust within this system that requires an elevated status and party loyalty above reproach. Ri's critics say he personally may not have imprisoned his fellow countrymen in the much-publicized gulags that dot the country, but his 10 years of work, beginning during the most desperate years of North Korea's famine, directly helped his bosses carry out their inhuman policies.

He was - or is - complicit in the system that maintains the DPRK, and it is right that the Canadians acknowledged this, according to Ri's critics. And while these same critics support Canada's rejection of his refugee status application, they deplore the fact that he will remain in Canada, probably for at least three years.

Given Canada's liberal traditions and the Byzantine nature of its citizenship and immigration regulations, there's little chance Ri will be leaving Toronto any time soon. The denial that came from the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) is just the beginning; the next stage is a hearing designed to determine the risk to the applicant upon his return. He, like most seeking political asylum in the West, say they face persecution or death if they return to their native countries.

The IRB has already acknowledged the danger to Ri's life should he return, thus deportation is unlikely.

According to immigration officials, the case will likely end with Ri being granted a three-year stay so that he will remain with his son in Canada. Officially he will be without the benefit of state funds and privileges, though this is a misnomer, as officials agreed that if he demanded health care, for example, he would probably get it. Providing Ri isn't caught associating with the Pyongyang regime, or trying clandestinely to supply his former employers with Canadian secrets, he will be eligible for residency at the end of three years.

Precedent could tempt senior DPRK officials
Observers consider this unfortunate, arguing that the IRB was right to deny his application. If a senior player in the North Korean regime is entitled to refugee benefits, it is very conceivable that others within the regime and perhaps even some of DPRK leader Kim Jong-il's family would avail themselves of their privilege and relative freedom of movement to flee the region. They too could demand refugee status and cite the Ri case as a precedent.

Those with the most blood on their hands are often the most able to flee totalitarian regimes, since the powerful and ignoble are also those with access to the foreign currency and the connections necessary to make good their escape.

The paucity of refugees fleeing North Korea is perverse proof of the integrity of the nation's internal security apparatus and the reluctance of China to allow North Koreans passage through its territory. Well-meaning initiatives like Canada's designed to encourage refugee movement out of the DPRK attract applicants like Ri, the well-heeled minority within the impoverished majority of North Korea. The tragic paradox: the prison-like nature of North Korea ensures that those with the means of arriving on the shores of North America tend to be the oppressors, not the oppressed.

Critics of Canada's denial of asylum contend that the man has a son who already has been admitted legally to Canada. They argue that since Ri's wife reportedly was executed upon her return to North Korea in 2002, to send Ri back would mean the effective orphaning of his son - a reprehensible state of affairs. The only solution, they argue, is to hold their noses and accept a bad situation, not make it worse.

But if his return is virtually impossible, there should not necessarily be any immutable right of people like Ri to asylum in Canada, say critics of Pyongyang and its officials. There are 138 parties to the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, the treaty underpinning the rights and defining the nature of international refugees, yet a handful of nations accept the vast majority of the world's refugees, legitimate or not.

If settlement in a third country is not possible for Ri, Canada could tap the knowledge and experience of the former North Korean government official - that's what he was - to expose and disseminate the truth about the DPRK. As a condition of settlement in Canada, Ri could be required to travel nationwide to speak at universities, community centers and libraries, educating the people about the ideology, repression and abuses of North Korea.

At the same time, Ri could raise money to help those most deserving of protection - the destitute North Koreans who huddle in constant fear of deportation in the China-DPRK border region. In sharp contrast to the time he spent working to empower the DPRK and its leadership, Ri's time now should be spent working to alleviate the suffering of his countrymen. As a man who benefited greatly from a system that regularly demonstrates depraved indifference to human life, this would seem to be the least he could do.

David Scofield is a lecturer at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University, Seoul.

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>> PALACE INTRIGUE?

Happy Birthday, Dear Leader - who's next in line?
By Yoel Sano

The scepter in the Hermit Kingdom passed from the Great Leader to the Dear Leader - and will he in turn pass it on to his youngest son, already extolled by some as the Morning Star King?
The lack of fanfare surrounding North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's birthday celebrations this year has much to do with his inauspicious age, 62. It lacks the symbolism of 60, an important Korean milestone, described as hwangap, completing one big circle or life cycle and beginning another. However, as the Dear Leader celebrates his birthday on Monday, it is precisely because of his chronological age that the question of succession must be weighing on his mind, even as it tantalizes Korea watchers.
The Great Leader Kim Il-sung was succeeded by his son, the current and Dear Leader Kim Jong-il, and who will succeed him has Pyongyang watchers watching closely for omens, signs in the heavens, entrails or tea leaves. Could it be the oldest disgraced - and possibly illegitimate - son, the middle son dismissed as "effeminate" by his father, or the younger son now called by some "The Morning Star King." It's far from settled and the family saga is in its early stages.
Because Kim leads a regime long cemented by vested interests, the process of succession should be relatively painless, though regime collapse in an impoverished nation maintained by a brutal hierarchy is possible. Too many concessions to the United States, Japan and South Korea over the nuclear issue could undermine the current regime. Still, Kim assumes - and so do most observers - that he will stay in power. The main issue therefore is not if the regime will survive, but which of his three sons is standing next in line.
Kim inherited power from his own father, the late "Great Leader", Kim Il-sung, and it is inconceivable that any organized succession process will not involve one of Kim Jong-il's own sons. Given the fact that the Dear Leader himself was groomed for the top leadership position for more than 20 years, he will presumably want plenty of time to prepare whichever of his sons he chooses for the role. He has several daughters, but the highly patriarchal nature of the regime and most East Asian societies precludes a female successor.
Kim Jong-il was his father's eldest son and was chosen as successor for this reason. Traditionally, the eldest son is the natural successor in any dynastic succession, so in theory, the identity of Kim Jong-il's successor should be obvious: his eldest son, Kim Jong-nam, born on May 10, 1971, to his second wife, Sung Hye-rim, a leading actress in North Korea.
Eldest 'bad boy' son may be illegitimate
Kim Jong-il's first marriage in 1966 was to Hong Il-chon, with whom he had a daughter, Kim Hye-kyong, in 1967. But within the space of a few years, Kim apparently separated from Hong in favor of Sung. This, however, is where the succession process gets complicated. It is not known whether Kim Jong-il ever actually married Sung, and it has been suggested that his eldest son Kim Jong-nam - the obvious heir-apparent - may have been illegitimate, and not so apparently the next in line.
Evidence seems to point in that direction. According to Kim Jong-il's adopted daughter, Ri Nam-ok - who is actually the daughter of Sung's sister, and who defected to Western Europe in 1997 - Kim Il-sung never knew of his first grandson, and would not have approved of his son's liaison or conjugal partnership with Sung. As such, the senior Kim apparently arranged for young Jong-il to marry a general's daughter, Kim Yong-suk in 1973. This union resulted in the birth of at least one child, a daughter, Kim Sol-song, in 1974. According to some reports, there may have been other offspring, but Kim Sol-song is the only one definitely known. As in many other ruling dynasties, the details of Kim Jong-il's private life are rather sketchy.
In 1980, Kim Jong-il married again. This time to Japanese-born ethnic Korean dancer, Ko Yong-hui, who bore him two sons, Kim Jong-chol in 1981 and Kim Jong-un in 1983. Though Kim Jong-nam may appear to be Kim Jong-il's obvious successor, because of the uncertainty of his legitimacy, over the past three years, attention has turned to the latter of Kim's sons.
And, indeed, while it appears that Kim Jong-nam had initially been in line for the succession - having been appointed to a senior post in the domestic intelligence agency and also placed in charge of North Korea's fledgling information technology industry - he subsequently fell from favor after May 2001. In that month he was very publicly arrested and deported from Tokyo's Narita International Airport, with his son and two female aides, after attempting to enter the country on a false Dominican Republic passport. Adding to the bizarre scenario, he had apparently been seeking to visit Tokyo Disneyland - although it has not been ruled out that he was on a sensitive mission to acquire Japanese technology.
Kim Jong-nam's weakened position became even more apparent in 2002, when he spent much of the year in Russia, tending to his sick mother Sung Hye-rim, who had been living in Moscow after falling out with Kim Jong-il many years earlier. Sung passed away from natural causes in August 2002.
May the best Jong win
Just after his mother's death, another development increased Kim Jong-nam's marginalization. At the end of August 2002, Japan's Jiji Press, citing Chinese diplomatic sources, reported that a hitherto unknown son of Kim Jong-il - named Kim Hyon (also known as Kim Hyon-nam, then aged 30) - had been appointed head of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the ruling Korean Worker's Party (KWP). Given that Kim Jong-il had himself once headed this department when he began his political ascendancy in the early 1970s, speculation naturally arose that the younger Kim Hyon was being groomed to succeed his father.
However, nothing more has been heard about Kim Hyon, raising doubts about the veracity of Jiji's story.
By early 2003 reports emerged that the Korean People's Army (KPA) had begun a propaganda campaign centering on the personality of Ko Yong-hui - although in typical to North Korean fashion, without actually naming her. A similar campaign had been created for Kim Jong-il's long-deceased mother, Kim Jong-suk, ahead of his succession, and as such, the development points to one of Ko's sons, rather than the bad-behaving and possibility illegitimate Kim Jong-nam or the perceived late entry, Kim-hyon, as the heir-apparent.
Attention naturally turned to the elder of the two brothers, Kim Jong-chol, and Newsweek magazine published a dated and blurred black and white photograph of him during his school days in Switzerland. More recently, though, the emphasis has been on the younger brother, Kim Jong-un (also spelled Kim Jong-woon). The main proponent of this theory is Kim Jong-il's former Japanese sushi chef, Kenji Fujimoto (a pseudonym), who, in his memoir, published in Japan, stated that Kim regards Jong-chol as too effeminate, and Jong-un to be more like his father.
Complicating this complicated picture, however, were reports in October 2003 that Ko Yong-hui had been critically injured in a car accident. Other reports suggested that she was suffering from breast cancer. Her current status is unknown, and any disagreement over the succession could potentially cause problems for the process. Although Ko has no formal role in the process, she presumably wields some influence over Kim Jong-il's decision.
In this regard, Kim Jong-il will be keen to avoid any schisms developing within the ruling family, as happened with his own succession. Kim himself displaced his father's younger brother, Kim Yong-yu, from the position of heir apparent in the early 1970s. Kim Yong-ju subsequently vanished from public life in 1975, and would not reappear until July 1993, only to be appointed one of North Korea's four vice presidents later in that year. This move was said to be aimed at reassuring North Korea's old guard that a massive generational shift would not take place once Kim Jong-il took power.
In addition, it seems that Kim Jong-il had to stave off a challenge from his half-brother, Kim Pyong-il, the oldest son of his hated stepmother, Kim Song-ae. Pyong-il was widely said to have been better leadership material, possessing greater skills and having served as a major general and deputy director of the strategy bureau at the Ministry of People's Security in the 1980s. However, because Kim Jong-il saw him as a rival, and Kim Song-ae favored Pyong-il as successor, he was sent abroad in 1988 as ambassador to Hungary, followed by Bulgaria, Finland, and most recently, Poland, in order to keep him out of Pyongyang politics. Another half-brother, Kim Yong-il, died of cirrhosis of the liver in May 2000 in Germany, where he had been serving as counselor at the North Korean interests office.
Military backing key to smooth succession
One thing that is certain is that whoever succeeds Kim Jong-il will have to win the support of the powerful Korean People's Army. The 1.1 million-strong military is the only institution that can challenge the regime. Indeed, the power and profile of top military leaders has increased substantially under Kim Jong-il, who relies on the armed forces to maintain order and stability in the face of widespread famine and economic decay. While Kim Il-sung was alive, the generals mainly kept out of the limelight. However, senior commanders now accompany Kim Jong-il on virtually all his public appearances, reinforcing the image of a military state.
Kim Jong-il has ruled North Korea exclusively as supreme commander of the army since his father's death in July 1994. Since that time, Kim Jong-il has very skillfully won the backing of the Korean People's Army by waiting for the natural demise of some of the octogenarian veterans of his father's anti-Japanese guerrilla struggle - such as former defense ministers O Jin-u and Choe Kwang - to pass away through natural aging. And he has appointed his own loyalists to key positions. The most important of these are Vice-Marshal Jo Myong-rok, the first vice-chairman of the National Defense Commission (NDC) and head of the KPA's political bureau; Vice-Marshal Kim Yong-chun, the chief of the general staff; and Vice-Marshal Kim Il-chol, the minister of the People's Armed Forces - North Korea's system of defense. More recently, General Ri Myong-Su, the director of the operations bureau of the general staff, and KPA political bureau deputy directors Hyon Chol-Hae and Pak Jae-gyong have gained prominence. These men form the core of Kim Jong-Il's power base in the army.
Kim Jong-il's moves to control the military have been a remarkable success, considering that for many years prior to 1994, it was said that the KPA disliked the Dear Leader so much that it would depose him in a coup immediately after Kim Il-sung left the scene. Kim Pyong-il, with his military background, was often mentioned as a possible military-backed replacement.
However, Great Leader Kim Il-sung gradually phased out senior officers who would pose a threat to his son, Jong-il's succession, and in December 1991 he appointed Jong-il as supreme commander of the army, despite the fact that he had no military experience, except for a brief unconfirmed stint at the East German Air Force Academy in the early 1960s. Kim Jong-il was subsequently elevated to the rank of Marshal of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in April 1992 and then a year later to chairman of the National Defense Commission - a post that he now holds as head of state.
Kim Jong-il has also successfully bound his family to the top ranks of the military structure through his full sister Kim Kyong-hui's husband, Jang Song-taek, who serves as the first vice director of the Korean Workers Party 's organization and guidance department, headed by Kim Jong-il himself. Jang's eldest brother, Jang Song-u, is a KPA vice marshal and commands the Third Army Corps, which surrounds the city of Pyongyang. According to Sin Kyong-wan, a former KWP official, the second-oldest brother, Jang Song-yop, is the vice director of the Kim Il-sung Higher Party School. A younger brother, Jang Song-Gil, is a lieutenant general and tank commander, while the youngest, Jang Song-ho, is a political vice president of the Mangyongdae Revolutionary School - an elite establishment which Kim Jong-il and many top leaders attended.
Kim Jong-il has nurtured the army
In any case, the KPA - which has increased its influence under Kim Jong-il - benefits from his continued rule, adopting a Military First Policy under the banner of "Kangsong Taeguk" - a great and militarily powerful nation. The military's position allows it to guide national policy without having to take administrative blame for North Korea's ongoing economic problems. As such, the KPA has a vested interest in a stable succession, especially since many senior military leaders are developing business interests as heads of military-dominated conglomerates. The largest such enterprise, Chungwoonsan, is headed by Vice Marshal Jo Myong-rok, according to North Korea watcher Selig Harrison.
Although there have been several reports of coup attempts - most notably in 1992, by a group of Soviet-trained perestroika [restructuring]-oriented generals, and again in 1995, by elements of the Sixth Army Corps in remote North Hamgyong province - none has come remotely close to succeeding because of the efficiency of the security apparatus.
There are really only two circumstances in which a military coup would take place. First, if the economy continues to disintegrate, and national survival becomes an issue, "reformist" elements in the Korean People's Army may conclude that North Korea is better off without the Korean Worker's Party and Kim Jong-il. The second scenario involves Kim Jong-il making too many concessions over North Korea's nuclear program to the United States, South Korea, or Japan, and accelerating economic reforms that cause social unrest. The latter situation could lead to a "reactionary" coup of the sort that befell Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in August 1991.
Another reason why a second dynastic succession is likely to be upheld is that it is not just the ruling Kim family that benefits from nepotism and connections. While the predominance of a small number of surnames in Korea (North and South) makes it difficult to track family links, it is known that many top leaders are the sons of the revolutionary generation that fought against Japanese imperialism, or have siblings in high positions. For example, Kim Kuk-tae - a senior KWP central committee secretary in charge of cadre affairs - is the son of general Kim Chaek, who served as the KPA's frontline commander during the Korean War, in which he was killed. General O Kuk-ryol, the head of the central committee's special operations department, is the son of a veteran guerrilla, as is Colonel General O Kum-chol, the commander of the air force.
North Korea's titular head of state, Kim Yong-nam, who serves as president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly (SPA, or legislature), has two brothers in high positions: General Kim Du-nam, a one-time military adviser to Kim Jong-il, and Kim Ki-nam, a senior central committee secretary. Yang Hyong-sop, the vice president of the SPA Presidium, is married to Kim Jong-Il's aunt. Many others benefit from similar ties.
Not a one-man show, a regime of vested interests
Therefore, North Korea, far from being a one-man show, or even a one-family show, is an entire regime bound together by vested interests, under the leadership of Kim Jong-Il. This should make the succession process easier, provided that the identity of the heir is decided upon without causing fractures in the first family or the army.
Assuming that the regime survives - and it has proved remarkably durable, against all odds - it may still be some years before North Korea formally announces the identity of the successor.
Although Kim Jong-Il's political rise began in the early 1970s, when the official media began to speak of the "Party Center" as a code word for Kim, his actual status as heir apparent did not become clear until the Sixth Korean Worker's Party Congress in 1980, when he was appointed to a number of party posts. Yet, it was not until August 7, 1984, that Pyongyang publicly confirmed Kim Jong-il as successor. Even then, it would be another 10 years before his father died, after which Kim would have to wait three years before being appointed to his father's position as general secretary of the KWP. In September 1998, Kim Jong-il formally took power, but he never assumed the state presidency, instead ruling in his existing position as chairman of the National Defense Commission.
Certainly, the signs are that either Kim Jong-chol or Kim Jong-un is being maneuvered into the succession. The latter is even being referred to as the "Morning Star King", according to South Korean Pyongyang watchers. However, the saga is still in its early stages, and Kim Jong-nam cannot be totally ruled out. His status as first-born son carries considerable weight, and the regime has a habit of re-instating disgraced figures after a suitable period of atonement.
In the meantime, there appears to be very little active opposition to the regime. Unlike Iraq under Saddam Hussein, which spawned dozens of opposition groups in exile, North Korean defectors have created only one such group, the National Salvation Front For Democratic Unification of Chosun, led by former KWP propaganda official Pak Kap-dong. However, the organization has proved as ineffective as it is low profile. The nearest thing North Korea has to an exiled opposition leader is Hwang Jang-yop, a former central committee secretary, who defected in February 1997. Hwang was initially welcomed in South Korea under the presidency of Kim Young-sam, but once Kim Dae-jung's "Sunshine Policy" took effect, Hwang was ignored. Hwang still travels to the US, where he addresses neo-conservative groups that welcome his calls for regime change in Pyongyang. But Hwang is 81 years old, and has limited time left to achieve his goals.
As far back as the 1980s, Korean historian Bruce Cumings, when questioning a Soviet diplomat in Pyongyang on the chances of Kim Jong-il succeeding Kim Il-sung, was told "come back in 2020 and see Kim Jong-il's son succeed him".
As of early 2004, that prediction, seemingly unrealistic only a few years ago, no longer sounds so implausible. Check the omens, the stars, the entrails and the tea leaves.
Yoel Sano has worked for publishing houses in London, providing political and economic analysis, and has been following North Korea, as well as other Northeast Asian developments, for more than 10 years.

