Rights Groups Hail Arrests of 3 by U.S. in War Crimes - New York Times

Rights Groups Hail Arrests of 3 by U.S. in War Crimes - New York Times

April 5, 2007
Rights Groups Hail Arrests of 3 by U.S. in War Crimes
By LARRY ROHTER

RIO DE JANEIRO, April 4 — Latin American human rights groups have reacted with satisfaction and muted surprise to the arrest in the United States of three Argentine and Peruvian former military officers accused of human rights abuses who had fled their home countries to avoid prosecution there.

Of the three men detained over the weekend in Virginia, Maryland and Florida and charged with violating immigration laws, the most notorious is Ernesto Guillermo Barreiro of Argentina. During the so-called Dirty War of the late 1970s, he was the chief interrogator at La Perla, a clandestine prison in Córdoba, Argentina’s second largest city, where more than 2,000 prisoners were tortured or killed.

“This is big news, and deserves to be celebrated both in Argentina and the United States,” said Gastón Chillier, director of the Center for Legal and Social Studies, a leading human rights group in Buenos Aires. “This is someone with a long record not just of crimes against humanity, but also of resistance to efforts to hold him responsible for his actions.”

During the 1980s, the democratic civilian government that came to power in Argentina tried to bring Mr. Barreiro to justice. But he defied a court summons to face charges and then quickly helped start a military rebellion that led to passage of an amnesty law that exempted officers below the rank of colonel — he was then a major — from prosecution in connection with human rights abuses on the grounds they were merely following orders.

In 2004, a year after Argentina’s current president, Néstor Kirchner, came to power promising to revive such prosecutions, Mr. Barreiro fled to the Washington, D.C., area and opened an antiques store. The Argentine Supreme Court overturned the amnesty nearly two years ago, and several hundred people now face charges, including Mr. Barreiro and María Estela de Perón, the former president, who lives in exile in Spain and is fighting extradition.

The arrests have put the Bush administration in the unaccustomed position of being praised by human rights groups and news organizations in Latin America. The former officers were detained by a unit of the Homeland Security Department, which is traditionally widely criticized in the region for the way it treats illegal immigrants from Latin America.

“This administration has a very poor record as regards international human rights law and the Geneva convention,” José Miguel Vivanco, the director of Human Rights Watch Americas, said in a telephone interview from Washington. “However, there is nothing on the record that shows that this administration is interested in protecting individuals responsible for gross violations of human rights, unless they have some link with intelligence agencies.”

Mr. Vivanco said he was referring to Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban exile and former C.I.A. asset who is wanted in Cuba and Venezuela on charges that he blew up a Cuban airliner in 1976, killing 73 people. The United States has also declined to extradite Emmanuel Constant, former leader of a right-wing Haitian paramilitary group who has been convicted in absentia there of organizing a 1994 massacre.

It is not yet clear how American authorities intend to handle Mr. Barreiro’s case. He could either be summarily deported for having lied about his record on his visa application, tried and jailed in the United States in connection with that offense, or extradited to Argentina, normally a time-consuming process.

“It would be an irony if an immigration infraction were to delay Barreiro’s return,” said Horacio Verbitsky, an Argentine author and journalist who has written several books on human rights issues. “The United States could impose no more severe punishment than to send him back to Argentina, where he faces life imprisonment but will receive due process and the fair trial” he denied his victims.

The other two men being held, Telmo Ricardo Hurtado and Juan Manuel Rivera Rondon, are Peruvians. They are accused of having participated in the massacre of 69 peasants in an Andean village in 1985, when President Alan García was trying to suppress the brutal Maoist Shining Path guerrilla movement.

Mr. García is once again president, and the extradition or expulsion of the two officers to stand trial in Peru could produce embarrassing revelations there. Concerns about a cover-up or official foot-dragging are among the reasons human rights advocates say they will monitor the case closely.

“The de facto policy of the Peruvian military has been to provide zero cooperation in cases of abuses committed in the 1980s,” Mr. Vivanco said. “To send these fellows back is the right thing to do, but I think it would be important to get assurances at the highest levels of the Peruvian government that the military are going to break with that pattern.”

FCC wants more accuracy in cell phone locating - Wireless World - MSNBC.com

FCC wants more accuracy in cell phone locating - Wireless World - MSNBC.com

FCC wants more accuracy in cell phone locating
Chief says he wants to tighten requirements on how precision is measured
By John Dunbar
The Associated Press
Updated: 4:40 p.m. ET April 5, 2007

WASHINGTON - People make more 911 calls from cellular telephones than landlines these days, and police and firefighters increasingly worry about finding those callers in distress.

Contrary to what is portrayed on television crime shows, the accuracy of the technology that guides rescuers to cell phone callers can range from a few yards to several miles, even though federal law requires providers to guarantee that their callers can be located in emergencies.

Aiming to improve accuracy, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin told The Associated Press this week that he will propose significant changes in the 911 system.

