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(12/09/02 3:44am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A top advisor to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein challenged Washington to put forward any proof that Baghdad's account of its chemical, biological and nuclear programs was inaccurate, as Iraq's voluminous report was flown Sunday to the United Nations headquarters.\n"It's accurate, comprehensive and truthful," Gen. Amer al-Saadi, presidential science adviser, said of the arms declaration report that Iraq handed in a day earlier. He told reporters that if others -- implicitly the United States -- "have anything to the contrary, let them come forth with it."\nAl-Saadi said the report, which is more than 10,000 pages long, "will embarrass some nations and companies" cited as having assisted in Iraq's efforts to build weapons of mass destruction, which Baghdad insists it no longer holds.\nAl-Saadi said the document was so complete that if the council makes it all public, "this means that the Security Council is participating in the proliferation of materials" relating to prohibited weapons. He said the council already was discussing how to handle the report during a meeting in New York on Tuesday.\nA U.N. courier brought one copy of the report to Vienna and handed it over Sunday to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which heads U.N. nuclear inspections in Iraq. Another commercial flight was taking two more copies to New York -- one for the Security Council, the other for the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission.\nSpeaking to reporters, al-Saadi gave an overview of what was in the various reports on chemical, biological and nuclear programs, reading chapter headings from the declaration but offering few details.\n"Already it's been described as a telephone book," he said of the number of pages in the report.\nThe documents account for Iraq's "dual-use" industries that can serve both civilian and military purposes. They also detail the weapons programs that Iraq has already acknowledged running before 1991 but that it says were halted long ago. Al-Saadi warned that some material in the papers, if made public, might be used by others to help develop weapons.\nHe said Iraq's nuclear program never reached the stage of producing a bomb, as Iraqi officials have said in the past, but suggested material in the report could misused.\n"If you follow the documents we have given, there is no guarantee that you would succeed (in making the bomb) ... We don't know. It's for others to judge," he said.\nA day earlier, Saddam grudgingly apologized to Kuwait for his 1990 invasion. That invasion and seven-month occupation ended only when a huge, U.S.-led force drove Iraq out in February 1991 and led to sanctions and U.N. demands that Iraq give up weapons of mass destruction.\nSaddam's letter to Kuwaitis, read on state television by his information minister, was obviously timed to coincide with the presentation of the "tell-all" arms documents. Although he apologized to the Kuwaiti people, Saddam also repeated Iraqi charges that it was the Kuwaiti government's anti-Iraq oil policies that justified the invasion.\nToday, Saddam charged, the Kuwaiti government was working "with foreigners" who have aggressive designs on Iraq. Thousands of U.S. troops in Kuwait, based there since the 1991 war, would likely play an important role in any new U.S. attack launched to punish Saddam for allegedly stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.\nKuwait's information minister, Sheik Ahmed Fahd Al Ahmed Al Sabah, rejected Saddam's apology.\nWhile Saddam's apology was unexpected, his arms declaration was long-awaited.\nThe U.N. resolution requiring the declaration be filed by Sunday also called on Iraq to declare any stocks or programs in chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. The Baghdad government says it has none.\nU.S. President George W. Bush rejected such Iraqi denials. Reacting to the delivery of the giant report Saturday, Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said Washington will analyze Iraq's claims and work with other countries to end "Saddam Hussein's pursuit and accumulation of weapons of mass destruction."\nIn Britain Sunday, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said his country would not rush to judge Iraq's arms declaration, but added he remained skeptical about the document. Straw, speaking to the BBC, also dismissed Saddam's apology to the Kuwaiti people.\nRussia, which has been an Iraqi ally on the Security Council, said Iraq has shown it wants to cooperate with the United Nations.\n"Iraq's timely submission of its declaration, parallel to its continued cooperation with the international weapons inspectors, confirms its commitment to act in compliance with" the latest Security Council resolution on Iraqi arms, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Sunday in a statement issued in Moscow.\nBush administration officials, backed by Britain, have threatened war if, in their view, Baghdad has not met U.N. arms control demands. They say they have "solid evidence" Iraq retains weapons of mass destruction, and will eventually supply it to U.N. inspectors.\nIn Iran Sunday, the leader of the biggest Iraqi opposition group told The Associated Press that he has documents proving Saddam is hiding weapons of mass destruction and that he was prepared to hand over the documents to the United Nations if the safety of his informers inside Iraq was guaranteed.\nMohammed Baqir al-Hakim, leader of the exiled Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, offered no details. He said he had not approached the United Nations, instead waiting for officials to come to him now that he has publicized his claim.\nU.N. investigators, who returned to Iraq two weeks ago after a four-year absence, went out on their daily surprise inspections again Sunday morning, visiting a mining and survey company in Baghdad and a pesticide plant west of the capital.\nThe U.N. teams received reinforcements later Sunday, 25 additional inspectors, most from the nuclear agency. They also received the first of an expected eight helicopters on Saturday, and on Sunday it was being assembled for deployment here.\nThe previous U.N. weapons inspection regime collapsed in 1998 amid U.N.-Iraqi disputes over access to sites and over U.S. spies within the U.N. operation.\nIf Iraq is eventually found to have cooperated fully with the inspectors, U.N. resolutions call for the Security Council to consider lifting economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990.
(12/05/02 4:53am)
WASHINGTON -- Voicing fresh terrorism fears that stretch from Africa to the Middle East, President Bush said Wednesday he believes the al Qaeda network was behind last week's attacks in Kenya and that terrorists have disrupted the Israel-Palestinian peace process.\nBush, fielding reporters' questions at a White House bill-signing ceremony, declined to criticize the Israeli government, whose troops fired Tuesday on a taxi at a West Bank checkpoint, killing a 95-year-old Palestinian great-grandmother.\n"I am concerned that terrorists have disrupted the ability for peace-loving people to move the (peace) process forward," Bush said. "... And so I fully understand the Israeli government's attempts to stamp out terror, because we'll never have peace as long as terrorists are able to disrupt."\nHe added that he is as worried "about the plight of the Palestinian people, concerned about suffering that has taken place as a result of the activities of terrorists."\n"The net effect of terrorism is to not only stop the peace process, but to cause suffering amongst all the people of the region, and that's why our war against terrorism must remain steadfast and strong wherever terror exists," the president said.\nHe did not directly reply when a journalist asked if he believes the terrorists at work in the West Bank are part of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. But Bush did finger bin Laden operatives for last week's coordinated attacks on Israelis in Kenya -- a hotel bombing and the firing of missiles at an Israeli charter flight.\n"I am concerned about al Qaeda anywhere. I believe that al Qaeda was involved in the African bombings in Kenya. I believe al Qaeda hates freedom. I believe al Qaeda will strike anywhere they can in order to disrupt a civil society and that's why we're on the hunt," the president said.\nWhite House press secretary Ari Fleischer later said that Bush was not speaking definitively about the culprits or ruling out involvement by other possible terror groups. "He's sharing with you suspicions you've heard from previous quarters," Fleischer said.\nQuestioned about world opinion, Bush said the United States is unfairly cast as waging war on Islam because "the propaganda machines are cranked up in the international community that paints our country in a bad light." He ticked off a litany of American accomplishments in postwar Afghanistan, among them the fact that girls can now attend school in that country.\nArmy Lt. Gen. Dan K. McNeil, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was at the White House earlier Wednesday and gave a briefing in the Situation Room about improved humanitarian conditions, Bush said.\n"The Muslim world will eventually realize -- if they don't now -- that we believe in freedom, and we respect all individuals. And unlike the killers, we value each life in America," Bush said. "Everybody is precious, everybody counts, and to the extent we need to continue to make that message work, we will try to do so. But the best thing we can do is show results from our activities"
(12/05/02 4:53am)
