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http://www.boston.com/news/daily/10/odds_guard.htm

GUILDERLAND, N.Y. -- A fired mall security guard has some unlikely supporters -- peace protesters. Robert Williams was fired from his job at a suburban Albany mall following the arrest of an anti-war protester. Williams told lawyer Stephen Downs to take off a T-shirt that read "Give Peace a Chance." Downs, 61, was charged with trespassing a week ago after refusing to leave the mall or remove the anti-war shirt. On Sunday, about 100 protesters returned to Crossgates mall, urging that Williams be rehired. Downs says there was no justification to fire Williams, who was professional and polite.

Protest leaders said they met with mall management for almost two hours but reached no resolution on their demands.

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http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12713155&method=full&siteid=50143

GEORGE Bush pulled out of a speech to the European Parliament when MEPs wouldn't guarantee a standing ovation.Senior White House officials said the President would only go to Strasbourg to talk about Iraq if he had a stage-managed welcome. A source close to negotiations said last night: "President Bush agreed to a speech but insisted he get a standing ovation like at the State of the Union address. His people also insisted there were no protests, or heckling." ...Mr Bush's every appearance in the US is stage-managed, with audiences full of supporters.

It was hoped he would speak after he welcomed Warsaw pact nations to Nato in Prague last November. But his refusal to speak to EU leaders face-to-face is seen as a key factor in the split between the US-UK coalition and Europe.

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http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035778904023&call_pageid=968867495754&col=969483191630

The West Wing is in a flap. Or at least the White House press corps is... mad as hell [about Bush's recent "press conference"]... Bush, who seemed, in the words of The Washington Post's Tom Shales, "ever so slightly medicated," came across so rehearsed he was almost robotic..."This," added Democratic Senator Chris Dodd, "is not a spontaneous press conference, the kind we're normally used to from presidents over the years."

Not only is flying solo at news conferences a rare event for Bush — at this point in his presidency, his dad had held 58 to Junior's eight — but he would have none of the usual Mr. President! yelling or hand-waving pick me! pick me! action from reporters... The whole thing was "scripted," as Bush allowed in one of the few slips he made that night.

...Bush [also] ignored a long-running White House tradition of taking questions from syndicated columnist Helen Thomas who has covered every president since John F. Kennedy. But then, she's the journalist who had the temerity to say that Bush was "the worst president ever." Yet snubbing her was so shocking that even the conservative Washington Times, said to be Bush's paper of choice, noted it.

"What's the message? If you cross the president or Ari, you too will get banned?" White House journalist Russell Mokhiber, who edits Corporate Crime Reporter, asked me Friday... When asked by right-wing radio talk show host Lester Kinsolving how and why Bush cherry-picked his questioners, Fleischer 'fessed that he was the one who made up the list, and that columnists such as Thomas were not included. Pressed again by another reporter, Fleischer replied: "The President just thinks it is actually a more orderly news conference, rather than to have the usual cacophony of everybody screaming, where the person who gets called on is the person who has the loudest voice." Well, if what Mokhiber told me turns out to be true, the yelling has barely begun.

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http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20030311/4934032s.htm

The Pentagon has dispatched dozens of attorneys to command posts in the region. Their job: help keep the United States legal... Attorneys are in the teams that choose the strategies, the targets and even the weapons to be used... What do U.S. military lawyers... use to guide them? The Law of Armed Conflict is a set of rules derived primarily from post-World War II Geneva Conventions. Commanders also must follow U.S. law... They try to protect innocents but recognize the reality of battle. ''If you're a priest who's running around blessing people on the battlefield, you're OK,'' [military attorney] Lamuro says. ''If you pick up a gun, you'll get shot.''

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http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?Date=20030310&Category=APN&ArtNo=303101018&SectionCat=&Template=printart

A conventional bomb so big that its first name is "massive" is set to be tested for the first time at this Florida Panhandle base Tuesday. Air Force officials Monday warned residents of communities surrounding the western half Eglin's 724-square-mile military reservation to be prepared to hear an explosion that sounds like thunder... although the blast will be miles away. The loudness of the 21,000-pound "massive ordnance air burst," or MOAB, will vary depending on wind currents and some people may not hear it at all, Eglin officials said in a brief news release.

...MOAB is similar to but 40 percent heavier than the 15,000-pound BLU-82, billed as the world's most powerful non-nuclear bomb and known to send up a mushroom cloud similar to a nuclear weapon.

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http://globalresearch.ca/articles/SLI303A.html

Vladimir Slipchenko, is military analyst, doctor of military sciences, professor, and major general of reserves, is a major Russian specialist on future wars. His predictions of the course of US military operations in Iraq (1991, 1996, and 1998), Yugoslavia (1999), and Afghanistan (2001) coincided almost 100% with what subsequently happened in reality. Today the military analyst predicts the course and outcome of the next US war against Iraq, which the American military themselves have already dubbed Operation "Shock And Awe."

[Slipchenko] The main purpose of the war is indeed being left out of the picture and nobody is saying anything about it. I see the main purpose of the war as being the large-scale real-life testing by the United States of sophisticated models of precision weapons... For more than 10 years now the United States has conducted exclusively no-contact wars. In May 2001 George Bush Jr., delivering his first presidential speech to students at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, spoke of the need for accelerated preparation of the US Armed Forces for future wars. He emphasized that they should be high-tech Armed Forces capable of conducting hostilities throughout the world by the no-contact method. This task is now being carried out very consistently.

[(Interviewer) Khokhlov] How will this war differ from the no-contact wars previously waged by the United States?

[Slipchenko] First, in terms of its political objectives. For the first time since 1991 the United States sets the goal of changing the political system in the enemy state and removing or physically eliminating the country's leadership... Second... the war aims mean that the United States must without fail achieve total victory. To that end it is necessary to achieve three objectives: rout the enemy's Armed Forces, destroy his economy, and change the political system.

The Iraqi army will be subjected to very powerful blows. It will be physically annihilated... The occupation of territory within which seats of organized resistance could persist would lead to large losses among US Army personnel...Therefore they will totally annihilate the Iraqi army. Practically all Iraq servicemen will die. There will be terrible carnage.

