9/14/02
7:04:50 PM

PM says U.S. attitude helped fuel Sept. 11

By SHAWN MCCARTHY, OTTAWA BUREAU CHIEF, September 12, 2002 – Page A1

Prime Minister Jean Chrétien says the United States and the West must shoulder some of the responsibility for last year's terrorist attacks on New York and Washington because of their wealth and exercise of power in the world.

In a CBC interview taped in July and aired last night, Mr. Chrétien suggested that the root causes of the Sept. 11 attacks were global poverty and an overbearing American foreign policy.

"It's always the problem when you read history -- everybody doesn't know when to stop. There's a moment when you have to stop, there's a moment when you are very powerful," he said.

Immediately following Sept. 11, Canadian politicians rejected the "root causes" argument, saying the attacks were the work of irrational fanatics that had nothing to do with legitimate grievances.

But Mr. Chrétien told CBC that religious fanatics are using the anger and resentment of the world's poor to fuel their terrorism.

"I do think that the Western world is getting too rich in relations to the poor world," he said.

"And necessarily, we're looked upon as being arrogant, self-satisfied, greedy and with no limits. And the 11th of September is an occasion for me to realize it even more."

The Prime Minister said he was in New York prior to the terrorist attacks and heard complaints from Wall Street capitalists about Canadian economic ties to Cuba and other foreign-policy disagreements.

"I told them: When you are powerful like you are, you guys, it's the time to be nice," he said.

"And it is one of the problems -- you cannot exercise your powers to the point of humiliation of the others.

"And that is what the Western world -- not only the Americans but the Western world -- has to realize."

Yesterday, Mr. Chrétien attended memorial services in New York City, saying he wanted to show solidarity with mourning Americans.

Suggestions that the United States bears some responsibility for the attacks have been angrily dismissed by American officials.

The CBC interview, part of a documentary that traced the actions of senior government officials that fateful day, revealed that the Prime Minister had essentially authorized U.S. fighter jets to shoot down a Korean airliner over Canada if it diverted from a planned emergency landing in Whitehorse.

While still over Alaska, the pilot of the Korean Airlines 747 had erroneously sent coded signals indicating the airliner had been hijacked. The pilot was ordered to land in Whitehorse, and was met by U.S. jet fighters while still over American territory.

NORAD command in Winnipeg agreed the airliner could enter Canadian airspace accompanied by the U.S. fighters, but insisted the decision to shoot it down must be the Canadian government's.

On the afternoon of Sept. 11, Mr. Chrétien received a phone call and was told the airliner might have to be shot down.

"I said, 'Yes, if you think they are terrorists, you call me again but be ready to shoot them down.' So I authorized it in principle," he said.

"It's kind of scary that . . . [there is] this plane with hundreds of people and you have to call a decision like that. . . . But you prepare yourself for that. I thought about it -- you know that you will have to make decisions at times that will [be] upsetting you for the rest of your life.''

9/14/02
6:47:57 PM

US Military Builds Up Huge Attack Force

by Julian Borger in Washington and Richard Norton-Taylor

September 13, 2002

The Guardian/UK

As George Bush was displaying his grasp of diplomatic vocabulary in front of the UN yesterday, 7,000 miles away in the Gulf his fellow Americans were speaking a different language.

Their words were military terms: frigates, bombers, air defense fighters, refueling tankers, carrier battle groups, reconnaissance planes, special forces. All these things are on their way to the region or already in position in readiness for a possible attack on Iraq.

In the most blunt indication yet that the US administration's threat is not an idle one and it will force Iraq if necessary to meet its UN pledges, the US central command will move its headquarters to Qatar in November, perhaps indefinitely. The relocation is the culmination of a series of low-key moves on the Gulf chessboard designed to put all the pieces in place for a rapid US assault should the UN route now being pursued by Washington fail.

The establishment of command posts and the pre-positioning of heavy equipment in the region over the past year have put central command (CENTCOM) in a position to launch a strike on Baghdad within a fortnight of the order being given, if it is decided to mount the operation with a fast and light force of 50,000. There are about 30,000 American troops in the region already.

"It would take 10 days to bring in the additional equipment, 10 days to airlift the troops and 10 days to get to Baghdad," said John Pike, the head of GlobalSecurity.org, a thinktank which closely monitors military movements.

Nor would it take long to complete the military build-up if it were decided to play it safe and gather an overwhelming force of 200,000 or more before striking. Under CENTCOM's blueprint for a full-scale invasion, Operation Plan 1003, the force could be assembled in two months. That would be much faster than the six months' build-up in the last Gulf war, partly because it would involve fewer troops, partly because the sluggish US military machine has become gradually more nimble.

The deployment of CENTCOM's headquarters from Florida to Qatar is officially part of a biennial exercise called Internal Look and is supposed to last a week. However it is highly unusual for General Tommy Franks, the man who would command an Iraqi invasion, and 600 of his top staff, to take part in such a distant relocation. The Pentagon has also made it clear that the move could be permanent.

In the past few months, the $1.7bn al-Udeid base in Qatar has been expanded and enhanced to serve as an alternative to Saudi Arabia, which acted host to US headquarters in the first Gulf war, but which has refused to get involved this time. Some Pentagon officials still believe that the Saudis will relent at the last moment, and say that the Prince Sultan air base near Riyadh, where a hi-tech command and control center was completed last summer, is their first choice.

The US air force has since the spring been moving computer equipment and munitions to al-Udeid, home to the region's longest runway (4,500 meters). Engineers are also at work replicating the base's state-of-the-art combined air operations center, from where complex large-scale air raids can be coordinated.

Viewed on their own, each of these individual chess moves looks quotidian. Taken together, they start to look like a well-implemented game plan.

There are already 400 US warplanes in the region.

In another small sign of military wheels turning faster, the Washington Kurdish Institute received a call yesterday from the US air force seeking a "crash course" in Kurdish. It would have to start soon, an air force officer said, and some students might have to leave at short notice.

Gen Franks's force commanders are also already in the Gulf, having quietly established and expanded command posts there over the past few months.

The US third army, CENTCOM's ground component, set up its headquarters in Kuwait in November, and work has been under way since then to transform it into a hub for ground operations. A specialized marine unit with equipment to detect chemical biological or radiological attacks, is also on the way to Kuwait.

The marine headquarters was ordered to Bahrain in January this year, to set up camp alongside the US navy's 5th fleet, which has been based there for years.

Reinforced

US special forces are also believed to have been considerably reinforced in the Gulf. The navy seals have set up a headquarters in Bahrain. Other units are in Kuwait, Qatar and Oman, where the SAS is also training.

Large amounts of equipment have been warehoused in the Gulf so that it is instantly available when the order to invade is given. Mr Pike said there were enough tanks, armored cars and munitions in place in Qatar and Kuwait for three heavy mechanized brigades (a total of up to 15,000 troops).

Less visible, but no less definite, is the British move towards military preparedness. The Royal Navy's flagship, the Ark Royal, is on long-planned exercises in the Mediterranean. It could provide a floating command and control center for British forces and base for Royal Marine commandos and special forces.

There are two specific ways in which the RAF could help the US - refueling US navy aircraft and providing intelligence from high-flying Canberra planes equipped with aerial reconnaissance cameras. The third - passive -contribution would be the British island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. It was used by B-52 bombers in the 1991 Gulf war and in the recent Afghanistan campaign. Equipment loaded on to ships ready to sail from Diego Garcia could be in the Gulf within a week.

On the ground, Britain's contribution would consist of two distinct elements - paratroopers from the 16 assault brigade, SAS troops, and possible marine commandos dropped into Iraq by helicopter, and - in the event of a full-scale land invasion - two heavily armored brigades equipped with Challenger 2 battle tanks.

These are based in Germany and are unlikely to be ready for action in the Gulf before the end of the year, British defense sources say. On top of this litany of military preparations, the bombing, of course, is already under way. Senior British defense sources yesterday told the Guardian that US and UK aircraft were stepping up "no-fly" patrols over southern Iraq to destroy the air defense system, as a prelude to a possible invasion.

British defense sources said yesterday that US and UK planes were patrolling in an "unpredictable" way. However, the past week's air strikes show that they are attacking targets over a wide area.

The targets have included a large Iraqi military base 250 miles south-west of Baghdad and an anti-ship missile base near the southern port of Basra. One of the reasons why the patrols have increased is that US radar-jamming "Prowler" aircraft have returned to the Gulf after action in Afghanistan. British Tornado fighters and bombers based in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia rely on American planes to jam Iraqi radar.

British defense sources have now given up the pretence that the southern no-fly zone is a humanitarian exercise designed to protect Iraqi Shias and Marsh Arabs. They too are increasingly bluntly speaking the language of war.

9/14/02
6:41:14 PM

Greenpeace's Positive Energy

September 7 - September 13 , 2002

Time for Greenpeace's CLEAN ENERGY NOW! campaign's weekly good news update!!!

In this issue:

- Report Card from the World Summit on Sustainable Development

- Los Angeles to Offer Rebates to Consumers Buying Energy Efficient Appliances

- Scotland Commits to 40% Renewable Energy by 2020

- Another Renewable Victory in California

The World Summit on Sustainable Development has come to an end and surprise-surprise the U.S. continues to hold back the rest of the world from moving toward a sustainable future. International groups agree that US was the single leading reason that the Summit failed to commit to clear renewable energy targets. On the closing day of the summit, Colin Powell addressed the plenary and was met with jeers and chants of "Shame on Bush" when he scolded the crowd for not accepting U.S. genetically modified foods, and when he defended the U.S. position on renewable energy.

For more on WSSD see:

http://www.greenpeace.org/features/details?features_id=25094

To view the WSSD report card go to:

http://archive.greenpeace.org/earthsummit/report_card/index.html

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) will introduce, for the first time in its history, rebates for residential customers who purchase qualified energy-efficient appliances and related products. The new program makes $3 million available for rebates through the end of this year, with rebate amounts ranging from $10 to $500. To support the new rebate program, the Home Depot and the LADWP will begin a sweepstakes through September, which will give Los Angeles residents the opportunity to win one of two free brand-new energy-efficient refrigerators or Home Depot Gift Certificates. All rebate applications received by September 30, 2002 are automatically entered.