AL-MUTHANNA STATE ESTABLISHMENT, Iraq -- U.N. monitors Wednesday visited sites associated with mass destruction weapons Baghdad insists it no longer holds. Iraq, meanwhile, criticized the first inspection of a presidential palace, saying it was carried out under U.S. pressure to try to provoke a confrontation.\nIn Baghdad, a senior Iraqi official said Iraq will hand over its report on chemical, biological and nuclear programs on Saturday, a day ahead of the U.N. deadline. The official, Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, said the report will not admit to any proscribed weaponry "because, really, we have no weapons of mass destruction."\nPresident Bush, meanwhile, dismissed reports that Iraqi weapons inspections are going well. "We've been at this five days -- this is after 11 years of deceit and defiance," Bush told reporters in a brief White House exchange. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw warned in Slovenia that it would be "wise" for the Iraqis admit that they still have weapons of mass destruction.\nU.S. war planes bombed an Iraqi air defense site in the northern "no-fly" zone about 15 miles from the city of Mosul, U.S. officials said. The attack came after the Iraqis fired on U.S. jets patrolling the area, the officials said.\nAmong the two sites visited Wednesday was the Al-Tuwaitha nuclear complex, where inspectors checked on new construction and other changes since their last visit in 1998, according to Melissa Fleming, spokeswoman for the U.N. nuclear control agency in Vienna, Austria.\nThe other site at al-Muthanna, located in the desert about 45 miles northwest of Baghdad, was formerly associated with Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programs.\nAl-Tuwaitha, 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, has long been an issue of international concern. The site was bombed by Israeli warplanes in 1981 and again by the Americans in the Gulf War 10 years later. Recent satellite photos have spotted new construction.\nIn the late 1990s, U.N. inspectors demolished the al-Muthanna State Establishment after finding it had been key to Iraq's production of some of the deadliest chemical weapons known: mustard gas, tabun, sarin and VX nerve agent.\nThe desert center operated under the name of Iraqi State Establishment for Pesticide Production, but the Iraqis finally admitted to the U.N. monitors that al-Muthanna produced 4,000 tons of chemical warfare agent per year.\nAl-Muthanna also became instrumental in the development of biological agents, apparently including anthrax.\nWednesday's searches came at the end of the first week of renewed inspections under a U.N. Security Council mandate for Iraq to shut down any continuing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs.\nThe Iraqis have until Sunday to submit a report outlining their chemical, biological and nuclear programs, including those for peaceful purposes. Gen. Amin, the chief Iraqi liaison officer, said the report will be submitted Saturday but will not include any admission of banned armaments "because, really, we have no weapons of mass destruction."\nBoth the United States and Britain maintain that's not true and have threatened to disarm the Iraqis by force if they do not surrender proscribed weapons. U.S. officials said they will check the Iraqi claims against their own intelligence to determine if the report is accurate.\nThe inspectors are operating under a new U.N. resolution which gives inspectors the power to go anywhere at anytime in search of banned weapons. To reinforce that, the inspectors paid a visit Tuesday to one of Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces, Al-Sajoud.\nAmin criticized the palace inspection, saying it was performed under U.S. and Israeli pressure to goad Iraq into a confrontation. He said that if the inspectors had expected to find banned weapons, they would have worn protective gear but did not.\n"We consider the entry of the presidential sites as unjustified and really unnecessary," Amin said, adding that Iraq would not try to bar inspectors nevertheless.\nDisputes over access to palaces and other sensitive sites and over allegations of U.S. spies on the U.N. team led to the collapse of the previous inspection mission in 1998.\nWhen the inspectors arrived Wednesday at the remote front gate of al-Muthanna, they were admitted quickly to what appeared to be a vast desert installation covering what seemed to be several square miles. Through the morning fog, the ruins of scattered buildings could be seen from the outer gate.\nAfter the 1991 war, the facility's equipment and material were destroyed under the supervision of U.N. inspectors in the late 1990s.\nThe disarmament of al-Muthanna was a major achievement of the U.N. inspectorate. A recent Iraqi report said the U.N. teams at al-Muthanna had destroyed 38,500 artillery shells and other chemical-filled weapons, almost 520,000 gallons of liquid material, 150 pieces of equipment used to make chemical weapons, and four production facilities.\nInspectors left al-Muthanna without speaking to journalists waiting at the gate. However, an Iraqi liaison officer, Raad Manhal, said the arms experts had searched for signs of resumed production at the site.\n"There were looking for any change, and they found no change," Manhal said.\nSo far, the inspectors have reported the Iraqis to be cooperative. In New York on Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan described Iraq's co-operation as good, but he cautioned "this is only the beginning."\nAnnan's comments appeared at odds with that of Bush, who said Monday that early signs from Baghdad "are not encouraging." The president held to that view in his comments Wednesday.\nSecretary of State Colin Powell told reporters while en route to Colombia that the inspection process is "off to a pretty good start" and noted the inspectors have been allowed to visit sites thus far without Iraqi interference.\n"I'm not prepared to say the inspections are working," Powell said. "They're not up to strength and they're not up to speed yet."\nIn the 1990s, inspectors eliminated tons of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons and the equipment to make them, dismantled Iraq's effort to build nuclear bombs, and destroyed scores of longer-range Iraqi missiles. The inspectors reported that they suspected they had not found all of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.\nIraq denied Kuwaiti claims that one of its boats had fired on Kuwaiti coast guard vessels in the Persian Gulf on Tuesday. Kuwait said the Iraqi vessel fled after the Kuwaitis returned fire.\nThe Iraqi Foreign Ministry said in a statement that no such incident occurred.
(12/05/02 4:51am)
SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea rejected a call by the U.N. nuclear monitoring agency for the communist country to abandon its nuclear weapons program and allow foreign inspections.\nNorth Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam Sun said the Nov. 29 resolution was "extremely unilateral," the North Korean official news agency KCNA reported Wednesday.\nThe International Atomic Energy Agency's resolution urged North Korea to "give up any nuclear weapons programs expeditiously" and open "all relevant facilities to IAEA inspection and safeguards."\n"Paek clarified that the government cannot accept the ... resolution," KCNA said, citing a letter sent Monday from Paek to director-general IAEA Mohamed ElBaradei.\nThe White House denounced the decision and said it would work with other countries in the region to find a peaceful solution.\n"The rejection of the IAEA resolution to open its facilities to inspections is another disappointing example of North Korea's isolation that will only hurt the people of North Korea," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Wednesday.\n"We will continue to apply this pressure to North Korea by working in partnership with Russia and China ... as well as Japan and South Korea. The region has a peaceful interest in working together so North Korea comes into compliance with international norms," he said.\nIn Vienna, the IAEA expressed "deep concern" about North Korea's response.\nPaek's letter didn't respond to requests that North Korea "clarify reports of its having an undeclared uranium enrichment program," IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said Wednesday.\nNorth Korea also left unanswered the IAEA's request for high-level talks in Vienna on Oct. 18, Fleming said.\n"Dr. ElBaradei is reiterating his deep concern about the situation, his readiness to discuss all nuclear-related matters" with North Korea, Fleming said.\nThe IAEA previously had said it may take the matter to the U.N. Security Council if North Korea rejected its resolution.\nU.S. diplomats say North Korea revealed in October it had a nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 agreement with the United States. The accord called for the country to freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear weapons program in exchange for international aid to build two power plants.\nThe United States, with backing from Japan, South Korea and the European Union, decided to punish North Korea by suspending free fuel oil shipments beginning in December.\nNorth Korea responded by declaring the 1994 agreement "collapsed."\nPaek blamed the crisis on "hostile" U.S. policies and accused the IAEA of treating North Korea unfairly.\n"I was disappointed at the IAEA board of governors still acting under the manipulation of the United States," Paek said.\nLittle is known about North Korea's nuclear program.\nThe IAEA has inspectors in North Korea but their activities are limited to monitoring an old nuclear complex north of Pyongyang and a reactor at another site.\nNorth Korea once showed IAEA inspectors about 100 grams of weapons-grade plutonium but U.S. officials believe the country has produced enough for several nuclear weapons.\nU.S. officials also say they have evidence that North Korea has been running a new weapons program, using enriched uranium.\nPyongyang accuses the United States of delaying construction of the power plants promised under the 1994 agreement.