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

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Libya Nuke Drawings Likely From Pakistan
By GEORGE JAHN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Drawings of a nuclear warhead that Libya surrendered as part of its decision to renounce weapons of mass destruction are of 1960s Chinese design, but likely came from Pakistan, diplomats and experts told The Associated Press on Sunday.
China is widely assumed to have been Pakistan's key supplier of much of the clandestine nuclear technology used to establish Islamabad as a nuclear power in 1998 and resold to rogue regimes through the black market network headed by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
The drawings appeared to be of a design never used by Pakistan, which went on to develop more modern nuclear weapons, said the diplomats and experts, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Still, they said, they were likely supplied by China as part of the decades-long transfer of technology that Khan used to develop Pakistan's nuclear weapons.
One of them called the drawings "dramatic evidence" of the Chinese-Pakistani nuclear link.
Libya surrendered the drawings in December after volunteering to scrap all research into developing weapons of mass destruction. The blueprints and accompanying documents are now in the United States under the seal of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
One of the experts said the drawing detailed how to build a warhead for a large ballistic missile, using technology developed by the Chinese in the 1960s that triggers a nuclear blast by a small conventional explosion.
While the instructions on the drawing were in English, some other documents surrendered by Libya along with the blueprints were in Chinese, he said.
He said that if built, the warhead would have weighed more than 1,000 pounds. That's too bulky for any delivery system the Libyans possessed but not for the ballistic missiles developed by North Korea and Iran, the other nations said to have been supplied by Khan's network.
While there is no evidence either of those countries were supplied with the same or a similar drawing, "it would be a very nice warhead for those countries," said the expert.
North Korea runs a nuclear weapons program using plutonium. But U.S. officials also believe it has a separate program based on enriched uranium, possibly using technology imported from Pakistan. North Korea has denied the allegation.
Iran denies trying to develop nuclear weapons but suspicions persist because it kept secret attempts to enrich uranium for nearly two decades. Although it agreed to open all aspects of its nuclear activities to IAEA perusal late last year, IAEA inspectors recently found designs of advanced enriching equipment it had kept from them.
As well, critics say that Iran is not fully honoring an agreement to suspend uranium enrichment, something denied by Tehran, which says it is interested in the process not to make weapons-grade uranium but to generate nuclear power.
Pakistan - and Khan - became the focus of international investigation on the basis of information Libya and Iran gave the Vienna-based IAEA about where they covertly bought nuclear technology that can be used to make weapons.
In the nuclear procurement chain that Khan has confessed to heading, hundreds of millions of dollars are thought to have changed hands over the past 15 years with key middlemen positioned in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Former nuclear weapons inspector David Albright said it was his understanding that the drawings found in Libya were "way beyond anything in the public domain" as far as building a warhead were concerned.
President Bush called the leaders of Russia and Italy on the weekend to discuss how to check the spread of dangerous weapons and keep them away from terrorists.
Bush, who last week proposed new ways to halt the illicit nuclear trade, also devoted his radio address to the issue of weapons of mass destruction, telling the American people that "the possibility of secret and sudden attack" with such arms "is the greatest threat before humanity today."

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>> 9/11 WATCH...

Stewardess ID'd Hijackers Early, Transcripts Show
by Gail Sheehy

Hearing the taped voice of a courageous flight attendant as she calmly narrated the doomed course of American Airlines Flight 11 brought it all back. The frozen horror of that September morning two and a half years ago. The unanswered questions. Betty Ong narrated that first hijacking right up to the moment that Mohamed Atta drove the Boeing 767 into the north tower of the World Trade Center.
Twenty-three minutes into her blow-by-blow account, Ong's voice abruptly ceased. "What's going on, Betty?" asked her ground contact, Nydia Gonzalez. "Betty, talk to me. I think we might have lost her."
Emotional catharsis, yes. There was scarcely a dry eye in the Senate hearing room where 10 commissioners are probing the myriad failures of our nation's defenses and response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. But answers? Not many. The most shocking evidence remains hidden in plain sight.
The politically divided 9/11 commission was able to agree on a public airing of four and a half minutes from the Betty Ong tape, which the American public and most of the victims' families heard for the first time on the evening news of Jan. 27. But commissioners were unaware of the crucial information given in an even more revealing phone call, made by another heroic flight attendant on the same plane, Madeline (Amy) Sweeney. They were unaware because their chief of staff, Philip Zelikow, chooses which evidence and witnesses to bring to their attention. Mr. Zelikow, as a former adviser to the pre-9/11 Bush administration, has a blatant conflict.
"My wife's call was the first specific information the airline and the government got that day," said Mike Sweeney, the widowed husband of Amy Sweeney, who went face to face with the hijackers on Flight 11. She gave seat locations and physical descriptions of the hijackers, which allowed officials to identify them as Middle Eastern men--by name--even before the first crash. She gave officials key clues to the fact that this was not a traditional hijacking. And she gave the first and only eyewitness account of a bomb on board.
"How do you know it's a bomb?" asked her phone contact.
"Because the hijackers showed me a bomb," Sweeney said, describing its yellow and red wires.
Sweeney's first call from the plane was at 7:11 a.m. on Sept. 11--the only call in which she displayed emotional upset. Flight 11 was delayed, and she seized the few moments to call home in hopes of talking to her 5-year-old daughter, Anna, to say how sorry she was not to be there to put her on the bus to kindergarten. Ms. Sweeney's son Jack had been born several months premature, and she had taken the maximum time off over the previous summer to be with her children. "But she had to go back that fall, to hold the Boston-to-L.A. trip," explained her husband.
American's Flight 11 took off from Logan Airport in Boston at 7:59 a.m. By 8:14 a.m., the F.A.A. controller following that flight from a facility in Nashua, N.H., already knew it was missing; its transponder had been turned off, and the controller couldn't get a response from the pilots. The air-traffic controller contacted the pilot of United Airlines Flight 175, which at 8:14 also left Boston's Logan bound for California, and asked for his help in locating Flight 11.
Sweeney slid into a passenger seat in the next-to-last row of coach and used an Airfone to call American Airlines Flight Service at Boston's Logan airport. "This is Amy Sweeney," she reported. "I'm on Flight 11--this plane has been hijacked." She was disconnected. She called back: "Listen to me, and listen to me very carefully." Within seconds, her befuddled respondent was replaced by a voice she knew.
"Amy, this is Michael Woodward." The American Airlines flight service manager had been friends with Sweeney for a decade, so he didn't have to waste any time verifying that this wasn't a hoax. "Michael, this plane has been hijacked," Ms. Sweeney repeated. Calmly, she gave him the seat locations of three of the hijackers: 9D, 9G and 10B. She said they were all of Middle Eastern descent, and one spoke English very well.
Mr. Woodward ordered a colleague to punch up those seat locations on the computer. At least 20 minutes before the plane crashed, the airline had the names, addresses, phone numbers and credit cards of three of the five hijackers. They knew that 9G was Abdulaziz al-Omari, 10B was Satam al-Suqami, and 9D was Mohamed Atta--the ringleader of the 9/11 terrorists.
"The nightmare began before the first plane crashed," said Mike Sweeney, "because once my wife gave the seat numbers of the hijackers and Michael Woodward pulled up the passenger information, Mohamed Atta's name was out there. They had to know what they were up against."
Mr. Woodward was simultaneously passing on Sweeney's information to American's headquarters in Dallas-Fort Worth. There was no taping facility in his office, because the most acute emergency normally fielded by a flight service manager would be a call from a crew member faced with 12 passengers in first class and only eight meals. So Mr. Woodward was furiously taking notes.
Amy Sweeney's account alerted the airline that something extraordinary was occurring. She told Mr. Woodward she didn't believe the pilots were flying the plane any longer. She couldn't contact the cockpit. Sweeney may have ventured forward to business class, because she relayed the alarming news to Betty Ong, who was sitting in the rear jump-seat. In professional lingo, she said: "Our No. 1 has been stabbed," referring to a violent attack on the plane's purser, "also No. 5," another flight attendant. She also reported that the passenger in 9B had had his throat slit by the hijacker sitting behind him and appeared to be dead. Betty Ong relayed this information to Nydia Gonzalez, a reservations manager in North Carolina, who simultaneously held another phone to her ear with an open line to American Airlines official Craig Marquis at the company's Dallas headquarters.
The fact that the hijackers initiated their takeover by killing a passenger and stabbing two crew members had to be the first tip-off that this was anything but a standard hijacking. "I don't recall any flight crew or passenger being harmed during a hijacking in the course of my career," said Peg Ogonowski, a senior flight attendant who has flown with American for 28 years.
Betty Ong and Amy Sweeney also reported that the hijackers had used mace or pepper spray and that passengers in business class were unable to breathe. Another dazzling clue to the hijackers' having a unique and violent intent came in Betty Ong's earliest report: "The cockpit is not answering their phone. We can't get into the cockpit. We don't know who's up there."
A male colleague of Ms. Gonzalez then comes on the line and makes the infuriating observation: "Well, if they were shrewd, they'd keep the door closed. Would they not maintain a sterile cockpit?"
To which Ong replied: "I think the guys are up there."
Ms. Sweeney told her ground contact that the plane had radically changed direction; it was flying erratically and was in rapid descent. Mr. Woodward asked her to look out the window--what did she see?
"I see water. I see buildings. We're flying low, we're flying way too low," Sweeney replied, according to the notes taken by Mr. Woodward. Sweeney then took a deep breath and gasped, "Oh, my God."
At 8:46 a.m., Mr. Woodward lost contact with Amy Sweeney--the moment of metamorphosis, when her plane became a missile guided into the tower holding thousands of unsuspecting civilians. "So sometime between 8:30 and 8:46, American must have known that the hijacking was connected to Al Qaeda," said Mike Sweeney. That would be 16 to 32 minutes before the second plane perforated the south tower.
Would American Airlines officials monitoring the Sweeney and Woodward dialogue have known right away that Mohamed Atta was connected to Al Qaeda?
"The answer is probably yes," said 9/11 commission member Bob Kerrey, "but it seems to me that the weakness here, in running up to pre-9/11, is an unwillingness to believe that the United States of America could be attacked. Then you're not putting defensive mechanisms in place. You're not trying to screen out people with connections to Islamic extremist groups."
Peg Ogonowski, the widow of Flight 11's captain, John Ogonowski, knew both Betty and Amy very well. "They had to know they were dealing with zealots," she said. "The words `Middle Eastern hijackers' would put a chill in any flight-crew member's heart. They were unpredictable; you couldn't reason with them."
Ms. Ogonowski knew this from her nearly three decades of experience as a flight attendant for American. She and her husband had dreamt of the time in the not-so-distant future when their teenage children would be old enough that the couple could work the same flight to Europe and enjoy layovers in London and Paris together. She had been scheduled to fly Flight 11 on Sept. 13. After Sept. 11, she imagined herself in Sweeney's shoes: "When Amy picked up the phone--she was mother of two very young children--she had to know that, at that point, she might be being observed by another hijacker sitting in a passenger seat who would put a bullet through her head. What she did was incredibly brave."
How, then, could the commission have missed--or ignored--crucial facts that this very first of the first responders communicated to officials on that fateful day?
"It seems amazing to me that they didn't know," said Mrs. Ogonowski. "The state of Massachusetts has an award in Amy Sweeney's name for civilian bravery." The first recipients were John Ogonowski and Betty Ong. A full-court ceremony was held on Sept. 11, 2002, in Faneuil Hall in Boston, with Senators Kennedy and Kerrey and the state's whole political establishment in attendance.
Even the F.B.I. has recognized Amy Sweeney by bestowing on her its highest civilian honor, the Director's Award for Exceptional Public Service. "Mrs. Sweeney is immeasurably deserving of recognition for her heroic, unselfish and professional manner in which she lived the last moments of her life," according to the F.B.I.
What her husband wants to know is this: "When and how was this information about the hijackers used? Were Amy's last moments put to the best use to protect and save others?"
"We know what she said from notes, and the government has them," said Mary Schiavo, the formidable former Inspector General of the Department of Transportation, whose nickname among aviation officials was "Scary Mary." Ms. Schiavo sat in on the commission's hearing on aviation security on 9/11 and was disgusted by what it left out. "In any other situation, it would be unthinkable to withhold investigative material from an independent commission," she told this writer. "There are usually grave consequences. But the commission is clearly not talking to everybody or not telling us everything."
This is hardly the only evidence hiding in plain sight.
The captain of American's Flight 11 stayed at the controls much of the diverted way from Boston to New York, sending surreptitious radio transmissions to authorities on the ground. Captain John Ogonowski was a strong and burly man with the instincts of a fighter pilot who had survived Vietnam. He gave extraordinary access to the drama inside his cockpit by triggering a "push-to-talk button" on the aircraft's yoke (or wheel). "The button was being pushed intermittently most of the way to New York," an F.A.A. air-traffic controller told The Christian Science Monitor the day after the catastrophe. "He wanted us to know something was wrong. When he pushed the button and the terrorist spoke, we knew there was this voice that was threatening the pilot, and it was clearly threatening."
According to a timeline later adjusted by the F.A.A., Flight 11's transponder was turned off at 8:20 a.m., only 21 minutes after takeoff. (Even before that, by probably a minute or so, Amy Sweeney began her report to American's operations center at Logan.) The plane turned south toward New York, and more than one F.A.A. controller heard a transmission with an ominous statement by a terrorist in the background, saying, "We have more planes. We have other planes." During these transmissions, the pilot's voice and the heavily accented voice of a hijacker were clearly audible, according to two controllers. All of it was recorded by a F.A.A. traffic-control center in Nashua, N.H. According to the reporter, Mark Clayton, the federal law-enforcement officers arrived at the F.A.A. facility shortly after the World Trade Center attack and took the tape.
To this writer's knowledge, there has been no public mention of the pilot's narrative since the news report on Sept. 12, 2001. Families of the flight crew have only heard about it, but when Peg Ogonowski asked American Airlines to let her hear it, she never heard back. Their F.A.A. superiors forbade the controllers to talk to anyone else.

Has the F.B.I. turned this critical tape over to the commission?