For details on how to apply go to:

http://www.greenla.com/efficiency/index.htm

Scotland First Minister Jack McConnell reiterated a commitment to increase the share of electricity generated from renewable sources to 40% by the year 2020. This is an aggressive target that can be reached with the tremendous wind and tidal resources available in Scotland. Minister McConnell made this commitment in a speech at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, where he lamented the fact that no firm global commitments to renewable energy were reached.

For more information see:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/pages/news/2002/09/SEFM054.aspx

Gray Davis put his money where his mouth is yesterday by signing into law the Renewables Portfolio Standard and Public Benefits Fund. The Renewables Portfolio Standard will mandate that all private utilities must purchase at least 17% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2017. In addition, the Public Benefits Fund will support renewable energy programs by charging consumers a miniscule fee for every kilowatt hour sold by the state's private utilities. Both of these laws are crucial for the state as we transition into a Clean Energy Economy!

9/14/02
6:39:46 PM

DAILY GRIST

<http://www.gristmagazine.com>

STAR LIGHT, STAR BRIGHT, I HOPE TO SEE A STAR TONIGHT

Not too long ago, the Indian capital of New Delhi was one of the most polluted cities in the world; now, you still might not want to run a marathon there, but the city is making serious strides toward cleaning up its air. Dilip Biswas, chair of the city's Central Pollution Control Board, says pollution has dropped 25 percent since 1995, as levels of sulfur dioxide and particulates in the air have fallen sharply. "Now you can see the stars at night," he says. Vehicles account for about 70 percent of the city's pollution, while power plants kick in an additional 15 percent. At the prodding of India's highest court, the government ordered all forms of public transport -- defined as taxis, buses, and three-wheelers -- to switch from diesel to compressed natural gas. So far, about 6,000 of 12,000 buses have made the change, as have thousands of the other vehicles.

straight to the source: Planet Ark, Reuters, 13 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=471>

GREEN DAVIS

California Gov. Gray Davis (D) kept the green ink flowing yesterday by signing several more environmental measures into law. Perhaps the most significant of the laws -- what Davis termed "the most ambitious" renewable energy standard in the country -- requires that 20 percent of the electricity produced by private utilities in the state come from green sources by 2017. Enviros cheered the law, while current renewable energy producers called it overly complicated. Davis also gave his stamp of approval to a bill giving agricultural officials greater ability to regulate the application of pesticides within a quarter-mile of school grounds.

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Nancy Vogel, 13 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=468>

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Fred Alvarez, 13 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=467>

only in Grist: Power Shift -- looking for leadership on climate change -- a special edition of Grist Magazine <http://www.gristmagazine.com/maindish/powershift073102.asp?source=daily>

do good: Take action to plead for a world run on renewable energy <http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/climate.asp?source=daily#positive>

SUNNY DELIGHT?

No, you wouldn't be on another planet if you saw this billboard: "Sun, 93,000,000 miles. Solar-powered station, the Bronx." You'd be in Times Square, Manhattan, looking up at an advertisement for a BP filling station. However, don't be thinking victory is at hand for enviros. The station doesn't power up cars on rays from the sun. Solar energy merely runs the pumps at the site; the product for sale is old-fashioned gasoline. In fact, no signs at the station even mention the solar connection. Still, BP says it has 157 solar-powered gas stations across the U.S., with solar panels providing 6 to 15 percent of the electrical needs of each site. Not everyone is thrilled. "A solar gas station is like a very clean cigarette factory," said Dan Becker of the Sierra Club.

straight to the source: New York Times, Phil Patton, 13 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=466>

only in Grist: Got Sun? -- BP markets clean energy -- by Amanda Griscom in our Powers That Be section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/powers/powers082902.asp?source=daily>

NOT SO JOLLY

An Italian ship carrying 400,000 gallons of diesel and fuel oil as well as highly toxic chemicals grounded yesterday just off a park in South Africa that is home to rare birds, fish, turtles, and plants. A fire has been raging on the Jolly Rubino for days, and the ship has come to rest seven miles south of the Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park's main estuary. Oil is reportedly spilling out of the boat, which is in danger of breaking apart and whose crew has been evacuated. The United Nations named the park a World Heritage site in 2000.

straight to the source: MSNBC.com, 13 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=469>

WAR CRIMES

War can be hell on the environment, but in the case of Afghanistan, no one knows just how hellish. Under the auspices of the United Nations, five teams of foreign and local scientists are examining the impact of almost 30 years of fighting on the country's natural resources. By December, the teams hope to identify urban pollution hotspots and immediate and long-term threats to vulnerable areas. They also hope to generate ideas for restoring sites where damage has occurred and to train Afghan experts to carry out environmental work in the future. According to former Finnish Environment Minister Pekka Haavisto, who is chairing the U.N. effort, less than 1 percent of Afghanistan's land is currently protected. He said that deforestation (some 30 percent of the country's forests have been lost since 1979) and threats to biodiversity were among the scientists' top concerns.

straight to the source: BBC News, Alex Kirby, 13 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=470>

9/14/02
6:36:20 PM

What War Looks Like

by Howard Zinn

In all the solemn statements by self-important politicians and newspaper columnists about a coming war against Iraq, and even in the troubled comments by some who are opposed to the war, there is something missing.

The talk is about strategy and tactics, geopolitics and personalities. It is about air war and ground war, weapons of mass destruction, arms inspections, alliances, oil, and "regime change."

What is missing is what an American war on Iraq will do to tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of ordinary human beings who are not concerned with geopolitics and military strategy, and who just want their children to live, to grow up. They are not concerned with "national security" but with personal security, with food and shelter and medical care and peace.

I am speaking of those Iraqis and those Americans who will, with absolute certainty, die in such a war, or lose arms or legs, or be blinded. Or they will be stricken with some strange and agonizing sickness that could lead to their bringing deformed children into the world (as happened to families in Vietnam, Iraq, and also the United States).

True, there has been some discussion of American casualties resulting from a land invasion of Iraq. But, as always when the strategists discuss this, the question is not about the wounded and dead as human beings, but about what number of American casualties would result in public withdrawal of support for the war, and what effect this would have on the upcoming elections for Congress and the Presidency.

That was uppermost in the mind of Lyndon Johnson, as we have learned from the tapes of his White House conversations. He worried about Americans dying if he escalated the war in Vietnam, but what most concerned him was his political future. If we pull out of Vietnam, he told his friend Senator Richard Russell, "they'll impeach me, won't they?"

In any case, American soldiers killed in war are always a matter of statistics. Individual human beings are missing in the numbers. It is left to the poets and novelists to take us by the shoulders and shake us and ask us to look and listen. In World War I, ten million men died on the battlefield, but we needed John Dos Passos to confront us with what that meant: In his novel 1919, he writes of the death of John Doe: "In the tarpaper morgue at Chalons-sur-Marne in the reek of chloride of lime and the dead, they picked out the pine box that held all that was left of John Doe, the scraps of dried viscera and skin bundled in khaki."

Vietnam was a war that filled our heads with statistics, of which one stood out, embedded in the stark monument in Washington: 58,000 dead. But one would have to read the letters from soldiers just before they died to turn those statistics into human beings. And for all those not dead but mutilated in some way, the amputees and paraplegics, one would have to read Ron Kovic's account, in his memoir, "Born on the Fourth of July," of how his spine was shattered and his life transformed.

As for the dead among "the enemy"--that is, those young men, conscripted or cajoled or persuaded to pit their bodies against those of our young men--that has not been a concern of our political leaders, our generals, our newspapers and magazines, our television networks. To this day, most Americans have no idea, or only the vaguest, of how many Vietnamese--soldiers and civilians (actually, a million of each)--died under American bombs and shells.

And for those who know the figures, the men, women, children behind the statistics remained unknown until a picture appeared of a Vietnamese girl running down a road, her skin shredding from napalm, until Americans saw photos of women and children huddled in a trench as GIs poured automatic rifle fire into their bodies.

Ten years ago, in that first war against Iraq, our leaders were proud of the fact that there were only a few hundred American casualties (one wonders if the families of those soldiers would endorse the word "only"). When a reporter asked General Colin Powell if he knew how many Iraqis died in that war, he replied: "That is really not a matter I am terribly interested in." A high Pentagon official told The Boston Globe, "To tell you the truth, we're not really focusing on this question."

Americans knew that this nation's casualties were few in the Gulf War, and a combination of government control of the press and the media's meek acceptance of that control ensured that the American people would not be confronted, as they had been in Vietnam, with Iraqi dead and dying.

There were occasional glimpses of the horrors inflicted on the people of Iraq, flashes of truth in the newspapers that quickly disappeared. In mid-February 1991, U.S. planes dropped bombs on an air raid shelter in Baghdad at four in the morning, killing 400 to 500 people--mostly women and children--who were huddled there to escape the incessant bombing. An Associated Press reporter, one of the few allowed to go to the site, said: "Most of the recovered bodies were charred and mutilated beyond recognition."

In the final stage of the Gulf War, American troops engaged in a ground assault on Iraqi positions in Kuwait. As in the air war, they encountered virtually no resistance. With victory certain and the Iraqi army in full flight, U.S. planes kept strafing the retreating soldiers who clogged the highway out of Kuwait City. A reporter called the scene "a blazing hell, a gruesome testament. To the east and west across the sand lay the bodies of those fleeing." That grisly scene appeared for a moment in the press and then vanished in the exultation of a victorious war, in which politicians of both parties and the press joined. President Bush crowed: "The specter of Vietnam has been buried forever in the desert sands of the Arabian peninsula." The two major news magazines, Time and Newsweek, printed special editions hailing the victory. Each devoted about a hundred pages to the celebration, mentioning proudly the small number of American casualties. They said not a word about the tens of thousands of Iraqis--soldiers and civilians--themselves victims first of Saddam Hussein's tyranny, and then of George Bush's war.

There was no photograph of a single dead Iraqi child, no names of particular Iraqis, no images of suffering and grief to convey to the American people what our overwhelming military machine was doing to other human beings.

The bombing of Afghanistan has been treated as if human beings are of little consequence. It was been portrayed as a "war on terrorism," not a war on men, women, children. The few press reports of "accidents" were quickly followed with denials, excuses, justifications. There has been some bandying about of numbers of Afghan civilian deaths--but always numbers.

Only rarely has the human story, with names and images, come through as more than a flash of truth, as one day when I read of a ten-year old boy, named Noor Mohammed, lying on a hospital bed on the Pakistani border, his eyes gone, his hands blown off, a victim of American bombs.