(12/05/02 4:50am)
SPACE CENTER, Houston -- Clouds over the landing site in Florida canceled space shuttle Endeavour's first attempt Wednesday afternoon to touch down, delaying the homecoming of the international space station's former crew.\n"Unfortunately, due to weather beginning to deteriorate, we'd like to wave you off on this attempt," Mission Control told the shuttle crew.\nThe crew had a second opportunity to land Wednesday, but the weather was expected to worsen. Mission Control told the shuttle crew it was debating whether to try the second attempt or hold off a day. Thursday's forecast was dismal.\nThe shuttle is the ride back to Earth for the space station Alpha crew of U.S. astronaut Peggy Whitson and Russian cosmonauts Valery Korzun and Sergei Treschev. They spent the past six months aboard the orbiting outpost and were the fifth resident crew.\nEndeavour, which launched on Nov. 23, has enough fuel and supplies to stay in orbit until Sunday. The backup landing site at Edwards Air Force Base in California would probably not be called up until Saturday, if needed, said flight director Wayne Hale.\nThe space station's returning crew members won't mind if they have to spend a few more days in space. They have already spent an extra 1 1/2 months living aboard Alpha because of various problems that delayed the shuttle's flight.\n"It's not really a big deal," Whitson said. She described the shuttle as "pretty cozy," but did acknowledge it is quite a bit smaller than the station and takes some getting used to.\nThe shuttle undocked from the space station on Monday with Whitson and her crewmates, leaving behind their replacements -- two Americans and one Russian -- who will remain aboard the orbiting outpost until March.\nDuring their one-week visit to Alpha, Endeavour's four-astronaut crew helped install a new $390 million, 45-foot girder on the space station during three spacewalks.
(12/05/02 4:48am)
CAIRO, Egypt -- An Egyptian-American sociologist awaiting retrial on charges of tarnishing Egypt's image said Wednesday he was considering applying for leave to travel abroad for medical treatment.\nSaad Eddin Ibrahim was released from prison Tuesday after an Egyptian appeals court overturned his conviction and seven-year sentence and ordered a retrial. The conviction had also been for accepting foreign money without government approval and embezzling funds.\nInternational rights groups had condemned Ibrahim's conviction as politically motivated, and the case has strained ties between Egypt and the United States.\nIbrahim, who turned 64 on Tuesday, walks with a cane and suffers from a neurological disorder that prevents sufficient oxygen from reaching the deeper recesses of the brain. His family says he suffered several small strokes while in prison.\nIbrahim said he may ask for permission to travel before or on the first day of his retrial, which is scheduled to start Jan. 7. It will be his third trial on the charges.\nHe has sought permission to travel several times during his protracted legal battles and has not been successful. The state has held his Egyptian and U.S. passports since he was first detained in July 2000.\nA professor at American University in Cairo, Ibrahim was first convicted May 21, 2001. He appealed but was convicted again July 29.\nThe State Security Court said then that Ibrahim falsely claimed that Egypt persecutes its Christian Coptic minority and mistreats human rights groups.\nIbrahim founded and directed the Cairo-based Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies, which campaigned for political and economic reform in the Arab world.\nHe and 27 others were arrested in July 2000 after announcing they would monitor Egypt's 2000 parliamentary elections. The center had said the 1995 elections were rigged.\nFollowing Ibrahim's second conviction, President Bush said the United States would protest by opposing aid to Egypt beyond the $2 billion it receives from Washington each year.\nC. David Welch, the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, issued a statement welcoming Tuesday's order for a retrial.
(12/04/02 3:22am)
HAKKARI, Turkey -- To understand why Turkey is hesitant to back a U.S. attack against Iraq, just look at Hakkari, a mountain town near the Iraqi border where poverty and unemployment fuel anger at the government and support for Kurdish nationalism.\nTurkey's backing is crucial to any U.S. attack on Iraq, but the overwhelmingly Muslim nation fears that Saddam Hussein's removal could lead to the split-up of Iraq, with Kurds in the north declaring a separate state and providing an example for Turkey's Kurds.\nIn Hakkari, poverty forces men to line up in the freezing cold to get free government coal to heat their homes and many people get their food from state kitchens.\nAlmost half of the town's population of 60,000 are villagers who fled the countryside, either threatened by guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, or more often, by Turkish soldiers. Human rights groups say Turkey burned thousands of villages as part of a strategy to clear the countryside and deny the guerrillas local support.\n"If the Iraqis have democracy, we can start pointing to them and saying, 'Our brothers have democracy, why not us,'" said a Kurdish activist in a furniture shop in Hakkari. He agreed to speak on condition that he was only identified as Ahmet.\n"The Turkish government says there are no Kurdish people. If there is a Kurdish government in Iraq, this idea will fall apart," he added.\nKurdish guerillas battled Turkey for 15 years, leaving 37,000 dead.\nU.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz visited Ankara on Tuesday to press for Turkey's support for an Iraq operation. Turkey, a NATO member, borders Iraq and hosted more than 100 U.S. warplanes during the 1991 Gulf War. U.S. troops would need to cross through Turkey if they were to fight in northern Iraq.\nWolfowitz, in meetings with Prime Minister Abdullah Gul, offered reassurance for Turkey's fears for its economy, discussion how U.S. aid could provide a cushion in the event of war. During a July visit, Wolfowitz outlined Washington's "firm opposition to a Kurdish state in northern Iraq."\nIn the southeast, where half of Turkey's 12 million Kurds live, the feelings are different.\nHuseyin Umit, the mayor of Hakkari, said Turkey would have nothing to fear from a Kurdish state in Iraq. Umit is from a pro-Kurdish party the courts have been trying to shut down.\n"If there is a Kurdistan in Iraq, there would be no problem," he said. "It would be progress... We would respect and support it."\nTurkish officials have repeatedly warned Washington that they will not accept a Kurdish state in northern Iraq. Turkey already has several thousands soldiers backed by about three dozen tanks in northern Iraq to chase Turkish Kurdish guerrillas.\nIt is likely to increase the force if war breaks out as a reminder to Iraqi Kurds that Turkey's concerns cannot be ignored.\nKurdish guerrillas in Turkey declared a unilateral cease-fire in 1999 after their leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured, but the situation is still tense.\nFacing strong European Union pressure, Turkey's parliament this summer agreed to limited television broadcasts in Kurdish and private classes in Kurdish, but many Kurds dismissed the moves as aimed more at the EU than local Kurds.
(12/04/02 3:21am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- International inspectors roared up to one of Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces Tuesday and demanded and received quick entry, in an early test of new powers to hunt for weapons of mass destruction anywhere, anytime in Iraq.\nIn New York, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan described Iraq's cooperation as good but cautioned "this is only the beginning." Annan's assessment appeared at odds with that of President Bush, who said Monday that early signs from Baghdad "are not encouraging."\nA key Iraqi official said Baghdad will reaffirm its position that it no longer has mass destruction weapons in a long-awaited declaration later this week that is unlikely to satisfy Washington.\nThe U.N. weapons monitors found spectacle and opulence inside the sprawling, riverside Al-Sajoud palace. But there was no word that they found anything else. A day earlier, the United Nations announced inspectors could not find some equipment they were looking for at a missile-related site; it was not the first time in a week of inspections that such a problem arose.\nChief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, speaking to The Associated Press on Tuesday at U.N. headquarters, said Iraq has not obstructed U.N. weapons inspectors during their first week of work but that Baghdad must explain moving some equipment.\nIraqis said Tuesday, as they have on previous days, that they cooperated with the inspectors.\nGen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, the chief Iraqi liaison officer, told journalists after Tuesday's presidential search: "The inspectors were happy."\nThe U.N. team left the west Baghdad grounds after 1 1/2 hours and had no comment for reporters, as has been their practice. The visit itself carried a message: that this time the inspectors have a free run of Iraq, under a Security Council mandate requiring the Baghdad government to give up any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.\nOnce the inspectors left, reporters were briefly allowed inside the palace's spectacular, eight-sided entry hall. Each of the walls was inscribed in huge gold letters with a poem praising Saddam.\nIn the 1990s, the Iraqis sought to bar U.N. monitors from Saddam's palaces. It took personal negotiations between Saddam and Annan to reach an accommodation: Inspectors could visit with diplomatic escort and notice. Those teams found nothing.
