Freudian Slip On 911 x 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EA5AmFpQlJA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0v0_HDwg84

NRC: Stopping Aircraft Threat To Nuke Plants Impractical

'Active Protection' From Airborne Attack Military Responsibility
aeronews
Based in part on public comments obtained in November 2005, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Monday said protecting a nuclear power plant from a 9/11-style attack using an airliner is impractical given the scope of its responsibility.

The announcement came as the agency published the executive summary for a defense plan 15 months in the making. Specific details of the plan are considered secret by the US government, but in its statement the NRC said, "The active protection against airborne threats is addressed by other federal organizations, including the military."

Instead of devising ways to protect plants from attack -- such as the so-called "beamhenge" approach which would surround a vulnerable structure with a lattice-like barrier made from large, steel beams -- the NRC says plant operators should focus on limiting the public's exposure to radioactive material in the event of an attack using protection measures and evacuation plans already in place.

"This rule is an important piece, but only one piece, of a broader effort to enhance nuclear power plant security," said NRC Chairman Dale Klein. "Overall we are taking a multi-faceted approach to security enhancements in this post 9/11 threat environment, and looking at how best to secure existing nuclear power plants and how to incorporate security enhancements into design features of new reactors that may be built in coming years."

Predictably, the NRC is already under fire from critics of the plan, some of whom are saying the agency didn't fully account for the real-world threats of a terrorist attack.

Michele Boyd of Public Citizen's Energy Program, a nuclear industry watchdog group, told Business Week, "Rather than requiring measures to prevent a plane crash from damaging vulnerable parts of a nuclear plant ... the government is relying on post-crash measures and evacuation plans."

Those in favor of more active measures, such as US Senator Barbara Boxer of California, suggest the NRC should put plans in place to "defend against large, attacking forces and commercial aircraft."

The NRC argues it must plan for a "reasonable" response from the civilian security forces in place around most civilian nuclear facilities. As such, its security plan assumes a relatively small, lightly-armed attacking force. But critics say the plan doesn't even account for terrorist use of easily obtained, powerful weapons such as rocket-propelled grenades.

The NRC concluded its statement with, "The NRC remains an active partner with other federal and state/local authorities in constant surveillance of the threat environment and will adjust regulatory actions or requirements if necessary."

UN report confirms climate change is happening now

national post
The United Nations' scientific brain trust is poised to say that climate change, once a theoretical future scare story, is real, urgent and warming our air and water right now.

The update from the International Panel on Climate Change, expected Friday, will say it's practically certain the recent instances of unusually warm weather around the world are not natural glitches, but changes caused by human pollution.

Since the panel's last update (in 2001), science journals have been bursting with new measurements and examples of real warming in many places.

The global temperature has warmed up by an average of 0.6 to 0.7 degrees, says Matthew Bramley, director for climate change of the Pembina Institute, a Canadian climate group.

That's measured from pre-industrial times, but most of the increase has happened in the past few decades, he says.

If the increase reaches two degrees, he warns, that's when major and disruptive changes in weather patterns will likely occur.

''When you say one degree or two degrees (of warmer average temperatures) - it doesn't mean much to many people,'' he says. ''It's important to understand that five degrees (Celsius) was enough to make the difference between our climate today and Ottawa having kilometres-thickness of ice'' during the last Ice Age.

The IPCC's scientists are meeting in Paris this week to negotiate final wording of their new assessment of the ''basic science'' behind Earth's climate. In April, they'll announce what specific effects they foresee.

James Bruce, a veteran climate scientist from Ottawa who has worked in a variety of IPCC positions, said a review of the scientific findings in recent years points to several areas where the update is likely to focus.

The biggest change: The scientists who used mathematical models of what might happen a few years ago are now staring at actual measurements showing global warming that's well underway.

The University of East Anglia in England, a specialized climate studies centre, says the 12 warmest years on record have been in the past 13 years.