“This is something we always want to be improving on,” Martin said. “We have to make sure public safety doesn’t lose because we don’t take advantage of the changes in technology.”

Martin said he will support a request by an association of emergency responders to tighten requirements on how accuracy is measured. He also said he will open a new inquiry at the agency that may lead to significant changes in how cell phone companies manufacture handsets.

Unlike landline telephones at houses or businesses, when a 911 call comes in to an emergency communications center from a cell phone, the operator often has only a vague idea of where the person in distress is calling from.

Callers who are lost or incapacitated and cannot speak may wait for hours while rescue workers try and track their location.

The issue has become more critical as the number of 911 calls from cell phones exceeds those coming from landlines, according to public safety experts. The trend is expected to continue as more people opt to drop their landlines altogether.

CTIA, the nation’s top wireless industry lobbying group, reports that 230,000 911 calls are made from cell phones each day. The group also estimates that 8.4 percent of households are “wireless only.”

There is no doubt cell phones allow people to call for help from more isolated places, but public safety advocates and the wireless industry want people to understand the limits.

“People have to recognize it’s not the wireline 911 system and never will be because you can only bend the laws of physics so much,” said CTIA spokesman Joe Farren.

Martin’s effort comes in advance of a new study from the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials that will highlight the limitations of “enhanced” 911 systems.

“It’s a misconception to think that when you dial 911 on a cellular phone that the person on the other end is going to know where you are,” said Bob Smith, director of emergency communications. Smith said he worries about television dramas in which police are able to locate a person in distress down to within a few feet.

“The fact is, that can’t always happen in real life,” he said. “The technology doesn’t exist in most places to allow that to happen.”

The location challenges stem from inherent limitations in how cell phones work and a decision the FCC made several years ago to allow manufacturers to use two different location technologies.

Network technology uses cell phone towers to zero in on a caller through a process known as triangulation. But to triangulate, there need to be at least three towers near the caller, which is unlikely in rural areas.

The second method uses satellite technology embedded in the phone. Rescuers use a geographical information system that guides them to the caller, often with great accuracy. While those phones are desirable in rural areas, they may be ill-suited in the urban canyons common to cities.

Federal law and FCC rules require that providers using the network method should be accurate to within 300 meters — that’s about three football fields — for 95 percent of calls and within 100 meters for 67 percent of calls.

For the satellite method, responders must be guided to within 150 meters for 95 percent of calls and 50 meters for 67 percent of calls.

The FCC does not do any independent testing to ensure compliance, but rather acts on complaints. For assurances on accuracy, they rely on the companies themselves.
The flaw in the system is that carriers are permitted to use a large area, such as an entire state, to calculate their accuracy rate. Through averaging they may score well overall, but there may be gaps in some areas that are not addressed.

“It doesn’t do any good for people in Buffalo and Albany if things are going well in New York City,” Martin said.

The Association of Public Safety Communications Officials has urged the agency to require that testing be done on a community-level basis and Martin agrees. He said he will ask the full commission to issue an order granting APCO’s request.

APCO also has asked that the providers share their accuracy data with rescuers, something else the chairman agrees with.

Martin also said he will address the network-versus-handset technology issue, something that may have a profound effect on the makers of the nation’s 200 million-plus cell phones.

A “notice of proposed rulemaking” on the issue will be circulated at the commission in the next few weeks.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17969692/

12,000 more Guard may go to Iraq - Nightly News with Brian Williams - MSNBC.com

12,000 more Guard may go to Iraq - Nightly News with Brian Williams - MSNBC.com

12,000 more Guard may go to Iraq
Deployment order planned to lessen ‘surge’s’ strain on stretched-thin Army
BREAKING NEWS
MSNBC and NBC News
Updated: 7:24 p.m. ET April 5, 2007

WASHINGTON - Coming on the heels of a controversial “surge” of 21,000 U.S. troops that has stretched the Army thin, the Defense Department is preparing to send an additional 12,000 National Guard combat forces to Iraq and Afghanistan, defense officials told NBC News on Thursday.

The troops will come from four Guard combat brigades in different states, the officials told NBC News’ chief Pentagon correspondent, Jim Miklaszewski. They said papers ordering the deployment, which would run for one year beginning in early 2008, were awaiting Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ signature.

The deployment is sure to ignite a firestorm on Capitol Hill, where Democrats in Congress are maneuvering to scale back the U.S. commitment in Iraq. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is pushing a proposal to end most spending on the war in 2008, limiting it to targeted operations against al-Qaida, training for Iraqi troops and protection for U.S. forces.

“I think this was all concealed until we got through the election,” said retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a military analyst for NBC News. “There’s no way to sustain the current rate of deployments without calling up probably nine National Guard brigades in the coming year for involuntary second tours.”

Gates did not mention the Guard deployment in a news conference Thursday at the Pentagon. Earlier this year, he revised Pentagon regulations to authorize more frequent Guard deployments to take some of the burden off the Army.