At the commission's January panel on aviation security, two rows of gray suits filled the back of the hearing room. They were not inspectors general of any of the government agencies called to testify. In fact, said Mary Schiavo, there is no entity within the administration pushing any consequences. The gray suits were all attorneys for the airlines, hovering around while the big bosses from American and United gave their utterly unrevealing testimonies.
Robert Bonner, the head of Customs and Border Protection, finally shot back at the panel with a startling boast.
"We ran passenger manifests through the system used by Customs--two were hits on our watch list of August 2001," Mr. Bonner testified. "And by looking at the Arab names and their seat locations, ticket purchases and other passenger information, it didn't take a lot to do a rudimentary link analysis. Customs officers were able to ID 19 probable hijackers within 45 minutes."
He meant 45 minutes after four planes had been hijacked and turned into missiles. "I saw the sheet by 11 a.m.," he said, adding proudly, "And that analysis did indeed correctly identify the terrorists."
How has American Airlines responded? According to the widower Mike Sweeney, "Ever since Sept. 11, AMR [the parent company of American Airlines] just wants to forget this whole thing happened. They wouldn't allow me to talk to Michael Woodward, and five months or so: they let him go." The Families Steering Committee urged the commission to interview Michael Woodward about the Sweeney information, as did Ms. Ong's brother, Harry Ong. A couple of days before the hearing on aviation security, a staffer did call Mr. Woodward and ask a few questions. But the explosive narrative offered by Amy Sweeney in her last 23 minutes of life was not included in the 9/11 commission's hearing on aviation security.
The timeline that is most disturbing belongs to the last of the four suicide missions--United Airlines Flight 93, later presumed destined for the U.S. Capitol, if not the White House. Huge discrepancies persist in basic facts, such as when it crashed into the Pennsylvania countryside near Shanksville. The official impact time according to NORAD, the North American Air Defense Command, is 10:03 a.m. Later, U.S. Army seismograph data gave the impact time as 10:06:05. The F.A.A. gives a crash time of 10:07 a.m. And The New York Times, drawing on flight controllers in more than one F.A.A. facility, put the time at 10:10 a.m.
Up to a seven-minute discrepancy? In terms of an air disaster, seven minutes is close to an eternity. The way our nation has historically treated any airline tragedy is to pair up recordings from the cockpit and air-traffic control and parse the timeline down to the hundredths of a second. But as Mary Schiavo points out, "We don't have an NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) investigation here, and they ordinarily dissect the timeline to the thousandth of a second."
Even more curious: The F.A.A. states that it established an open phone line with NORAD to discuss both American Airlines Flight 77 (headed for the Pentagon) and United's Flight 93. If true, NORAD had as many as 50 minutes to order fighter jets to intercept Flight 93 in its path toward Washington, D.C. But NORAD's official timeline claims that F.A.A. notification to NORAD on United Airlines Flight 93 is "not available." Why isn't it available?
Asked when NORAD gave an order for fighter planes to scramble in response to United's Flight 93, the air-defense agency notes only that F-16's were already airborne from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia to intercept American's Flight 77. The latter jet heaved into the Pentagon at either 9:40 a.m. (according to the F.A.A.) or at 9:38 a.m. (according to NORAD). Although the F-16's weren't in the skies over Washington until 9:49, the question is: Did they continue flying north in an attempt to deter the last of the four hijacked jets? The distance was only 129 miles.
The independent commission is in a position to demand such answers, and many more. Have any weapons been recovered from any of the four downed planes? If not, why should the panel assume they were "less-than-four-inch knives," the description repeatedly used in the commission's hearing on aviation security? Remember the airlines' first reports, that the whole job was pulled off with box cutters? In fact, investigators for the commission found that box cutters were reported on only one plane. In any case, box cutters were considered straight razors and were always illegal. Thus the airlines switched their story and produced a snap-open knife of less than four inches at the hearing. This weapon falls conveniently within the aviation-security guidelines pre-9/11.
But bombs? Mace or pepper spray? Gas masks? The F.B.I. dropped the clue that the hijackers had "masks" in a meeting with the Four Moms from New Jersey, the 9/11 widows who rallied for this independent commission.
The Moms want to know if investigators have looked into how the pilots were actually disabled. To think that eight pilots--four of whom were formerly in the military, some with combat experience in Vietnam, and all of whom were in superb physical shape--could have been subdued without a fight or so much as a sound stretches the imagination. Even giving the terrorists credit for a militarily disciplined act of war, it is rare for everything to go right in four separate battles.
Shouldn't the families and the American people know whether or not our government took action to prevent the second attack planned for the command-and-control center in Washington?
Melody Homer is another young widow of a 9/11 pilot. Her husband, LeRoy Homer, a muscular former Air Force pilot, was the first officer of United's Flight 93. The story put out by United--of heroic passengers invading the cockpit and struggling with the terrorists--is not believable to Melody Homer or to Sandy Dahl, widow of the plane's captain, Jason Dahl. Mrs. Dahl was a working flight attendant with United and knew the configuration of that 757 like the back of her hand.
"We can't imagine that passengers were able to get a cart out of its locked berth and push it down the single aisle and jam it into the cockpit with four strong, violent men behind the door," said Ms. Homer. She believes that the victims' family members who broke a confidentiality agreement and gave their interpretation of sounds they'd heard on the cockpit tape misinterpreted the shattering of china. "When a plane goes erratic, china falls."
Now, the most disturbing disconnect of all: The F.A.A. and NORAD had at least 42 minutes to decide what to do about Flight 93. What really happened?
At 9:30 a.m., six minutes after receiving orders from NORAD, three F-16's were airborne, according to NORAD's timeline. At first, the planes were directed toward New York and probably reached 600 miles per hour within two minutes, said Maj. Gen. Mike J. Haugen, adjutant general of the North Dakota National Guard. Once it was apparent that the New York suicide missions were accomplished, the Virginia-based fighters were given a new flight target: Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. The pilots heard an ominous squawk over the plane's transponder, a code that indicates almost an emergency wartime footing. General Haugen says the F-16's were asked to confirm that the Pentagon was on fire. The lead flier looked down and verified the worst.
Then the pilots received the most surreal order of the morning, from a voice identifying itself as a representative of the Secret Service. According to General Haugen, the voice said: "I want you to protect the White House at all costs."
During that time, Vice President Richard Cheney called President George W. Bush to urge him to give the order that any other commercial airliners controlled by hijackers be shot down. In Bob Woodward's book, Bush at War, the time of Mr. Cheney's call was placed before 10 a.m. The Vice President explained to the President that a hijacked airliner was a weapon; even if the airliner was full of civilians, Mr. Cheney insisted, giving American fighter pilots the authority to fire on it was "the only practical answer."
The President responded, according to Mr. Woodward, "You bet."
Defense officials told CNN on Sept. 16, 2001, that Mr. Bush had not given authorization to the Defense Department to shoot down a passenger airliner "until after the Pentagon had been struck."
So what happened in the period between just before 10:00 a.m. and 10:03 (or 10:06, or 10:07)--when, at some point, the United jet crashed in a field in Pennsylvania? Did the President act on Mr. Cheney's advice and order the last and potentially most devastating of airborne missiles brought down before it reached the Capitol? Did Mr. Cheney act on the President's O.K.? Did a U.S. fighter shoot down Flight 93? And why all the secrecy surrounding that last flight?
Melody Homer, the wife of Flight 93's first officer, was at home in Marlton, N.J., the morning of Sept. 11 with their 10-month-old child. Within minutes of seeing the second plane turn into a fireball, Ms. Homer called the Flight Operations Center at John F. Kennedy International Airport, which keeps track of all New York-based pilots. She was told that her husband's flight was fine.
"Whether or not my husband's plane was shot down," the widowed Mrs. Homer said, "the most angering part is reading about how the President handled this."
Mr. Bush was notified 14 minutes after the first attack, at 9 a.m., when he arrived at an elementary school in Sarasota, Fla. He went into a private room and spoke by phone with his national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, and glanced at a TV in the room. Mrs. Homer's soft voice curdles when she describes his reaction: "I can't get over what Bush said when he was called about the first plane hitting the tower: `That's some bad pilot.' Why did people on the street assume right away it was a terrorist hijacking, but our President didn't know? Why did it take so long to ground all civilian aircraft? In the time between when my husband's plane took off [at 8:41 a.m.] and when the second plane hit in New York [9:02 a.m.], they could have turned back to airfield."

In fact, the pilots of Flight 93 are seldom mentioned in news reports--only the 40 passengers. And Mrs. Homer says that hurts. "My husband fought for his country in the Persian Gulf War, and he would have seen his role that day as the same thing--fighting for his country. It's my belief, based on what I've been told by people affiliated with the Air Force, that at least one of the pilots was very instrumental in the outcome of that flight. I do believe the hijackers may have taken it down. But stalling the impetus of the plane so it didn't make it to the Capitol or the White House--that was one of the pilots."
Melody LeRoy later learned from a member of the Air Force who worked with her husband that "a couple of weeks before the incident, they were all sitting around and talking about the intelligence that was filtering through the military that something big was going to happen. For all of this to get ignored," she said as she swallowed a sob, "it's difficult to excuse that."
John Lehman, former Secretary of the Navy and one of the most active interrogators among the commissioners, was told of some of the issues raised in this article. "These are exactly the right questions," he said. "We have to put all these details together and then figure out what went wrong. Who didn't do their job? Not just what was wrong with the existing system, but human beings."
After 14 months of watching while commissioners politely negotiated with a White House that has used every known ruse and invented some new ones to evade, withhold and play peekaboo with the commissioners, the Four Moms and their Families Steering Committee feel frustrated almost to the boiling point.
Who is going to take a long, hard look at the policy failures and the failures of leadership? This seems to be where some members of the 9/11 commission are heading. Commission member Jamie Gorelick, winding up after the two-day hearings in January, said she was "amazed and shocked at how every agency defines its responsibility by leaving out the hard part." She blasted the F.A.A. for ducking any responsibility for the prevention of terrorism. "We saw the same attitude in the F.B.I. and C.I.A.--not to use common sense to evaluate a mission and say what works and what doesn't."
Finally, Ms. Gorelick addressed a pointed question to James Loy, the deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, the vast, Brobdingnagian bureaucracy which now lashes together 22 federal agencies that didn't talk to one another before the terrorist attacks.
"Who is responsible for driving the strategy to defeat Al Qaeda and holding people accountable for carrying it out?" Ms. Gorelick demanded.
"The President is the guy," said Mr. Loy. "And the person next to the President, who is the national security advisor."
The widows are furious that Dr. Rice was allowed to be interviewed in private and has not agreed--nor been subpoenaed--to give her testimony, under oath, before the American people.
When 9/11 commission chairman Tom Kean gave his sobering assessment last December that the 9/11 attacks could have been prevented, the Bush White House saw the bipartisan panel spinning out of its control. In the President's damage-control interview with NBC's Tim Russert last weekend, Mr. Bush was clearly still unwilling to submit to questioning by the 9/11 commission. "Perhaps, perhaps," was his negotiating stance.
Asked why he was appointing yet another commission--this one to quell the uproar over why we attacked Iraq to save ourselves from Saddam's mythical W.M.D.--the President said, "This is a strategic look, kind of a big-picture look about the intelligence-gathering capacities of the United States of America .... Congress has got the capacity to look at the intelligence-gathering without giving away state secrets, and I look forward to all the investigations and looks."
Congress has already given him a big-picture look--in a scathing 900-page report by the joint House and Senate inquiry into the intelligence failures pre-9/11. But the Bush administration doesn't look at what it doesn't want to see.
"It is incomprehensible why this administration has refused to aggressively pursue the leads that our inquiry developed," fumes Senator Bob Graham, the former co-chairman of the inquiry, which ended in 2003. The Bush White House has ignored all but one or two of the joint inquiry's 19 urgent recommendations to make the nation safer against the next attempted terrorist attack. The White House also allowed large portions of the inquiry's final report to be censored (redacted), claiming national security, so that even some members of the current 9/11 commission--whose mandate was to build on the work of the congressional panel--cannot read the evidence.
Senator Graham snorted, "It's absurd."
You may reach Gail Sheehy via email at: gsheehy@observer.com.

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Health Care Spending Said $1.7 Trillion
By MARK SHERMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Health Care Spending Said $1.7 Trillion
WASHINGTON (AP) - Health care spending in the United States grew to an estimated $1.7 trillion in 2003 - more than $5,800 for every American - but the pace of growth was slower than in recent years.
Health care also for the first time was projected to make up more than 15 percent of the national economy last year, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Wednesday.
Government spending on Medicaid and Medicare increased last year, but more slowly than in 2002, helping contain the estimated overall increase in spending, CMS said.
The CMS report, released on the Web site of the journal Health Affairs, said that health care spending grew a projected 7.8 percent in 2003, down from 9.3 percent in 2002.
Health care spending, however, is projected to outpace growth in the rest of the economy for the next 10 years, CMS said. By 2013, annual spending on health is expected to reach $3.4 trillion and be more than 18 percent of gross domestic product.
The projections did not include the anticipated effects of the new Medicare prescription drug law, which will offer seniors prescription drug coverage beginning in 2006. CMS officials said they expect a shift in who pays prescription drug bills rather than a significant increase in spending on drugs.
"Our story, with or without the legislation, doesn't change much," said Stephen Heffler, CMS' deputy chief actuary and lead author of the report.
Prescription drug spending, however, will continue to outpace the rest of health care for the next 10 years, Heffler said at a conference about the report.
Dan Crippen, the former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said that huge changes in health care spending lie just beyond 2013, the end of the period covered in the report, when Baby Boomers start reaching retirement age.
"It will be the beginning of something we haven't seen before," Crippen said.

On the Net:

Health care spending projections: http://www.cms.hhs.gov/statistics/nhe

Health Affairs: http://www.healthaffairs.org

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Universe's Most Distant Known Object Seen
By ANDREW BRIDGES
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) -
In a discovery that offers a rare glimpse back to when the universe was just 750 million years old, a team of astrophysicists said Sunday they have detected a tiny galaxy that is the farthest known object from Earth.
"We are confident it is the most distant known object," California Institute of Technology astronomer Richard Ellis said of the galaxy, which lies roughly 13 billion light-years from Earth.
The team uncovered the faint galaxy using two of the most powerful telescopes - one in space, the other in Hawaii - aided by the natural magnification provided by a massive cluster of galaxies. The gravitational tug of the cluster, called Abell 2218, deflects the light of the distant galaxy and magnifies it many times over.
The magnification process, first proposed by Albert Einstein and known as "gravitational lensing," produces double images of the galaxy.
"Without the magnification of 25 afforded by the foreground cluster, this early object could simply not have been identified or studied in any detail with presently available telescopes," said astronomer Jean-Paul Kneib, of Caltech and the Observatoire Midi-Pyrenees in France.
The discovery gives a rare glimpse of the time when the first stars and galaxies began to blink on, ending a period that cosmologists call the Dark Ages, said Robert Kirshner, an astronomer with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass.
"The possibility is here we really are beginning to peek into that time," said Kirshner, who was not connected with the discovery. "People have gone there in their imagination - they've thought about it. Now we are getting the facts."
The Hubble Space Telescope revealed the first glimpse of the galaxy, backed up by observations made with the Keck Observatory's 10-meter telescopes atop Mauna Kea.
The galaxy is just 2,000 light-years across. That's far smaller than the Milky Way, which is roughly 100,000 light-years in diameter.
Cosmologists have predicted that early galaxies contained stars that were different from the ones that came into being much later in the history of the universe. But the astrophysicists' analysis suggests that the type of massive stars the galaxy contains were common after the end of the Dark Ages, Ellis said.
"That's very interesting if it's true," Kirshner said.
No one knows how long the Dark Ages lasted in the wake of the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago.
Word of the discovery came during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle. Further details appear in a forthcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal.
On the Net:
http://www.caltech.edu
http://www2.keck.hawaii.edu/
http://hubblesite.org/
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>> DR. STRANGELOVE CONTINUED...LONDON CALLING?