It also forecasts that 2007 will be a record-setter, 0.54 degrees above the long-term (1961-1990) average of 14.0 degrees worldwide. The hottest year so far was 1998.

''They've got far more evidence of trends in climactic factors and responses (of air and water) that point to the increasing strength of the warming than they ever did before,'' . Bruce said.

Among the findings:

* The oceans are warming with surprising speed.

The warming so far is just a fraction of a degree, but over the whole Earth this translates into a large amount of stored heat.

* The ''mid-latitudes'' - areas between the Arctic and the tropics, like southern Canada, Europe and the United States - are seeing increased incidents of violent weather, especially heavy rainstorms.

* The Gulf Stream is expected to weaken ''in the next little while.'' ''There is some evidence that it's already weakening a little,'' Bruce said.

For now, the Gulf Stream is what keeps Britain warmer than Labrador. The two are about the same distance north, but a cold Arctic current runs past Labrador while Britain gets warm water.

* There's a shift in where the greatest emissions are coming from. And the big source now lies in making electricity.

* Much of the warming has come near the Poles, raising the prospect of melting ice, which could sharply raise sea levels around the world and flood coastlines.

Media Wants Waco-Style Massacre

American Free Press
The circumstances surrounding the Browns, a New Hampshire couple convicted of federal income tax evasion, could turn on a dime.

Recently AFP interviewed Ed Brown, a Plainfield home owner who grew up in the Roxbury slums of Boston. He and Mrs. Brown, who is a dentist, are self-made people who worked hard for their lot in life, only to see it swept away by a government that takes in gargantuan sums of money via taxes on the domestic populace to pay enormous interest on the national debt (which cannot be repaid), much of which is due to America‚s endless military conflicts.

When AFP contacted Brown recently, he was living everyday life as best he can at the house he built on their 110 acres. His wife, who he said is in a state of arrest wearing an electronic ankle bracelet—is staying with a son in a neighboring state.

“The dental business died a week ago Tuesday,” Brown told AFP. “My wife's a prisoner—like she's a flight risk!”

The two are supposed to be sentenced April 24, having each been convicted Jan. 18 in federal court in Concord for not paying income taxes since 1996. The government claims the Browns owe some $625,000.

“Everybody should say, ‘show me the law and I'll pay the tax,' ” Brown told AFP. That is what he told federal authorities who can't seem to produce a copy of a law requiring payment of the federal income tax.

Filmmaker Aaron Russo's America: From Freedom to Fascism documentary interviews a number of former IRS agents and other authoritative people who say that the powers that be, when asked to provide a copy of the law, such as an enabling statute, that requires U.S. workers to pay federal income tax on their wages, come up empty-handed.

Russo concluded that if the federal income tax applies to anyone or anything, it applies to corporate capital gains, not the incomes of individuals, and that the IRS doesn't even define income.

The proverbial “tax man” came down on the Browns just as they had considered selling their home and acreage so they could live in a warmer climate. Notably, their property is across the road from 500 acres owned by Supreme Court Justice Steven Breyer.

But making the best of the winter weather, individuals and families with children have been over to Brown's place lately for sledding and skating—before and since the tax trouble began. Life still seems more or less normal, though Brown suspects that federal agents may eventually storm the house and arrest him, perhaps after the publicity on his and his wife's plight calms down.

As of Jan. 25, he said the publicity was still significant, with TV news crews continuing to pay attention. He also told AFP that while he has always paid the 54 other kinds of taxes levied on Americans—with property taxes hitting $14,000 a year on their home and $18,000 a year on their office building for the former dental business—he won't budge on the federal income tax.

For one thing, as already noted, no one can produce a copy of the law that requires payment of an unapportioned tax on the labor of Americans. Moreover, there are due-process issues whereby U.S. District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe apparently disallowed the Browns from bringing forth any evidence or witnesses they needed for defending themselves in court. Also, the issue of federal jurisdiction, or the lack thereof, comes into play, Brown pointed out.