Surge timetable could be extended
Gates indicated Thursday that defense planners expected the U.S. military commitment to last well beyond the timetable of early next year that was put forth in the Pentagon’s arguments to send more than 20,000 regular Army troops to help quiet sectarian violence. That so-called surge of troops created intense opposition among Democrats and some Republicans in Congress early in the year.

“The truth is, I think people don’t know right now how long this will last,” he said. “The thinking of those involved in the process was that it would be a period of months, not a period of years or a year and a half or something like that."

In a radio interview Wednesday, Gates warned that limiting the administration could lead to “ethnic cleansing.”

“What we do know is if Baghdad is in flames and the whole city is engulfed in violence, the prospects for a political solution are almost non-existent,” he said in an interview with syndicated radio host Laura Ingraham.

Army under heavy pressure
The grinding pace of the war is clearly wearing down the Army.

Three Army combat brigades have just been ordered back into Iraq less than a year after they left, and two brigades that were headed for Iraq were unable to take their customary four weeks of desert training at Fort Irwin, Calif.

Defense officials said the quick turnaround could hurt overall readiness by leaving those troops unprepared for other missions.

“When you only have one year or less between deployments, instead of the two that you would like to have, you then do not train to what we call full spectrum,” said Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

© 2007 MSNBC InteractiveBy Jim Miklaszewski of NBC News and Alex Johnson of msnbc.com.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17971410/
© 2007 MSNBC.com

US to attack Iran by end of April: report

indiaenews
The US is planning to attack Iran's nuclear reactors and other nuclear facilities by the end of this month, the Kuwait-based Arab Times newspaper reported Wednesday.

Citing anonymous sources in Washington, it said that various White House departments had started preparing the political speech to be delivered by the US president later this month, announcing the military attack on Iran.

The speech will provide the 'evidence' and the 'justification' for the US to resort to the military option after failing to persuade Tehran to give up its nuclear ambitions, said the report.

According to the Times, one of the justifications expected in the speech is Iran's alleged role in the killing of American soldiers in Iraq by supporting various militias with money and arms.

The US president's speech will also point to Iran's political interference in Iraq, obviously in cooperation with Syria.

The sources were quoted as saying that US will not resort to a ground attack in order to avoid human losses.

No more GWOT, House committee decrees

militarytimes

The House Armed Services Committee is banishing the global war on terror from the 2008 defense budget.

This is not because the war has been won, lost or even called off, but because the committee’s Democratic leadership doesn’t like the phrase.

A memo for the committee staff, circulated March 27, says the 2008 bill and its accompanying explanatory report that will set defense policy should be specific about military operations and “avoid using colloquialisms.”

The “global war on terror,” a phrase first used by President Bush shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S., should not be used, according to the memo. Also banned is the phrase the “long war,” which military officials began using last year as a way of acknowledging that military operations against terrorist states and organizations would not be wrapped up in a few years.

Committee staff members are told in the memo to use specific references to specific operations instead of the Bush administration’s catch phrases. The memo, written by Staff Director Erin Conaton, provides examples of acceptable phrases, such as “the war in Iraq,” the “war in Afghanistan, “operations in the Horn of Africa” or “ongoing military operations throughout the world.”

“There was no political intent in doing this,” said a Democratic aide who asked not to be identified. “We were just trying to avoid catch phrases.”

Josh Holly, a spokesman for Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, the committee’s former chairman and now its senior Republican, said Republicans “were not consulted” about the change.

Committee aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said dropping or reducing references to the global war on terror could have many purposes, including an effort to be more precise about military operations, but also has a political element involving a disagreement over whether the war in Iraq is part of the effort to combat terrorism or is actually a distraction from fighting terrorists.

House Democratic leaders who have been pushing for an Iraq withdrawal timetable have talked about the need to get combat troops out of Iraq so they can be deployed against terrorists in other parts of the world, while Republicans have said that Iraq is part of the front line in the war on terror. Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., the armed services committee chairman, has been among those who have complained that having the military tied up with Iraq operations has reduced its capacity to respond to more pressing problems, like tracking down al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

“This is a philosophical and political question,” said a Republican aide. “Republicans generally believe that by fighting the war on terror in Iraq, we are preventing terrorists from spreading elsewhere and are keeping them engaged so they are not attacking us at home.”

However, U.S. intelligence officials have been telling Congress that most of the violence in Iraq is the result of sectarian strife and not directly linked to terrorists, although some foreign insurgents with ties to terrorist groups have been helping to fuel the fighting.

“You have to wonder if this means that we have to rename the GWOT,” said a Republican aide, referring to the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medals established in 2003 for service members involved, directly and indirectly, in military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the world.

“If you are a reader of the Harry Potter books, you might describe this as the war that must not be named,” said another Republican aide. That is a reference to the fact that the villain in the Harry Potter series, Lord Voldemort, is often referred to as “he who must not be named” because of fears of his dark wizardry.