Briton Key Suspect in Nuclear Ring
Man accused of smuggling parts tells Guardian: 'I was framed'.
By Guardian Newspapers, 2/11/2004
A Middle East-based British businessman has emerged as a key suspect in a secret network supplying Libya, Iran and North Korea with equipment to build nuclear bombs.
Speaking for the first time yesterday, Paul Griffin denied that his company played any part in shipping prohibited material from the Far East.
He told the Guardian: "We have been framed."
His comments came as diplomatic sources and nuclear experts around the world stepped up their warnings of a growing proliferation crisis as atomic technology and expertise is increasingly traded on the black market.
Regulators have warned of a dangerous illegal "supermarket" in atomic know-how, spanning five countries.
Last night President George Bush added his voice to the growing chorus of alarm. He talked of the threat of black market dealers motivated by "greed, or fanaticism, or both".
For the first time Mr Bush publicly accused Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, of being at the centre of a network supplying North Korea with the centrifuge technology that is needed to make highly enriched uranium for atomic bombs.
The names of individuals and companies supposedly involved in Dr Khan's clandestine network - including that of Mr Griffin - have been leaking slowly into the public domain. The US authorities have named a Dubai-based Sri Lankan businessman, BSA Tahir, as a key middle man in the nuclear proliferation network.
Mr Bush last night named Mr Tahir as Dr Khan's deputy and said he ran SMB computers, a business in Dubai. "Tahir used that computer company as a front for the proliferation activities of the AQ Khan network. Tahir ... was also its shipping agent, using his computer firm as cover for the movement of centrifuge parts to various clients."
The CIA director, George Tenet, last week named a Malaysian company, Scomi Precision Engineering, as the firm that manufactured 14 components for a nuclear centrifuge dispatched to Libya last year. The equipment was seized in a high-security operation in October when the container vessel carrying it, the German-owned BBC China, entered the Mediterranean. Intelligence agents persuaded the owners to divert the ship to the southern Italian port of Taranto, where the material was confiscated.
Pleading that it thought the components were destined for the oil or gas industry, Scomi in turn named British-owned and Dubai-based Gulf Technical Industries (GTI) as the company which placed the order.
GTI, which was established in 2000, is run by Mr Griffin and his father, Peter. Its registration form with the Dubai Chamber of Trade and Commerce describes it as trading in "pumps, engines, valves and spare parts". It is listed on another Middle East website as a steel trading company.
"The allegations are totally untrue," Mr Griffin told the Guardian from Dubai. "We trade in engineering products. The first I knew about the press release [from Scomi] was when I was telephoned about it at 7.15am on Tuesday.
"I was asked whether we had really bought $3.5m of equipment from Malaysia.
"It's total nonsense, rubbish. I'm trying to find out myself what [is supposed to have been going on]. I have approached the Malaysian consulate to find out how everything happened. I haven't bought anything from Malaysia at all.
"If I was going to buy high precision parts I would order them from Europe; you know what you are getting from there. I would notice if I had brought some precision-engineered parts. They are not something you go pick up at a supermarket."
Mr Griffin, 40, and originally from south Wales, said he had met Mr Tahir when GTI bought some computers from his company last year. GTI had also asked him to sort out a computer virus on his system. "That was it," Mr Griffin said.
Asked whether he knew Dr Khan, the metallurgist, Mr Griffin said that he had, coincidentally, met him at a wedding in Pakistan "about 18 years ago".
He added: "I went to a friend's wedding and he [Khan] was the local dignitary. I was introduced to him.
"I have never met him in Dubai or since then. I don't even know where he lives. I haven't had any [other] contact with him.
"If we were anything to do with [this smuggling], I would have thought British or US intelligence would have contacted me. The British embassy know me here. I haven't been contacted by the authorities here. If I was doing something dodgy, I would have been picked up."
The bill of lading with the German company, BBC Chartering and Logistic, which owned the BBC China, would show he had nothing to do with the centrifuge order, he said. "They have promised to send me the documentation. They told me they had never heard of us. It's all a mystery. The last time I saw Tahir was eight months ago. These allegations are all a load of bullshit." Mr Griffin, who has lived in Dubai on and off since 1986, said his father, Peter, had now retired to Paris. GTI was still tendering for work with the oil industry in the region.
GTI's registered office is in a low-rise building at the side of the eight-lane Sheikh Zayed Highway on the way to the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi.
On the ground floor, House of Cars sells four-wheel-drives to expatriates and Jebal Arafat Tailors caters to the Arab residents of the building.
Yesterday, the office smelled of paint and appeared to be in the process of being re-let. Mr Griffin lives in a single-storey villa in the smart Jumeirah area of the city, surrounded by palm trees. He told the Guardian his company had moved premises.
Malaysian security authorities said they did not know the whereabouts of Mr Tahir, who allegedly ordered the centrifuge parts from Scomi Precision Engineering, which is controlled by the son of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi. A centrifuge is used to concentrate, or enrich, radioactive material. A police spokesman said investigators were keen to speak to him. "He is a crucial part of our ongoing investigation so we are keen to talk to him but we have yet to locate him," the spokesman said.
Mr Bush said that Mr Tahir, who has a Malaysian wife, "is in Malaysia, where authorities are investigating his activities".
Western diplomatic sources in Kuala Lumpur say they would like to see the investigation intensified but in reality it is losing momentum because Scomi has been cleared of any wrongdoing by Malaysian police. A police spokesman said: "Our investigation is still ongoing and we want to get to the bottom of the matter."
The Malaysian police chief, Mohd Bakri Omar, on Sunday absolved Scomi of any participation in the nuclear weapons trade. "So far, no wrongdoing has been committed," he said.
Scomi is continuing its operations. It insists it believed it was making equipment for the oil and gas industry.
A Scomi factory manager, Che Lokman Che Omar, told reporters during a tour of the site last week that the case was being blown out of proportion.
"It is not difficult to make," he said. "It could be one of thousands of parts used by the oil and gas industry. In fact, we have made more complex and difficult parts before." In its latest statement Scomi said it was making "generic items", not "sensitive parts" and that it "never knowingly manufactured" nuclear weapons parts.
The Foreign Office declined to comment about the allegations against GTI or Mr Griffin.
Investigators at the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency probing nuclear trafficking networks in at least a dozen countries believe Dubai is the centre for traders and middlemen running the black market.
The Americans hailed the seizure of the BBC China as a triumph for US intelligence that helped to persuade Colonel Muammar Gadafy of Libya to renounce his weapons of mass destruction pro grammes under the deal announced in December.
Other informed sources are convinced that, in fact, the boat was seized after the Libyans informed the CIA about it.
BBC Chartering and Logistic GmbH, the shipping company based at Leer in northern Germany which owns the BBC China, said: "This was a regular container transport from Dubai to Libya. We were surprised by the visits from the secret service and the [German] economics ministry. We're not involved at all in this story."
Rolf Briese, the company's managing director, said: "This is not so simple. We've made a declaration to the economic ministry and we have an agreement not to give any more information about it."
Investigation sources say the shipping company has been cleared of any suspicion in the incident and the BBC China is plying its business as usual.
While the IAEA investigators were denied access to the material on the BBC China by the Americans, the agency's inspectors found similar equipment in Libya during a visit in December.
According to diplomats in Vienna, the equipment bore stickers bearing the name KRL, referring to Khan Research Laboratories, the facility south of Islamabad at the heart of the Pakistani bomb project and named after Dr Khan.
The stickers found on the equipment in Libya explain why Dr Mohammed ElBaradei, the IAEA head, has taken to describing the clandestine nuclear trade as a "supermarket."
The disclosure of Dr Khan's smuggling network has been punctuated by heated claims and counter-claims about whether US and western intelligence agencies penetrated the hidden trade or completely missed its significance.

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PDF...http://announcements.klse.com.my/EDMS/subweb.nsf/7f04516f8098680348256c6f0017a6bf/e8cf4ae8af7e164748256d09000df628/$FILE/ATT4F3GQ/Scomi-Info%20On%20ScomiGrp%20I%20(560KB).pdf

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5 Februari 2004
Kenyataan Akhbar Ketua Polis Negara berkaitan tuduhan penglibatan Malaysia dalam membekalkan 'uranium centrifuge components' kepada Libya
Kenyataan akhbar ini adalah bertujuan untuk menjelaskan beberapa persoalan dan kekeliruan yang melibatkan Malaysia berpunca daripada berita-berita media asing berkaitan peranan seorang pakar senjata nuklear dari Pakistan. Pada 10 November 2003, pihak CIA dan M16 telah memaklumkan kepada Cawangan Khas perkara-perkara berikut:-
Bahawa BSA Tahir, seorang rakyat Sri Lanka dan ahli perniagaan yang berpengkalan di Dubai terlibat sebagai orang tengah atau 'middleman' dalam pembekalan komponen-komponen tertentu 'centrifuge' dari Malaysia untuk 'uranium-enrichment programme' oleh Libya; dan
Bahawa pada 4 Oktober 2003, sebuah kapal iaitu BBC China telah diperiksa di Pelabuhan Taranto, Itali di mana sejumlah lima kontena untuk Libya telah dirampas kerana dikatakan mengandungi sebilangan komponen-komponen 'centrifuge'. Komponen-komponen tersebut dikatakan diletakkan dalam kotak-kotak kayu yang mempunyai tanda nama Scomi Precision Engineering Sdn. Bhd. (SCOPE). SCOPE adalah anak syarikat kepada Scomi Group Bhd.
Berasaskan maklumat ini satu siasatan yang rapi telah dijalankan oleh pihak polis ke atas penglibatan BSA Tahir dan juga pihak SCOPE. Siasatan awal mendedahkan bahawa:
Sekitar tahun 2001, BSA Tahir telah menawarkan satu kontrak kepada SCOPE untuk menyediakan komponen yang dikatakannya adalah satu urusniaga yang 'legitimate'; dan
Pihak SCOPE telah menerima tawaran tersebut dan untuk menghasilkan komponen ini sebuah kilang telah didirikan di Shah Alam. Siasatan awal juga menunjukkan bahawa komponen 'centrifuge' yang dirampas daripada kapal BBC China juga boleh digunakan untuk alat-alat 'petro-chemical', 'water treatment' dan kegunaan kesihatan seperti 'molecular biology for protein separation'. Malahan pakar-pakar dalam bidang nuklear juga mendapati sukar untuk memastikan secara positif bahawa komponen-komponen yang dirampas itu adalah merupakan sebahagian komponen untuk unit 'centrifuge'.
Dakwaan yang tersiar dalam beberapa media asing bahawa sebuah kilang di Malaysia mampu mengeluarkan 'centrifuge' adalah satu dakwaan yang tidak berasas. Siasatan setakat ini menunjukkan bahawa tidak ada sebarang syarikat di Malaysia yang mampu mengeluarkan unit 'centrifuge' yang lengkap kerana ini memerlukan keupayaan teknologi dan kepakaran yang tinggi dalam bidang senjata nuklear.
Sehubungan ini juga BSA Tahir dan pihak SCOPE telah dan sedang memberi kerjasama yang sepenuhnya dalam membantu pihak polis untuk penyiasatan ini. Walaupun BSA Tahir sedang di bawah siasatan pihak polis tetapi dia tidak dikenakan tahanan sepertimana yang didakwa oleh media asing.
Penyiasatan rapi masih diteruskan dan pihak berkuasa Malaysia sedang bekerjasama dengan International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), sebuah agensi di bawah Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu (PBB) yang bertanggungjawab menguatkuasakan peraturan-peraturan dan kawalan senjata nuklear di bawah Triti Pencegahan Pembiakan Senjata Nuklear atau Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) bagi memastikan siasatan ini benar-benar 'transparent'.
Kenyataan akhbar yang lengkap akan dibuat sebaik sahaja penyiasatan mengenai perkara ini selesai kelak.
Dikeluarkan oleh Penguasa Perhubungan Awam, Polis Diraja Malaysia
4 Februari 2004, 7.25pm
Disediakan oleh:
Cawangan Perhubungan Awam, Polis Diraja Malaysia, Ibu Pejabat Polis Bukit Aman, 50560 Kuala Lumpur.
Tel: 603 - 2262 6310 Faks: 03 - 2272 2710 Email: rmp@rmp.gov.my
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Sri Lankan link to nuclear deal is free
KUALA LUMPUR, Friday (Reuters) - Officials denied knowledge today of whether a Sri Lankan businessman under scrutiny for helping Libya and Iran to develop nuclear programmes was in Malaysia, but said B.S.A Tahir was free to come and go.
"He's a free man," said an intelligence source who declined to be identified. But he said Tahir -- head of Dubai-based Gulf Technical Industries (GTI) -- was being investigated by Malaysian authorities.
"So far it doesn't warrant any arrest unless you have concrete evidence of breach of law," the source told Reuters.
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, whose son Kamaluddin Abdullah is linked to a local firm that supplied centrifuge parts to GTI, bridled after U.S. President George W. Bush suggested a Malaysian link to the nuclear secrets-for-sale scandal.
Bush said Tahir was in Malaysia and described him as a deputy to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic programme who confessed early this month to leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
"I don't know where he got the evidence," Abdullah said on Thursday in reference to Bush's comments. "We are not in any way involved, not at all," he told reporters in the southern state of Johor.
Whether Washington would push for action against Tahir remains unclear, a question U.S. officials in Kuala Lumpur declined to answer today. However, one Western diplomat cited Malaysia's obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which it ratified in 1970.
"It's pretty clear that many people involved in this knew what was going on. The question is how far did it go up?" said the diplomat.
The Malaysian manufacturer, a unit of Scomi Group Bhd, says the relevant parts were ordered for oil and gas work. Police have already said they have found nothing to suggest any wrongdoing by the firm.
Copyright ? 2001 Wijeya Newspapers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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No evidence, so Tahir remains free
KUALA LUMPUR -- Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, doubting US intelligence on Malaysia's role in a global nuclear trafficking network, said the man at the centre of the row would not be arrested, for now.
"He is on his feet and free to move around," Mr Abdullah said of Mr 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.
Mr Abdullah said police have spoken to Mr Tahir and "asked him a lot of questions". The police said they are not detaining Mr Tahir because he has apparently not broken local laws.
US President George W Bush called Mr Tahir the "chief financial officer and money launderer" of the network run by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
"We are not involved in any way. I don't know where Bush is getting his evidence from," Mr Abdullah said. -- AP
KUALA LUMPUR -- Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, doubting US intelligence on Malaysia's role in a global nuclear trafficking network, said the man at the centre of the row would not be arrested, for now.
"He is on his feet and free to move around," Mr Abdullah said of Mr 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.
Mr Abdullah said police have spoken to Mr Tahir and "asked him a lot of questions". The police said they are not detaining Mr Tahir because he has apparently not broken local laws.
US President George W Bush called Mr Tahir the "chief financial officer and money launderer" of the network run by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
"We are not involved in any way. I don't know where Bush is getting his evidence from," Mr Abdullah said. -- AP KUALA LUMPUR -- Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, doubting US intelligence on Malaysia's role in a global nuclear trafficking network, said the man at the centre of the row would not be arrested, for now.
"He is on his feet and free to move around," Mr Abdullah said of Mr 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.
Mr Abdullah said police have spoken to Mr Tahir and "asked him a lot of questions". The police said they are not detaining Mr Tahir because he has apparently not broken local laws.
US President George W Bush called Mr Tahir the "chief financial officer and money launderer" of the network run by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
"We are not involved in any way. I don't know where Bush is getting his evidence from," Mr Abdullah said. -- AP
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Computer firm in Dubai was hub for black market nuke network
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Thursday, February 12, 2004
LONDON - A Dubai-based company in the United Arab Emirates has been cited as the linchpin in the lucrative nuclear weapons black market that has supplied Iran, Libya and North Korea.
The United States and the International Atomic Energy Agency have determined that the UAE company served as the hub for the traffic of nuclear weapons components. Officials said the company coordinated with a range of nuclear suppliers for orders from such countries as Iran, Libya and North Korea.
The Bush administration identified the UAE firm as SMB Computers, a key element in the nuclear weapons black market operated by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. The company was found to have served as a clearinghouse for nuclear components ordered by Iran, Libya and North Korea.
Another UAE company involved in the nuclear black market was Gulf Technical Industries, which worked closely with SMB's Tahir, Middle East Newsline reported. The Dubai-based Gulf Technical, founded by British engineer Peter Griffin, an associate of Khan, contracted with Malaysia's Scomi Group Berhad for the manufacture of centrifuge equipment identified as P-2.
The public confession on Feb. 4 by Khan - the "father" of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program - in which he admitted to facilitating the network, has shocked the world and prompted new warnings that terrorists could gain access to weapons of mass destruction.
"The supply network will grow, making it easier to acquire nuclear weapon expertise and materials," IAEA director-general Mohammed El Baradei wrote in the New York Times on Thursday. "Eventually, inevitably, terrorists will gain access to such materials and technology, if not actual weapons."
"Khan and his associates," a White House fact sheet said, "used a factory in Malaysia to manufacture key parts for centrifuges, and purchased other necessary parts through network operatives based in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Libya, Iran, and North Korea were customers of the Khan network, and several other countries expressed an interest in Khan's services."
The company was said to have processed orders for such goods as uranium hexafluoride - used for the centrifuge process that can produce enriched uranium for nuclear bombs - as well as components and complete centrifuges.
The shipments were said to have been disguised and often relabeled in Dubai to avoid detection.
SMB was operated by a deputy of Khan. Officials said the deputy, identified as Bukhari Sayed Abu Tahir, a Sri Lankan native, employed his Dubai company as the front for the nuclear network that sought to provide up to 1,000 centrifuges to Libya.
"Tahir acted as both the network's chief financial officer and money launderer," President George Bush said in a speech on Wednesday. "He was also its shipping agent, using his computer firm as cover for the movement of centrifuge parts to various clients. Tahir directed the Malaysia facility to produce these parts based on Pakistani designs, and then ordered the facility to ship the components to Dubai. Tahir also arranged for parts acquired by other European procurement agents to transit through Dubai for shipment to other customers."
The nuclear network, which was said to have been penetrated by the CIA, contained companies and people from both Western and Third World countries, officials said. They included Belgium, China, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, the UAE and the United Arab Emirates.
Dubai served as the port of destination for these shipments. Officials said Tripoli acquired nuclear weapons components manufactured in Malaysia, shipped and processed in Dubai and then sent to Libya.
"As a result of our penetration of the network, American and the British intelligence identified a shipment of advanced centrifuge parts manufactured at the Malaysia facility," Bush said. "We followed the shipment of these parts to Dubai, and watched as they were transferred to the BBC China, a German-owned ship. After the ship passed through the Suez Canal, bound for Libya, it was stopped by German and Italian authorities. They found several containers, each forty feet in length, listed on the ship's manifest as full of 'used machine parts. In fact, these containers were filled with parts of sophisticated centrifuges."
Bush outlined a new policy to prevent nuclear proliferation by a crackdown on the black market and a ban on the sale of some legal equipment to countries that do not submit to close international supervision.
In 2002 and 2003, officials said, Gulf Technical maintained a representative from Dubai to Malaysia to oversee the production of P-2 for Middle East clients. The P-2, made of maraging steel, has double the uranium enrichment capacity of the earlier model P-1, which is composed of aluminum.
For its part, the IAEA has questioned European businessmen suspected of having helped supply orders from Iran and Libya. They included executives from the German firm Leybold Heraeus, a leading maker of vacuum technology and a unit of the Swiss firm Unaxis AG. The agency cited four former Leybold employees that transferred centrifuge components to Iran and conducted business with other countries interested in nuclear technology, such as Saudi Arabia and Syria.
--------------------------------------------
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------------------------------------------------------------
Bush seeks to restrict nuclear fuel
David E. Sanger/NYT
Thursday, February 12, 2004
WASHINGTON Declaring that terrorists with deadly unconventional weapons pose ``the greatest threat to mankind,'' President George W. Bush announced a new proposal Wednesday to limit the number of nations allowed to produce nuclear fuel.
In an afternoon speech at the National Defense University here, Bush called for a re-examination of what one administration official called the ``basic bargain'' underlying the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty: that those states that promise not to pursue nuclear weapons will receive help in producing nuclear fuel for power generation.
The president did indeed call for tougher controls on nuclear fuel production, but he also cited biological and chemical weapons, saying that they along with nuclear weapons constituted a deadly peril.
``In the cold war, Americans lived under the threat of weapons of mass destruction, but believed that deterrence made those weapons a last resort,'' Bush said. ``What has changed in the 21st century is that in the hands of terrorists, weapons of mass destruction would be a first resort, the preferred means to further their ideology of suicide and random murder.
``America and the entire civilized world will face this threat for decades to come. We must confront the danger with open eyes and unbending purpose.''
The president said the global network in nuclear goods set up by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the developer of Pakistan's bomb, exposed huge gaps in accords to stop the spread of nuclear weapons technology. The president noted that the Pakistani government had promised to share all information from its investigation in the affair and has issued assurances that its country will never again become a source of weapons proliferation.
Iran admitted last year that it had cheated on the nonproliferation agreement for 18 years, secretly building uranium enrichment facilities, though the country denied that it intended to produce weapons. North Korea abandoned the treaty last year and declared it was making nuclear arms.
Khan's network secretly sold equipment to both countries, and to Libya, American and Pakistani officials have said. Libya's leader, Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi, ``made the right decision'' in agreeing recently to abandon his country's development of deadly weapons, Bush said. Banning weapons of mass destruction can lead to better relations with the United States, he said. But isolation, hardship ``and other unwelcome consequences'' await countries that do not see the light, Bush said.
The president did not call for a reopening of the 1970 treaty. Instead, he appealed to the Nuclear Suppliers Group, 40 countries that sell most nuclear technology, to refuse to sell equipment to any country that is not already equipped to make nuclear fuel, either by enriching uranium or by reprocessing spent fuel for plutonium. The United States is ready to help any country enforce its laws and controls, Bush said. ``The way ahead is not easy, but it is clear,'' the president said.
In a briefing on Tuesday evening, one administration official said Iran and North Korea were examples of ``regimes which have cynically exploited loopholes in the existing treaty'' to build up their capacity to produce weapons-grade nuclear fuel.
While experts have long agreed that the treaty is flawed, Bush's proposal is bound to raise protests from developing nations, which say the United States and, by extension, the other declared nuclear states -- Britain, France, Russia and China -- are trying to extend their rights to produce weapons while denying that status to other nations.
In addition to those five, Israel, India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, and North Korea is believed by American intelligence agencies to have at least two and perhaps several more. Israel is a particularly difficult case for the United States because it has never declared its nuclear ability and has never signed the nonproliferation treaty. Its Arab neighbors and Pakistan have said that any reopening of nuclear regulation should start with forcing Israel to sign the treaty.
In his speech, Bush gave some details of how Khan's network operated. But he refrained from any criticism of President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, portraying Khan, the former head of Khan Research Laboratories, as a rogue scientist.
Bush was applauded when he described the Khan case as a victory for U.S. and British intelligence operations.
The director of central intelligence, George Tenet, made a similar case last week, and administration officials hope the story of the intelligence surrounding the Khan network will be a counterpoint to criticisms of how Iraq's weapons program was misjudged.
The national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was asked Wednesday in an interview on NBC's ``Today'' show whether the White House could explain how Musharraf could have pardoned Khan after he admitted giving nuclear secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya.
``What President Musharraf has done is to give us the opportunity now to wrap up and to destroy what is one of the most active networks, the most active as we know it today, of this kind of shadowy underworld of nuclear entrepreneurs who are out there selling knowledge and expertise on the black market,'' Rice said. ``And because of Pakistan's cooperation, because of Pakistan's action based on information that they've been receiving from a number of sources, and because of very good intelligence work by the United States, Great Britain and others, we really now have a chance to wrap up this group. And that's the most important thing.''
Bush identified B.S.A. Tahir, a Sri Lanka-born trader who moved to Dubai as a child, as a key figure in the Khan network. Tahir, who divides his time between Kuala Lumpur and Dubai, negotiated with a Malaysian company called Scomi to produce parts for high-speed centrifuges, which enrich uranium, Scomi officials have said. It was the interception of one such shipment to Libya in October that allowed American intelligence officials to present Pakistan with evidence about Khan.
In recent days, efforts to reach Tahir in Malaysia have been unsuccessful. He owns 49 percent of a computer company, S.M.B. Computers, in Dubai, according to Dubai government documents. Scomi officials have identified him as one of the men who negotiated the deal under which they produced the parts.
Bush's speech marked the first time that Tahir has been publicly identified by the United States as a major player, though intelligence officials have mentioned, on background, what they say was his central role in arranging the transfer of centrifuge components from Malaysia to Dubai and on to Libya.