Addressing some conventional media reports that characterized his home as a virtual fortress, or “compound” with a “lookout tower,” Brown replied, “It's a deck, for crying out loud—an octagon-shaped compass deck.”

Just below the elevated deck on the large, well-built house—which has solar-power capability and was off the grid from 1990 to 2003—is a reading room.

“We're very mainstream, middle-class people,” said Brown, who noted that media reports suggesting he's “holed up” in his house are off base.

Some areas of the house have been boarded up to keep out blowing snow, so he is not “barricading” himself in the house, he explained.

The Union Leader seems also to have played the “antigovernment” card, even though many American patriots make a careful distinction by saying they are anti-corruption of government, not anti-government.

Notably, the Associated Press article in The Union Leader couldn't resist the highly charged word “compound,” which conceivably could create a bunker mentality in the minds of readers and may quell public outrage if federal agents ever decide to forcibly enter Brown's home to arrest him. As the article claimed:

“A jury decided that the Browns plotted to hide their income and avoid taxes on Elaine Brown's income of $1.9 million between 1996 and 2003. Over 10 years, they also used $215,890 of postal money orders broken into increments just below the reporting threshold to pay for their hilltop compound and for Elaine Brown's dental offices.”

U.S. marshals said on a couple occasions they had no plans to forcibly enter Brown's property and arrest him, though national media sources quoted marshals as saying that they “have to decide how to seize the Browns' assets, possibly including their home.”

Citing a new twist in this case, a recent issue of The Boston Globe noted that federal agents “seized more than 30 weapons from the Brown house in May.”

Brown commented by telling AFP, “They stole $15,000 worth of my guns and turned them over to a gun shop.”

Brown was still at home on Jan. 25, preferring only to comment off the record about the situation.

CNN: Border Patrol to Prison, Drug Dealers Granted Immunity

Dutch Uranium Enricher Under Fire Over "dumping Waste" In Siberia

playfuls.com
The uranium enrichment company Urenco was accused Monday of using Russian facilities to "dump" depleted uranium from its plant at Almelo in the eastern Netherlands following an investigative radio report that highlighted the longstanding practice.

Urenco, jointly owned by Dutch, German and British holding companies, was reported by the programme on public radio to hand over some 3,500 tons of poisonous uranium hexafloride to the Russian authorities every year.

The gaseous compound is held in steel flasks in Novouralsk, Angarsk and Seversk in Siberia.

Diederik Samsom of the Labour Party, which is currently in talks to form a new coalition government, called on the environment secretary of the outgoing government, Pieter van Geel of the Christian Democrats, to provide an explanation.

"From a legal point of view it might well be alright, but politically and morally one raises one's eyebrows," Samson said after the programme was broadcast Monday.

Urenco director Huub Rakhorst rejected the allegations as "exaggerated," saying Urenco scientists had inspected the Russian facilities and that there was no reason for concern.

Urenco conducts first-stage enrichment, transporting some 5,000 tons of depleted uranium to Russia for further processing to increase the proportion of the radioactive U235 isotope.

Urenco takes back the enriched uranium, but up to 70 per cent remains in long-term storage in Russia as depleted uranium.

Greenpeace expressed concern, and physicist Kees Andriesse told the broadcast the practice was nothing more than "dumping waste."

He rejected claims by Rakhorst that the depleted uranium was being stored for use in future "breeder" power plants, saying the theory behind such plants had been known for decades but had been found to be impracticable.

The depleted uranium should be returned to its source in the Netherlands, he said.

"It's a kind of dumping. It now goes to Russia, and we know that it is carelessly treated. You are responsible for your own rubbish; you don't throw it away somewhere else," Andriesse said.

The centrifuge facility at Almelo is where the father of the Pakistani bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, illicitly acquired secret information while working there in the mid-1970s.