(12/03/02 4:39am)
MOMBASA, Kenya -- A Kenyan farmer said he spoke with suicide bombers moments before they blew up an Israeli-owned hotel here.\nKhamis Haro Deche, 39, a subsistence farmer and fisherman, lives about a half mile from the Paradise Hotel, where at least 15 people were killed in the attack last Thursday.\n"These are not good people. I shook hands with fire. I did not know. If you shake hands with a fire, you will be burned," the farmer said Sunday.\nPolice have confirmed nine Kenyans and three Israelis were killed; the hotel's Kenyan assistant manager is also believed dead. It was not clear whether two or three suicide bombers carried out the attack, Deputy Police Commissioner William Langat said Monday.\nMinutes before the blast, two Strela missiles narrowly missed an Israeli charter plane departing from Mombasa's airport.\nLangat said police were holding six Pakistanis and four Somalis picked up in a boat at Mombasa's port but had no firm evidence linking them to the attacks. Langat said the Pakistanis had not been extensively questioned because police do not have an Urdu translator.\nMir Mohammed, a Pakistani who was watching the 50-foot wooden vessel, told The Associated Press there had been only three Somalis aboard. Langat refused to comment about the number of Somalis on the boat.\nDeche said that shortly after 8 a.m. Thursday, a brown Mitsubishi Pajero with tinted windows and a red stripe pulled into his yard. He approached the car and saw two men whom he described as Arabs -- a slight young man with a nervous manner in the passenger seat and an older driver with a stockier build.\nHe leaned inside the vehicle to shake hands with both men, and saw no other people in the car. He saw several cellular phones on the dashboard.\nThe passenger spoke in Arabic-accented Kiswahili and told Deche they were waiting for a friend.\nInitial reports spoke of three men in the suicide vehicle, one of whom jumped out and blew himself up in the hotel lobby after the car had crashed through the gate. The hotel is about 12 miles north of Mombasa.\nLangat said police have spoken to seven witnesses who think they saw the brown car; some say they saw three men in the vehicle, but the most credible witnesses, Deche and a hotel security guard, said there were only two. No remains of the suicide bombers have been found, and police have not been able to identify the attackers.\nDeche said he was suspicious of the men because there had been thefts in the area, so he noted the car's license plate. The men drove away in the direction of the hotel, and a few minutes later an explosion shook his house, Deche said. Kenyan police and some "white men" who questioned him a day later told him the men were suspects in the bombing.\nWithin the scorched remains of the Paradise Hotel, Kenyan bomb specialists said parts of the vehicle used to carry out the attack were found up to 2,800 feet from the site.\nInvestigators also said they found parts of two gas welding cylinders, which they suspect were fastened to the vehicle to create a bigger explosion.\nKenyan police said Israeli authorities want to take the vehicle parts and the launchers and missile casings found near the airport back to Israel. Kenyan officials insist the evidence must remain in the East African nation, saying it is their responsibility to handle it.\nThe issue of Kenya's ability to carry out the investigation was raised by Sen. Robert Graham of Florida, the outgoing chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.\nGraham told "Fox News Sunday" that Kenya's "capability to do comprehensive investigation is limited. So therefore, I imagine that it will be primarily U.S. and Israeli intelligence officers who will be trying to unravel what happened in Kenya last week."\nA U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said initial suspicion centered on Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, a Somali Islamic group that was put on a list of international terrorist organizations after the Sept. 11 attacks.
(12/03/02 4:38am)
MIAMI -- A Carnival cruise ship returned from a three-day voyage Monday carrying nearly 200 people sickened by a gastrointestinal virus, with symptoms similar to those plaguing other cruise liners.\nA total of 190 passengers and four crew members on the Fascination reported vomiting and diarrhea, but experts had not yet confirmed whether they had a Norwalk-like virus, said Tim Gallagher, a Carnival Corp. spokesman.\nSo-called Norwalk-like viruses have plagued more than 1,000 people on other cruise ships in the past few months, including Holland America Line's Amsterdam and Disney Cruise Line's Magic, causing those companies to cancel one sailing each to thoroughly disinfect the ships.\nThe illness is seasonal, peaking in the colder months, and is not uncommon, said Dr. Steven Wiersma, the state epidemiologist.\n"We've already seen some (cases) in Florida -- this is not just a cruise ship issue," he said.\nWiersma said it was too early to tell if the recent outbreaks represent a spike in occurrences, since more people are reporting being sick because of the increased attention given to the cruise ship cases. Officials of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have said there is no evidence that the cruise ship outbreaks are the work of terrorists.\nThe number of gastrointestinal illnesses on cruise ships has declined since 1990, CDC spokeswoman Bernadette Burden said Monday, although she said the CDC does not currently have exact numbers.\nCDC experts obtained lab samples from the Fascination and its passengers to determine if a Norwalk-like virus caused the outbreak, with test results expected within five days, Burden said.\nThe 855-foot Fascination carried 2,428 passengers and more than 900 crew members on its three-day voyage to the Bahamas.\nThe federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was overseeing the cleaning of the ship, which was still scheduled for a late-afternoon sailing on a four-day cruise to Key West and Cozumel, Mexico, Gallagher said.\n"We're taking all possible precautions ... given the recent incidence of Norwalk-like viruses on cruise ships," Gallagher said.\nSickened Fascination passengers will not receive a refund or compensation because most became ill late Sunday, the last full day of the cruise.\nThe Norwalk virus, named for an outbreak 30 years ago in Norwalk, Ohio, and a group of Norwalk-like viruses are among several common micro-organisms that can cause diarrhea, stomach pain and vomiting for 24 to 48 hours, according to the CDC. They are spread through food and water and close contact with infected people or things they have touched. The incubation period is about two to three days.\nThe Amsterdam, which was held at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale for 10 days to be disinfected, departed on a 10-day Caribbean cruise Sunday with 1,261 passengers.\n"We are very confident that we have broken the cycle," said Rose Abello, a Holland America spokeswoman. "Can we guarantee that nobody will ever get sick? Absolutely not."\nHolland America Line Inc. also is owned by the Miami-based Carnival Corp.\nDisinfecting the Amsterdam included steam-cleaning drapes, furniture, cushions and 300,000 square feet of carpet, and even disinfecting poker chips. One passenger on Sunday's sailing, retired doctor Larry Lavoie, said he wasn't worried because the Amsterdam is now "the cleanest ship on the ocean."\nPassengers on other Holland America ships, the Ryndam and Statendam, have also contracted the Norwalk-like virus on recent cruises. A lawsuit seeking class-action status was filed in Canada in August on behalf of Ryndam passengers.