Surely, we must discuss the political issues. We note that an attack on Iraq would be a flagrant violation of international law. We note that the mere possession of dangerous weapons is not grounds for war--else we would have to make war on dozens of countries. We point out that the country that possesses by far the most "weapons of mass destruction" is our country, which has used them more often and with more deadly results than any nation on Earth. We can point to our national history of expansion and aggression. We have powerful evidence of deception and hypocrisy at the highest levels of our government.

But, as we contemplate an American attack on Iraq, should we not go beyond the agendas of the politicians and the experts? (John le Carre has one of his characters say: "I despise experts more than anyone on earth.")

Should we not ask everyone to stop the high-blown talk for a moment and imagine what war will do to human beings whose faces will not be known to us, whose names will not appear except on some future war memorial?

For this we will need the help of people in the arts, those who through time--from Euripedes to Bob Dylan--have written and sung about specific, recognizable victims of war. In 1935, Jean Giraudoux, the French playwright, with the memory of the first World War still in his head, wrote "The Trojan War Will Not Take Place." Demokos, a Trojan soldier, asks the aged Hecuba to tell him "what war looks like." She responds: "Like the bottom of a baboon. When the baboon is up in a tree, with its hind end facing us, there is the face of war exactly: scarlet, scaly, glazed, framed in a clotted, filthy wig."

If enough Americans could see that, perhaps the war on Iraq would not take place.

Source: http://www.Progressive.org/webex/wxzinn082802.html

9/14/02
6:20:31 PM

http://www.TomPaine.com

WHY AREN'T U.S. JOURNALISTS REPORTING FROM IRAQ?

If They'd Go, They Know Why Cheney's Claim Of A Saddam-Al Qaeda Axis Is Absurd

by Nina Burleigh

American journalists have totally fallen down on the job when it comes to reporting from Baghdad. That allows the White House to make increasingly hyperbolic -- and false -- claims about the Iraqi threat to America.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6363

MEMORIALS: SACRED FOR TODAY; COMPELLING FOR TOMORROW

by Jane Holtz Kay

"The mission of memorial-makers is to serve times to come... to enhance the space of the living along with the dead."

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6368

TURNING THE DEBATE ON IRAQ TO A DEBATE ON THE UNITED NATIONS

An Analysis Of George W. Bush's U.N. Address

by Richard Blow

The President begins the international debate on war with Iraq by making support for that war a referendum on the United Nations itself.

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6373

PUBLIC OPINION WATCH:

August 26 - August 30

A Weekly Compendium And Commentary On Recent Polling

by Ruy Teixeira

Faltering Economy, Anxious Workers... Sure We Really Need Those Ground Troops?

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6333

AND CHECK OUT OUR MOST RECENT OP AD ONLINE...

TOWARD A MORE PERFECT UNION

Learning From 9/11

An Essay by Sam Smith

"The 9/11 attackers, and the tens of millions around the world who share some measure of their anger, have only seen our money and our fist -- not the decency, democracy, and dream that made America strong in the first place."

http://www.tompaine.com/op_ads/opad.cfm/ID/6355

AND DON'T MISS THESE SPECIAL FEATURES:

A LIBERAL PATRIOT

Steven Rosenfeld's exclusive interview with singer/songwriter STEVE EARLE

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6262

THE PATH TO SECURITY, AT HOME AND ABROAD

The second of two special 9/11 essays by HOWARD ZINN

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6277

THE IMPLACABLE OTHER

by BARBARA EHRENREICH

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6367

9/14/02
6:17:16 PM

Support for independent 9/11 commission?

by Dana Bash, CNN Washington, September 12, 2002

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Members of Congress stood united as they marked the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks. But will they also stand together to support an independent commission to investigate 9/11 intelligence lapses?

Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut says he's likely to offer an amendment to the Homeland Security bill to create such a commission, perhaps next week.

A GOP congressional source says that as many as four or five Republican senators on the Senate Intelligence Committee may now be willing to support an independent commission, even though the Bush administration is against the idea.

Apparently frustrated by the minimal progress the Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee is making, senators who were once reluctant to support an independent commission now believe it may be the only way to get some answers as to why intelligence agencies were caught flat-footed on September 11.

The joint committee's funding runs out in February, and lawmakers on the committee say they have been met with consistent resistance in getting information from the agencies they are investigating.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Alabama, now supports the idea and even Senate Intelligence Chairman Bob Graham, D-Florida, who was reluctant to vote for a commission earlier this year, now says through a spokesman he would vote for it if it came up.

As for Lieberman, he knows the "Big Mo" when he sees it.

"Both Senator McCain and I feel this is an appropriate vehicle. What could be more appropriate than the Department of Homeland Security bill to make certain we know everything we can know about September 11?" Lieberman said.

Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, told reporters earlier this week he is still skeptical of any and all commissions because no one pays attention to them.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/12/inside.buzz/index.html

9/14/02
6:01:39 PM

Fallout: The Hidden Environmental Consequences of 9/11

by Juan Gonzalez, In These Times, September 10, 2002

On Sept. 17, 2001, less than one week after the World Trade Center collapse, tens of thousands of office workers returned to their jobs near Ground Zero after receiving the go-ahead from federal and local safety officials.

Federal and city government wanted New York and the rest of the nation, which had been virtually paralyzed in the days after the September 11 terrorist attacks, to return to normal as quickly as possible. President George W. Bush, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and other leaders needed to show the world that the United States would not be intimidated by terrorism.

There was another more pressing imperative at work, however: The longer that Wall Street and the nation's chief financial markets remained closed, the greater the likelihood of a stock meltdown and perhaps long-lasting damage to investors and the U.S. economy.

To achieve a rapid return to normalcy the government needed to persuade a jittery public that it was safe for civilians to reoccupy the scores of commercial skyscrapers and residential buildings in Lower Manhattan. With uncontrolled fires still raging in the debris of the towers, with thousands of bodies still buried in the rubble, and with the trauma of the terrorist attacks still fresh in their minds, many New Yorkers were understandably reluctant to return so quickly. Nonetheless, Wall Street and much of Lower Manhattan reopened for business on September 17.

The nation's top environmental official, Christie Todd Whitman, head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who had given her preliminary endorsement of the reopening a few days earlier, issued an official statement of approval on Sept. 18. "I am glad to reassure the people of New York ... that their air is safe to breathe and their water is safe to drink," she announced.

Similar assurances were given by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and the New York City Department of Health. Even as they made those statements, however, officials knew that their own preliminary environmental tests of the air, dust and water in Lower Manhattan had revealed some troubling readings.

The tests found that considerable amounts of asbestos and heavy metals had been detected in dust samples throughout the area. Within a few weeks, officials would also receive the first results of aerial surveys conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) pinpointing the precise locations of hundreds of asbestos "hot spots" on rooftops, buildings and streets throughout the area, including some that were half a mile or more from the collapsed buildings. Before the end of September, the USGS would also report that dust on the ground and in the air downtown was highly caustic, with alkalinity levels that made it as potent as household drain cleaner. Health officials withheld this information from the public for several months.

Given the scale and unprecedented nature of the World Trade Center catastrophe, it is understandable that during the first few days after Sept. 11, everyone, including public health officials, was focused on guarding against any further attacks and on rescuing the thousands of victims buried beneath the rubble. Surely, no American city has ever confronted a calamity of this scale, nor has any nation faced the simultaneous release of such a complex array of toxic substances into a densely populated downtown area.

Despite their initial safety assurances on Sept. 18, officials were scampering to compile a comprehensive inventory of what contaminants or hazardous materials had been stored inside the mammoth Trade Center complex before the attacks. They needed the information to know what materials were feeding the dozens of fires burning at temperatures as high as 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit and persisting despite all efforts to extinguish them.

EPA officials and fire-fighting experts were well aware, from previous studies of a handful of spectacular and tragic fires in hotels, commercial buildings and downtown areas, that such blazes are capable of releasing a witch's brew of some of the most toxic substances known -- including mercury, benzene, lead, chlorinated hydrocarbons and dioxins. Despite this prior knowledge, federal officials rushed to dismiss or understate potential health dangers to the public and rescue workers at the site during those first few days.

Initially, the various health agencies also withheld from the public most results of their environmental testing. The state's Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) refused outright to release the data, claiming that the test results were part of a "criminal investigation" --presumably the Sept. 11 hijackings -- and the city has yet to release all of its data.

On the surface at least, the EPA was more responsive than either the city or state agencies. It began to report some of its test results on its Web page on Sept. 27. Coincidentally, that was the same day the agency learned that environmental lawyer and activist Joel Kupferman of the nonprofit New York Environmental Law and Justice Project had contacted my newspaper, the New York Daily News, and provided us with the results of independent tests he had conducted of World Trade Center debris. Kupferman's results became the first direct challenge to Whitman's all-clear pronouncements. They revealed high levels of asbestos and fiberglass in a substantial portion of the samples. From then on, the EPA sought to calm the public by publishing on its Web page summaries of daily monitoring reports for asbestos in outdoor air, and the agency eventually expanded those summaries to include the results of periodic tests for more than a dozen toxic substances. The summaries invariably highlighted those results that indicated no danger, while the agency repeatedly downplayed or withheld test results that might raise public alarm.

The federal government has never established ambient safety levels for many of the contaminants detected in air samples taken around Ground Zero. Instead of admitting they had no certainty of what danger these substances might cause, EPA risk experts at the New York regional headquarters devised ad hoc safety "benchmarks" or "removal action guidelines." They then misled the public into believing these were federally approved safety levels and reported that only a few of their test results were above these levels.

Once displaced workers and residents returned to their jobs and homes near the disaster site, a significant number of people began to suffer from respiratory and other health problems. Mark Bodenheimer was one of them. A veteran teacher at Stuyvesant High School, the city's most prestigious public school, Bodenheimer and the rest of the students and staff returned to the building, which is located a few blocks north of Ground Zero, on Oct. 9, when the city's Board of Education reopened the school for classes after conducting a $1 million asbestos cleanup.

"The air in the building smelled terrible," Bodenheimer said. "I had no respiratory problems before this, but I was back there just five days when I started getting constant sore throats and severe headaches." His doctor advised him to get out of the school. Bodenheimer, a Stuyvesant graduate who had taught there for decades, reluctantly accepted a transfer to the Bronx.