Bush Sloppy: Russia Has Penetrated Highest Level US Secret Traffic, Says Bush & Israel Creating Event To Start More Wars

voice of the white house
Haifa Street in Baghdad was of course named after a Palestinian town now under Israeli occupation. It used to be a street, actually a neighborhood, where all denominations cohabited.It also had specially designed buildings overlooking the Tigris river, reserved for academics only.

Iraqi academic , from all backgrounds, "ethnic" affiliations, "sects" and "religion" and from different fields of specialization lived in those buildings on Haifa Street, rent free, courtesy of the Iraqi government. This was part of Saddam Hussein's government campaign to promote education and to encourage individuals to strive for a career in academic knowledge and teaching thereafter.

A letter was sent to me via e.mail, a letter of despair and tragedy written by an Iraqi professor who lived on Haifa Street. I am going to translate the whole thing for you.

"My name is Ahmed Kamal Nabil . I am a university professor since 1975. I live on Haifa street. On the 7th of January, I went out to buy some food since we had been without anything to eat since the day of the Eid (30th December). My wife, two daughters and one small grandchild stayed at home.

Since there was no transportation and in view of the military presence surrounding Haifa street, I was unable to regain my apartment fast enough. Moreover, an unusual movement in our neighborhood made me very suspicious . I saw some elements of the Iraqi militias shooting on the door of our building. I immediately informed my family by phone so they may leave promptly. They tried to but the militias refused them exit.

What followed was even more brutal. The upper floors of the building where we lived were totally destroyed and my wife was informing me (on the phone) that she and my daughters were few minutes away from an imminent Death. What could I do?

I begged a neighbor to help us. At first he refused, then he agreed to courageously face the American and Iraqi forces and come to the rescue of my family, thus helping them seek refuge in another building close by which was not targeted.

The following day, at dawn, my family discovered a dead street, in ruins. My wife and my kids left Haifa street with the only luggage they had, the clothes on their bodies. The militias raped our home . They ransacked and looted all of our belongings.

In the space of a few minutes, we lost everything we worked for and owned. My books, my souvenirs, my diplomas, my notes, my research papers and my personal diary. In sum, all of my memory carefully constructed over a span of half a century has gone out. Gone to sleep for ever. Now we are back to zero.

My family is scattered, lodged by different relatives and strangers. Throughout my career , I have never committed one act of hostility vis a vis the Iraqi authorities or the American occupation forces. I filed a complaint but the policeman at the station was unimpressed. He told me that my only crime is that I was living in a street of "terrorists."

If I had chosen to return to Iraq, my country, after studies in Europe, it was with the aim of bringing to my people the knowledge I acquired in the West. I have conducted and supervised dozens of Phd theses and I have taught thousands of students.

What happened to me on the 7th of January is tragic. Is that the destiny of Iraqi intellectuals and researchers? Is that the reward for those who opted for neutrality, independence of thought, spirit and honor? What crime have I committed by not wanting to give in to violence and terror and by insisting on continuing my work - that of teaching in Iraq ? "


Yes Haifa street, the street of academics and the brain drain of the New Iraq. Over 500 university professors have been assassinated since the "liberation." 500 individuals who have spent years studying, researching, teaching, forming, training, disseminating knowledge...

Last week, over 100 students were massacred at the gates of al Mustansiriyah University. It is beyond the shadow of doubt that universities, academics and students are the favored targets in Iraq.

Why is that so, did you ever ask yourself? I think the answer is simple. Universities , academics , students are the last bastion of the spirit of critical thinking. The last line in the Resistance against political manipulation and terror of the new Iraq.

Universities refuse the presence of militias within their walls. Academics are the few who raise their voices denouncing the political madness that is surrounding them. Students are still young free thinkers difficult to ideologically control.
Moreover, academics refuse to be dragged in or sucked in the role of representative or mouth piece for the occupation or for its puppets.

Academics are targeted because people respect and listen to them when they dare speak out. And academics are targeted because the New Iraq has become one big looting field run by mercenaries, thugs, politically corrupt opportunists, sectarian agitators, fanatical dark minds, and barbarians.