...[Khokhlov] How will the Americans begin hostilities?

[Slipchenko] First of all there will be precision strikes against bunkers and command posts... The bunker will become a mass grave for everyone who is unfortunate enough to be in it. To destroy armored equipment, in the very first days the Americans will use cluster aviation bombs with self-guided munitions. The "mother"-cluster bomb gives "birth" to several tens or hundreds of "baby" bombs, each of which independently chooses its own target to destroy on the ground.

I am confident that in the very first hours of the war the United States will also use new pulse bombs They are also called microwave bombs. The principle by which these weapons operate is as follows: an instantaneous discharge of electromagnetic radiation on the order of two megawatts. At a distance of 2-2.5 kilometers from the epicenter of the explosion the "microwaves" instantly put out of action all radioelectronic systems, communications and radar systems, all computers, radio receivers, and even hearing aids and heart pacemakers. All these things are destroyed by the meltdown method. Just imagine, a person's heart explodes.

As a result of the use of these weapons Iraqi systems for command and control of the state and troops will be destroyed practically instantaneously.

[Khokhlov] What other new types of arms could be tested?

[Slipchenko] Since this war will be experimental for the United States, several new types of precision cruise missiles will be tested with a view to obtaining quality certificates. I believe attention will be devoted first and foremost to missile launches from submarines. The Americans are planning to make their submarine fleet the main launchpad.

...[Khokhlov] Will the Iraqi air defense system be able to counter the American planes and cruise missiles?

[Slipchenko] Iraq already has no air defense facilities in the north and south of the country -- US aviation is constantly bombing these areas. What remains in the center of the country will be destroyed in the first 10 minutes of the war. Iraq's anti-aircraft system is based on the classical active radar detection system: emit -- detect -- illuminate -- destroy. The Americans will exploit this for their own purposes. As soon as an Iraqi radar reveals itself by emitting electromagnetic energy, a precision cruise missile will be dispatched against the "revealed" air defense facility using this same beam. Iraq has no chance of countering this.

[Khokhlov] How much will this war cost?

[Slipchenko] According to my estimates, $80 billion. But the total sum spent could rise to 100 billion... The war will be partly funded by private companies offering the Pentagon their experimental models of precision weapons for free in the hope of future dividends.

...[Khokhlov] What human losses could Iraq suffer?

[Slipchenko] Very considerable ones. Since the Americans are planning to physically annihilate the Iraqi army, I reckon that at least 500,000 people will be killed. This will be a very bloody war.

[Khokhlov] What will come after the war?

[Slipchenko] The Americans will have to occupy Iraq... The US Army will enter a burning desert -- the Iraqis will certainly set fire to the oilfields -- without a single shot being fired. There will simply be nobody to shoot at them.

[Khokhlov] ...And what will happen to Russia's economy, which is currently supported exclusively by "petrodollars"?

[Slipchenko] I have no answer to that question. I am an expert in wars.

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http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,57959,00.html

U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf may be armed with radioactive bombs and missiles hundreds of times more potent than similar weapons used during the Gulf War and the U.N. military campaign in Bosnia.

...The Pentagon has not confirmed the use of uranium or depleted uranium in the bunker-busters, and it has refused to identify the composition of the dense-metal warheads that enable the missiles to penetrate structures deeply buried under earth, steel and reinforced concrete. But critics such as British researcher Dai Williams contend that only uranium -- in one form or another -- possesses the density and other characteristics necessary to achieve the penetration levels attributed to such weapons as the 2,000-pound AGM 130C air-to-ground cruise missile, and the guided bomb unit, or GBU, series of laser-guided hard-target penetrators intended to pierce bunkers and other reinforced structures. Williams and others also claim that patents covering conversion or modification of earlier generation bombs for use as bunker-busters indicate that depleted uranium is being used in these weapons.

For example, the patent application for a narrow-profile version of the BLU-109B bomb (which is delivered by a GBU-24) specifically refers to penetrating bodies made of tungsten or depleted uranium. "If they're really using tungsten, why keep it classified?" Williams said. Depleted uranium, a byproduct of the nuclear fission process that powers both atomic bombs and power-generating plants, is an ideal material for munitions intended to blast holes into armored or otherwise reinforced targets that can only be pierced by projectiles possessing enormous amounts of kinetic energy. Since the kinetic energy of an object is one half its mass times the square of its speed, the denser the projectile, the higher the kinetic energy. When it comes to density, uranium (2.5 times heavier than iron and 1.7 times heavier than lead) is rivaled only by tungsten, which lacks depleted uranium's intense incendiary properties. [mrs. henry repeats: intense incediary properties.]

Tungsten has another drawback: It's expensive. Depleted uranium, on the other hand, is dirt cheap. Tons of it, over 500 million pounds the last time anyone counted, is lying around in various states of nuclear "decay" at government repositories throughout the country... The Defense Department provides depleted uranium to munitions makers such as Alliant Techsystems -- the largest maker of depleted uranium projectiles in the world -- at no cost.

...Depleted uranium... is 40 percent as radioactive as pure uranium and has a half-life of 4,500,000,000 years. In addition, the very volatility that makes it blaze like an atomic furnace upon impact converts a large percentage of the spent projectile into microscopic radioactive oxides that, when borne by the wind, may be inhaled by civilians miles from the battlefield.

Despite this, Pentagon and Veterans Administration brass are adamant in insisting that depleted uranium is absolutely harmless to both combatants and non-combatants, and is in no way responsible for any of the symptoms associated with so-called "Gulf War syndrome." ...Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen... deemed it as safe as "leaded paint." Federal law has banned the use of leaded paint in residential structures since 1978 because of its extreme toxicity.