Bodenheimer was no isolated case. A survey of three residential areas near the site, conducted quietly in October by the Centers for Disease Control and the city's own health department, revealed just how widespread such symptoms were: Nearly 50 percent of those questioned reported physical problems likely to be related to the Trade Center collapse, such as nose, throat and eye irritation, and 40 percent said they were suffering from persistent coughing. Like other disturbing information about the environment around Ground Zero, the public never heard much about this survey. The results were released quietly by the health department in a press release late one Friday afternoon in January 2002 --three months after it had been conducted -- and received virtually no media attention.

Yet there were too many people getting sick to ignore them all. According to a February 2002 study by the Natural Resources Defense Council, at least l0,000 people in Lower Manhattan suffered immediate health problems from exposure to the air near Ground Zero. Faced with a massive public outcry and growing doubts about the environment, federal and local officials hunkered down and kept repeating the same line: Any respiratory problems were temporary, a result of smoke and dust from fires that would soon be extinguished. While such symptoms were discomforting, the officials claimed, they posed no serious short-term or long-term dangers.

The contaminant that got the most attention at first was asbestos, a mineral widely employed as fireproofing material before the federal government banned many of its uses in 1975. Asbestos fibers, once lodged in the lungs, can cause asbestosis, cancer and mesothelioma, a rare and fatal disease of the lining of the lung. The federal asbestos ban took effect while the Twin Towers were under construction; thus, the mineral was used for fireproofing of steel beams and insulation of pipes in approximately 40 floors of one tower and 20 floors of the other. Ever since the ban, the government has regulated removal of asbestos from buildings.

EPA rules clearly spell out when and how asbestos must be removed, but city and federal officials ignored those regulations at the Trade Center site. EPA officials misled the public about what federal regulations define as a "safety standard" for exposure to asbestos as well as what the legal requirements are for handling asbestos-contaminated matter. In fact, asbestos levels measured in many parts of Lower Manhattan were higher than those found in places like Libby, Montana-where the EPA is currently conducting a massive cleanup because of the town's widespread asbestos contamination.

News of toxic substances other than asbestos being released into the air was not made public until Oct. 26, six weeks after the collapse of the towers, when the Daily News published my front-page column on the subject. My information had been gleaned from a quick review of nearly 800 pages of EPA test data, which the agency had been forced to release after Kupferman filed a Freedom of Information Act request. Only then did EPA officials concede that their testing had found elevated levels of other contaminants, including benzene, dioxins, PCBs, lead and chromium in the air and in water draining into the Hudson River from the Trade Center. However, agency officials insisted at a City Hall press conference that such high readings had occurred only as occasional "spikes"; that they were confined almost exclusively to the immediate vicinity of the debris pile; and that they would soon disappear following the extinguishing of the fires. The fires, however, turned out to be far more difficult to put out than anyone had initially predicted. They burned for nearly four months and even in late January were still smoldering below sections of the debris pile.

In the case of dioxins, among the most toxic substances known, the EPA repeatedly told the public that its test results showed very few readings above the agency's "removal action guidelines." In fact, the EPA has no standards for safe dioxin levels in air. Faced with high-level dioxin emissions around Ground Zero more typical of a volcanic eruption, the agency's top officials in the New York region simply asked their risk assessors to devise their own removal action guidelines. They then told the public that few of its tests had exceeded those guidelines, when in fact a substantial number of them had. EPA scientists in other parts of the country were shocked when they learned that the New York region was posting safety benchmarks for dioxin that had not gone through the agency's normal peer review process.

It wasn't until December that the agency began releasing results of ambient air tests it had conducted for dioxin outside of the actual Ground Zero site. Some of those tests showed high dioxin levels as far as half a mile away from the trade center. Other agency tests showed dangerous levels of PCBs in dust nearly a mile north of Ground Zero, in an area that had been reopened to the public on Sept. 17.

"What happened here is at the level of Watergate," says Dr. Marjorie Clarke, scientist-in-residence at Lehman College in New York and an expert on dioxin and furan emissions from incinerators. "They covered up important information. It just seems to me that, from the get go, a decision had been made from some high-up government types that there is not going to be a problem here."

Federal health and safety officials were not alone in misleading the public, however. Mayor Giuliani, New York City Health Commissioner Neal Cohen and Joseph Miele of the city's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) abandoned their responsibility to safeguard the public's health and grossly neglected safety issues for thousands of rescue workers at Ground Zero.

From the first moments of the attacks, Giuliani assumed direct operational control over all aspects of the governmental response. The mayor made virtually all major announcements, whether about the death toll, the identities of officials who had perished, the progress of the rescue work, public security procedures, assessments of physical damage to Lower Manhattan, traffic restrictions for commuters, assistance to businesses and families of victims, and even dates and locations for funerals of firefighters.

Yet when it came to public health issues and environmental damage, Giuliani and his health commissioner said very little, except reiterate the EPA's assurances about air quality. It seems unlikely that Giuliani and Cohen were simply repeating what the EPA told them out of naivete. Both men had in the past evinced an arrogant-some would say reckless-disregard for public health matters. From 1999 to 2001, for instance, Giuliani spearheaded a massive pesticide-spraying campaign throughout the city to combat an outbreak of West Nile virus, first with the controversial pesticide malathion, then with the less potent but still dangerous Anvil. The spray campaign, perhaps the largest government urban pesticide experiment in U.S. history, sparked a huge public outcry when hundreds of city residents fell sick from the pesticide fumes and when thousands of fish began to turn up dead in Long Island Sound and in Staten Island's freshwater ponds.

So it should come as no surprise that after the Sept. 11 attacks a legendary hands-on administrator like Giuliani paid so little attention to the public health aspects of the tragedy. Within days of the collapse the various levels of government agreed to a division of labor on safety concerns: City Hall left the responsibility for all testing of the outside air and water around Lower Manhattan to federal and state health officials, while it assumed responsibility for checking and certifying the safety of the interior of any commercial or residential areas.

The city's portion of the work, in turn, was left to the 6,000-member DEP, an agency whose primary job is to maintain and monitor the city's vast drinking water and sewage disposal system, but that also has responsibility for handling hazardous-waste problems. The department, however, did not have nearly enough staff to cope with the pollution hazards it now confronted. Instead of admitting the problem and seeking help from other levels of government, city officials opted for allowing owners of private buildings to carry out their own testing and cleanup with little or no government oversight.

To understand the enormity of the environmental problem, we need to come to grips with the sheer size of what was destroyed on Sept. 11. The quantity of contaminants contained within the buildings is truly staggering.

Consider just one substance, lead, as an example. Lead is an extremely dangerous heavy metal. Inhaling even minute quantities of lead dust over an extended period can cause brain damage. The use of lead in paint has been banned in the United States for decades, but the interiors of many inner-city tenements still contain undercoats of it. At the Trade Center, the danger came not from lead in paint, but from lead inside computers. The average personal computer contains anywhere from four to eight pounds of lead. We know that approximately 50,000 people worked in the two towers, and that most of them used personal computers. Several thousand more worked at Seven World Trade Center, a 47-story building just north of the Twin Towers, and at other, smaller structures on the site that were also destroyed. We can thus assume that at least 10,000 PCs, in addition to hundreds of servers and mainframe computers connected to them, were pulverized into dust that day or vaporized by the fires in the subsequent months. It is likely, therefore, that a minimum of 200,000 to 400,000 pounds of lead were released into the air, ground and buildings around the site.

Even if all individual contaminants in the air had been below permissible federal safety levels, there is yet another troubling concern for many scientists, what some call the "unknown synergistic effect" of exposure to even low levels of a variety of toxic substances at one time. "There were probably a thousand or more chemicals in that soup," says industrial hygienist Monona Rossol. "No one knows how that could affect a person."

Yet for weeks after the collapse, even when hope of finding any survivors had long faded, safety officials failed to coordinate or enforce efforts to ensure that thousands of firefighters, police, and rescue and cleanup workers at the site were properly protected against toxic releases. More than 200 New York City firefighters who served at Ground Zero are now on medical leave, and as many as 700 have exhibited respiratory problems-what is now called the World Trade Center cough. Many of those have been assigned to light duty, and it is feared a good portion may never be able to fight fires again.

In addition, a troubling number of rescue workers from other parts of the country who had volunteered at Ground Zero are reporting serious health problems. In Ohio, 37 of 74 members of Ohio Task Force One, a group of emergency responders who volunteered to work at Ground Zero, have become ill since returning home. In California, 100 of 395 emergency responders who worked at Ground Zero between Sept. 12 and Oct.. 7 have filed workers' compensation claims because of illness they say is related to the World Trade Center catastrophe.

Five months after the disaster, Dr. Stephen Levin of the Selikoff Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital stated that "high rates" of the hundreds of iron workers and other recovery personnel at Ground Zero examined by his center have experienced respiratory problems. Experts who have carried out long-term studies of the health effects of such fires suggest that this is only the tip of the iceberg of the health problems firefighters and rescue and cleanup workers will face in the future.

Whitman, Giuliani and other public officials should have told New Yorkers the truth from the start-that no one could guarantee the air around Ground Zero was safe because no one had ever confronted a disaster of such proportions. They should also have released all the raw data on government testing as soon as they had the results and made clear that safety levels for many of these toxins did not even exist.

The early blanket assurances that government officials issued were a grave mistake, and their continued defense of those assurances in the face of widespread public skepticism was inexcusable. Thousands of people may end up paying for that deception through unnecessary illness or premature death in the decades to come. In their rush to return New York City and Wall Street to business as usual, these shortsighted officials paved the way for a second wave of victims from the World Trade Center tragedy.

Juan Gonzalez is a columnist with the New York Daily News and a contributing editor of In These Times. This article is excerpted from "Fallout: The Environmental Consequences of the World Trade Center Collapse" (The New Press).