And they want it to remain that way. They want to make sure that Iraq will never raise its head again . Hence the "beheading", the brain drain of all intellectuals. In the new Iraq, there is no place for knowledge. Knowledge is their antithesis.

Hundreds of academics escape to other countries or simply change careers. Some have become grocers or taxi drivers as these occupations are less dangerous than being a university professor. Those who have refused either, have been killed or have ended up like our professor above. Destitute, homeless and stripped of everything. This hemorrhage of intellectuals is programmed, it is part of the American reconstruction plan.

In contradiction to what the Americans claim, the reconstruction of Iraq does not take place in big projects but starts with the "grey matter", that stuff between our ears and called our brains. Can anyone conceive of a country without doctors, engineers, scientists.....?

Well Iraq has become such a country. The reconstruction of Iraq american style does not need this grey matter. It can dispose of it, hence it encourages the hemorrhage to continue. To the point that Unesco is thinking of offering 400 bullet proof vests to professors who insist on staying on and teaching plus a direct telephone line for those who feel they are under threat of being killed. Unesco is also envisaging to offer financial help to widows of academics thus encouraging others to not abandon their jobs as lecturers. Something they do, from fear of leaving a family behind in need- should they be targeted and assassinated.

Today, over 50 people have been killed in Haifa street. People are under siege in their apartments, with no food, no water, no electricity and unable to venture out. The occupation forces, the Iraqi "army " and the militias have forbidden the evacuation of the injured or the dead. They are left to die slowly in agony or to rot away on Haifa street. Just like the academics who inhabited its buildings.

Yes this is what has become of Haifa Street, a drained, desolate, burning, bleeding Street...of the New Iraq.

Bill would nip microchips in humans

sitnews.us
DENVER -- For years, people have been implanting tiny microchips under their pet's skin so that if Rover's collar slips off, there's still a way to find him if he wanders away.

Now a state lawmaker has added a twist to that concept with a bill that would make it a misdemeanor for anyone to require two-legged critters to have a microchip implanted under their skin.

Under the bill, employers could not track workers' movements, for example.

Democratic Rep. Mary Hodge said she introduced it as a "proactive measure" at the urging of Adams County's head librarian. He fears that "microchipping" people could become the next Big Brother tactic of a federal government whose use of warrantless telephone eavesdropping and the Patriot Act in the war on terror has alarmed civil libertarians.

The bill is cracking up some Capitol pols.

"Is this a problem? Do we have gangs of post-apocalyptic 'Terminator'-style cyborgs roaming the streets of Colorado implanting citizens with microchips?" wisecracked Rob Fairbank, a former-representative-turned-political-consultant, in an e-mail to statehouse pals.

"One of my legislator friends said, 'If we can't implant microchips on people, how will we know when the black helicopters arrive?' " joked Fairbank, a Littleton Republican.

Michael Sawyer isn't laughing.

He's the library director for the Rangeview Library District in Adams County who urged Hodge to nip the microchipping in the bud.

"I think it's a very scary thing," Sawyer said Wednesday. "I have been very concerned about the direction our government is going. I see the secret courts and I see the Patriot Act and the advocating of putting microchips in people."

Sawyer was referring to Tommy Thompson, the former Wisconsin governor and Bush administration health secretary, who became an advocate of the implants after joining the board of device maker VeriChip Corp.

Supporters like Thompson say implanting the rice-grain-size gadgets in patients could allow doctors to quickly retrieve vital information from someone who has dementia, or is unconscious or unable to speak during medical emergencies.

The tiny glass capsule - called a radio frequency identification device, or RFID - can be injected into the upper arm or hand and sits passively until it's read by a scanner.

The fear is that employers could use the chips to track workers as they pass through security-door scanners - like internal versions of the electronic pass keys many employees use to get around the office.