In early 1991, the Army sent physicist Doug Rokke to Iraq as part of the task force charged with assessing the after-battle effects of the estimated 300 tons of depleted-uranium weapons expended during the Gulf War... Rokke said on-site investigators in Iraq found that 40 percent of the initial mass of the depleted uranium penetrators was converted to radioactive oxide while 60 percent was left on and around the impact area in solid form. "In addition, other radioactive materials were detected that could pose a risk through inhalation, ingestion or wound contamination. Who would want thousands of solid uranium penetrators or pencils of masses between 180 and 4,500 grams lying in your backyard? Who would want any uranium contamination of any type lying in your backyard?"

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http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/3759329?source=Evening%20Standard

The 21,000lb big blue bomb: the new superbomb is an upgrade of an already devastating weapon used by the Americans against al Qaeda and the Taliban. Nicknamed Big Blue, it contains 21,000lb of conventional high explosive, an increase from the 15,000lb BLU-82 "daisy cutter" used at least four times on tunnels and caves in Afghanistan... It works by detonating a few feet above ground level and destroying everything in its path.

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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,80676,00.html

International weapons inspectors have stumbled upon a new kind of [EMPTY] bomb in Iraq that could be filled with chemical or biological agents... "If you take the kinds of fuses we know they have, and you screw them in there, when these things come out from the main frame and they explode inward, chemical agents come out," one U.S. official told the Times. "These can be used for biological weapons, too." U.S. officials are expected to argue that this is just one more nail in Iraq's coffin.

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http://www.zawya.com/Story.cfm?id=1047319463nN10349096&Section=Main&page=Home&channel=All%20Arab%20News&objectid=2A17E941-F5E0-11D4-867D00D0B74A0D7C

Warplanes taking part in U.S.-British patrols over southern Iraq on Monday attacked air defense targets in a "no-fly" zone for the fourth consecutive day, the U.S. military said... The strike was about 5 p.m. in Iraq (1400 GMT). Western warplanes on Monday also again dropped hundreds of thousands of warning leaflets over both northern and southern no-fly zones of Iraq, the military said. U.S. defense officials say warplanes from the two countries have recently more than doubled patrols to at least 500 a day in the two no-fly zones.

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http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030310-13967592.htm

Analysts say a new Iraqi government will be allowed to maintain an army... The job of "Americanizing" an Iraqi army likely will fall to private companies and the U.S. military. [Bids being taken now?]

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http://www.gulufuture.com/news/kate_adie030310.htm

The Pentagon has threatened to fire on the satellite uplink positions of independent journalists in Iraq, according to veteran BBC war correspondent, Kate Adie. In an interview with Irish radio, Ms. Adie said that questioned about the consequences of such potentially fatal actions, a senior Pentagon officer had said: "Who cares.. ..They've been warned."

[from the transcript:] Tom McGurk: "Now, Kate Adie, you join us from the BBC in London... I suppose you are watching with a mixture of emotions this war beginning to happen, because you are not going to be covering it."

Kate Adie:"Oh I will be. And what actually appalls me is the difference between twelve years ago and now. I've seen a complete erosion of any kind of acknowledgment that reporters should be able to report as they witness. The Americans-- and I've been talking to the Pentagon-- take the attitude which is entirely hostile to the free spread of information."

" I was told by a senior officer in the Pentagon, that if uplinks-- that is the television signals out of, Bhagdad, for example-- were detected by any planes... of the military above Bhagdad-- they'd be fired down on. Even if they were journalists."

Tom McGurk: "...Just to explain for our listeners. Uplinks is where you have your own satellite telephone method of distributing information."

Kate Adie: "The telephones and the television signals."

Tom McGurk: "And they would be fired on? "

Kate Adie: "Yes. They would be 'targeted down,' said the officer."

Tom McGurk: "Extraordinary ! "

Kate Adie: "Shameless. He said,' Well, they know this, they've been warned.' ...The second thing is there was a massive news blackout imposed. In the last Gulf war, where I was one of the pool correspondents with the British Army... We were told that anything which was going to endanger troops lives which we understood we shouldn't broadcast. But other than that, we were relatively free. Unlike our American colleagues, who immediately left their pool, after about 48 hours, having just had enough of it."

And this time the Americans are: a) Asking journalists who go with them, whether they are-- have feelings against the war. And therefore if you have views that are skeptical, then you are not to be acceptable. Secondly, they are intending to take control of the Americans technical equipment-- those uplinks and satellite phones I was talking about. And control access to the airwaves.

"And then on top of everything else, there is now a blackout-- which was imposed, during the last war, at the beginning of the war-- ordered by one Mr. Dick Cheney, who is in charge of this. I am enormously pessimistic of the chance of decent on-the-spot reporting, as the war occurs."

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/11/1047144951200.html

A veteran US diplomat resigned today in protest over US policy toward Iraq, becoming the second career foreign service officer to do so in the past month. John Brown, who joined the State Department in 1981, said he resigned because he could not support Washington's Iraq policy, which he said was fomenting a massive rise in anti-US sentiment around the world.

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http://allafrica.com/stories/200303040322.html

The US State Department said on Monday that Rwanda and the United States have agreed to exempt each other's citizens from prosecution in the International Criminal Court (ICC) without the consent of the other government, according to Reuters news service. US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Rwandan Foreign Minister Charles Murigande were due to sign the accord, known as an Article 98 agreement after the relevant section of the treaty setting up the court, at the State Department on Tuesday.

Reuters reported that Washington objects to the ICC on the grounds that it could attract politically motivated prosecutions of US civilian and military leaders. The US signed the treaty creating the ICC [but]... the Bush administration last May decided to renounce any obligation to cooperate. According to Reuters, the US is seeking Article 98 agreements with as many countries as possible. Rwanda will be the 22nd country to sign such an agreement with the US. The others [include]... East Timor... El Salvador... Israel... Romania.

[why is this amazing? see http://www.ictr.org/]

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http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1430_A_803455_1_A,00.html

The International Criminal Court officially opens on Tuesday. But along with Iraq and China, the United States isn't a party... The court is based on the principles of the Nuremberg tribunals set up after World War II to try German and Japanese leaders accused of gross violations of human rights. The ICC has been ratified by 89 countries, including all European Union member states, as well as such war-torn nations as Afghanistan, East Timor and the Democratic Republic of Congo. One notable absentee from the list is the United States... Washington says anti-American prosecutors could bring charges against U.S. troops or officials, both past and present.