Source: http://www.inTheseTimes.com

9/14/02
5:58:47 PM

AlterNet Headlines

http://www.alternet.org

THE ANNIVERSARY OF A NEO-IMPERIAL MOMENT

Jim Lobe, AlterNet

Bush's foreign policy -- including the plan to attack Iraq -- is not about fighting terrorism, but dreams of global dominance as revealed in a document leaked 10 years ago.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14097

Got something to say? Take part in a lively debate on Iraq in AlterNet's discussion forums:

http://forums.alternet.org/guest/motet?show+Currents+543+725-

ECSTASY BEGETS EMPATHY

Sheerly Avni, Salon

Psychiatrist and drug researcher Dr. Charles Grob sees value in MDMA -- when it's taken in therapy, not at a rave.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14090

12 THINGS TO DO NOW ABOUT CORPORATIONS

Sarah Ruth van Gelder, YES! Magazine

Corporate excess goes much further than flawed accounting --it has corrupted our very democracy. Here are 12 things ordinary citizens can do about it.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14086

CHANGES WROUGHT BY 9/11: NOT WHAT YOU EXPECTED

Don Hazen and Tai Moses and Lakshmi Chaudhry, AlterNet

What were you afraid of on Sept. 11, 2001? What frightens you today, one year later? Chances are, the two answers are quite different.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13923

THE YEAR IN YOUTH ACTIVISM

It's been a landmark year for youth organizing. WireTap's Youth Activism Timeline shows that young people everywhere are coming forward to demand a better world.

*In WireTap: http://www.wiretapmag.org/story.html?StoryID=14081

DEVIL IN A BLUE DRESS

Eric Alterman, The Nation

Ann Coulter's very existence as a public figure is insulting to our collective intelligence. Yet her slanderous screed garners praise from even liberal outlets.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14089

WEN HO LEE NEXT TIME -- PATRIOT ACT THREATENS ASIAN AMERICANS

Victor M. Hwang and Ivy Lee, Pacific News Service

With continuing perceptions that Asian Americans are disloyal to America, it's time to gauge the impact of the Patriot Act on the community.

*In Rights & Liberties: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=33

HOW GLOBAL WARMING WILL BURN BUSH

Stephanie Mencimer, Washington Monthly

In the hopes of spurring Dubya into action on climate change, here is a projection of what global warming will do to his beloved Crawford, Texas, summer home ranch.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14045

FALLOUT: THE HIDDEN ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF 9/11

Juan Gonzalez, In These Times

Environmental and city officials repeatedly withheld clear evidence of toxic contamination around Ground Zero for political reasons.

*In EnviroHealth: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=18

9/14/02
5:56:04 PM

Planet Ark World Environment News

US nuclear guards said overworked, undertrained - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17739/story.htm

US still investigating ship off New Jersey shore - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17743/story.htm

New California law doubles renewable energy target - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17745/story.htm

US bill would streamline Alaska natgas pipeline - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17746/story.htm

USDA donates 200,000 tonnes of US crops to Jordan - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17750/story.htm

Flotilla sails to protest UK nuclear fuel ships - REPUBLIC OF IRELAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17751/story.htm

"Free Willy" star flooded in offers for retirement - NORWAY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17742/story.htm

FEATURE - Indian capital breathes easy after pollution checks - INDIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17741/story.htm

German beer can row rattles Stoiber poll campaign - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17749/story.htm

More fish farms set for Canada's Pacific coast - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17747/story.htm

EU's Byrne outlines tighter foot-and-mouth control - BELGIUM http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17744/story.htm

EU to seek common safety rules for nuclear plants - BELGIUM http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17748/story.htm

Geodynamics shares start trade up one cent - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17740/story.htm

ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS PICTURES:

CHINA : Hong Kong Actor Ekin Cheng, Singer Elle Chiu and Mango Wong Pose in Hong Kong -http://www.planetark.org/envpicstory.cfm/newsid/17753

TURKEY : Two Three-and-a-Half Month Old Lion Cubs Rest in their Cage in a Zoo in Izmir http://www.planetark.org/envpicstory.cfm/newsid/17752

9/14/02
5:55:10 PM

Public Citize

Sept. 12, 2002

Congressional Rejection of Nuclear Security Is Irresponsible

One Year After Sept. 11 Attacks, Energy Bill Conferees Opt Against Security Provisions in Price-Anderson Act

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Senate and House members of the energy bill conference committee who today rejected amendments to improve security at nuclear power plants acted irresponsibly, Public Citizen said.

Conferees met to vote on the controversial Price-Anderson Act. The legislation, widely opposed by public interest and environmental organizations, extends insurance subsidies to the nuclear industry and caps the amount of monetary damages nuclear operators must pay in the event of an accident, leaving the government - i.e., taxpayers - to pick up the tab. Existing reactors are covered regardless of whether Price-Anderson is reauthorized; however, extending the act means that any new nuclear reactors will also get the liability protection.

The House last fall reauthorized the Price-Anderson Act as stand-alone legislation (H.R. 2983) that included certain security provisions drafted by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). The Senate never acted on the bill but agreed to include the Price-Anderson reauthorization as an amendment to the energy bill (H.R. 4), but without the security provisions. Both versions were on the table during today's energy bill negotiations.

"Reauthorization of the Price-Anderson Act increases nuclear risks by encouraging the construction of new reactors," said Wenonah Hauter, director of Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program. "But having deciding to limit the nuclear industry's liability, it is stunning that energy conferees refused to include even modest nuclear security provisions. This increases the potential liability of the taxpayer."

U.S. Sens. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and James Jeffords (I-Vt.) today introduced as an amendment the Nuclear Security Act, which was approved unanimously in July by the Environment and Public Works Committee. Among other provisions, the amendment would establish a task force to assess vulnerabilities at nuclear facilities and require the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to conduct "security response evaluations" every three years using a mock terrorist team to test the ability of security forces to guard nuclear facilities.

The Reid/Jeffords amendment was withdrawn due to opposition from a majority of the Senate conferees. Senate conferees had already rejected the House proposal to adopt security provisions contained in H.R. 2983 as "outside the scope of the conference." House Republican conferees, blaming Senate conferee opposition and citing a misplaced desire to expedite Price-Anderson reauthorization, then voted down additional safety and security amendments introduced by Markey and Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Henry Waxman (D-Calif.).

The Senate's Homeland Security Act, moving toward a possible vote next week, similarly fails to address the issue of nuclear security.

"It is appalling that one year after the September 11 attacks, Congress has yet to enact legislation to address nuclear security," said Lisa Gue, senior energy analyst with Public Citizen. "In light of the recent revelations about terrorists targeting these facilities in the future, now is the time to pass strong security provisions. What is Congress waiting for? And why is it using procedural excuses to avoid enacting nuclear facility and material security when President Bush is pushing to go to war over Iraq's effort to gain access to nuclear materials?"

Following news reports earlier this week of terrorist plots against nuclear power plants, a coalition of national environmental and public interest organizations circulated a letter to energy conferees urging them not to reauthorize Price-Anderson and to consider issues of nuclear security.

Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.

For more information, please visit http://www.Citizen.org

9/14/02
5:52:59 PM

Corporate Dominance Of U.S. TV

WHO OWNS WHAT

Adbusters.org 9-12-2

Currently, the realm of television in its entirety is controlled by 6-7 mega-corporations in the U.S. and strongly dominated by three worldwide. When only a few players run the most powerful medium of our time with the same agenda, the small fry (read: you and I) are shut out of the culture-making process.

In the face of increasing homogenization, we incite you to join the http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/mediacarta/toolbox/twominute.html>Two Minute Media Revolution - a collective demand that broadcasters set aside two minutes of airtime every hour for citizen-produced advocacy messages.

Find out who's big and what they own http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/mediacarta/toolbox/who_owns/#ge> GENERAL ELECTRIC http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/mediacarta/toolbox/who_owns/#westing> WESTINGHOUSE / CBS http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/mediacarta/toolbox/who_owns/#viacom> VIACOM INTERNATIONAL http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/mediacarta/toolbox/who_owns/#disney> DISNEY http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/mediacarta/toolbox/who_owns/#time> TIME-WARNER http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/mediacarta/toolbox/who_owns/#fox> NEWS CORPORATION / FOX NETWORKS GENERAL ELECTRIC Television Holdings:

NBC: includes 13 stations, 28% of US households. NBC Network News: The Today Show, Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, Meet the Press, Dateline NBC, NBC News at Sunrise.

CNBC business television; MSNBC 24-hour cable and Internet news service (co-owned by NBC and Microsoft); Court TV (co-owned with Time Warner), Bravo (50%), A&E (25%), History Channel (25%).

Other Holdings:

GE Consumer Electronics. GE Power Systems: produces turbines for nuclear reactors and power plants. GE Plastics: produces military hardware and nuclear power equipment. GE Transportation Systems: runs diesel and electric trains. http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/mediacarta/toolbox/who_owns/#top>

WESTINGHOUSE / CBS INC. Television Holdings:

CBS: includes 14 stations and over 200 affiliates in the US. CBS Network News: 60 minutes, 48 hours, CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, CBS Morning News, Up to the Minute. Country Music Television, The Nashville Network, 2 regional sports networks. Group W Satellite Communications.

Other Holdings:

Westinghouse Electric Company: provides services to the nuclear power industry. Westinghouse Government Environmental Services Company: disposes of nuclear and hazardous wastes. Also operates 4 government-owned nuclear power plants in the US. Energy Systems: provides nuclear power plant design and maintenance. http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/mediacarta/toolbox/who_owns/#top>

VIACOM INTERNATIONAL INC. Television Holdings:

Paramount Television, Spelling Television, MTV, VH-1, Showtime, The Movie Channel, UPN (joint owner), Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Sundance Channel (joint owner), Flix. 20 major market US stations.

Media Holdings:

Paramount Pictures, Paramount Home Video, Blockbuster Video, Famous Players Theatres, Paramount Parks. Simon & Schuster Publishing.

http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/mediacarta/toolbox/who_owns/#top>

DISNEY / ABC / CAP Television Holdings:

ABC: includes 10 stations, 24% of US households. ABC Network News: Prime Time Live, Nightline, 20/20, Good Morning America. ESPN, Lifetime Television (50%), as well as minority holdings in A&E, History Channel and E! Disney Channel/Disney Television, Touchtone Television.

Media Holdings:

Miramax, Touchtone Pictures. Magazines: Jane, Los Angeles Magazine, W, Discover. 3 music labels, 11 major local newspapers. Hyperion book publishers. Infoseek Internet search engine (43%).

Other Holdings:

Sid R. Bass (major shares) crude oil and gas. All Disney Theme Parks, Walt Disney Cruise Lines.

http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/mediacarta/toolbox/who_owns/#top>

TIME-WARNER TBS - AOL

America Online (AOL) acquired Time Warneröthe largest merger in corporate history.

Television Holdings:

CNN, HBO, Cinemax, TBS Superstation, Turner Network Television, Turner Classic Movies, Warner Brothers Television, Cartoon Network, Sega Channel, TNT, Comedy Central (50%), E! (49%), Court TV (50%). Largest owner of cable systems in the US with an estimated 13 million subscribers.