The New York Times

Copyright ? 2003 The International Herald Tribune


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Aiseh, man...
Saya akan pastikan bahawa tidak ada tempat dalam pentadbiran saya untuk pemimpin politik yang "cakap tidak serupa bikin" -- Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, 9 Jan 2004, Kuala Lumpur.

Thursday, February 12, 2004
Get Smart, Get BSA Tahir
Again, don't lose sight of this:
The break for American intelligence operatives tracking Abdul Qadeer Khan's nuclear network came in the wet August heat in Malaysia, as five giant cargo containers full of specialized centrifuge parts were loaded into one of the nondescript vessels that ply the Straits of Malacca.
The C.I.A. had penetrated the factory of Scomi Precision Engineering, where one of the nuclear network's operatives -- known to the workers only as Tinner -- watched over the production of the delicate machinery needed to enrich uranium for nuclear bombs. [via The New York Times]
Note that the CIA chose to spy on Scomi -- either through an agent or by bugging the factory -- instead of collaborating with Malaysian police.
One wonders what or who else George Tenet's goons are keeping an eye on here, but Tinner was their man then, a very important man:
... Throughout the work at Scomi Precision, the man known as Tinner, an engineer sent from Dubai by Mr. (BSA) Tahir, was on site overseeing the work, a Scomi official said.
Next item of note: Scomi Precision lets Tinner have the run of the factory, but doesn't even bother to find out his full name.
The question for Malaysians is not who Tinner is, but who Tahir is to Scomi, or to anyone else.
The company obviously so trusted the Sri-Lankan born businessmen with the Malaysian wife that they accepted whoever he brought in for the operation, and whatever he got them to produce, without question:
In a statement, Scomi said the shipments had consisted only of "14 semifinished components." Company officials said they never knew of the intended use of the parts.
A senior Bush administration official disputed the company's account, saying it would be highly unlikely that someone there did not know what they were producing. American and European weapons experts also said that the shipment headed for Libya contained thousands of centrifuge parts.
Scomi probably meant 14 types of semifinished components, not 14 components in total, but it would be good if the company publicly says so itself.
And who said no one there "did not know what they were producing"?
There was Tahir and the mysterious Tinner, who must have lied to the company on the true nature and purpose of the components they were manufacturing.
Scomi is very likely innocent of knowingly supplying centrifuge parts to the Libyans, but it would not be unreasonable to speculate that there are people here who would rather have Malaysians not know so much about Tahir's local wheelings and dealings.
Here's one more of the growing number of facts on Tahir:
Malaysian police have been investigating Tahir, who is married to the daughter of a former Malaysian diplomat, the (Malaysian) official said. [via The Wall Street Journal Online]
Bonds forged by marriage are not only one of the strongest, but indeed one of the most useful, especially if you're in trouble.
In any event, we're upset that we are being unfairly singled out:
... A senior (Malaysian) official, however, accused Bush Wednesday of unfairly singling out this Southeast Asian nation's role in the secret network, insisting the sole known case of Malaysian involvement was the unwitting manufacture of parts seized en route to Libya last year.
"He's overblown Malaysia's role in this, the role of Malaysian companies in this," the official said on condition of anonymity. "Making Malaysia the central conduit to this is misleading."
However, Lim Kit Siang, a veteran opposition politician, called for an independent inquiry, saying Bush's speech made the quick exoneration of the company involved "untenable."
Police say they are still investigating the whole affair, and it should not be too long before that is completed.
After all, the man practically the entire world is accusing of being a lynchpin in the nuclear arms blackmarket is here.
In addition, he can clear our name.
Instead of crying foul at every accusation thrown at us, why don't we get Tahir to make a public confession of his complicity. and of our innocence?
Why haven't we?
Posted at 05:27 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Bigger And Bigger
They're getting bigger and bigger:
Lands and Cooperative Development Minister Tan Sri Kasitah Gaddam has been arrested by the Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) this morning.
He was seen arriving at the ACA headquarters at 8.55am and was then taken by officers into the building. He was then arrested 10min later.
It was learnt that he was arrested over some shares in a company. He is expected to be charged later this morning.
This is the second high-profile arrest by the ACA in the past few days. [via The Star Online]
Now, how about a major BN figure?
Don't tell me that UMNO (especially), MCA and MIC leaders from the peninsula are entirely clean.
Posted at 09:51 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Wednesday, February 11, 2004
Our Man BSA Tahir
Malaysia is set to be in the international limelight once more:
In an afternoon speech at the National Defense University (Wednesday) ... (president George) Bush will ... identify B. S. A. Tahir, a Sri Lanka-born trader who moved to Dubai as a child, as the "other major node" in the Khan network.
... In recent days, efforts to reach Mr. Tahir in Malaysia have been unsuccessful. He owns 49 percent of a computer company, S.M.B. Computers, in Dubai, according to Dubai government documents. Scomi officials have identified him as one of the men who negotiated the deal under which they produced the parts.
Mr. Bush's speech will mark the first time Mr. Tahir has been publicly identified by the United States as a major player, though intelligence officials have mentioned, on background, what they say was his central role in arranging the transfer of centrifuge components from Malaysia to Dubai and on to Libya. [via The New York Times]
The Malaysian police say Tahir is not under arrest as he has broken no laws.
Nevertheless, he is being portrayed, rightly or wrongly, as "a major player."
The implications of such an allegation is that he would a "player" who is walking around freely in our own backyard.
That will certainly look bad on the country.
Maybe it's time we provide the media, both local and foreign, access to Tahir, so that he can clear our name.
Oh, and clear his own good name, of course.
That said, the question of why we are so protective of Tahir remains.
Who is this Sri-Lankan, with the Malaysian wife on one arm, and impressive business and political contacts on the other?
Posted at 03:26 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Tuesday, February 10, 2004
The Proving Ground
The arrest of former Perwaja Steel managing director Eric Chia marks the beginning of a new phase in Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's fight against corruption, and drive for a higher degree of accountability.
He has displayed, in this instance, the will to back his tough talk with concrete action, as befits a leader that leads by example.
The bold move is also one step along the path towards fulfilling the people's now sky-high hopes of seeing a cleaner, more transparent and democratic Malaysia.
Eric Chia is indeed a sizeable fish, and the Prime Minister has now come to the crunch.
Chia's trial in August needs to be a fair one in the people's eyes. It is certain to be full of drama, as Chia has promised fireworks.
This time, there can be no scapegoating, no whitewash, no witness too high as to avoid subpoena, no expunging of "irrelevant" evidence.
This country cannot afford one more trial of that nature; the people will no longer tolerate a repeat performance.
And neither does it stop there, nor can it be stopped there.
Malaysians know Chia is not the only bottom dweller in the putrefying, oxygen-deprived pond of power abuse, political wrongdoing and corruption.
They know there are other, bigger, fatter fish still swimming around freely.
They will want their heads, too.
With Chia's arrest, Pak Lah has proven that he his committed to the cause.
In the coming weeks, months and years, he will have to prove it again, and again, and again.
Posted at 07:29 PM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
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Bush calls Pak nuclear sales an 'international failure'
Vasantha Arora (IANS)
Washington, February 12
US President George W Bush, speaking publicly for the first time on Pakistan's nuclear black market network, has cited it as a failure of the international safeguard regime.
But he scrupulously avoided comment on the pardon granted by President Pervez Musharraf to Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, who is said to have been at the centre of it all.
Bush made use of his highly publicised speech on "international action against spread of weapons of mass destruction" at the National Defence University here Wednesday to make his first public comment on the nuclear black market run by Khan.
Bush highlighted ongoing efforts to break up Khan's proliferation network and projected it as a success story of the US and British intelligence, now under attack for their role in the pre-war Iraq.
"For decades, Khan remained on the Pakistani government payroll, earning a modest salary. Yet he and his associates financed lavish lifestyles through the sale of nuclear technologies and equipment to outlaw regimes stretching from North Africa to the Korean peninsula," he said.
Bush said Khan had confessed to his crimes, and his top associates were now out of business. Bush said it points to the need for the nations of the world to come together to deal with a specific threat, just as they have to combat terrorism.
"These regimes and other proliferators like Khan should know: we and our friends are determined to protect our people and the world from proliferation," he said.
He said: "The government of Pakistan is interrogating the network's members, learning critical details that will help them prevent it from ever operating again," and "Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has promised to share all the information he learns about the Khan network and has assured the United States that his country will never again be a source of proliferation".
He made out a strong case for new international efforts to combat the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), saying the most dangerous threat before the world is the potential for terrorists or rogue nations to use chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons in a surprise attack.
More must be done, Bush said, to combat the international black market in weapons of mass destruction, and to prevent countries from developing nuclear arms under the guise of building civilian power plants.
He announced seven proposals that would modernise non-proliferation laws, restrict the sale and transport of nuclear technologies and equipment, and stop the sale of nuclear technology to countries that do not agree to vigorous international inspections to ensure their nuclear programmes are for peaceful purposes.
Bush also urged the United Nations Security Council to quickly approve a US-proposed resolution that would require all states to criminalize proliferation, enact strict export controls, and secure all sensitive materials within their borders.
He also proposed to expand efforts to do away with weapons left over from the Cold War.
Bush noted that a former customer of the Khan network, Libya's Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, had "voluntarily agreed to end his nuclear and chemical weapons programmes, not to pursue biological weapons, and to permit thorough inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons."
Gaddafi "made the right decision, and the world will be safer once his commitment is fulfilled. We expect other regimes to follow his example," Bush said.
The president presented a detailed picture of the Khan network, pieced together over several years by American and British intelligence.
"Governments around the world worked closely with us to unravel the Khan network, and to put an end to his criminal enterprise," Bush said.
He said, "AQ Khan, himself, operated mostly out of Pakistan. He served as director of the network, its leading scientific mind, as well as its primary salesman. Over the past decade, he made frequent trips to consult with his clients and to sell his expertise.
"He and his associates sold the blueprints for centrifuges to enrich uranium as well as a nuclear design stolen from the Pakistani government. The network sold uranium hexafluoride, the gas that the centrifuge process can transform into enriched uranium for nuclear bombs.
"Khan and his associates provided Iran and Libya and North Korea with designs for Pakistan's older centrifuges, as well as designs for more advanced and efficient models. The network also provided these countries with components, and in some cases, with complete centrifuges," he said.
To increase their profits, President Bush pointed out, Khan and his associates used a factory in Malaysia to manufacture key parts for centrifuges. Other necessary parts were purchased through network operatives based in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
These procurement agents saw the trade in nuclear technologies as a shortcut to personal wealth, and they set up front companies to deceive legitimate firms into selling them tightly controlled materials, he said.
He said, "Khan's deputy -- a man named BSA Tahir -- ran SMB computers, a business in Dubai. Tahir used that computer company as a front for the proliferation activities of the AQ Khan network. Tahir acted as both the network's chief financial officer and money launderer.
"He was also its shipping agent, using his computer firm as cover for the movement of centrifuge parts to various clients. Tahir directed the Malaysia facility to produce these parts based on Pakistani designs, and then ordered the facility to ship the components to Dubai.
"Tahir also arranged for parts acquired by other European procurement agents to transit through Dubai for shipment to other customers."
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Wednesday, February 11, 2004 ? Last updated 1:36 p.m. PT