...Benjamin Ferencz, who served as a war crimes prosecutor for the U.S. at the Nuremberg Tribunals, said on his Web site, "The current leadership in the United States seems to have forgotten the lessons we tried to teach the rest of the world."

...Since its official establishment in July 2002, the court has received more than 200 complaints alleging war crimes. No legal action can be taken until a chief prosecutor is appointed, a move expected to take place in April 2003. Human rights organizations have hailed the inauguration of the court as the biggest step forward for world justice since the Nuremberg Tribunals... The court's first 18 judges [are] 11 men and 7 women.

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1511.htm

Once again the future of Bill Clinton has become a hot topic... Early in the fall, some seven months from now, the U.N. General Assembly may select a new secretary-general. Kofi Annan is under pressure to resign before the end of his second term in 2006. If he does, the General Assembly, on the recommendation of the U.N. Security Council, will approve a replacement... A well-known (notorious to most of us) American is looking for the secretary-general's job — William Jefferson Clinton.

...There are reports that Bill Clinton already has lined up support for his candidacy from Germany, France, England, Ireland and New Zealand. A handful of African states, led by Nigeria, are rooting for Bill. And Hillary has brought in Morocco and Egypt. The Russians have let it be known that they would not object to Clinton as the next secretary-general, and the Chinese love Bill almost as much as Monica did. In Latin America, Ecuador and Brazil's new labor-loving, rabble-rousing populist presidents are Bill's type of politician, and in Asia, many Indian leaders think warm and fuzzy thoughts about the former U.S. president.

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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N10360411

The practical needs of the future and ideological antipathy towards the United Nations will pull U.S. President George W. Bush in opposite directions if he fails to secure a vote endorsing an attack on Iraq, analysts said. Bush might start treating the world organization as "irrelevant" -- the word he and leading members of the administration have repeatedly brandished in their campaign to bend the organization to their will and give the United States authority to invade Iraq... Some people in the Bush administration might welcome a clean break with the United Nations but... Bush will need the U.N. agencies to help with humanitarian and reconstruction work in Iraq and might want to go back to the U.N. Security Council to seek support for a multilateral approach to North Korea's nuclear programs, the analysts said. On the other hand the threat of irrelevance, which probably began as a rhetorical device to muster support in the Security Council, might end up as a reality, they added.

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http://www.theatlantic.com/unbound/polipro/pp2003-03-05.htm

Had preventive war been U.S. policy in 1941, Dick Cheney told a veteran's group, we could have pulled a Pearl Harbor on the Japanese. When a Democratic congressman asked Condoleezza Rice whether the U.S. should have preemptively attacked the Soviet Union in 1946, before they had atomic weapons, she reportedly said yes, of course, think of the suffering that would have spared the peoples of Eastern Europe. Cheney would have made us the Japanese in World War II. Rice would have killed scores of thousands of Russians to prevent dangers that had not yet materialized, making us the perpetrator of the first nuclear Pearl Harbor... To judge by his rhetoric, the President believes God has chosen him to lead the U.S. in a war against "Evil"; beside that eschatological assignment, NATO, the UN, our allies, Arab opinion, world opinion, the war on terror, the budget, are as nothing... History, though, is a theatre of evil—and any God of history would be fiend, answerable for millennia of slaughtered children. But what if God has been holding his peace, waiting for the right man and the right nation and the right moment to act for Him and cleanse history of Evil? If this is what Bush believes, if his talk of Armageddon is not just catnip for the religious right, then he is in a fair way to becoming the American Ayatollah.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=385892

Tony Blair was slow hand-clapped by a studio audience last night as he made his latest television appeal to convince the public of the case for war with Iraq. He faced the interruption at the end of a tense hour-long debate with 20 women opposed to military action... Members of the audience who had lost friends or relatives in the Bali or 11 September bombings appealed to the premier not to put other families through the same horrors.

...Shatha Besarami, an Iraqi exile, said she hated Saddam's regime but appealed for there to be another solution rather than conflict involving dropping 300,000 bombs on Iraq in 48 hours. Mr Blair replied: "I don't know where you get 300,000 bombs in 48 hours. I'm not planning to drop 300,000 bombs."

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http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15355

UK prime minister Tony Blair has struck a strong note in the face of opposition on Iraq. 'I believe in it', he told Jackie Ashley in the Guardian. 'Let the day-to-day judgements come and go', he said, 'Be prepared to be judged by history.' ...What is interesting is how Blair has been forced down this line of argument... As Blair's support has fallen away, this case has become more personalised.

...[When the enormous antiwar protests took place,] Blair insisted that he had a 'moral purpose' equal to that of the protesters, and quoted an email he had received from a 19-year-old student, whose parents had fled Iraq, which he later handed out to the delegates... It transpired that sections of the letter were actually quotations from a column by Guardian journalist David Aaronovitch.

...Blair's comments in the Jackie Ashley interview have been compared with statements made by Castro and Luther, as they faced down their opposition... 'Condemn me. It does not matter. History will absolve me', said Castro in 1953... 'My conscience is captive to the Word of God', said Luther, when asked to recant in 1521. '...Here I stand, I can do no other.'

But the point Castro and Luther were making was their insignificance as individuals. They saw their actions as determined and justified by the will of the people and the will of God, respectively, which would win out in the end. Blair's reliance on his own conscience, by contrast, represents a retreat from political argument into personal justification. 'People have got to vote how they feel', he told Ashley, 'but my job is also to say how I feel'. ...His appeal to the judgement of history was a reflection, too, of his present isolation. This represents an attempt to offset the harsh judgements of today by projection into a happy future, when all would be vindicated. 'History' here figures not as it did for Castro and Luther, as a law that should win out irrespective of the individual leader, but as the as-yet-unborn focus groups, that are imagined providing Blair with the respect that is currently being withheld.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=385305

[British] ministers are secretly scouring the country for mortuaries to take thousands of civilian bodies from a terrorist attack after war breaks out with Iraq. David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, has appointed one of Britain's leading coroners to spearhead the search for huge temporary mortuaries, such as aircraft hangers. Richard Sturt, who retired as the East Kent Coroner two years ago, is touring the country meeting planning chiefs to assess how they could cope with "mass fatalities". But emergency planners are criticising the search as too small and too slow to meet the urgency of the threat... Mr Sturt's work is being kept secret because civil servants believe that their revelation would create public alarm and strengthen unease about the war, which is expected to increase the risk of terrorist outrages in Britain.

Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben and Jerry's [ice cream co.], is president of TrueMajority.org, which enables citizens to fax their members of Congress about critical issues like the Iraq war.

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15340

America has two options to disarm and contain Iraq. One option... involves killing people. The other option... does not... That's why I created a television advertisement, featuring hip-hop artist Russell Simmons, that includes video footage of actual war... I think most of you would want to see my advertisement and decide for yourself whether you agree with an aging ice cream guy or think I am crazy, misinformed, stoned, stupid, or much worse. Unfortunately, most of you will never see my anti-war commercial. Why? Because the major network news outlets refused to accept it, claiming that the imagery was too graphic. Trouble is, the imagery in my ad was far less graphic than what you see on prime time entertainment shows like "ER".

...Linking death to war seems to be taboo... The Bush Administration... has not released official information about expected causalities... Congress isn't demanding this information... Citizens seem to be expecting war without death... Network TV executives don't think you should see our commercial. We hope they will reconsider their decision. Until they do, you can see our ad at Win Without War [http://www.konscious.com/transfer/winwithoutwar/].

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http://www.sundayherald.com/31989

SADDAM Hussein and his family are to be given 72 hours on Tuesday to accept an offer of exile, while 50 of Iraq's top military brass will be offered an amnesty in return for full co-operation with the United Nations in a secret plan to be tabled at its New York headquarters. The highly sensitive proposal was tabled by Pakistan during a closed-door meeting of the 10 non-permanent members of the Security Council on Friday and was brokered by Saudi Arabia, the Vatican and moderate Arab states. Failure by Saddam to agree to the plan would clear the way for war. If the proposal, understood to be in the form of a short paragraph, becomes part of a second resolution and is adopted by the Security Council, the UN would oversee the establishment of a post-Saddam government and the UN, not the US, would take stewardship of Iraq's oilfields... Pope John Paul II has dispatched his emissaries to meet all the key parties during the past two weeks. His special envoy and per manent observer at the UN, Archbishop Renato Rafaele Martino, has been discussing the proposal with all the Security Council members. Meanwhile, Cardinal Pio Laghi, a former Papal Nuncio, met with President George W Bush, while Cardinal Angelo Sodano has met with Tony Blair. Cardinal Roger Etchegaray met with Saddam in Baghdad and discussed the subject of exile, which he said Saddam did not rule out.

...The proposed amendment is still at a low rung on the UN procedural ladder but the non-permanent members believe it represents a last best chance to avert a war.

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http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/07/sprj.irq.post.war/

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. government will divide Iraq into three sectors for civil administration when security is established after a war, sources tell CNN. The plan calls for a northern and southern sector to be administered by two retired U.S. Army generals, sources said. A central sector, including Baghdad, will be administered by Barbara Bodine, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen, the sources said. She served in that post in October 2000, when the destroyer USS Cole was bombed in Aden harbor.

...Each official will attempt to keep his or her ministry running with Iraqi civil servants. Some changes will be made, though, the sources said: The Iraqi Ministry of Information, which controls the state-run media, will be disbanded and restructured... Sensitive ministries such as those overseeing justice and intelligence will be overhauled... The Special Republican Guard and Republican Guard are to be disbanded, but the plan calls for maintaining the regular army and using its manpower... The plan also calls for the U.S. administration team to run a Ministry of Religious Affairs that will oversee mosques.

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http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030311-120643-2674r

The United States plans to pay the salaries of some 2 million Iraqi government workers, from ministry heads to teachers and nurses, to immediately stabilize the country and begin reconstruction once the probable war is won, senior defense officials said Tuesday... The Pentagon is trying to recruit more than 100 free Iraqis -- those who were born in Iraq but left and now live in Western democracies... The intent is for the "free" Iraqis to serve with pay for up to 120 days and then return to the United States or Europe... How the reconstruction and all these salaries will be funded remains an open question.

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http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/03/10/LIBRARIES.TMP&type=printable

Library patrons in Santa Cruz are seeing a new type of sign these days: a warning that records of the books they borrow may wind up in the hands of federal agents. The signs, posted in the 10 county branches last week and on the library's Web site, also inform the reader that the USA Patriot Act "prohibits library workers from informing you if federal agents have obtained records about you." "Questions about this policy," patrons are told, "should be directed to Attorney General John Ashcroft, Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. 20530."

Even as a leaked copy of a Bush administration proposal to expand the Patriot Act was circulating, Rep. Bernie Sanders, Ind-Vt., introduced a bill last week to repeal the library and bookstore provisions -- the first bill in the House, and the second in Congress, seeking to roll back any part of the Patriot Act... [Sanders'] Freedom to Read Protection Act would allow library and bookstore searches only if federal agents first showed they were likely to find evidence of a crime.

...In a letter to an inquiring senator, Assistant Attorney General Daniel Bryant said Americans who borrow or buy books surrender their right of privacy... He said an individual's right of privacy in such records is "inherently limited" and is outweighed by the government's need for the information... Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo... said the provisions pose no threat to ordinary Americans, only to would-be terrorists... Once the government decides someone is a terrorist, Corallo said, "We would want to know what they're reading."

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http://www.politechbot.com/p-04526.html

Date: Tue, 04 Mar 2003 09:23:30 -0800 Sen. Russ Feingold just a few minutes ago during a hearing this morning on Homeland Security asked Atty. Gen. Ashcroft why he hadn't come to Congress to discuss provision of the "Patriot Act II." ...The text below is the verbatim from the Federal Document Clearing House that does transcription services for congressional hearings. Other than this, I don't know where it might be online.