Media Holdings:

HBO Independent Productions, Warner Home Video, New Line Cinema, Castle Rock, Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera. Music: Atlantic, Elektra, Rhino, Sire, Warner Bros. Records, EMI, WEA, Sub Pop (distribution) = the worldâs largest music company. 33 magazines including Time, Sports Illustrated, People, In Style, Fortune, Book of the Month Club, Entertainment Weekly, Life, DC Comics (50%), and MAD Magazine.

Other Holdings:

Sports: The Atlanta Braves, The Atlanta Hawks, World Championship Wrestling.

http://www.adbusters.org/campaigns/mediacarta/toolbox/who_owns/#top> NEWS CORPORATION LTD. / FOX NETWORKS (Rupert Murdoch)

Television Holdings:

Fox Television: includes 22 stations, 50% of US households. Fox International: extensive worldwide cable and satellite networks include British Sky Broadcasting (40%); VOX, Germany (49.9%); Canal Fox, Latin America; FOXTEL, Australia (50%); STAR TV, Asia; IskyB, India; Bahasa Programming Ltd., Indonesia (50%); and News Broadcasting, Japan (80%). The Golf Channel (33%).

MEDIA HOLDINGS:

Twentieth Century Fox, Fox Searchlight. 132 newspapers (113 in Australia alone) including the New York Post, the London Times and The Australian. 25 magazines including TV Guide and The Weekly Standard. HarperCollins books.

OTHER HOLDINGS:

Sports: LA Dodgers, LA Kings, LA Lakers, National Rugby League. Ansett Australia airlines, Ansett New Zealand airlines. Rupert Murdoch: Board of Directors, Philip Morris (USA).

Excerpted from http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/Bureau/1646/list_txt.html

Disney

DISNEY/CAP CITIES (Ranked No. 48 in Forbes 500) ABC: Television stations covering 24.5% of US households; ABC Radio (owns 21 stations, largest radio

network in US; 24% od US households).ABC Network News: Good Morning America, Prime Time Live, World News Tonight, 20/20, Nightline, World News with Peter Jennings TV and Cable: Disney Channel, Disney Television (58 hours/week syndicated programming); Touchstone Television (Ellen, Home Improvement), A&E (37% with Hearst and GE), LIfetime Network (50%), ESPN (80%), ESPN 2 (80%), Buena Vista Television. Magazines: Chilton Publishers (trade publications), Fairchild Publications (W.Wear Daily), L.A. Magazine, Institutional Investor, Disney Publishing Inc. Motion Pictures: Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone Pictures, Hollywood Pictures, Miramax Film Corp., Buena Vista Pictures (distribution). Book Publishing: Hyperion Books, Chilton Publications Retail: 429 Disney Stores Music: Hollywood Records, Wonderland Music, Walt Disney Records Multimedia: Disney Interactive, Disney.com, Americast, ABC online Sports Teams: Mighty Ducks, California Angels Theme Parks/resorts: Disneyland, Walt Disney World Resort, Disneyland Paris (39%), Tokyo Disneyland, Disney Vacation Club, WCO Vacationland Resorts, Disney Institute, Disney Cruiseline Newspapers: Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Kansas City Star, St. Louis Daily Record, Narragansett Times, Oakland Press & Reminder (Pontiac, MI), County Press (Lapeer, MI), Times-Leader (Wilkes-Barre, PA), Belleville News-Democrat (IL), Albany Democrat (OR), Daily Tidings (Ashland, OR), Sutton Industries and Penny Power (shoppers) Major investors include Sid Bass et al (oil and gas production), Berkshire Hathaway/Warren Buffet, and State Farm Insurance.

General Electric

Media: NBC, CNBC, MSNBC (50% with Microsoft), Court TV, Bravo, A&E, The History Channel (with ABC and Hearst) NBC Network News: The Today Show, Meet the Press, Dateline NBC, NBC Nightly News/Tom Brokaw, Nightside Transportation: GE Transportation Systems (diesel and electric trains) Turbines for nuclear reactors and electric power plants: GE Power Generation Electrical Equipment: Electrical Distribution and Control Communications: GE Americom (satellites), GE Capital Communications Services (long distance telephone) Motors and Controls: GE Motors and Industrial Systems Insurance: GNA Corporation & other insurance firms Aircraft engines: GE Aircraft Engines Lighting: GE Lighting Appliances: GE Appliances (GE, Hotpoint, and others) Medical Services: GE Medical Systems (MRIs, X-rays) Networking Software: GE Information Services Financial: GE Capital (private label and bank credit card loans, mortgages & other loans; asset management) Westinghouse

Media: CBS: 14 US TV Stations CBS Network News: CBS Morning News, 60 Minutes, CBS This Morning, 48 Hours, Face the Nation, Up to the Minute, CBS Evening News/Dan Rather CBS Radio: 21 FM stations, 18 AM stations; 1,900 stations carry some CBS programming; about 450 carry CBS News. Cable: CMT, Country Music Television (33% owners with Gaylord Entertainment); Home Team Sports, TNN The Nashville Network Nuclear power plant design and manufacture: Energy Systems (40% of the world's nuclear plants use Westinghouse engineering). Waste disposal (including hazardous and radioactive:Resource Energy Systems; Scientific Ecology Group; Westinghouse Remeiation Services; GESCO (this branch of the company also operates 4 government owned nuclear facilties, including Savannah River; installed reactors in Sea Wolf, the Navy' new nuclear submarines; and refueled the U.S.S. Enterprise, the first nuclear aircraft carrier. It also recently won a contract to dispose of 2,253 tons of stockpiled chemical weapons at an Army base in Anniston, Alabama.) Group W Satellite Communications (satellite istribution of TV programming) Parts for electric power plants: Power Generation Communications and Information: Telephone, network and wireless communications systems; security systems. Westinghouse Pension Management WPIC Corporation (insurance, communications, financing.) Brandywine Asset Management (investment advisors)

9/14/02
5:51:30 PM

DAILY GRIST

<http://www.gristmagazine.com>

MUSHROOM CLOUD

"There are practically no cases of radioactive watermelons this year," was the triumphant announcement of Andrei Buyanov, one of Moscow's corps of atomic food inspectors. Unfortunately for Muscovites, there were plenty of other radioactive fruits and vegetables. Moscow is 415 miles from Chernobyl, where an atomic reactor blew up in 1986; food found in the region can still be contaminated. Last year, inspectors seized more than 3,000 pounds of radioactive food bound for the stalls of the city's 69 outdoor markets; this year, they expect to haul in 10 percent more. The riskiest foods are those foraged in forests -- mushrooms, berries, and the like, which are generally handpicked in the wild, making them harder to monitor than food grown on farms. Mushrooms, for instance, which are a staple of Russian cuisine, are prone to absorbing Cesium 137, a radioactive element with a half-life of 30 years.

straight to the source: New York Times, Michael Wines, 12 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=463>

CLOTHES CALL

In yet another trend-setting environmental move by California, Gov. Gray Davis (D) signed into law this week a bill requiring old, inefficient washing machines to be replaced with water-efficient ones by 2007. New washers must now meet a standard of using 9.5 gallons of water to wash one cubic foot of laundry -- well below the 13.3 gallons averaged by washers sold in 1994. The measure comes as the Golden State heads into its fourth straight year of drought, and as neighboring states, also hit by a lack of rainfall, clamor for a bigger share of the Colorado River water that California has guzzled for decades. Supporters of the law say residents say it could save about 1 billion gallons of water annually, or enough to supply 6,000 households statewide. Critics claim the law will force consumers to spend money on new washers, but advocates counter that the money will be recouped by water and energy savings.

straight to the source: Christian Science Monitor, Daniel B. Wood, 12 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=462>

do good: Take action to do a home energy audit <http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/climate.asp?source=daily#audit>

IN THE DRINK

In other news from the Golden State, regulators in California are reviving a campaign to clean up perchlorate, a Cold War-era pollutant that has been showing up in drinking water supplies across the country. Since the 1950s, the substance has been used as an oxidizer in rockets, munitions, and fireworks. It was not considered particularly dangerous to humans until a decade ago, when the U.S. EPA determined that it disrupted thyroid function when consumed. Earlier this year, the agency proposed a maximum perchlorate level of one part per billion, a standard the defense industry and the Pentagon oppose as overly strict and too costly. Eight states have set their own provisional levels, ranging from one to 18 parts per billion. California's current level is four ppb, but contamination far exceeds that in San Bernardino County, where defense contractors and others have manufactured, tested and stored explosives for decades -- and where wells have tested at hundreds of parts per billion. A California task force plans to publicly accuse the county government today of gross mishandling of a landfill suspected of harboring massive quantities of perchlorate.

straight to the source: Wall Street Journal, Peter Waldman, 12 Sep 2002 (access ain't free) <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=465>

WE'VE GOT MAIL

You talkin' to us? Looks like it: In this month's mail bag, Grist readers wax loquacious about the virtues of biodiesel, the vices of Ford Motor Company, the woes of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the history of fire-fighting in the U.S., and more. Check out what your fellow readers have to say in our Letters to the Editor section, only on the Grist Magazine website.

only in Grist: Vegetable shortening -- Grist readers write letters to the editor <http://www.gristmagazine.com/letters/letters091202.asp?source=daily>

CECI N'EST PAS UNE CITIZENS GROUP

U.S. Interior Secretary Gale Norton has nixed the idea of a citizens panel to oversee the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, to the dismay of many environmentalists. Green groups and oil company watchdogs have called for the creation of such a group, similar to the citizens councils mandated by Congress after the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, to provide for more public input on the management of the pipeline. Pipeline operations are now overseen by the Joint Pipeline Office, a coalition of six federal and seven state agencies. Not surprisingly, spokespeople from the office say there is already sufficient oversight, but environmentalists say the JPO is not sufficiently critical of the pipeline operator, Alyeska Pipeline Service Company. Norton threw her weight behind the status quo this week, saying that "working through the existing processes would be better than creating a new process."

straight to the source: Anchorage Daily News, Associated Press, 12 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=464>

only in Grist: Put this in your pipeline and smoke it -- domestic oil and gas is not the ticket to U.S. energy security -- by Amory and L. Hunter Lovins <http://www.gristmagazine.com/imho/lovins112001.asp?source=daily>