Excerpts of Bush speech on WMD
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Excerpts from President Bush's speech on weapons proliferation, as recorded by the White House:
In the past, enemies of America required massed armies and great navies, powerful air forces to put our nation, our people, our friends and allies at risk. In the Cold War, Americans lived under the threat of weapons of mass destruction, but believed that deterrents made those weapons a last resort. What has changed in the 21st century is that, in the hands of terrorists, weapons of mass destruction would be a first resort, the preferred means to further their ideology of suicide and random murder.
---
A. Q. Khan is known throughout the world as the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. What was not publicly known, until recently, is that he also led an extensive international network for the proliferation of nuclear technology and know-how.
For decades, Mr. Khan remained on the Pakistani government payroll, earning a modest salary. Yet, he and his associates financed lavish lifestyles through the sale of nuclear technologies and equipment to outlaw regimes stretching from North Africa to the Korean Peninsula.
A. Q. Khan himself operated mostly out of Pakistan. He served as director of the network, its leading scientific mind, as well as its primary salesman. Over the past decade, he made frequent trips to consult with his clients and to sell his expertise. He and his associates sold the blueprints for centrifuges to enrich uranium, as well as a nuclear design stolen from the Pakistani government. The network sold uranium hexafluoride, the gas that the centrifuge process can transform into enriched uranium for nuclear bombs. Khan and his associates provided Iran and Libya and North Korea with designs for Pakistan's older centrifuges, as well as designs for more advanced and efficient models. The network also provided these countries with components, and in some cases, with complete centrifuges.
To increase their profits, Khan and his associates used a factory in Malaysia to manufacture key parts for centrifuges. Other necessary parts were purchased through network operatives based in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. These procurement agents saw the trade in nuclear technologies as a shortcut to personal wealth, and they set up front companies to deceive legitimate firms into selling them tightly controlled materials.
Khan's deputy, a man named B.S.A. Tahir, ran SMB computers, a business in Dubai. Tahir used that computer company as a front for the proliferation activities of the A. Q. Khan network. Tahir acted as both the network's chief financial officer and money launderer. He was also its shipping agent, using his computer firm as cover for the movement of centrifuge parts to various clients. Tahir directed the Malaysia facility to produce these parts based on Pakistani designs, and then ordered the facility to ship the components to Dubai. Tahir also arranged for parts acquired by other European procurement agents to transit through Dubai for shipment to other customers.
---
Breaking this network is one major success in a broad-based effort to stop the spread of terrible weapons. We're adjusting our strategies to the threats of a new era. America and the nations of Australia, France and Germany, Italy and Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom have launched the Proliferation Security Initiative to interdict lethal materials in transit. Our nations are sharing intelligence information, tracking suspect international cargo, conducting joint military exercises. We're prepared to search planes and ships, to seize weapons and missiles and equipment that raise proliferation concerns, just as we did in stopping the dangerous cargo on the BBC China before it reached Libya. Three more governments, Canada and Singapore and Norway, will be participating in this initiative.
---
First, I propose that the work of the Proliferation Security Initiative be expanded to address more than shipments and transfers. Building on the tools we've developed to fight terrorists, we can take direct action against proliferation networks. We need greater cooperation not just among intelligence and military services, but in law enforcement, as well.
---
Second, I call on all nations to strengthen the laws and international controls that govern proliferation. At the U.N. last fall, I proposed a new Security Council resolution requiring all states to criminalize proliferation, enact strict export controls, and secure all sensitive materials within their borders.
---
Third, I propose to expand our efforts to keep weapons from the Cold War and other dangerous materials out of the wrong hands. ... We must also prevent governments from developing nuclear weapons under false pretenses. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was designed more than 30 years ago to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons beyond those states which already possessed them. Under this treaty, nuclear states agreed to help non-nuclear states develop peaceful atomic energy if they renounced the pursuit of nuclear weapons. But the treaty has a loophole which has been exploited by nations such as North Korea and Iran. These regimes are allowed to produce nuclear material that can be used to build bombs under the cover of civilian nuclear programs. ...

The 40 nations of the Nuclear Suppliers Group should refuse to sell enrichment and reprocessing equipment and technologies to any state that does not already possess full-scale, functioning enrichment and reprocessing plants.
---
It is the charge of the International Atomic Energy Agency to uncover banned nuclear activity around the world and report those violations to the U.N. Security Council. We must ensure that the IAEA has all the tools it needs to fulfill its essential mandate. America and other nations support what is called the Additional Protocol, which requires states to declare a broad range of nuclear activities and facilities, and allow the IAEA to inspect those facilities. As a fifth step, I propose that by next year, only states that have signed the Additional Protocol be allowed to import equipment for their civilian nuclear programs.
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We must also ensure that IAEA is organized to take action when action is required. So, a sixth step, I propose the creation of a special committee of the IAEA Board which will focus intensively on safeguards and verification.
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And, finally, countries under investigation for violating nuclear non-proliferation obligations are currently allowed to serve on the IAEA Board of Governors. For instance, Iran, a country suspected of maintaining an extensive nuclear weapons program, recently completed a two-year term on the Board. Allowing potential violators to serve on the Board creates an unacceptable barrier to effective action.
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Le discours de M. Bush sur la lutte contre les armes de destruction massive
Le pr?sident appelle la communaut? internationale ? intensifier la lutte.
(retour au d?but)
Pendant des dizaines d'ann?es, M. Khan a gard? son emploi de fonctionnaire, touchant un salaire modeste. Cependant, ses complices et lui finan?aient un train de vie de riches gr?ce ? la vente de technologies et d'?quipement nucl?aires ? des r?gime d?voy?s situ?s de l'Afrique du Nord ? la P?ninsule cor?enne.
Pour sa part, M. Khan menait ses activit?s ? partir du Pakistan. Il ?tait le directeur du r?seau, son principal cerveau scientifique, et aussi son principal vendeur. Au cours des dix derni?res ann?es, il s'est d?plac? ? maintes reprises pour avoir des consultations avec ses clients et pour vendre son savoir-faire. Ses complices et lui ont vendu des plans de centrifuges pour enrichir l'uranium ainsi que d'autres plans li?s au nucl?aire appartenant au gouvernement pakistanais. Le r?seau a vendu de l'hexafluorure d'uranium, un gaz que le processus de centrifugation peut transformer en uranium enrichi pour bombes nucl?aires. M. Khan et ses complices ont fourni ? l'Iran, ? la Libye et ? la Cor?e du Nord les plans d'anciennes centrifugeuses pakistanaises, ainsi que les plans de mod?les de centrifugeuses plus sophistiqu?es et plus efficaces. Le r?seau a fourni ? ces pays d'autres ?l?ments de centrifugeuses, et dans certains cas, des centrifugeuses enti?res.
Pour augmenter leurs b?n?fices, M. Khan et ses complices ont eu recours ? une usine en Malaisie pour fabriquer des pi?ces importantes de centrifugeuses. D'autres pi?ces essentielles ont ?t? achet?es par le truchement d'agents attach?s ? des r?seaux situ?s en Europe, au Moyen-Orient et en Afrique. Pour ces interm?diaires, le commerce des techniques du nucl?aire ?tait un moyen de s'enrichir rapidement, et ils ont cr?? des soci?t?s de fa?ade pour amener des entreprises l?gitimes ? leur vendre des mat?riaux ?troitement contr?l?s.
L'adjoint de M. Khan - un homme appel? B.S.A. Tahir - ?tait directeur de la soci?t? SMB computers, une entreprise de Duba?. M. Tahir s'est servi de cette soci?t? d'informatique pour couvrir les activit?s de prolif?ration du r?seau d'A.Q. Khan. M. Tahir ?tait ? la fois le principal responsable financier du r?seau et celui qui blanchissait les fonds. Il ?tait aussi son agent d'exp?dition, utilisant son entreprise d'ordinateurs pour couvrir l'envoi de pi?ces de centrifugeuses ? divers clients. M. Tahir a ordonn? ? l'usine de Malaisie de produire ces pi?ces selon les plans pakistanais, et a ensuite ordonn? ? l'usine d'envoyer les ?l?ments ? Duba?. M. Tahir a aussi fait en sorte que des pi?ces achet?es par d'autres acheteurs europ?ens transitent par Duba? afin d'?tre exp?di?es ? d'autres clients.
Les agents des services am?ricains et britanniques du renseignement ont pris plusieurs ann?es pour reconstituer le puzzle du r?seau Kahn. Nos services du renseignement ont peu ? peu mis ? jour la port?e de ce r?seau et identifi? ses principaux experts, agents et financiers. Des agents ont suivi ses transactions, dress? la carte de ses op?rations. Ils ont surveill? les d?placements d'A.Q. Khan et de ses principaux associ?s. Ils ont suivi des membres du r?seaux aux quatre coins du monde ; ils ont enregistr? leurs conversations ; ils ont infiltr? leurs op?rations ; ils ont mis ? jour leurs secrets. Ce travail implique de grands risques et tous les Am?ricains peuvent ?tre reconnaissants pour la diligence et le d?vouement de nos excellents professionnels du renseignement.
Les gouvernements du monde entier ont oeuvr? en ?troite coop?ration avec nous pour exposer le r?seau Khan et pour mettre fin ? ses agissements criminels. A. Q. Khan a avou? ses crimes et ses principaux associ?s ont d? cesser leurs activit?s. Le gouvernement du Pakistan interroge actuellement les membres du r?seau et recueille aupr?s d'eux des d?tails critiques qui lui permettront de pr?venir toute r?cidive de leur part. Le pr?sident Musharraf a promis de partager tous les renseignements qu'il obtiendra sur le r?seau Khan et nous a assur? que son pays ne serait plus jamais une source de prolif?ration.
M. Tahir est en Malaisie, o? les autorit?s enqu?tent sur ses activit?s. Les autorit?s malaisiennes nous ont assur? que l'usine utilis?e par le r?seau avait cesse de produire des pi?ces pour centrifugeuses. Quant aux autres membres du r?seau encore en libert?, ils seront trouv?s un ? un et il sera mis un terme ? leur carri?re dans le commerce des armements.
Gr?ce ? notre p?n?tration du r?seau, nos services de renseignement et les services de renseignement britanniques ont identifi? un envoi de pi?ces sophistiqu?es pour centrifugeuses provenant de l'usine malaisienne. Nous avons suivi ces pi?ces jusqu'? Duba? et avons observ? leur transbordement sur le BBC China, navire de propri?t? allemande. Apr?s ?tre pass? par le Canal de Suez ? destination de la Libye, il a ?t? arraisonn? par les autorit?s allemandes et italiennes, qui y ont trouv? plusieurs conteneurs d'environ 12 m?tres de long, dont le contenu ?tait d?crit sur le manifeste du navire comme des "pi?ces m?caniques usag?es". En r?alit?, ils contenaient des pi?ces sophistiqu?es pour centrifugeuses.
L'interception du BBC China a eu lieu alors que des repr?sentants des autorit?s libyennes, britanniques et am?ricaines examinaient la possibilit? pour la Libye de mettre fin ? ses programmes d'armes de destruction massive. Les Etats-Unis et le Royaume-Uni ont pr?sent? aux repr?sentants officiels de la Libye ces preuves de l'existence d'un programme nucl?aire actif et illicite. Il y a environ deux mois, le dirigeant de la Libye avait convenu volontairement de mettre fin ? ses programmes d'armements nucl?aire chimiques, de ne pas entreprendre de programmes d'armements chimiques et d'autoriser des inspections compl?tes de l'Agence internationale de l'?nergie atomique et de l'Organisation pour l'interdiction des armes chimiques. Nous oeuvrons maintenant en partenariat avec ces organisations et avec le Royaume-Uni pour aider le gouvernement libyen ? d?manteler ces programmes et ? ?liminer tous les mat?riaux dangereux.
Le colonel Kadhafi a pris la bonne d?cision et le monde sera plus en s?curit? une fois qu'il aura rempli ses engagements. Nous nous attendons ? ce que d'autres r?gimes suivent son exemple. Le renoncement aux programmes d'armements illicites peut mener ? de meilleures relations avec les Etats-Unis et avec les autres nations libres. La poursuite de tels programmes n'apportera pas la s?curit? ni le prestige international ; elle n'am?nera que l'isolement politique, des difficult?s ?conomiques et autres cons?quences ind?sirables.
Nous savons que la Libye n'?tait pas le seul client du r?seau Khan. D'autres pays ont exprim? un vif int?r?t pour les services de ce r?seau. Ces r?gimes et d'autres ?l?ments qui contribuent ? la prolif?ration doivent savoir ceci : nous sommes, nous et nos amis, d?termin?s ? prot?ger notre population et le monde de la prolif?ration.
La destruction de ce r?seau repr?sente un succ?s majeur dans le contexte d'un effort de grande envergure engag? pour enrayer la propagation d'armes terribles. Nous adaptons nos strat?gies aux menaces d'une ?re nouvelle. L'Am?rique et d'autres nations, l'Allemagne, l'Australie et l'Espagne, la France et l'Italie, le Japon et les Pays-Bas, la Pologne, le Portugal et le Royaume-Uni ont lanc? l'Initiative de s?curit? contre la prolif?ration (ISP) pour interdire le transport de mat?riels l?taux. Nos pays partagent les renseignements, surveillent les cargaisons internationales suspectes et proc?dent ? des exercices militaires conjoints. Nous sommes pr?ts ? fouiller les avions et les navires, ? saisir les armes et les missiles et le mat?riel qui suscitent des pr?occupations en mati?re de prolif?ration, comme nous l'avons fait en stoppant l'envoi de la cargaison dangereuse du BBC China avant qu'elle n'arrive en Libye. Trois autres pays, le Canada, Singapour et la Norv?ge, participeront ? cette initiative. Nous continuerons d'?largir le groupe des pays de l'ISP et, ? mesure que celle-ci se d?veloppera, les prolif?rateurs se heurteront ? des difficult?s croissantes dans le commerce des armes illicites.
Il y a un consensus entre les nations sur le fait que la prolif?ration ne peut pas ?tre tol?r?e. Toutefois, ce consensus n'a gu?re d'importance s'il ne d?bouche pas sur un passage ? l'action. Il est de l'int?r?t de toutes les nations civilis?es de pr?venir la propagation des armes de destruction massive. Ces mat?riaux et ces technologies, et les gens qui en font le trafic, traversent de nombreuses fronti?res. Pour stopper ce commerce, les nations du monde doivent se montrer fortes et d?termin?es. Nous devons oeuvrer de concert ; nous devons agir de mani?re efficace. Je pr?sente aujourd'hui sept propositions pour amplifier les efforts mondiaux visant ? enrayer la propagation d'armes meurtri?res.
Premi?rement, je propose que les travaux de l'Initiative de s?curit? contre la prolif?ration soient ?largis pour traiter des activit?s autres que les exp?ditions et les transferts. Nous pouvons, en faisant fond sur les instruments que nous avons ?labor?s pour lutter contre les terroristes, passer ? l'action directe contre les r?seaux de prolif?ration. Il faut pour cela une coop?ration accrue, pas seulement entre les services de renseignement et les forces arm?es, mais aussi avec les forces de police. Les participants ? l'ISP et les autres nations qui y sont dispos?es devraient faire usage d'Interpol et de tous les autres moyens pour traduire en justice ceux qui pratiquent le trafic des armes meurtri?res, fermer leurs laboratoires, saisir leurs mat?riaux, geler leurs avoirs. Nous devons suivre toutes les pistes. Nous trouverons les interm?diaires, les fournisseurs et les acheteurs. Le message que nous adressons aux prolif?rateurs doit ?tre clair : nous vous traquerons et nous n'aurons pas de cesse que nous n'ayons mis fin ? vos activit?s.
Deuxi?mement, j'engage toutes les nations ? renforcer les lois et les contr?les internationaux qui r?gissent les questions de prolif?ration. Aux Nations unies, ? l'automne dernier, j'ai propos? une nouvelle r?solution du Conseil de s?curit? qui exigerait que tous les Etats criminalisent la prolif?ration, adoptent de strictes mesures de contr?le ? l'exportation et assurent la s?curit? de tous les mat?riaux sensibles pr?sents sur leur territoire. Le Conseil de s?curit? devrait adopter cette r?solution promptement. Cela fait, l'Am?rique sera pr?te ? aider les autres gouvernements ? formuler et ? appliquer la nouvelle l?gislation qui nous aidera ? faire face ? la prolif?ration.
Troisi?mement, je propose d'?tendre nos efforts visant ? ?viter que les armes de la guerre froide et les autres substances dangereuses ne tombent dans des mains ind?sirables. En 1991, le Congr?s a adopt? la loi Nunn-Lugar. Le s?nateur Lugar avait une vision claire, ainsi que le s?nateur Nunn, de la fa?on de traiter avec l'ex-Union sovi?tique. Dans le cadre de ce programme, nous aidons les anciens Etats sovi?tiques ? trouver des emplois productifs pour leurs scientifiques sp?cialis?s en armements. Nous contr?lons, nous d?mantelons et nous d?truisons les armes et les mat?riels provenant de l'arsenal sovi?tique d'ADM. Nous avons encore du travail ? faire dans ce domaine.
A la suite des travaux du G-8 de 2002, nous avons convenu d'allouer 20 milliards de dollars sur une p?riode de 10 ans, la moiti? provenant des Etats-Unis, pour appuyer de tels programmes. Nous devrions ?largir le champ de cette coop?ration ? d'autres r?gions du monde. Nous engagerons les scientifiques et les techniciens sp?cialis?s en ADM dans des pays tels que l'Irak et la Libye. Nous aiderons les nations ? mettre un terme ? l'emploi d'uranium ? usage militaire dans les r?acteurs de recherche. J'engage vivement les autres nations ? contribuer ? ces efforts. Les nations du monde doivent faire tout ce qu'elles peuvent pour contr?ler et ?liminer tous les mat?riaux nucl?aires, chimiques, biologiques et radiologiques.
Tout en poursuivant et en d?truisant ces r?seaux, nous devons aussi emp?cher les gouvernements de d?velopper des armes nucl?aires sous de faux pr?textes. Le Trait? de non-prolif?ration nucl?aire a ?t? con?u il y a plus de 30 ans pour pr?venir la propagation des armements nucl?aires au-del? des Etats qui en poss?daient d?j?. En vertu de ce trait?, les Etats nucl?aires ont convenu d'aider les Etats non nucl?aires ? d?velopper l'?nergie atomique ? vis?e pacifique s'ils renon?aient au d?veloppement d'armes nucl?aires. Mais il y a dans le trait? une faille qui a ?t? exploit?e par des pays tels que la Cor?e du Nord et l'Iran. Ces r?gimes sont autoris?s ? produire du mat?riel nucl?aire qui peut servir ? fabriquer des bombes sous le couvert de programmes nucl?aires civils.
Donc aujourd'hui, ? titre de quatri?me mesure, je propose un moyen de rem?dier ? cette carence du trait?. Le monde doit cr?er un syst?me ordonn? et sans danger autorisant la mise en place d'installations nucl?aires ? usage civil sans accro?tre les dangers de prolif?ration des armements. Les principaux exportateurs nucl?aires mondiaux devraient veiller ? ce que les Etats aient acc?s de mani?re fiable et ? des co?ts raisonnables au combustible destin? aux r?acteurs civils, sous r?serve que ces Etats renoncent ? l'enrichissement et au retraitement. L'enrichissement et le retraitement ne sont pas n?cessaires pour les pays qui cherchent ? exploiter l'?nergie nucl?aire ? des fins pacifiques.
Les 40 nations du Groupe des fournisseurs nucl?aires devraient refuser de vendre des ?quipements et des technologies servant ? l'enrichissement et au retraitement ? tout Etat qui ne poss?de pas d?j? des usines d'enrichissement et de retraitement bien ?tablies et en activit?. Cette mesure emp?chera de nouveaux Etats d'acqu?rir des moyens de produire des mati?res fissiles pour fabriquer des bombes nucl?aires. Il faut emp?cher les prolif?rateurs de manipuler le TNP pour se doter de l'?quipement et de l'infrastructure n?cessaires pour produire des armements illicites.
Pour que les normes internationales soient efficaces, il faut qu'elles soient appliqu?es. C'est l'Agence internationale de l'?nergie atomique qui est charg?e de d?couvrir les activit?s nucl?aires interdites dans le monde entier et de signaler les violations au Conseil de s?curit? des Nations unies. Nous devons veiller ? ce que l'AIEA dispose de tous les instruments dont elle a besoin pour s'acquitter de son mandat essentiel. L'Am?rique et les autres nations appuient le Protocole additionnel, comme on l'appelle, qui exige des Etats qu'ils d?clarent une large gamme d'activit?s et d'installations nucl?aires et qu'ils autorisent l'AIEA ? inspecter ces installations.
A titre de cinqui?me mesure, je propose que d'ici l'an prochain, seuls les Etats signataires du Protocole additionnel soient autoris?s ? importer du mat?riel pour leurs programmes nucl?aires civils. Les pays qui entendent s?rieusement lutter contre la prolif?ration approuveront et appliqueront ce protocole. Je l'ai soumis au S?nat et je le prie instamment de consentir imm?diatement ? sa ratification.
Nous devons ?galement veiller ? ce que l'AIEA soit organis?e de mani?re ? lui permettre d'agir quand il le faut. En tant que sixi?me mesure, donc, je propose la cr?ation d'une commission sp?ciale au sein du Conseil de l'AIEA qui concentrera ses travaux intensivement sur les garanties et la v?rification. Cette commission, o? si?geront des repr?sentants de gouvernements en situation r?guli?re avec l'AIEA, renforcera la capacit? de l'agence ? faire en sorte que les nations s'acquittent de leurs obligations internationales
Enfin, les pays faisant actuellement l'objet d'enqu?tes pour violations de leurs obligations en mati?re de non-prolif?ration nucl?aire sont actuellement autoris?s ? si?ger au Conseil des gouverneurs de l'AIEA. C'est ainsi que l'Iran, pays soup?onn? de mener un vaste programme d'armement nucl?aire, vient d'achever son mandat de deux ans. Le fait d'autoriser les transgresseurs ? si?ger au Conseil constitue un obstacle inacceptable qui s'oppose ? une action efficace. Aucun Etat faisant l'objet d'enqu?tes pour violations des dispositions de non-prolif?ration ne devrait ?tre autoris? ? si?ger au Conseil des gouverneurs de l'AIEA, ni ? la nouvelle commission sp?ciale. Et tout Etat y si?geant actuellement et sur lequel une enqu?te est ouverte devrait ?tre frapp? de suspension du Conseil. L'int?grit? et la mission de l'AIEA d?pendent de ce simple principe : il ne faut pas confier ? ceux qui violent activement les r?gles la t?che de les faire respecter.
Dans les actions que nous entreprendrons pour relever ces d?fis, nous consulterons nos amis et alli?s sur tous les nouvelles mesures. Nous ?couterons leurs id?es. Ensemble, nous d?fendrons la s?curit? de toutes les nations et pr?serverons la paix mondiale.
Au cours des deux derni?res ann?es, une grande coalition s'est form?e pour vaincre les terroristes et s'opposer ? la propagation des armes de destruction massive, engagements ins?parables de la guerre contre le terrorisme. Nous avons montr? que l'on peut d?couvrir la prolif?ration et la stopper. Nous avons montr? que les r?gimes qui choisissent une attitude de d?fi s'exposent ? de s?rieuses cons?quences. La voie ? suivre n'est pas facile, mais elle est claire. Nous agirons comme si la vie de nos citoyens d?pendait de notre vigilance, car telle est la r?alit?. Les terroristes et les Etats terroristes sont lanc?s dans une course pour se doter d'armes d'assassinat collectif, une course qu'ils doivent perdre. Les terroristes sont imaginatifs ; nous le sommes davantage. Ils sont d?termin?s ; nous devons l'?tre encore plus. Nous ne nous d?tournerons jamais de notre but et notre r?solution ne fl?chira pas. Nous pers?v?rerons sans rel?che pour assurer la d?fense des nations libres et nous nous montrerons ? la hauteur des dures exigences de ces temps dangereux.