(11/26/02 7:16pm)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The first team of U.N. inspectors landed in Iraq on Monday to resume the hunt for chemical, biological or nuclear arms programs, a search whose outcome could help determine the future of peace in the Middle East.\nA white C-130 transport plane, emblazoned with a simple "UN," touched down at Saddam International Airport carrying 17 international arms monitors and their cargo of high-tech sensors, computers and other gear. They had assembled earlier at a U.N. rear base on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.\nThe team comprised six nuclear experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and 11 inspectors from the New York-based U.N. commission charged with searching for other weapons of mass destruction. Meetings were scheduled Monday night with liaisons from President Saddam Hussein's government.\nAfter a four-year suspension, the crucial new round of surprise inspections will begin Wednesday, when they will likely revisit an unidentified Iraqi site previously inspected in the 1990s. Among other things, they may check on cameras and other monitoring equipment left behind by earlier inspectors.\nLater, the inspectors will branch out to new or rebuilt sites -- for example, suspected storage places for chemical weapons U.S. intelligence alleges are still held by Iraq.\n"We come here with, let's say, hope that things will go well this time, and we will get what is required of Iraq," said Melissa Fleming, a nuclear agency spokeswoman who flew in with the inspectors.\n"We're aware that we will be watched, every move. I think the Iraqis are also aware that the entire world is watching."\nHiro Ueki, Baghdad spokesman for the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, known as UNMOVIC, said the expert teams are empowered by the United Nations to inspect any site at any time, and secrecy in planning is paramount.\n"If you were the head coach of an American football team, I don't think you'd reveal your strategy," Ueki said.\nFleming said some 35 additional inspectors will arrive Dec. 8.\nThe roster of U.N. inspectors includes some 300 chemists, biologists, missile and ordnance experts and other specialists of UNMOVIC, and a few dozen engineers and physicists of the U.N. nuclear agency. Between 80 and 100 will be working in Iraq at any one time.\nAs inspectors arrived, British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned Saddam against denying he has any weapons of mass destruction in the report Iraq must file to the United Nations by Dec. 8.\n"We have no doubt he does have weapons of mass destruction. So let's wait and see what he actually says," Blair told reporters in London. "Should it be found that that declaration was dishonest then that most certainly would be a material breach."\nIn Paris, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan and French President Jacques Chirac also urged Iraq to cooperate fully with the inspectors.\nOn the eve of the inspectors' arrival, the Iraqi government released a letter from Foreign Minister Naji Sabri to Annan protesting that parts of the U.N. resolution mandating the inspection mission could give Washington a pretext for attacking his country.\nSabri complained in particular that the resolution could turn "inaccurate statements (among) thousands of pages" of mandatory Iraqi reports into a supposed justification for military action.\n"There is premeditation to target Iraq, whatever the pretext," the foreign minister wrote.\nThe Iraqi complaints were not expected to interfere with resumption of the inspections. Iraq had accepted the resolution in a Nov. 13 letter from Sabri to Annan.\nIn seven years' work ending in 1998, U.N. expert teams destroyed large amounts of chemical and biological weapons and longer-range missiles forbidden to Iraq by U.N. resolutions after the Gulf War, in which an Iraqi invasion force was driven from Kuwait. The inspectors also dismantled Iraq's nuclear weapons program before it could build a bomb.\nThe inspections were suspended amid disputes over U.N. access to Iraqi sites and Iraqi complaints of American spying via the U.N. operation.\nA new focus on Iraq by the Bush administration led to adoption of Resolution 1441 and the dispatch of inspectors back to Iraq with greater powers of unrestricted access. Washington alleges that Iraq retains prohibited weapons and may be producing others.\nThe Security Council resolution, adopted unanimously Nov. 7, demands that the Iraqis give up any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, or face "serious consequences." The Bush administration threatens an invasion to enforce Iraqi disarmament, with or without U.N. sanction. Other governments say a decision to wage war on Iraq can be made only by the Security Council.\nThe resolution requires Iraq to account for its weapons programs, as well of chemical, biological and nuclear programs it claims are peaceful. Any "false statements or omissions" in that declaration could contribute to a finding that it had committed a "material breach" of the resolution, a finding that might lead to military action.\nSabri's letter, dated Saturday and released Sunday, called this key passage is unjust, "because it considers the giving of inaccurate statements -- taking into consideration that there are thousands of pages to be presented in those statements -- is a material breach."\nSabri wrote that the aim was clear: "to provide pretexts ... to be used in aggressive acts against Iraq."\nAfter talks with the Iraqis last week, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said they had expressed "particular concern" about what was expected of them in reporting on their chemical industry, a complex area in which many toxic products can be diverted to military use.\nIn an editorial Monday, the newspaper al-Thawra, organ of the ruling Baath Party, said Sabri's letter "reveals how bad, unjust and booby-trapped this resolution is."\nIf the inspectors eventually certify that Iraq has cooperated fully with their disarmament work, U.N. resolutions call for the lifting of international economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990.
(11/26/02 3:09pm)
LOS ANGELES -- In the vast, suburban expanse of the San Fernando Valley, one of the largest industries thrives quietly inside unmarked warehouses, walled estates and hidden studios.\nThe region is home to most of America's pornography industry -- videos, Web sites, phone sex businesses, adult toys and even the old-fashioned dirty magazine.\nWhile many parts of the nation's economy have suffered, the past five years have been good for the adult industry, as new video and computer technology opened the doors to hundreds of millions of potential customers around the world.\n"The adult industry doesn't follow the same ups and downs that other businesses do," said Paul Fishbein, publisher of the trade paper Adult Video News. "It still grows every year in terms of sales and rental volume."\nWhile the valley is home to some of the biggest names in the movie business -- Disney, DreamWorks, Warner Brothers and Universal Studios -- the 354 square miles of tract homes, strip centers and freeways on the north side of the Hollywood Hills also hosts some less famous names: Vivid Entertainment, VCA, Wicked Pictures and dozens of other studios churning out X-rated DVDs and videos.\n"Twenty years ago, you had people sneaking into those little theaters. That's all changed with technology," said Bill Asher, president of Vivid Entertainment. "We've gone from a market of hundreds of thousands to hundreds of millions."\nThe film, television and Web-based products produced by Vivid alone grossed $1 billion in retail sales last year, he said. A 1998 study by Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass., estimated that the industry generates $10 billion a year.\nBut in a business where few companies are public and new providers continually appear, it's difficult to come up with a dollar figure, said Michael Goodman, an entertainment industry analyst at the Yankee Group in Boston. "But it is a very profitable business and pretty recession-proof."\nSales and rentals of adult videos produced by American companies was a $4 billion business last year, Fishbein said, based on a survey of thousands of video stores and overall sales figures from the Video Software Dealers Association.\nThat growth has produced dozens of large and small valley studios producing hundreds of new titles each year and created a star-making machinery much like the old Hollywood studios.\nActors like Jenna Jameson, the reigning star of adult films, have big-dollar contracts with filmmakers who promote them on Web sites, movie display boxes and public appearances.\nA top "contract girl" can command thousands for dancing at an adult club, licensing products and starring on her own Web site, like Jameson's "Club Jenna," said Jay Grdina, who runs Jameson's businesses.\nBut adult filmmakers and actors aren't the only ones making money. Mainstream cable companies, satellite providers and hotel chains that offer in-room adult movies are cashing in, too, but like to keep their involvement low-profile.\n"We really can't characterize how popular adult programming is," said Robert Mercer, a spokesman for Direct TV, which offers adult channels and pay-per-view films. "We don't break out viewership for any of our channels."\nProduction of the valley's X-rated movies also is kept low-profile. Most are filmed in unmarked industrial buildings that border churches, schools and homes.\nTwo decades ago, the business was divided among Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York. It has migrated to the valley since then because of low rents and access to the mainstream movie business, Fishbein said.\nA chance to see adult films at home helped sell millions of VCRs in the 1980s. Now the industry is experimenting with interactive DVDs, said John Virata, senior editor of Digital Media Net, a trade magazine.\n"They are always the first movers in everything," he said.\nIn the valley, the business means thousands of jobs for actors, editors, directors, camera operators and set dressers, such as the people working on "The Alley," a new video being produced at a Vivid warehouse in Chatsworth. As the crew prepared to shoot, actors TJ Hart, Violet Blue and Brad Taylor passed around Altoids and discussed their upcoming scene.\nIn a small makeup trailer out back, another actress, who goes by the name of Dee, waited for her scene and talked about the business.\n"For anyone looking for work, you have to be (in the valley)," she said.
(11/25/02 5:00am)
KUWAIT CITY -- In Kuwait, two American soldiers are shot on a quiet stretch of desert highway. In Lebanon, an American nurse is murdered at a clinic. In Jordan, a U.S. diplomat is gunned down in his front yard.\nAs U.S. soldiers prepare for possible war with Iraq, and as violence continues in American-allied Israel and the Palestinian territories, a series of attacks on Americans in the Middle East has sparked fears that even friendly nations like Kuwait are no longer enclaves of safety.\n"The thing that is scary, that's different this time, is that it seems more organized," said Felix Reinberg, an American engineer who has spent 11 years working in Kuwait. He spoke days after the U.S. soldiers were injured in the highway shooting Thursday. "They've never really targeted Americans or Westerners in Kuwait."\nThe Kuwaiti government, eager to keep good relations with Washington, has portrayed the shooting as the act of a single, mentally ill man, not a reflection of broad anti-American feelings. But local press reports say the suspect, Khaled al-Shimmiri, told investigators he hated Americans and Jews.\nMany here fear the attack -- Kuwait's second in which American soldiers were shot -- will not be the last.\n"It's obvious these incidents will happen, and will continue to happen," said Abdullah Sahar, a political scientist at Kuwait University. "Kuwait is a very small society, and this is a very small country, and the Americans are everywhere: You go to the markets and you see Americans, you go on the street and you see Americans, maybe your neighbors are Americans."\nThe vast majority of this oil-rich nation is pro-American, grateful to the U.S.-led coalition that drove out Saddam Hussein's army in the 1991 Gulf War. Thousands of American workers and more than 10,000 U.S. soldiers have been welcomed.\nEven America's harshest critics want those troops to remain -- though they insist a deep hatred lies beneath the placid surface.\n"Most Kuwaitis want America to stay in Kuwait because they don't trust Saddam," said Abdul-Razzak al-Shayegi, an Islamic law scholar. "But how can I want America to be in Kuwait and shut my mouth about what they are doing in Israel?…How can I give America our land to attack Iraq?"\nWith anti-American sentiment on the rise, Kuwait's large, open American presence can offer easy targets.\n"Just 10 Kuwaitis planning to kill or do something against Americans, nobody can block them," Sahar said.\nOfficially, the Kuwaiti government says the country is unreservedly pro-American. "Be sure that all Kuwait -- all Kuwait, all Kuwaitis -- appreciate and welcome the Americans," said Khalid Al-Jarallah, an undersecretary in the Foreign Ministry.\nPrivately, though, some Kuwaiti officials acknowledge security concerns. Since the fatal shooting of a U.S. Marine and the wounding of another in an attack by Islamic extremists Oct. 8, nearly 25 percent of the country has been sealed off, left to U.S. and Kuwaiti soldiers preparing for war with Iraq.