9/14/02
5:41:23 PM

Planet Ark World Environment News

Zambia says won't feed refugees GM milled maize - ZAMBIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17727/story.htm

Lead paint poses new legal threat for US companies - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17723/story.htm

US lawmakers may drop Alaska pipeline subsidies - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17726/story.htm

Senate measure would ease thinning of US forests - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17728/story.htm

NRC raises security level at US nuclear plants - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17732/story.htm

An oil tanker seeking shelter from a tropical storm ran into rocks on the south China coast - SINGAPORE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17737/story.htm

INTERVIEW - Security problems block Afghan aid - World Bank - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17730/story.htm

Slow takeoff seen for hybrid electric vehicles - ITALY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17738/story.htm

Giant dam could cause geological disasters - China - CHINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17724/story.htm

China slows soymeal exports on GMO worries - CHINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17731/story.htm

World Bank sticks by Chad-Cameroon pipeline - CAMEROON http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17729/story.htm

Greenpeace,oil cos cleared of Australia naptha deal - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/17725/story.htm

ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS PICTURES:

JAPAN: Young Women Eat Free Beef Dishes on Anniversary of Japan's Case of Mad Cow Disease in Tokyo http://www.planetark.org/envpicstory.cfm/newsid/17735

FRANCE: Aerial View of Heavy Floods Near Orange in Southern France http://www.planetark.org/envpicstory.cfm/newsid/17733

IRAQ: Iraqi Youths Work in Tigris River in Baghdad http://www.planetark.org/envpicstory.cfm/newsid/17734

9/14/02
5:40:01 PM

9 - 11- 01 Impact on Our Lives Peace, come by here Oakland family of Sept. 11 victim responds by working against war on terrorism

Sam McManis, Chronicle Staff Writer

Sunday, September 8, 2002

Words come hard, sometimes not at all, for Barry Amundson. He struggles to articulate the emotions roiling inside him, to share his thoughts about family and grief, about waging war and peace. Sentences start, then fork in several directions. He often digs fingertips into his forehead, hard, as if trying to massage the words into a coherent shape.

Talking about Sept. 11, the day that forever altered his life, can be painful.

"I'm getting better," Amundson says, "about all this, but . . ."

Now he lifts his tall, slim frame off the couch in the Oakland apartment he shares with his girlfriend, Kelly Campbell. He heads for the VCR, rifling through VHS tapes. Amundson's always been more visual than verbal, so to augment his words about his brother, Craig, who died when a hijacked airplane crashed into the Pentagon that day, he pops in a video.

Sitting back down, still trying to talk about his kid brother's death and its aftermath, Amundson can't help but steal glances at the TV screen. It captures Craig acting in one of his teenage films from the '80s, when the three Amundson boys were growing up in Marion, Iowa.

"This is the one that was a parody of a trip to the dentist from that movie called, you know, the one with Steve Martin and the killer plant," Amundson says. "I think it was in 1984 when Craig convinced my parents to buy this big, old video camera you had to strap across your shoulder. He lugged it around everywhere."

Barry is left with a stack of Craig's old improvisational home movies. But don't say that's all he is left with.

NONVIOLENT RESPONSE

No, the memory of Craig Amundson, an Army specialist who worked as a creative illustrator at the Pentagon, lives on. It lives not only in the hearts of his family but also in a national organization that Barry, 32, and Campbell, 30, helped to form in the months after Sept. 11 and the United States' subsequent bombing of Afghanistan.

The advocacy group is called Peaceful Tomorrows, which seeks nonviolent responses to terrorism. Started last winter by Campbell and the Amundsons, as well as several families of other victims of the Sept. 11 attacks on the East Coast, Peaceful Tomorrows has raised both consciousness and ire by speaking frankly about their opposition to a vengeful war on terrorism and by traveling to Afghanistan to meet with family members of victims of errant U.S. bombs.

In the past year, Peaceful Tomorrows has become the centerpiece of Amundson and Campbell's lives. She quit her job working for an environmental group in San Francisco to work full time as the organization's West Coast coordinator. He has accepted only freelance design work for advertising companies, while he helps administer Peaceful Tomorrows' Web site.

Ryan Amundson, Barry and Craig's little brother, has spent the year crisscrossing the country in his car speaking to groups about nonviolent responses to terrorism. Often, Ryan, 24, is joined by Amber Amundson, Craig's widow and the mother of his two children, Elliott, 5, and Charlotte, 3.

"It's one of those strange things," Barry says. "After we lost Craig, it drew us all closer and made us love one another even more. Amber's even more part of the family now than before. And we've found that the other members of the group feel the same way in their lives."

In his own soft-spoken way, Amundson is adamant about not wallowing in what he calls victimhood.

"There's not some holier-than-thou conceit with Kelly and me," he says. "At the root of it, we're still the same selfish creatures that fall into the same old traps."

Campbell, whose fresh freckles belie her age, 30, playfully shoves Barry to show her dissent. Sept. 11, they say, has brought them closer as a couple. Peaceful Tomorrows members have formed something of an unofficial Sept. 11 grief support group, even though they mostly communicate via the Internet or by telephone.

"This is like my new family," says David Potorti, the group's East Coast director whose brother, Jim, died in the World Trade Center collapse. "We share pictures and feelings and problems. They really are the only people who truly know what it's like to lose somebody on that day. I can get verbally beaten up by Bill O'Reilly on TV, and Peaceful Tomorrows people give me the support to keep going."

Criticism -- and there has been lots of it from people who call Peaceful Tomorrows members the "new Hanoi Jane Fondas" -- won't deter people like Amundson and Campbell from getting their message across.

The Amundsons certainly are unlikely activists, hardly cut from the outspoken cloth of the radical movement.

The three brothers grew up in Iowa, where they would sometimes spend afternoons in the nearby woods re-enacting battle scenes from the movie "Red Dawn" with BB guns. Barry was four years older than Craig and eight years older than Ryan, but the three shared a wry sense of humor and a love of '80s new wave independent music and movies.

'ALIKE IN MANY WAYS'

Barry eventually went to the University of Iowa, where he met Kelly, who was from Cedar Rapids -- "the big city," she laughs. Craig eventually followed Barry to Iowa and was a film major.

"He and Barry were alike in many ways," Campbell says. "They both were interested in art and drawing. They both were DJs at the college radio station.

Even after college, they'd burn CDs and send them to each other. I remember talking to Amber on the phone, and we'd laugh about their similar personality traits, like their indecisiveness. We'd go, 'Yup, that's them.' "

After college, Barry and Kelly drifted to the Bay Area for jobs and because,

well, "it was San Francisco and anything's possible," Barry says. Craig graduated a few years later, married Amber and started a family. He decided to join the Army, even though Barry tried to persuade him to move to the Bay Area and start a computer-design firm with him.

"I don't know," Barry says. "Maybe it was too big a jump for him, from the Midwest to California. I wish he had . . ."

Barry's voice trails off once more, but his point is clear. Had Craig moved to California, he wouldn't have been working in the Pentagon on Sept. 11. He would still be alive.

"Craig wanted the job security the military could provide, the health benefits for his family," Campbell says.

Craig Amundson's widow, in an opinion piece published last September in the Chicago Tribune, wrote that Craig was not the stereotypical bloodthirsty Army enlisted man and that he would disapprove of more senseless deaths in his name.

"For the last two years," Amber wrote, "Craig drove to his job at the Pentagon with a 'Visualize world peace' bumper sticker on his car. This was not empty rhetoric or contradictory to him, but part of his dream. He believed his role in the Army could further the cause of peace throughout the world."

Which is why, Barry and Ryan maintain, his brother would be appalled by the vengeful response many Americans and many in the Bush administration had after the terrorist attacks.

EXPLOITING TRAGEDY

"People were holding up the concept of revenge as something good," Ryan says. "I'd see politicians and pundits talking on TV, and whenever anyone would bring up that there's another way to deal with terrorism other than bombing entire countries, the pundits would always say, righteously, 'Tell that to the victims' families.'

"I felt like I was being exploited, sitting there at the one-month memorial ceremony, and it turned out not to be a memorial. It felt more like a war rally, with the president and the secretary of state saying we're going to extend the war to other countries. To me, that meant killing more innocent people. That seemed like a dishonor to my brother."

Barry and Ryan say they spent the first few weeks after the attack in shock and feeling helpless. Rabid pro-war public sentiment spurred them to action, though, in a round-about manner. Barry had read an article that Potorti had written for an alternative media Web site and then e-mailed Amber's Chicago Tribune op-ed piece to him.

Potorti then invited the Amundsons and Campbell to a November march for nonviolence from Washington, D.C., to New York City. That march galvanized the brothers and Amber and Kelly.

"When we got to New York with our banners, the people on the street were very open to our message," Kelly says. "In the beginning, we felt like we were crazy in thinking bombing Afghanistan was not the answer. But we found other family members who shared the 'not in our name' feeling.

"I started giving speeches, and found that we weren't crazy. Everyone was not 100 percent behind the war. I remember speaking in front of 3,000 people on a cold, cloudy day in Oakland in support of (Rep.) Barbara Lee's lone dissenting vote in Congress, and thinking, our message is resonating."

Not with everyone, though. Peaceful Tomorrows has received its share of criticism in the past year, hate mail that accused this pacificist organization of being traitors.

"Some people think we want to sing 'Kumbaya' with Osama bin Laden," Potorti says. "But we're really the opposite. We're just people all around the country who are nonpartisan but want to get the point across that nonviolence can be the answer. I think of us as 'sleeper peace cells.' I'm North Carolina. Rita Lasar's in New York. Ryan in the Midwest and Kelly and Barry in California. We're out to do good."

The Oakland "peace cell" is a modest one-bedroom apartment just off one of Oakland's busiest thoroughfares. Barry handles Web site queries on the couch with his laptop tilted precariously on his knee. Kelly handles calls and interview requests pacing the room on her cell phone and setting up her speaking engagements, such as tonight's at the Oakland Islamic Cultural Center.

All the while, videos of Craig's teenage home movies flicker on the TV screen. Barry makes sure to stop occasionally and look at the action on the screen.

"All these thoughts come back to me," Barry says. "Why didn't I spend more time with him? Why'd we live so far apart?"

He pauses, runs his hand over his face, continues.