Que Dieu vous b?nisse tous.

(Fin de la transcription)

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Malaysia questions Bush allegations
AP - Malaysia's leader questioned US intelligence on this country's role in a global nuclear trafficking network, and said the man President George W 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 BSA 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 was unfairly singling out this South-East 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, 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 US officials and the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency say the seized components were clearly for nuclear use, disputing Malaysian police assertions that they could have had other purposes.
Tahir, a Dubai-based Sri Lankan, operated a computer company there 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, 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 now-renounced secret nuclear program, which was allegedly helped by Khan, often considered the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb.
The Malaysian company, Scomi Precision Engineering, says it supplied 14 semifinished machine components, ordered by Tahir, to Dubai. It insists that 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 favour." Police say they have found no evidence of wrongdoing by Scomi.
A senior official, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said Bush had "overblown Malaysia's role in this. Making Malaysia the central conduit to this is misleading."
Malaysian police have been investigating Tahir, who is married to the daughter of a former Malaysian diplomat, the official said.
Police say they're not detaining him since he has apparently broken no local laws.
"Malaysian police have spoken to him and asked him a lot of questions," Abdullah said.
Tahir has not been reachable for comment.
Malaysia is cooperating with US authorities and "especially in focusing on Tahir," the official said.
"In questioning him, we're trying to get a bigger picture of the network."
The investigation focuses largely on the deal Tahir struck with Scomi to make the parts, the official said.
The US embassy said information about Tahir was still being gathered.
"We're following the issue closely and we will implement and take action required by relevant laws," said embassy spokesman Frank Whitaker.
"It's still early in the process and we simply haven't reached a conclusion of what would be the appropriate action to take regarding Tahir and Scomi both," Whitaker said.
Malaysia has ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but it is unclear whether its laws allow criminal prosecution for nuclear parts trafficking.
Bush urged the United Nations and member states to draw up laws that spell out criminal penalties for nuclear trafficking.
Khan, a national hero in Pakistan for helping create a nuclear deterrent against archrival India, confessed on Pakistani television last week to masterminding a network that supplied rogue states with nuclear technology. President Pervez Musharraf then pardoned him.
Pakistani government and intelligence officials have said Khan used unspecified Malaysian factories to recondition equipment bound for Libya, North Korea and Iran.

?AAP 2004
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Malaysian Leader OKs Probe of Son's Firm
ROHAN SULLIVAN
Associated Press
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Malaysia's prime minister said Thursday authorities will probe "without fear or favor" into a deal involving a company his son controls that allegedly supplied components destined for Libya's nuclear program.
Police revealed they are investigating the deal, part of a widening international inquiry into a global nuclear black market triggered by Pakistan's admission that its top nuclear scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, sold nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea.
Najib Razak, Malaysia's defense minister and the prime minister's deputy, told The Associated Press that Malaysia had no nuclear weapons program and has no ambitions to become a nuclear power. "Absolutely not," he said.
The Malaysian company under investigation, a precision-engineering firm that makes specialized industrial equipment, confirmed some details of the deal but said it didn't know what the components it made were to be used for or that they were headed for Libya.
National police chief Mohamed Bakri Omar said the company, Scomi Precision Engineering, or SCOPE, accepted a contract from a Dubai-based company after negotiating with a middleman, identified as a Sri Lankan, B.S.A. Tahir.
SCOPE's parent company, the Scomi group, confirmed it made "14 semi-finished components" for Gulf Technical Industries and shipped them in four consignments between December 2002 and August 2003, under a deal negotiated by Tahir and worth $3.4 million.
Kamaluddin Abdullah, 35, the only son of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, is Scomi's largest shareholder, although he has no management role. He could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Police said the CIA and Britain's MI6 informed Malaysian authorities last November that wooden boxes marked with SCOPE's name were among items seized the previous month from a ship in Italy headed for Libya.
The foreign intelligence services said the deal between SCOPE and Tahir involved "supplying certain centrifuge components from Malaysia for Libya's uranium enrichment program," the police chief said.
But he said the Malaysia components could also be used in petrochemical, water treatment and health applications such as molecular biology for protein separation.
Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium for a variety of purposes, including weapons production. They are also used in many other industries for non-nuclear purposes.
A Scomi spokeswoman, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the company was never told the "end-use" for the components and that "there's no way we can tell" if it was centrifuges.
Abdullah, who is also home minister responsible for security, said Thursday he wouldn't interfere with the investigation.
"I told them, go ahead, investigate thoroughly without fear or favor," Abdullah said.
Investigations so far had shown that "there is no capability within the country or within the company concerned to produce nuclear bombs or any complete components to make nuclear weapons," Abdullah said.
Malaysia, a mostly Muslim country in Southeast Asia, is a signatory to international nuclear weapons nonproliferation treaties.
In Pakistan, government and intelligence officials indicated they believe Malaysia's involvement may be wider than the deal revealed Thursday.
Khan, whom President Pervez Musharraf pardoned on Thursday after he publicly apologized for leaking nuclear secrets to countries abroad, occasionally ordered "disused equipment" to be sent to Malaysia for reconditioning before it was shipped to Iran, Libya and North Korea, Pakistani officials told AP on condition of anonymity.
The Malaysian involvement was believed to be restricted to the reconditioning at unspecified factories, the officials said.
A Malaysian official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AP that Khan visited Malaysia several times in recent years, including to attend the wedding of Tahir.
Tahir is married to a Malaysian and is not in custody because he has committed no crime here, officials said. Police said that both Scomi and Tahir were cooperating in the investigation.
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Malaysia probes alleged Libyan nuclear link
Related News ?
* Malaysia denies nuclear link
* Malaysia pledges to help US over nuclear shipments
* US says Musharraf probing nuclear claims, hints 'rogue' scientists to blame
more>>
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian police are investigating a company controlled by a son of Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi over allegations that it was involved in supplying parts for Libya's nuclear weapons programme.
National police chief Bakri Omar said in a statement issued to "clarify several questions and confusion" that the probe was sparked by information provided last November by US and British intelligence services
The CIA and MI-6 told Malaysia's special branch that the company, Scomi Precision Engineering Sdn. Bhd. (SCOPE), was supplying centrifuge components made in Malaysia for Libya's uranium-enrichment program.
SCOPE is a unit of listed oil and gas firm Scomi Group, in which the premier's son, Kamaluddin Abdullah, is the biggest shareholder. Scomi's price dropped on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange Thursday by 0.40 ringgit to 12.90 ringgit (3.4 dollars).
The intelligence revealed that five containers allegedly containing centrifuge components were seized from a ship, BBC China, in Taranto, Italy on October 4.
The containers had a "SCOPE" seal and Malaysian police investigations confirmed that a Dubai-based Sri Lankan businessman, B.S.A. Tahir had in 2001 contracted SCOPE to manufacture the components.
Tahir was named by the intelligence agencies as a middleman apparently used by the founder of Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme, Abdul Qadeer Khan, who has admitted selling atomic secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea.
Bakri said in the statement issued Wednesday night that Tahir and SCOPE were "cooperating fully in helping the police in this investigation", and denied reports in some media that Tahir was in custody.
Centrifuges can be used for enriching uranium used in nuclear reactors or bombs, but Bakri said initial investigations showed that the seized components "can also be used in petrochemical and water treatment equipment and for health purposes such as molecular biology for protein separation."
Scomi said in a statement the contract to manufacture 14 semi-finished components for Gulf Technical Industries LLC (GTI) in Dubai, worth 13 million ringgit (3.42 million dollars), was arranged by Tahir, but it was never told of the end-use of these components.
It had shipped them to GTI in four consignments from December 2002.
Bakri said a full statement would be issued "once investigations into this matter are completed."
- AFP
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Malaysia pledges cooperation on nuclear inquiry
2004-02-13 / Associated Press /
Malaysia pledged yesterday to share with Washington information from its investigation of a man that U.S. President George W. Bush has described as a major player in a vast network trafficking nuclear technology.
But a senior official accused Bush of unfairly singling out this Southeast Asian nation's role in the secret network in a speech Wednesday, insisting that the sole known case of Malaysian involvement was the unwitting manufacture of parts seized en route to Libya last year.
"He's overblown Malaysia's role in this, the role of Malaysian companies in this," the official said on condition of anonymity. "Making Malaysia the central conduit to this is misleading."
However, Lim Kit Siang, a veteran opposition politician, called for an independent inquiry, saying Bush's speech made the quick exoneration of the company involved "untenable."
The seizure of the shipment - which included 14 semi-finished components from Malaysia allegedly for centrifuges to enrich uranium - was central to uncovering Libya's secret nuclear program, which was helped by the network established by the father of Pakistan's nuclear bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan.
The seizure figured large in Bush's speech, where he demanded tougher laws to stop the illicit spread of weapons technology.
The parts were ordered by B.S.A. Tahir, a Sri Lankan with business interests in Dubai, from Scomi Precision Engineering, a Malaysian firm that is majority controlled by Kamaluddin Abdullah, the only son of Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
The younger Badawi does not play an official management role. Police said over the weekend that the company had no idea of what the parts would be used for or that they were bound for Libya and said the firm had been cleared, though the investigation continues.
Malaysian police have been investigating Tahir, who is married to the daughter of a former Malaysian diplomat, the official said on condition of anonymity. But they are not detaining him since he has apparently broken no local laws.
Bush accused Tahir of acting as the Khan network's "chief financial officer and money launderer." He was also "its shipping agent, using his computer firm as cover for the movement of centrifuge parts to various clients," Bush said. "Tahir also arranged for parts acquired by other European procurement agents to transit through Dubai for shipment to other customers."
The Malaysian official said, "We're cooperating with the U.S. authorities, especially in focusing on Tahir. In questioning him, we're trying to get a bigger picture of the network."
The investigation is centered largely on the deal Tahir struck with Scomi to machine the parts and has not branched off in other directions because his "involvement here was very focused," the official said.
The U.S. Embassy said information about Tahir was still being gathered.
"We're following the issue closely and we will implement and take action required by relevant laws," spokesman Frank Whitaker said.
"It's still early in the process and we simply haven't reached a conclusion of what would be the appropriate action to take regarding Tahir and Scomi both," Whitaker said.
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ANOTHER EVENTFUL WEEK? First, an update of who's the Big Fish to get netted - some say this Monday week - as PM Abdullah Badawi has said the government would continue with the momentum in hauling up high-profile corruptors.
Mingguan Malaysia re-interviewed Dr Rais Yatim to elaborate on the 18 high-profile cases he mentioned a day earlier. The de facto law minister confirmed the involvement of cabinet minister, and there are no new cases except the 18 which are currently being finalised. Their files are all over 18 months old.
Besides the three entities hinted yesterday - Perwaja Steel Sdn. Bhd., Projek Perumahan Rakyat Termiskin, and Malaysia Airlines - Mingguan today added one more name: the Tabung Haji.
However, Rais declined to reveal further details as those were the job for the Public Prosecutor.
Meanwhile, a woman minister has taken the offensive in the midst of intense rumour-mongering about her fate. Via Bernama February 15, 2004 17:24 PM:
International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Rafidah Aziz Sunday warned opposition leaders she will sue them if they slander her to their whims.
"If I hear any slander against me, I will sue, that's all I can say. Don't slander me as you like," she told reporters when asked to comment on claims by opposition leaders that she was among the ministers in the Anti-Corruption Agency's (ACA) list to be charged in court for corruption.
A little bird says there is a PDF file floating in the Internet, referring to a minister codified as B1. However, the authenticity has neither been confirmed nor denied.
Leslie Lau of Singapore Sunday Times points to at least one Cabinet minister from Umno who is said to be linked with corrupt practices involving the issuance of commercial vehicle licences.
He quotes ACA director-general Zulkipli Mat Noor as saying: 'There are many rivers and the oceans are vast. Do not tell me we cannot catch any fish?'