(11/25/02 5:00am)
LAGOS, Nigeria -- The regional governor warned rioters would be shot on sight Sunday as hundreds of people fled the northern Nigerian city of Kaduna after four days of religious violence over the Miss World pageant killed 200 people.\nThe violence among Muslims and Christians began after a newspaper article last week said Islam's founding prophet would have chosen a Miss World contestant for a wife. The pageant was then moved to London and the contestants packed their gear and flew to the British capital.\nBy late Saturday, the Nigerian Red Cross counted 215 bodies on the streets and in mortuaries throughout Kaduna, 100 miles north of the capital Abuja, said Emmanuel Ijewere, president of the organization. Previous estimates said 100 people were killed.\nAn unknown number of others killed in the riots were believed to have been buried by family members uncounted, Ijewere told The Associated Press.\nNo new violence was reported Sunday in Kaduna, a Muslim-dominated city with a large Christian minority. Still, hundreds of people recovered what valuables they could from their destroyed homes and fled in cars, buses and on foot.\nThose who stayed attended church services and replenished food stocks at markets, where a few meat and vegetable stalls reopened.\nThe Kaduna governor, Ahmed Makarfi, told state radio that security forces would "shoot on sight" anyone inciting new violence.\nYakubu Ibrahim, 27, returned to find his home in ruins Sunday after taking refuge at a local army barracks for three days.\n"I lost everything except my shirt and my pants. I don't even have shoes," said Ibrahim, whose parents and four siblings were missing after the riots.\nThe fighting began after the Lagos-based ThisDay newspaper published an article on Nov. 16 saying Islam's founding prophet would have approved of the pageant.\n"What would Muhammad think? In all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from among them," Isioma Daniel wrote.\nMuslim protesters burned down the paper's office in Kaduna on Wednesday and rioting briefly spread to the capital, Abuja, on Friday before ending a day later.\nMore than 500 people were injured and 4,500 left homeless in Kaduna, Ijewere said. Casualty figures were not immediately available for Abuja.\nThe 80 Miss World contestants arrived in London Sunday on a hastily organized flight from Nigeria. The London show is scheduled for Dec. 7, the same day it had been planned for Nigeria.\nA top Nigerian Islamic leader called on Muslims not to resume fighting. In an interview published Sunday in ThisDay, Lateef Adegbite, secretary-general of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, forgave the newspaper.\n"We accept that explanation in good faith, and I call on all Nigerian Muslims to forgive ThisDay newspapers," Adegbite said. "Such a thing should never be done again. And it should be a lesson to others."\nAdegbite said Nigerian Muslims were grateful Miss World had been moved to London.\n"We thought it was wrong," he said, describing the pageant as a "parade of nudity" that is disrespectful of Islam.\nMuch of the violence Friday and Saturday was by Christians retaliating against Muslim neighborhoods, Ijewere said.\n"Some Christians feel especially bitter, because with the exit of Miss World, they have lost a symbolic battle while the Muslims have won," Ijewere said. "Our greatest fear is that it could spread to other cities now"
(11/21/02 4:17am)
WASHINGTON -- Winding down the 107th Congress, the Senate approved the largest government reorganization since World War II in hopes of helping prevent another Sept. 11-type attack. But the monthslong effort may have been just a warmup for a bigger battle to come: getting the new Homeland Security Department up and running.\n"Setting up this new department will take time, but I know we will meet the challenge together," a jubilant President Bush said after the Senate, nearing adjournment for the year, voted 90-9 on Tuesday to authorize the new Cabinet agency.\nOn a day that gave Bush a number of decisive legislative victories, the president hailed the bill as "landmark in its scope."\n"The United States Senate voted ovewhelmingly to better protect America and voted overwhelmingly to help people find work," Bush said at a news conference Wednesday in Prague, Czech Republic, referring to bills creating the new department and bolstering businesses with terrorism insurance. "I want to thank the members of the United States Senate for working with this administration to do the right thing for the American people."\nSpeaking with Senate the Republican leaders from Air Force One as he flew to NATO meetings in Europe, the president said the Senate's work "ends a session which has seen two years worth of legislative work which has been very productive for the American people."\nEight Democrats and independent Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont voted "no" on the homeland security bill, which merges 22 diverse agencies with combined budgets of about $40 billion and which employ 170,000 workers. It will be the largest federal reorganization since the Defense Department was created in 1947.\nBut the battles over the department are just beginning. It will take months for the new agency to get fully off the ground. And a budget stalemate continues to block most of the extra money for domestic security enhancements both political parties want for the federal fiscal year that began Oct. 1.\nOn top of that, many senators were not happy with the final version of the bill and said they would work to make changes next year.\n"I have no doubt that next year we will back addressing the shortcomings that are in this bill," said outgoing Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.\nBut Republicans cheered the bill's passage, saying it was better to have a final product than to keep trying to amend this legislation this year.\n"The terrorists are not going to wait for a process that goes on days, weeks or months," said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., who will be next year's Senate majority leader.\nThe Senate also:\n•Sent Bush a bill making the government the insurer of last resort for terrorist attacks, with a maximum annual tab to taxpayers of $90 billion. The vote was 86-11.\n•Voted 55-44 to approve U.S. District Court Judge Dennis Shedd to be an appeals court judge.\n•Sent Bush a measure keeping federal agencies open through Jan. 11, needed due to unfinished spending bills.\n•Used voice votes to approve about 130 land and water bills. They included a bill sent to the House extending for three years the CalFed project, aimed at restoring the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which provides water for drinking and irrigation for much of the state.\nThe 107th Congress isn't officially finished yet. The Senate was to meet again Wednesday, with no voting planned. The House was to meet Friday to give final, voice-vote approval to small changes the Senate made in the homeland security bill before sending it to Bush for his signature.\nMost senators fled Washington on Tuesday, cleaning out their desks and saying goodbye to departing members like 99-year-old GOP Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, as well as GOP Sens. Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Fred Thompson of Tennessee, Bob Smith of New Hampshire and Phil Gramm of Texas.\nSome Democratic senators were on their way out as well, including Sens. Jean Carnahan of Missouri, Robert Torricelli of New Jersey and Max Cleland of Georgia, all of whom either lost re-election campaigns or did not run.\nCleland, who lost his legs and an arm in Vietnam, used a variation on Gen. Douglas McArthur's famous farewell that "old soldiers never die, they just fade away" in his final Senate speech.\n"This old soldier is not going to fade away, but I will take my battles to another front," Cleland said to Senate applause.\nCompletion of the homeland security bill ended a topsy-turvy odyssey for legislation that started inching through Congress nearly a year ago against Bush's will, only to see him offer his own version after momentum became unstoppable.\nDemocrats resisted Bush's bill because it restricted labor rights of the new department's workers. But many reversed course after their Election Day loss of Senate control was attributed partly to the homeland security fight.\n"This is a substantial accomplishment, a historic day in the age of insecurity we've entered," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., one of many authors of homeland security legislation.\nThe 107th Congress has seen the world change around it during a tumultuous two-year run.\nBush won a $1.35 trillion, 10-year tax cut but saw a vibrant economy stall and federal surpluses become deficits. Terrorists killed nearly 3,000 last year when they crashed commercial airliners in Washington, New York City and southwestern Pennsylvania. And a historic 50-50 Senate tilted Democratic after Vermont Sen. James Jeffords left the GOP, only to see Republicans grab it back on Election Day.\nLeft unresolved in this Congress were such issues as prescription drug benefits for the elderly, retirement fund protections and the rights of patients in managed care programs.\nCongress also completed only two -- both dealing with defense -- of the 13 spending bills it must pass to fund federal programs for this fiscal year.