ASHCROFT: Senator, with your permission, I'd like to respond to the suggestion that there is a PATRIOT Act II... There is not a proposed Terrorist Act II from the Justice Department. No final discussion has been made with the attorney general about proposals. No final discussion has been made with the administration about proposals... If someone leaks the fact that there are items under consideration, that does not mean -- or that there is a matter of discussion -- that doesn't mean anything out of the ordinary... I want to assure you that there has been no bill, no proposal decided on. I am keenly aware that the administration cannot pass legislation. Only members of the Congress can pass legislation. It would be the height of absurdity for me to have a secret matter that I hope to make a law without telling Congress. I mean, I simply don't understand that.

FEINGOLD: General... Let me just say that you know my view that the last time we had a USA PATRIOT Act that the kind of discussion and airing of the issues certainly did not happen. It's a debate about whether it could have happened... The fact is, there are some specific proposals or possible proposals out there. I don't think it's too early for people, like you and me and others, to start discussion whether they're a good idea.

And I'm wondering if you could respond to my specific question, in the seconds I have, which is can you cite an example of a terrorist plot that went undetected because local police had their hands tied by consent decree of placing limits on their domestic spying capabilities?

ASHCROFT: I cannot.

FEINGOLD: Thank you, General.

ASHCROFT: ...I don't believe that I should start to consult and defend things which I believe are indefensible or not a part of something that I would seek to propose. I guess that's my view.

http://www.wkyt.com/Global/story.asp?S=1173669

President Bush is calling on the Senate to permanently ban judicial filibusters. In a letter read by Majority Leader Bill Frist, the president called for a permanent Senate rule "to ensure timely up or down votes on judicial nominations both now and in the future."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2659-2003Mar9?language=printer

After nearly five years of swift decline, welfare rolls in the District [of Columbia, Washington DC] and its suburbs have started to creep back up, a measure of the weakened economy that has not only brought widespread layoffs but also forced cuts in the very services designed to keep families off public assistance... Now many families are turning to the program known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families: In the District and its suburbs in Virginia and Maryland, for instance, the number of households on welfare rose from 36,655 in December 2001 to 38,585 in December 2002... Social workers worry that more families could be returned to public assistance now that the child care and education programs intended to help them are being cut at the federal, state and local levels.

...In Maryland, waiting lists now exist for child-care vouchers to help the working poor. State lawmakers wrestling with a projected $1.3 billion shortfall in the next fiscal year are considering freezing welfare benefits... The maximum monthly cash assistance grant currently stands at $473 for a family of three, said Lynda Meade, chairman of Welfare Advocates. [mrs. henry must repeat that: $473 for a family of three. $473 per month.]

Ron Haskins, a Brookings Institution senior fellow who as a Republican congressional staff member was deeply involved in the welfare overhaul, wonders why, in these slow economic times, the increases haven't been more dramatic. "A lot of the people who have been critical of welfare reform say the rolls should be going up," Haskins said. "The critics argue that former recipients could be destitute out there. It's possible. But they don't know. We need research, of course."

http://www.msnbc.com/news/534548.asp?0ql=ctp&cp1=1

The Dow industrials seesawed Tuesday, giving up an early rally... after Monday’s triple-digit slide... The Nasdaq Composite index was lately up around 3 points, after closing Monday’s trading session down 26.92 points, or 2.1 percent, at 1,278.37. European market averages were mixed, but Japan’s Nikkei lost 2.2 percent, closing at a fresh 20-year low... Investors continued to focus on the potential economic impact of the crisis between the United States and Iraq, which has depressed the stock market for months and pushed the market’s main averages towards their multi-year lows.

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http://www.forbes.com/2003/03/11/cz_jr_0311soapbox.html

Housing is the only sector of the economy that's still growing. Not surprisingly, real estate and bonds are the only investments that are still making profits. Now the Fed wants to strangle housing... Speaking at an industry regulator symposium, St. Louis Fed President William Poole warned an industry group that mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac don't have enough capital to weather potential financial disruptions... Poole's remarks had a chilling effect on the market. The market cap of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac declined by $6,500,000,000.00.

Why don't the policy makers just keep their mouths closed and their minds open? This is no time to further frighten people... Investors are dumping stocks, corporate securities, mutual funds. They have put the proceeds into money market investments, bank accounts, government bonds... Whenever people decide it's OK to come out of their bunkers again--and they always do--they will see that they can do better owning other investments. They will sell their Treasury bonds and notes; prices will fall... All the pros I know are getting ready to move from bonds to equities after the big selloff is complete. When will that be? As soon as the uncertainty over Iraq ends. Don't be caught holding the bag full of cash and government bonds when that happens.

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http://www.thestreet.com/_tsclsii/funds/ericgillin/10073379.html

The Air Transport Association estimates that an Iraqi war combined with a terrorist attack could cause another $13,000,000,000.00 in losses and cause an industrywide collapse... Such a scenario would result in 100,000 job cuts... The report comes just days after the industry's largest player, AMR, parent of American Airlines, warned it could be heading into bankruptcy if it can't pony up $4,000,000,000.00 in annual cost cuts. American would join the second-largest airline, UAL, parent of United Airlines, and the seventh-largest airline, US Airways, in [bankruptcy]... Shareholders dumped airline stocks in heavier-than-usual trading at midday Tuesday.

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http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0311/p01s01-usgn.html

States are on the verge of rolling back what was once thought to be the most promising frontier of education reform: smaller class sizes... Reducing class size is perhaps the single most expensive item of education reform... For some districts the situation is so dire that they can't wait for the state. Santa Cruz, Calif., has decided to increase class sizes regardless of what the Legislature does, potentially forfeiting state funds so it can save more by firing 28 teachers.