In fact, the president of Colombia suggested using implants to track migrant workers entering the United States. And a Wisconsin lawmaker unsuccessfully pushed for using them to track sex offenders - or kids "at the direction of their parents," according to a Wisconsin legislative report.

Last May, Wisconsin became the first state to ban forced implantation of the chips on humans, imposing a $10,000 fine for each day of violation. At least 17 other states have introduced or are considering microchip-implant laws.

Lawmaker: Iran installing 3,000 centrifuges - Focus on Iran - MSNBC.com

Lawmaker: Iran installing 3,000 centrifuges - MSNBC.com

Lawmaker: Iran installing 3,000 centrifuges
Move at uranium enrichment plant 'stabilizes Iran's capability' for nukes
The Associated Press
Updated: 1:31 p.m. ET Jan 27, 2007
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran has begun installing 3,000 centrifuges, a top lawmaker said Saturday.

Alaeddin Boroujerdi said the installation of 3,000 centrifuges at an Iranian uranium enrichment plant "stabilizes Iran's capability in the field of nuclear technology," the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

"We are right now installing 3,000 centrifuges," Boroujerdi, the head of the Iranian Parliament's Foreign Policy and National Security Committee, was quoted as saying by IRNA.

Check back for updates on this breaking news story.

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16842959/

U.S. envoy says bags packed after Chavez threat - CNN.com

U.S. envoy says bags packed after Chavez threat - CNN.com

Story Highlights• Hugo Chavez warns U.S. ambassador of "meddling" in Venezuela's affairs

• Envoy tells radio station U.S. telecom investors need fair price in nationalization
• Chavez warns ambassador he may become "persona non grata" in Venezuela
• William Brownfield says he'll focus on improving relations but his bags are packed

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Facing a threat of possible expulsion from Venezuela, U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield said Friday he will concentrate on trying to improve relations, though he said his bags are packed just in case.

President Hugo Chavez warned Thursday that he could expel Brownfield if he keeps "meddling in Venezuela's affairs," saying the diplomat went too far by suggesting investors should receive fair compensation for their stakes in companies that Venezuela plans to nationalize.

"My bags are always packed and ready," Brownfield told reporters, but he added that U.S. diplomats will aim to concentrate more on bilaterial issues "and a little less on our bags and the possibility of our departure."

"I hope we can not only maintain but improve our relationship," Brownfield said during a visit to the western city of Maracaibo.

The United States remains the top buyer of Venezuelan oil despite deep tensions. American companies with shares in the telephone and electrical sectors stand to be affected by Chavez's nationalization drive.

Asked about U.S. policy, Brownfield reiterated that governments have a "sovereign right" to nationalize companies but that they are bound by international obligations to do so "in a transparent and legal way and to offer fair and quick compensation."

Similar remarks by Brownfield triggered Chavez's threat a day earlier. Addressing Brownfield in a speech, Chavez said he could be declared "persona non grata" and have to leave if he keeps "meddling in Venezuela's affairs."

The government plans to nationalize the telecommunications company CA Nacional de Telefonos, or CANTV -- whose largest minority shareholder is New York-based Verizon Communications Inc. -- and Electricidad de Caracas, owned by Arlington, Virginia-based AES Corp.

"Our hope is that any nationalization be a negotiated process that eventually represents the interests of all parties involved," Brownfield said.

Chavez has said he wants an immediate state takeover of CANTV and will not pay shareholders the international market value. He has said the price paid for the telephone company would take into account debts to workers, pensions and other obligations to the state.

U.S. officials have accused Chavez of becoming increasingly authoritarian and of being a destabilizing force. The Venezuelan leader repeatedly has accused Washington of plotted against him.

Chavez has threatened to expel Brownfield before. In April, he accused Brownfield of provoking a confrontation by visiting a poor pro-government area where protesters beat on the ambassador's car, hurled eggs and chased his convoy.