(11/21/02 4:12am)
PRAGUE, Czech Republic -- President Bush warned European allies Wednesday that NATO countries face threats from terrorism in this century as dangerous as those from German armies in the past, imploring member nations to stand together against Iraq's Saddam Hussein.\nResistant nations such as Germany will have to make their own decisions as to "how, if, and when they want to participate," Bush said.\n"The world needs the nations of this continent to be active in the defense of freedom; not inward-looking or isolated by indifference," he said.\nOn the eve of a NATO gathering guarded by American warplanes overhead and overshadowed by the Iraq crisis, summit host Vaclav Havel, the Czech president, said his people prefer that Saddam Hussein peacefully surrender his weapons of mass destruction.\n"If, however, the need to use force were to arise, I believe NATO should give honest and speedy consideration to its engagement as an alliance," he said.\nNATO Secretary-General George Robertson, previewing a gathering to expand and modernize the alliance, predicted there will also be "total unity of the heads of state and governments on support for the U.N. Security Council resolution" on Iraq. But it's too early to say what that support would mean for NATO, Robertson added.\n"Even in this beautiful city, I don't think it is wise to cross bridges before you come to them," he said.\nOn the cobblestones of picturesque Old Town square, several hundred demonstrators -- thousands fewer than were threatened -- protested the summit that convenes Thursday.\nAmong them were about three dozen leftists whose banners read, "No war in the name of democracy" and "Don't drop bombs! Drop Bush!"\nTucked into the security of locked-down hotel across town, Bush told students that "great evil is stirring in the world."\n"We've faced perils we've never thought about, perils we've never seen before, but they're dangerous, they're just as dangerous as those perils that your fathers and mothers and grandfathers and grandmothers faced."\nAdministration officials disclosed that U.S. ambassadors in 50 countries -- including Germany -- have been told to solicit support from allies for personnel and equipment to assist American forces in the war on terrorism and, possibly, on Iraq.\nBritish Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said his country was among those receiving a request, "but no decision has been taken on that." Britain's position would be discussed in Parliament on Monday, he said.\nIn Copenhagen, Danish lawmakers approved on Wednesday the participation of Danish soldiers and equipment in any international force in Iraq, if necessary.\nBush invoked the United States' involvement in World War II as he exhorted allies to join America now.\n"U-boats could not divide us," Bush told the students, who sat silent through his speech. "The commitment of my nation to Europe is found in the carefully tended graves of young Americans who died for this continent's freedom."\nDuring a separate meeting with Havel earlier in the day, Bush sought to quiet European fears that he is hungry for war. He promised consultation with allies, saying a military clash with Iraq was his "last choice" -- and an avoidable one.\nIt is still possible Saddam could get the message, Bush said. "If the collective will of the world is strong, we can achieve disarmament peacefully."\nAides said afterward that Bush still believes it is highly unlikely that Saddam will comply, thus war planning is fast under way. Bush discussed Iraq behind closed doors with President Ahmet Necdet Sezer of Turkey, whose country shares a border with Iraq and offers military bases critical to any U.S.-led attack.\nBush had no plans to meet with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose recent re-election campaign infuriated the president by focusing on opposition to Bush's Iraq policy. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the two leaders were likely to exchange greetings at a black-tie summit dinner Wednesday.\nOf Germany's opposition to using force against Iraq, Bush said: "It's a decision Germany will make just like it's a decision the Czech Republic will make, just like it's a decision Great Britain will make. It's a decision that each country must decide as to how, if and when they want to participate, and how they choose to participate."\nThe Czech government mobilized 12,000 police officers, 2,200 heavily armed soldiers and special anti-terrorist units to protect the presidents and prime ministers converging on this "city of 1,000 spires."\nMiles above, U.S. fighter jets patrolled Prague airspace, supplementing Czech pilots who circled at lower altitudes in Soviet-era planes. Intelligence officials fear the leaders are an inviting target for terrorists.\nOn Thursday, NATO is to approve invitations to seven former communist states: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Bush said the alliance should reach even further.\n"We strongly support the enlargement of NATO, now and in the future. Every European democracy that seeks NATO membership and is ready to share in NATO's responsibilities should be welcome in our alliance," he said.\nNATO is also due to announce plans for a 21,000-strong rapid response force that could mobilize in seven to 30 days to confront threats from terrorists, renegade governments or regional crises.
(11/19/02 5:38am)
HOSPITALET DE LLOBREGAT, Spain -- A teenager with a knife took his sister and 19 other children hostage at his former school and held them for hours Monday until a plainclothes officer overpowered him while delivering a pizza, officials said.\nNone of the students was hurt in the 3 1/2-hour ordeal at the Casal de l'Angel school in this gritty, industrial town just south of Barcelona. All the hostages were 11 or 12 years old.\nThe Interior Ministry said the attacker had a knife and that his motive appeared to be money, but it could not confirm a report that he had demanded $1 million.\nThe attacker was a former pupil of the school, said Interior Minister Angel Acebes, speaking in the central city of Guadalajara. The Education Ministry said he was 16 or 17.\nThe Interior Ministry, disputing initial accounts, said there were 20 hostages altogether and that 16 were released about two hours into the ordeal. Four remained until the end.\nIt was not immediately known if the boy's sister was among the 16 hostages he had freed.\nWhile the youth held the last four, police asked if he was hungry, and he asked for pizza, the Interior Ministry said. A plainclothes policeman came back with a pizza and overpowered the youth when he opened the door to the classroom where he was holding the students, a ministry official said.\nAs a car left the schoolyard, apparently taking the assailant to a police station, a crowd swarmed around it and many people screamed insults.\nOne unidentified boy who was evacuated from the school before hostages were released said teachers rushed to his and other classrooms and took students out of the building through the cafeteria.\n"They told us some man had slipped into the school," the boy told Spanish national radio. "I was scared."\nA teacher who identified herself only as Nuria said the hostage-taker rang the doorbell at the school as if he were a parent there to pick up a student.
(11/19/02 5:29am)
PORTLAND, Maine -- A nor'easter packing a dangerous mix of snow and freezing rain spread a destructive layer of ice across parts of New England, leaving thousands of people without electricity. Brisk wind on Monday caused more power outages as it snapped ice-weakened trees and electrical lines.\nIce-covered pavement and downed trees made travel hazardous. Two highway deaths were blamed on Sunday's icy conditions in Maine.\nTens of thousands of people in the Northeast were still without power early Monday, including more than 58,000 customers of Connecticut Light & Power.\nSome customers may have to wait until Wednesday before power is restored, said Frank Poirot, a spokesman for Connecticut Light & Power. Dozens of Connecticut schools were closed Monday.\nA new round of harsh weather on Monday reversed the work Massachusetts utility crews had done during the night in restoring service to all but about 1,400 homes and businesses.\nWind gusted to 40 to 50 mph during the morning, and by noon Monday the utility was back up to 18,000 customers without electricity, nearly as many as at the height of the storm, said Massachusetts Electric spokeswoman Amy Atwood.\nSunday's storm formed along the coast of the Carolinas and rolled northward along a cold front, producing rain from the Carolinas into southern New England, where colder air turned the rain to snow and ice. An earlier storm had soaked large parts of the East on Saturday.\nConnecticut residents reported loud cracking sounds as the heavy ice overcame trees.\n"Every 15 seconds there were thunder shots and the trees were snapping in half," Mark Fleming of Burlington told WVIT-TV. "It was like gunshots going off in the back yard. It was quite amazing."\n"It is kind of pretty, but the devastation with the trees is just terrible," said Dwayne Aldridge of New Hartford, Conn.\nResidents of southern Maine awoke Sunday to the season's first major snowfall, which later turned into freezing rain. Dozens of cars slid off highways and speed limits were reduced to 45 mph on the Maine Turnpike and Interstate 95.\nMost parts of Maine had only 3 to 5 inches of snow by the afternoon, but some higher elevations got 10 inches.\nAn estimated 4,000 Central Maine Power customers were without electricity Monday morning, down from 15,000 on Sunday.\n"The problem we're having down there is that the outages are widely scattered," said Gail Rice of Central Maine Power. "There are a lot of small problems scattered about so it tends to be very labor-intensive and slow-going."\nSome 26,000 homes and business were still blacked out Monday in New York state, according to New York State Electric & Gas and Niagara Mohawk Power Corp.\nUp to 7 inches of snow fell in the Adirondacks and Catskills, and road conditions hampered some utility repair crews. "It certainly slows things down and makes our job more difficult," said Clay Ellis of New York State Electric & Gas.\nThe cold front along the East Coast extended all the way into Florida, where temperatures dipped into the freezing range early Monday in some northern counties. Frost was reported in the areas of Jacksonville and Tallahassee, said Al Sandrik, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Jacksonville. That isn't uncommon for this time of year in those areas, he said.