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http://motherjones.com/news/dbriefing/2003/11/we_327_02.html

A year's worth of review has left a Clinton-era plan to protect 11.5 million acres of Sierra Nevada National Forest ransacked... A report released by a Bush-appointed Forest Service team has deemed the original Sierra Nevada Framework "too restrictive to allow effective and economical fire control," reports Lisa M. Krieger of the San Jose Mercury News. In its alleged response to the threat of wildfires, the new plan would quadruple the amount of logging allowed in the area... The revisions also allow logging of old-growth trees up to 30 inches in diameter.

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www.motherjones.com

A typical American eats four orders of [French, a.k.a. "liberty"] fries a week, or 30 pounds a year, a 700 percent increase since Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald's in 1955... In "Water Follies: Groundwater Pumping and the Fate of America's Fresh Waters", author Robert Glennon shows how each revolution in fry uniformity has come at an ecological cost.

...Potatoes are washed, steam peeled, sliced, blanched, and par-fried in beef flavoring before being frozen and shipped to retail outlets. There they are deep-fried, which replaces their water with fat. Optimal potatoes, Ray Kroc deemed, are 80 percent water... Although potatoes were once "dryland farmed," today the two leading fry suppliers to McDonald's and other chains-- Simplot and Frito Lay-- will accept only irrigated potatoes.

...To keep potatoes from losing water weight and thus value, they're stored in a 95-percent- humidity environment. And since McDonald's won't accept fries that aren't white, the environment can't be cool -- that would cause a potato's carbohydrates to convert to sugar, which browns while cooking. So it's goodbye, root cellars and hello, climate-controlled ware-houses, where banks of computerized furnaces prevent any variation of temperature.

...Supersize fries... push growers to irrigate. Fries once came in little white bags, and were accordingly stumpy, but now fries are taller, designed to proudly jut out of a supersize carton. Longer fries require longer potatoes, best achieved by center-pivot irrigation systems. Irrigation alters aquifer exchange rates, stream hydrology, and water temperature, which degrades fish habitats. As the delivery system for fertilizers and pesticides, water becomes toxic runoff. According to Glennon, reduced water flow in Minnesota's Straight River during pumping season is largely due to wells that feed a 7,500-acre farm owned by R.D. Offutt Co. -- the nation's largest potato grower. Each year a nearby Offutt processing plant uses an additional 600 million gallons of groundwater turning 1 billion pounds of potatoes into 500 million pounds of fries worthy of McDonald's.

Perhaps Americans could be persuaded to accept a fry that was just as tasty, but shorter and browner. But what kind of clown would try to sell that?

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http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,57897,00.html

"Google, properly leveraged, has more intrusion potential than any hacking tool," said hacker Adrian Lamo, who recently sounded the alarm. The hacks are made possible by Web-enabled databases. Because database-management tools use canned templates to present data on the Web, typing specific phrases into Internet search tools often leads a user directly to those templated pages.

For example, typing the phrase "Select a database to view" -- a common phrase in the FileMaker Pro database interface -- into Google recently yielded about 200 links, almost all of which led to FileMaker databases accessible online. In a few cases, the databases contained sensitive information. One held the addresses, phone numbers and detailed biographies of several hundred teachers affiliated with Apple Computer. It also included each teacher's user name and password. The database was not protected by any form of security.

Another search result pointed to a page served by the Drexel University College of Medicine, which linked to a database of 5,500 records of the medical college's neurosurgical patients. The patient record included addresses, telephone numbers and detailed write-ups of diseases and treatments. Once Google pointed the visitor

to the page, the hacker merely needed to type in an identical user name and password (in short, the name of the database) in order to access the information.

...The teacher database was apparently taken offline on Friday afternoon. Drexel University immediately shut down its database upon being informed of the vulnerability... A FileMaker spokesman said the company tries its best to make users aware of security issues... [but] suggested that configuring access rights and selecting appropriate passwords are ultimately the user's responsibility.

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http://www.prolog.net/webnews/wed/dc/Qisrael-iraq-us.R7hX_DMA.html

JERUSALEM, March 10 (AFP) - The United States has complained to Israel about constant leaks by senior security officials about the date of an attack on Iraq, Israel media said Monday... The daily Maariv said Washington was "seething" at the leaks and that "as a result security establishment officials have decided to assume that the offensive will come as a complete surprise." But [the US] denied that Washington would punish Israel by withholding the exact timing of its planned attack.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=384975

The Israeli army reoccupied a swath of the northern Gaza Strip yesterday, sending tanks in to secure the area and setting up military posts on the rooftops of houses. Israeli army radio referred to the reoccupied area as a "security zone", the name Israel gave to the area of south Lebanon it occupied for 22 years [repeat: 22 years] until its final retreat in 2000. It was not clear whether this was the first stage in a reoccupation of the whole Gaza Strip.

...Fifteen people were injured yesterday, two of them children, when soldiers opened fire on crowds of Palestinians that gathered at the edge of Jabalya [refugee camp in Gaza] to throw stones at them, said Moawiya Abu al-Hassanin, a doctor at Gaza's Shifa Hospital. Colonel Yoel Strick, the officer in charge of the reoccupation said yesterday: "We will remain for as long as is necessary. If we decide to hold on to this territory for a long time, we will." If the army decides to stay put, it will in effect have shaved four square miles off the last area to remain under Palestinian rule, the last part of the Oslo peace accords to remain intact.

Yesterday's reoccupation follows weeks of bloodshed in the Gaza Strip in which scores of Palestinians have been killed... Israeli troops shot dead two Palestinian gunmen trying to infiltrate a Jewish settlement near the West Bank city of Hebron yesterday... The raid was foiled less than two hours after two gunmen infiltrated the Kiryat Arba settlement, killing three Israelis and wounding eight... And it also follows the Palestinian suicide bomb that killed 15 people on an Israeli bus packed with students in Haifa on Wednesday. Hamas has claimed responsibility for the attack.

...The international journalists' organisation Reporters Sans Frontiθres demanded an Israeli investigation into the wounding of two Reuters journalistst. Ahmad Jadallah and Shams Odeh were hit by shrapnel in the same incident in which Naji Abu Jalili, the Palestinian firefighter, was killed. Mr Jadallah was severely injured in both legs. Television footage appeared to show an Israeli tank fire a shell towards the fireman and a crowd near him, as Palestinian witnesses claimed.