US Official: No record of Scomi supplying centrifuge parts
Click here to see how a gas centrifuge works (Source: BBC News)

The Asian Wall Street Journal (AWSJ) today quoted a US official as saying that "they have no records of the (Malaysian) firm, reported to be allegedly prodhttp://www.jeffooi.com/ucing centrifuge parts, being a regular supplier for proliferating states".
The AWSJ quoted the senior official as saying that the Malaysian centrifuge components, intercepted by European security agents on a German vessel bound for Libya last October, were "dual-purpose parts that can be used in any number of applications."
Last night, Bukit Aman issued a media statement saying Scomi Precision Engineering Sdn Bhd (SCOPE), a subsidiary of Scomi Group Bhd , and BSA Tahir, a Sri Lankan national and businessman based in Dubai, are now cooperating fully with the police in the investigations.
SCOPE had admitted to manufacturing 14 semi-finished components for Dubai-based Gulf Technical Industries L.L.C (GTI), but maintained it was not informed of the end use of these components.
In Scomi's IPO documents (Page 244), it was disclosed that SCOPE had signed a 2-year material agreement with GTI on Dec 8, 2001.
Nuclear black market? Meanwhile, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said February 3 that its Director General Mohamed ElBaradei has focused international attention on an emerging and sophisticated "nuclear black market" in weapons technology.
Considerable light on the global network has come from the IAEA's ongoing verification of nuclear programmes in Iran and Libya, he said.
However, he stressed that the emerging picture so far has not indicated governments are involved, but rather points to individuals engaged in illicit trafficking of material and equipment.
BBC News reported Feb 5 that ElBaradei had told reporters Abdul Qadeer was "just the tip of the iceberg for us" and that the scientist was "not working alone".
The IAEA Board is scheduled to meet in Vienna March 8.
For context, please read previous blog, the AWSJ (subscription required) and Bernama despatch time-stamped 13:02hr today.
The New York Times Thursday runs a despatch by Raymond Bonner, timelined Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Company Tied to Nuclear Trade Network. Excerpts:
But with the tight control that the Malaysian government has traditionally exercised, many Malaysians and foreign diplomats doubt that a sale of this nature would have been possible without the knowledge of at least some senior government officials, probably in the military.
DPM/Defence Minister Najib Razak today told Rohan Sullivan of Associated Press, which is picked up by Washington Post and The Guardian, that Malaysia had 'absolutely' no ambitions to be a nuclear power.
Posted by jeffooi at February 5, 2004 01:42 PM | TrackBack
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Bernama.com
Malaysian National News Agency

Claims That M'sia Produces Nuclear Weapon Components Unfounded
General
February 04, 2004 21:47 PM
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 4 (Bernama) -- Malaysian police investigations reveal that no local companies are manufacturing or capable of manufacturing components for making uranium centrifuge used in producing nuclear weapons.
Refuting foreign media allegations on the production of the components by a local company, Inspector-General of Police Datuk Seri Mohd Bakri Omar said investigations showed that production of the components needed high technology and expertise in nuclear weapons.
In its media statement on Wednesday, Bukit Aman said police were cooperating closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to ensure that the investigations were truly transparent.
The investigations began as soon as the Special Branch (Police) was contacted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States (US) and the British Intelligence Agency (MI6) on Nov 10, last year, on the seizure of five containers containing components for making the centrifuge from a ship, BBC China, which was inspected in Taranto, Italy on Oct 4 last year.
It was claimed that the five containers were bound for Libya, and the components were placed in wooden boxes marked Scomi Precision Engineering Sdn Bhd (SCOPE), a subsidiary of Scomi Group Bhd.
Both intelligence agencies had notified BSA Tahir, a Sri Lankan national and businessman based in Dubai, who was involved as the middleman in supplying the centrifuge components from Malaysia for the uranium enrichment programme in Libya.
Preliminary police investigations revealed that "BSA Tahir had offered a contract to SCOPE to prepare the components which was said to be a legitimate transaction," according to the three-page statement.
"SCOPE had accepted the offer and a factory had been built in Shah Alam to manufacture the components," he said.
He said preliminary investigations showed the components for the centrifuge seized from the BBC China could also be used for petrochemicals, water treatment and health applications such as molecular biology for protein separation.
"In fact, nuclear experts also found it difficult to determine positively that the components seized were part of the components for the centrifuge units," he said.
The IGP said investigations so far indicated that no company in Malaysia was capable of manufacturing the complete centrifuge unit as it required high technology and expertise in the field of nuclear weapons.
"As such, BSA Tahir and SCOPE are cooperating fully with the police in the investigations.
"Although BSA Tahir is under police investigations, he is not being detained as claimed by the foreign media," according to the statement, stressing that investigations were still on-going with the cooperation of the IAEA to ensure that the probe was truly transparent.
Mohd Bakri also said a detailed statement would be made as soon as investigations were completed.
Meanwhile Scomi Group Bhd said in a press statement issued here on Wednesday evening that its wholly owned subsidary, SCOPE, was awarded a contract to provide tooling services to Gulf Technical Industries L.L.C (GTI), a corporation based in Dubai.
The contract was arranged by BSA Tahir, who is currently the subject of investigations by Malaysian, American and British intelligence authorities over his alleged involvement in the supply of nuclear technology to Libya, it said.
It said SCOPE, which is involved in the provision of specialised tooling work for third party customers in the oil and gas, automative and general components industry, had manufactured 14 semi-finished components, although the end use of these components was never disclosed to SCOPE.
The company had shipped these components to the GTI in four consignments commencing in December 2002, and "since the delivery of the last consignment in August 2003, the company has not received any new orders from GTI," it said.
The total value of the contract was RM13 million over a period of two years, beginning 2002.
It said: "This accounts for only 3.5 percent of Scomi Group Berhad's consolidated turnover amounting to approximately RM360 million over the same perod (2003 turnover unaudited). The contract with GTI was disclosed accordingly during the listing exercise of Scomi."
Scomi Group, which is involved in the oil and gas services industry and listed on the Second Board of the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange, "has since cooperated fully with the Malaysian police in this investigation," it said.
-- BERNAMA
Copyright ?2004 BERNAMA. All rights reserved.

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Malaysian net catches sharks - or anchovies
By Anil Netto
PENANG, Malaysia - The arrest on Thursday of a Malaysian cabinet minister on corruption charges marks the second high-profile catch this week in Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi's anti-corruption crusade.
The arrests come at a time when the ruling coalition is trying to convince Malaysians that it is serious about wiping out graft ahead of a general election expected in a few months, but some skeptics believe many more heads have to roll.
Police and Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) officers brought Land and Cooperative Development Minister Kasitah Gaddam to the Sessions Court in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday, where he faced two counts of corruption involving share transactions.
Dozens who got wind of the news flocked to the court premises. "It was packed inside the court and there was an air of anticipation," a lawyer who witnessed the proceedings said. "It was standing room only and they had to bring in an extra bench to provide additional seats for reporters. Everyone was fighting for seats to see the minister."
Kasitah pleaded not guilty to abusing his position in 1996 as executive chairman of the Sabah Land Development Board in taking part in the approval of a share transaction in which he had an interest. He was also alleged to have deceived the board by concealing a firm's offer of shares in its proposal for listing on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange.
Kasitah, who is not as high-profile as his other cabinet colleagues, was granted bail of RM1 million (US$263,000). If found guilty, he faces lengthy jail terms, fines or both.
On Monday, ACA officers and police swooped down on another prominent personality, the former head of the ailing state-owned steel giant, Perwaja Steel. Eric Chia Eng Hock, who was hand-picked by former premier Mahathir Mohamad, was charged the next day with fraud - eight years after ACA investigations first began (see Tycoon's arrest boosts corruption crusade, February 11).
Abdullah raised public expectations by declaring a war on corruption soon after he took over from Mahathir last November. This week's arrests appear to boost that campaign, although at the time, skeptics felt he lacked the political base to introduce radical reforms and wipe out money politics and corruption.
The boost to the ruling coalition arising from Chia's arrest was also dampened by news on Wednesday that an opposition politician was offered money to defect to the ruling party, United Malays National Organization. The independent web portal Malaysiakini reported that a youth leader from the opposition Parti Keadilan Rakyat (Keadilan) claimed that he had been offered RM500,000 to switch camps.
In the run-up to general elections, news outlets often publish suspicious reports of mass defections of opposition politicians to the ruling coalition, accompanied by photographs of the defecting politicians handing in their application forms.
Critics say the recent high-profile arrests do not go high enough and they will not be satisfied until the ikan jerong (sharks) are arrested along with the ikan bilis (anchovies).
Abdullah's onetime rival, jailed ex-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, hit out from his prison cell near Kuala Lumpur. "There has been no action taken against the hugely corrupt, including cabinet ministers who are involved in hundreds of millions of ringgit in commissions on arms purchase deals and in share allocations," he said in a statement.
Anwar, now serving jail terms totaling 15 years, had lodged a police report against Chia and Mahathir in 1999 over their role in Perwaja, now saddled with RM11 billion ($2.9 billion) in losses.
Abdullah insists that he is willing to go all the way in fighting corruption. "Big or small, we will cast a net," he told visiting regional editors. "I am not thinking about political backlash at all because if we do, we will only get frightened."
Opposition politician Lim Kit Siang noted some similarities between Abdullah's and his predecessor Mahathir's first 100 days in power. "Although 22 years apart, both started with a bang in the revamp of the civil service and the war against corruption."
Lim noted that Abdullah needs "to fully empower the Anti-Corruption Agency and the attorney general to scrupulously follow the simple anti-corruption principles enunciated by Mahathir 22 years ago, but never implemented".
Some also see Kasitah's arrest as linked to the upcoming elections in the northern Borneo state of Sabah across the South China Sea. The term of the current state assembly expires on April 12 and state elections must be held by June 12.
Kasitah's arrest could thus provide a boost for the ruling coalition's campaign in Sabah, given the backdrop of graft and abuse of power in the state.
"In the past 10 years, the ACA in Sabah had initiated countless corruption investigations, as the administration of every chief minister under the two-year rotation system [among ruling-coalition parties] seemed to have spawned an unique set and legacy creating more misgovernment, abuse of power and even corruption," observed Lim.
Some think Abdullah has not yet netted the big fish. They say that Chia was, after all, only prominent as a tycoon in the early 1990s while Kasitah is an almost unknown cabinet minister.
Others feel that if the government is serious about corruption, it has to introduce radical reforms to the legal system and the judiciary and make the ACA more independent. At present, the ACA comes under the prime minister's department.
"One of the main things Abdullah needs to do is to abolish the Official Secrets Act," said Cynthia Gabriel, executive director of human-rights group Suaram, pointing out that the withholding of information has actually strengthened the roots of corruption in society.
"While we laud his moves to fight corruption, they must be accompanied by the opening up of various other institutions and the repeal of laws that facilitate the breeding of corruption in society," Gabriel added.

(Inter Press Service)
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Libya's black market deals shock nuclear inspectors

Ian Traynor in Vienna
Saturday January 17, 2004
The Guardian
Colonel Muammar Gadafy of Libya has been buying complete sets of uranium enrichment centrifuges on the international black market as the central element in his secret nuclear bomb programme, according to United Nations nuclear inspectors.
The ease with which the complex bomb-making equipment was acquired has stunned experienced international inspectors. The scale and the sophistication of the networks supplying so-called rogue states seeking nuclear weapons are considerably more extensive than previously believed.
The purchase of full centrifuges, either assembled or in parts, marks a radical departure in what is on offer on the black market, sources said. While it is not yet clear where Col Gadafy obtained the centrifuge systems, at least 1,000 machines, believed to have been made in Malaysia, were seized last October by the Italian authorities on a German ship bound for Libya.
Diplomatic sources familiar with the results of a recent visit to Libya by nuclear experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the Gadafy bomb programme differed in crucial respects from nuclear projects in Iran, Iraq or North Korea.
"What was found in Libya marks a new stage in proliferation," said one knowledgeable source. "Libya was buying what was available. And what is available, the centrifuges, are close to turnkey facilities. That's a new challenge. Libya was buying something that's ready to wear."
As the climax to nine months of secret negotiations with British and US intelligence, Col Gadafy announced last month that he was renouncing his weapons of mass destruction programmes after purchasing what sources said were "a few thousand" centrifuges for enriching uranium to weapons grade.
Another well-placed source said: "We all now realise there is this extraordinarily developed and sophisticated market out there enabling anyone to get this centrifuge equipment."
Mohammed El Baradei, the IAEA chief, visited Libya a couple of weeks ago to view the Libyan equipment and take charge of the upcoming effort to dismantle the Libyan bomb programme. He described the experience as "an eye-opener".
A centrifuge is made up of hundreds of separate components. Typically, a country covertly seeking the uranium enrichment technology will seek to cover its tracks by obtaining a design blueprint and then purchasing the varied components separately from different suppliers.
The German ship was seized by Italians after a tip-off from the CIA. Knowledgeable sources said the centrifuges on board were "made-to-order" in Malaysia for Libya, based on designs directly or indirectly from Pakistan.
While US government sources have claimed that the seizure persuaded Col Gadafy to do his deal with Washington and London, diplomats and analysts closely following the nuclear trade are convinced that the ship was impounded because of information provided by the Libyans.
According to this version circulating in Vienna, headquarters of the IAEA, Col Gadafy told the CIA about the shipment as a goodwill gesture to convince the Americans and the British that he was committed to the deal being negotiated.
A Finnish expert leading the IAEA investigations into the Libyan and Iranian nuclear projects has so far been denied access to the equipment impounded by the Italians, apparently because of the tug-of-war between the Americans and the Vienna agency over how to dismantle the Libyan programme.
Senior US and British officials are due in Vienna on Monday to negotiate with Dr El Baradei over how to proceed in Tripoli. The Americans will be led by John Bolton, the hawk in charge of nuclear proliferation issues at the State Department. He has a reputation for scorning the UN agencies and his officials disparaged the El Baradei trip to Tripoli as a publicity stunt.

>> 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

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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.


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'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
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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.

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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
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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
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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
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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:
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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
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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
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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.''
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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]
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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(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
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.