"Right before Sept. 11, we spent a week with Craig, Amber and the kids on the (Mississippi) River in Dubuque," Barry says. "I wasn't going to go. But a couple of days before that, I decided, what the hell, and bought a plane ticket. I'm glad we had that time together. There was so much more we were going to do together."

email Sam McManis at smcmanis@sfchronicle.com

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/09/08/LV82343.DTL

9/14/02
5:34:08 PM

DAILY GRIST

<http://www.gristmagazine.com>

INDUSTRY, AGENCY SAY NUKE PLANTS ARE SAFE FROM TERRORISM

One year after the tragedies of Sept. 11, how safe is the U.S. from terrorist strikes against its water supply and nuclear power facilities? Quite safe, according to industry and government studies commissioned in the wake of last year's attacks. The Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group, found that a Boeing 757 would not be able to penetrate the 4-foot-thick concrete walls and steel bars protecting nuclear reactors or the even thicker walls of nuclear-waste storage facilities. Moreover, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission determined that even a radioactive leak probably would not produce damage "as catastrophic as one might imagine." Meanwhile, the nation's water-treatment plants, reservoirs, and dams now boast a wide range of new safety measures, from round-the-clock security guards to surveillance cameras to more frequent water testing. Although experts said that physically poisoning the nation's water supply was next to impossible, they acknowledged that even a minor attack could cause the public to lose faith in water purity.

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Elizabeth Shogren, 11 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=456>

straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Vicki Kemper, 11 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=457>

HAZE REACHES RECORD LEVEL IN HONG KONG

While a metaphorical cloud shrouds New York City today, an all-too-real one is suffocating the city of Hong Kong, where pollution levels have set record highs this week, obscuring skyscrapers and prompting officials to warn people to stay indoors. Earlier this week, smog levels reached a record 185 on an air pollution index where any reading over 100 is considered dangerously high. Hong Kong's leader, Tung Chee-hwa, has made environmental cleanup a priority, to some success; for example, 90 percent of the city's 18,000 taxis switched from diesel to cleaner fuels in the last two years. However, the dirty air persists, and it is breeding some resentment in the former British colony because much of the pollution comes from the 18,000 factories in Guangdong, a neighboring province in China, where environmental regulation is lax at best. "No matter how good we are, they still have to solve the other half of the problem," said Ng Cho-nam, a university professor and president of Hong Kong's Conservancy Association.

straight to the source: San Francisco Chronicle, Associated Press, Margaret Wong, 11 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=459>

straight to the source: New York Times, Keith Bradsher, 10 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=461>

U.N. CREATES WATCHDOG EFFORT IN LIEU OF FUTURE SUMMITS

In what seemed like a tacit acknowledgment of the failure of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, which ended last week, the United Nations has announced that it will not plan any more summits on the environment and development until governments have taken serious steps toward meeting the goals for progress established at Johannesburg and earlier summits. In place of the high-cost, high-profile meetings, the U.N. will create an unprecedented watchdog operation to campaign for change and report on how well governments are meeting their goals. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan appointed Mark Brown, who is currently in charge of the U.N. Development Programme, to coordinate the new initiative, which will issue annual reports on the progress of individual nations. Praising the change, Clare Short, the U.K.'s International Development Secretary, said, "We do not need more big multilateral agenda-setting conferences, we need a real period of intensive implementation."

straight to the source: London Independent, Geoffrey Lean, 08 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=458>

READ ALL ABOUT IT

How about getting away from it all with a good magazine article? Check out the Nation, where two writers make the case that water should be a fundamental human right, not a commodity. Or read about the Huck Finn-esque life of Chad Pregracke, who lives on a boat nine months out of the year and dedicates himself to pulling trash out of the Mississippi River -- up to 200,000 pounds of it per year. Or eavesdrop on a chat between a Salon staffer and Robert Costanza, one of the founders of ecological economics. All that and more in the Best of the Rest, our monthly tally of what we're reading, and what you ought to, only on the Grist Magazine website.

only in Grist: Wild reads from the Nation, New York Times Magazine, Outside -- in our Best of the Rest section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/best/best091102.asp?source=daily>

SCIENTISTS DISCUSS HOW TO REDUCE MERCURY USE AROUND GLOBE

Scientists from around the world are meeting this week in Geneva, Switzerland, at a conference sponsored by the U.N. Environment Programme, to discuss ways to cut back on global mercury use. For decades, the toxic substance has been used in lamps, batteries, electrical equipment, thermometers, dental fillings, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and even beauty products. Gulp! Mercury can cause permanent damage to the brain, nervous system, and kidneys. When disposed of in landfills, the metal can slowly seep into groundwater or evaporate into the air, where it can travel for thousands of miles, accumulating in cold regions such as Arctic lakes. Last week, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to ban the sale of mercury fever thermometers and to spend $20 million on a mercury thermometer collection and exchange project.

straight to the source: MSNBC.com, 10 Sep 2002 <http://www.gristmagazine.com/forward.pl?forward_id=460>

9/14/02
5:19:03 PM

Homeland Security Department

Another Production of the Real Shadow Government

By John Stanton

09 September 2001

The frightful Department of Homeland Security currently promoted by the Bush Regime, its disciples and recent converts, has its genesis in defense and security study "think tanks" in Washington, DC. These groups wield enormous influence on local, state and national policy and arguably constitute the real shadow government of the United States.

Eliminate the US Congress, Presidency and Supreme Court, and the three branches of government could just as well be the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security and the Center for Security Policy. Add the Institute for Defense Analysis as a place for the "nonprofit" government to hold "classified" meetings and most Americans would probably not notice any substantial difference.

These defense and security nonprofits -far removed from any public accountability- serve as a carving knife used by the most callous of interests in and out of government to slice away at the public good. Whether it's to pocket some hard cash for missile defense, get a piece of the Homeland Security action, fix a troublesome regulation that penalizes government contractors for providing poor working conditions, rid the world of that pesky rule that cuts into executive compensation, or promote an outdated weapons system, the nonprofits stand ready to undertake these actions. This is not only because it makes "good business sense" but because their operatives take a patriotic view of the "bottom line".

Defense and security nonprofit organizations house former elite US civilian and military officials -always a short step away from return to government service and available for consulting fees- many whose worldview closely approximates those of the character General Jack Ripper in Stanley Kubrick's famed classic Dr. Strangelove. Obsessed about the "purity" of America's vital essence, Ripper launches an unauthorized nuclear attack on the "godless commies" in the USSR and seeks to rid the world of the "commie bastards" and, in the process of the retaliation that's sure to follow, cleanse the United States of its "impurities" and reboot the country the white and right way.

Such a mentality is likely to dominate the impending 170,000 employee internal security apparatus known as the US Homeland Security Department. Union and whistleblower averse, all US citizens, all certified "grade A" loyal by the loyalty police, all "pure in essence", mostly white, mostly jingoistic, all ready to report "adverse" information on their fellow employees and citizens to the appropriate taskmaster.

Sweet Charity

Clues as to who will run America's Gestapo agency and their thought processes can be gleaned from the operations and staff of organizations such as Anser's Homeland Security group, the Institute for Defense Analysis, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and the Center for Security Policy. These "Institutes", "Centers" or "Foundations" operate under an Internal Revenue Service 501 c (3) designation which means they are "charitable, non-profit, non-partisan and educational". It also means they carry the .ORG tag. IRS regulations state clearly that "a § 501(c)(3) organization may not engage in carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities [...] and must not be organized or operated for the benefit of private interests [...] or persons controlled directly or indirectly by such private interests. But the reality is that these shadowy organizations are powerful interest groups who are ultimately funded by taxpayer dollars awarded in the form of government contracts, grants and sponsorships.

Some of them like the Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA) hold Secret or above facility clearances, which means that they are authorized by the US government to hold US government classified meetings. According to IDA's website, "The work often requires privileged access to sensitive information, including highly classified and industry proprietary data not normally available to non-government organizations." How very convenient and very much out of the public eye.

Funded by US government agencies such as the Department of Defense, federal employees (often through membership and meeting fees), and corporate donors who live off of federal largesse, the nonprofits are adept at pushing their member's or meeting attendee's interests in the halls of Congress and within Federal agencies. Many Americans would perhaps be surprised to learn that the bulk of what is presented via the media as novel presidential and congressional "thinking" for policy, budgets, proposals, speeches, and legislation all derive from the analysis and proposals of nonprofit think tanks. Nowhere is that more evident than in the defense and security nonprofit arena.

A personal visit by a senior nonprofit official -normally a retired US military officer or former high ranking civilian official- to "educate" the uneducated active duty general, admiral, undersecretary or congressman are little more than lobbying efforts on behalf of the private and self interests that the nonprofit represents. And the vanguard of the defense and security nonprofits have a virtual Who's Who of heavyweight retired US military and former high ranking civilians on their governing and advisory Boards, who can ratchet up the political and budgetary pressure on a defense program manager, senator or congress member.

One of the more insidious and accepted practices involving defense and security nonprofits is the use of these organizations' retired military and civilian staff by active US government officials in the advancement of their own internal government programs and agendas, often enlisting nonprofits in public education campaigns. Frank "missile defense" Gaffney's Center for Security Policy is a case in point. That group also serves the nefarious interests of conservative militants in the US government like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. Indeed, Richard Perle is still listed as an active member of the Center's National Security Advisory Council as is missile defense maven and elected official US Congressman Kurt Weldon.

Through its many advisors and Board members, the Center, like all defense and security nonprofits, hase links to the key players in and out of the US government, the defense and security industry, and at other like-minded nonprofits. IDA's president and CEO is everyone's favorite Defense Board chairman, retired USAF General Larry Welch. On IDA's Board of Trustees is Robert Prestel, former deputy director of the US National Security Agency, along with the president and CEO of the Army Association of the United States, a former US Secretary of the Air Force, and a former US Deputy Defense Secretary, among others.

ANSER's Institute for Homeland Security's Board of Advisors includes John Hamre, former US Deputy Undersecretary of Defense, who just happens to be the President and CEO of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Also on ANSER's Board is the current chairman of the US Army Science Board and a retired US Navy Admiral. With the director of ANSER's Institute a former USAF officer, all US armed service branches can be effectively lobbied for business by "one of their own kind who served".

Way back in December of 2000, CSIS was one of the first out of the starting gate to propose the creation of a Department of Homeland Security in its Homeland Defense: A Strategic Approach. The 2002 Homeland Security Department proposal sent to the US Congress by the current regime is based almost entirely on CSIS's proposals. Why so much influence from this particular 501 c (3) that has a paltry operating budget of US $17