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http://www.prolog.net/webnews/wed/ag/Qmideast-israel-settlers.R2xf_DMA.html

JERUSALEM, March 10 (AFP) - Jewish settlers in the Palestinian territories and on the Golan Heights receive three times more in housing subsidies from the govrenment than other Israelis, according to a report published on Monday by the country's regional councils. Israel's 180 farming settlements, of which about 30 are in the Golan Heights, have alone received $60,000,000.00, or 54 percent of all subsidies awarded by the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture to Jewish farmers over the past year, says the report. The farming subsidies do not include aid to urban West Bank settlements.

A resident of a farming settlement receives on average a housing subsidy of 850 dollars compared with the average 260 dollars given to Israeli rural inhabitants.

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-606479,00.html

YASSIR ARAFAT presented Mahmoud Abbas, his veteran deputy, to the Palestinian parliament yesterday as his choice of future Prime Minister, but the move was denounced as a sham by Israeli officials because of the limits placed on the job’s powers. Palestinian delegates confirmed that Mr Arafat would retain control over foreign affairs — meaning, effectively, control over peace negotiations — leaving the Prime Minister in charge of domestic issues such as public order. Sources indicated that the Prime Minister would also “supervise” ministers’ work and chair weekly Cabinet sessions.

...Mr Abbas, 67, who is also known as Abu Mazen, is Mr Arafat’s No 2 in the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO)... [and was] one of the principal architects of the 1993 Oslo Accords... Yesterday he was unavailable for comment, but senior Palestinian figures indicated that he would not usurp Mr Arafat’s authority... Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian Internal Affairs Minister, said: “They have been together for 44 years, so they are partners. This will not reduce Arafat’s powers.”

The meeting of the Palestinian Legislative Council was held at Mr Arafat’s bomb- damaged headquarters in Ramallah. Ten of the council had to participate by video link because the Israelis had barred them from travelling from Gaza.

...In a joint statement, the Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which oppose all negotiations with Israel, denounced the appointment as “worthless”.

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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N11211785

The United States is sending up to six radar-avoiding F-117A "stealth" warplanes to South Korea for annual exercises this month... Military officials said the temporary deployment to Kunsan Air Base in South Korea was not connected with a crisis over North Korea's nuclear ambitions. But the move follows recent deployment of 24 U.S. bombers B-1 and B-52 to the island of Guam in an open warning to Pyongyang.

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http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=DD052889-1E4F-4C2E-967AFD71774D7DB0

The United Nations Children's Fund said its operation in North Korea will soon run out of medicines and food... By next month UNICEF in North Korea will run out of basic drugs, such as antibiotics, vaccines and oral rehydration salts... Mehr Khan, regional director of UNICEF for East Asia and the Pacific, said Tuesday in Beijing that hospitals and children's homes may run out of special milk needed for malnourished children in May... She said at least 15,000,000 women and children in North Korea may face malnutrition and illness this year, and many will die, unless aid comes soon.

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http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledgerenquirer/news/5365561.htm

BEIJING - UNICEF has received less than $500,000 of the $12,000,000 it needs this year to buy medicines, high-energy milk and other supplies for 2,500,000 million North Korean children, said Mehr Khan, its Asia-Pacific director. She said more than half of that came from Norway, while many other previous donors have given nothing... The World Food Program, another U.N. agency that feeds millions of North Koreans, also says donations are down sharply, meaning it could run out of food by June.

A joint survey by U.N. agencies and the North Korean government in October found healthier children. Among other things, it said, the proportion of underweight children under age 7 was 21 percent, down from 61 percent in 1998. Despite that, "the rations are not adequate," said Richard Bridle, the UNICEF representative in Pyongyang. "We say there's an improvement, (but it is) from a disastrous situation to a bad one." ...He noted that workers who pruned trees in his Pyongyang office compound saved the bark to eat.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,2763,911651,00.html

...In what may be the first interview ever given by a senior North Korean military figure, the top soldier in the demilitarised zone Commander General Ri Cham Bok is certain that America is on the verge of launching a pre-emptive strike. "The US has more than 150,000 soldiers on the borders of Iraq," he says. "They have 200,000 on exercise here. It is enough for an attack. There is a way for us to win. But I cannot tell you how we will do so." At this point he smiles... But war, should it return to the Korean peninsula, would be no joke. The Americans themselves estimate that up to a million people would die within seven days of hostilities breaking out.

I flew into Pyongyang... with the [British] Labour MEP Glyn Ford... His objective... is to get the North Koreans to the bilateral negotiation table, even as the Americans refuse to meet them face to face. North Korea - or as it would prefer to be known, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea - has been labelled as part of the "axis of evil" by George Bush. For good measure he also announced that he despised the North Koreans' object of adulation, Kim Jong Il, the Dear Leader and secretary general of the Korean Workers Party.

...North Korea has the look of the former German Democratic Republic 50 years ago... This is a country traumatised by Japanese occupation during the second world war, American bombing and a belief in secular leaders, alive and dead, that verges on the divine. There is no satellite television; there are no mobile phones, no communication with the outside world for the vast majority - instead a blend of self-reliance theology known as the principle of "Juche", mixed in with Marxism-Leninism.

...When the Clinton administration signed the "Formal Agreement" with the North in 1994, it did so in the belief that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea would go the same way as the GDR... [But] it is because the Bush administration has now reneged on every part of the deal, signed in order to get the North to shut down its nuclear reactor at Jongbyon, that the reactor is now being switched back on. Food aid, heavy-oil shipments and the two light-water reactors promised for civil electricity generation have been blocked by the Washington hawks.

...During the 1970s North Korea was the 20th-richest country in the world. Then came the Soviet collapse... I witnessed the effect of [North Korea's] economic collapse in the dingy wards of Sariwon hospital, a principal hospital serving a region of more than 1.6 million. In the respiratory clinic is a very sick man with a drip that comes from an old green glass bottle via a plastic tube. Much of the equipment, though spotless, dates back to the 1950s.