(11/19/02 4:46am)
JERUSALEM -- A struggle aboard an El Al Airlines jet in which security agents wrestled an Israeli Arab to the floor was "to all appearances a terror attack," the Israeli government said Monday in a statement.\nAirline officials concurred and said their security guards prevented a hijacking, but officials at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv played down the confrontation. Relatives said the passenger, Tawfiq Fukra, 23, had a simple argument with a flight attendant.\nIt was the first official Israeli description of the incident late Sunday that began when Fukra drew suspicion -- accounts vary about what he did -- and was overcome by El-Al security men on board the Boeing 727 flying from Tel Aviv to Istanbul, Turkey. None of the 170 passengers on board was harmed, and the plane landed safely.\nThe Israeli government statement said Fukra told the guards holding him afterward: "Today is the day I die, and I do this because they killed (my) brothers," an ambiguous declaration that could have referred either to family or other Arabs.\nIsraeli Arabs, who make up 20 percent of the country's population, have expressed growing sympathy for Palestinians during two years of violence.\nEarlier Monday, a Turkish television report said that Fukra brandished a knife, tried to hijack the plane and carry out a Sept. 11-style attack on Tel Aviv. The report could not be confirmed, but the Israeli government statement said the incident was similar to the suicide hijackings in the United States. It said Fukra's actions were "not spontaneous."\nIn the several versions of what took place, all agree that Fukra had a pocket knife, but it was not clear if he produced it as a weapon and threatened anyone.\nThe Israeli Airports Authority, with responsibility for security screening of passengers, said Fukra was not holding a knife during the encounter with the flight attendant.\n"The small knife that the passenger had on his possession was not the reason the security guards acted on the plane," authority spokesman Pini Schiff said in a news release in Tel Aviv. "When the passenger was being overpowered, he was not holding any object in his hand."\nIsrael Radio reported that Fukra, sitting in the coach section, had entered the business class section twice to ask a flight attendant for water. On the third time, he was told to sit down because the plane was landing. He then pushed the flight attendant and a guard jumped on him, the radio said.\nA second guard who helped overpower Fukra noticed he had a small knife in his possession, the radio said.\nEarlier, El Al general manager Amos Shapira had said the passenger "tried to reach the cockpit with what we assume now is a small pocket knife."\nAn initial investigation showed that the security apparatus at Ben Gurion Airport had operated satisfactorily, Schiff said. But officials were still checking how the suspect managed to get the knife onto the plane.\nTurkey's NTV television said Fukra told interrogators he wanted to force the plane to return to Tel Aviv, where he intended to crash it into a building. Turkey's Anatolia news agency quoted Fukra as telling interrogators he had "carried out the action to protest" against Israel's treatment of Palestinians.\nEl Al is widely regarded as the best protected airline in the world, but also one of the most threatened. From the late 1960s into the 1980s, El Al planes and passengers were subjected to shooting attacks, one successful hijacking, several that failed and attempted bombings.\nThe successful hijacking was in July 1968, when a flight from Rome was seized by members of the extremist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and forced to land in Algiers. Passengers and crew were held hostage there, with the last of them not released until five months later.\nEl Al's security includes armed guards at check-in, on-board marshals and extensive luggage searches. Passengers are told to arrive three hours ahead of flights to allow time for the security checks.\nIn northern Israel, police searched the home of Fukra's father, confiscated a computer and questioned several relatives who were all later released, Israel's Army Radio said.\nFukra's father, Salah, said his son was not a hijacker. He said his son was going to Turkey for vacation.\nOkay Cakirlar, an official at Istanbul's Ataturk International Airport, said El Al Flight 581 sent out a hijacking signal as it approached Istanbul, and Fukra was seen being taken away in handcuffs by plainclothes police.\nNehama Snelzo, an Israeli tourist, said the man looked frightened when he was overpowered.\n"He seemed to be very scared, he started saying 'I'm going to Istanbul to see a friend, I'm not a threat,'" Snelzo said.\nAnother passenger, Viv Gulmez, said the man was sitting just in front of her and that he looked suspicious.\n"He was going to toilet very often, and once he made a telephone call from the plane," Gulmez told private CNN-Turk television.\nSnelzo said after the incident, the flight attendants made an announcement, telling "us not to get scared, to sit down, not to get up and be calm"
(11/19/02 4:46am)
WASHINGTON -- U.S. intelligence have concluded that a new audiotape of Osama bin Laden is an authentic, unaltered and recent recording of the al Qaeda leader, U.S. officials said Monday\n"Intelligence experts do believe that the tape is genuine," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "And it is clear that the tape was made in the last several weeks as well."\nThe technical analysis of the tape furnished the first proof in almost a year that bin Laden is alive.\nThe audiotape, broadcast on the al-Jazeera Arab language television network, is what it sounds like: bin Laden himself, reading a prepared statement promising new terrorism against the United States and its allies, a U.S. intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said earlier Monday.\nThe analysis of the tape was performed by technical experts, linguists and translators at the CIA and National Security Agency, who compared the message to previous recordings of bin Laden. While no analysis is 100-percent certain, the experts are as certain as they can be that it is genuine, the official said.\nBecause it mentions recent terrorist attacks, officials concluded the tape was made in the last few weeks, the official said. It had been a year since U.S. intelligence received any definitive evidence that bin Laden had survived the U.S. attacks on Afghanistan in the months after Sept. 11.\nAsked about the tape at the a White House briefing, McClellan said that while "it cannot be stated with 100 percent certainty," intelligence experts were still certain bin Laden's voice on the tape.\n"They do believe it is. It's a reminder that we need to continue doing everything we can to go after these terrorist networks and their leaders wherever they are, and we will," McClellan said.\nThe tape gives little clue to bin Laden's location or his health, officials said. Although his whereabouts are unknown, U.S. officials believe he is probably hiding in a remote mountainous region in the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.\nAmerican officials have never confirmed rumors that bin Laden was wounded or suffering some kind of kidney ailment.\nThe message also was a determining factor in a new spate of terror alerts in the United States and elsewhere last week. Previous public statements from bin Laden have served as preludes to terrorist attacks, officials said.\nThe speaker on the tape appears to refer to the killing of a U.S. diplomat in Amman, Jordan, on Oct. 28, the most recent event noted in the transcript. Whether bin Laden or al Qaeda had a direct hand in the attack is unknown, U.S. officials said.\nThe speaker also praises several more terrorist attacks by suspected Islamic militants between April and October, including the bombing of a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia, on Oct. 12, that left close to 200 people dead, and the Chechen takeover of a theater in Moscow, in late October.\nPreviously, the last certain evidence bin Laden was alive was recorded on Nov. 9, 2001, when he had dinner with his chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, his spokesman and others. A videotape of the meal was recovered by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and later aired internationally.\nLate in December, another tape of bin Laden giving a statement aired. He appeared gaunt and possibly wounded. The references in the tape suggested it was filmed in late November or early December, but officials could not be certain.\nOn Dec. 10, in the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan where bin Laden was believed to be hiding, U.S. personnel intercepted a radio transmission that was believed to have come from the al Qaeda leader. It was not recorded and never matched against his voiceprint, U.S. officials have said.\nU.S. intelligence has confirmed several tapes released earlier in 2002 to have come from bin Laden, who is believed to have led the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington that left some 3,000 dead. Those tapes gave no reference to recent events, and provided no confirmation of whether al-Qaida's leader was still alive.