A career diplomat from Texas with a penchant for understatement that at times verges on sarcasm, Brownfield has drawn Chavez's anger not only by raising Washington's concerns but also by handing out donations to youth baseball leagues and charities in pro-Chavez slums.

Brownfield said Friday that he hopes to continue a process of building dialogue because "I think normalizing the bilateral relation a little bit is just as much in Venezuela's interest as it is for the United States."

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/01/26/chavez.us.ap/index.html

ABC News: U.S. Stages Second Secret Raid at Iraq Airport

ABC News: U.S. Stages Second Secret Raid at Iraq Airport

Forces Also Capture Up to Six Iranians at Location Used to Issue Travel Permits to Iran

By TERRY MCCARTHY

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 11, 2007 — - U.S. troops staged two secret raids in northern Iraq today, ABC News has learned, capturing as many as six Iranians and only narrowly avoiding a gun battle with local security forces, according to the Iraqi foreign ministry and local officials in northern Iraq's Kurdish region.

The Iranian government has made an official complaint to the government in Baghdad, which the Iraqi Foreign Ministry has relayed to the U.S. Embassy. In the first raid, the U.S. troops stormed a building that houses the Iranian liaison office in the northern city of Irbil at 3 a.m. local time, where they detained at least five Iranians and also confiscated computers and documents.

A nearby resident told the Associated Press that the troops used stun bombs in the raid and had helicopters flying overhead as they went through the two-story yellow house.

In the second raid, staged later in the day, U.S. troops attempted to abduct more people from inside the perimeter of Irbil airport, but were surrounded by Kurdish peshmerga troops.

"This group has come from nowhere," Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari told ABC News. "They were unwilling to reveal their identity and entered the airport, which is a very sensitive area, and there was a response by the local forces."

Both sides were heavily armed, and shooting very nearly broke out. "There weren't any casualties, but it was a split second really for a disaster to happen. This has created a great deal of anxiety," said Zebari.


'Delicate Situation'

It is unclear where the U.S. troops came from -- even local U.S. officials contacted by the Kurdish authorities had no knowledge of the armed men.

The American military later issued a statement saying it had detained six people in a raid in Irbil, but did not specify their nationality or give any other information about the raids.


The raids came within hours of President Bush's speech about future U.S. policy in Iraq, which included a pledge to "interrupt the flow of support from Iran" for anti-U.S. forces in Iraq.

Bush went on to say, "We will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq." Last month, U.S. forces in Baghdad detained four Iranians, two of whom were diplomats.


The liaison office that was raided issues travel permits for Iraqis traveling to Iran and other consular tasks and is on a waiting list to be officially declared a consulate. Technically, according to the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, the Iranians working in the liaison are not diplomats.

The Iranian foreign ministry has said the raid was "against a diplomatic mission" and is demanding the release of those who were abducted.


Neither the central government in Baghdad nor the regional authorities in Kurdistan had any advance knowledge of the U.S. raids against the Iranian targets, although the Iraqi government has long been aware of Iranian support for armed factions inside Iraq. Zebari said that "we are not questioning or doubting the credibility, the integrity of our friends in the coalition," but he said "this is a very delicate situation."


Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures

Gingrich's '24' scenario: US, Israel face potential 'second Holocaust' which could lead to 'greater dictatorial societies'

RAW STORY

Echoing the plotline of a popular television show, Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House and a potential Republican candidate for president in 2008, warned attendants at a conference that Israel and the United States could face a potential "second Holocaust" in the future, and that if two or three cities were destroyed the two democracies may devolve into "greater dictatorial societies."

"Israel is facing the greatest danger for its survival since the 1967 victory," Gingrich said via satellite at the Herzliya Conference , sponsored by the Institute for Policy and Strategy in Israel. "Israel maintained its dominance since 1967 even after the 1973 failure."

Gingrich continued, "In 1984 I wrote that WMD and terrorism would pose a threat for US national security. If two or three cities are destroyed because of terrorism both the US and Israel's democracy will be eroded and both will become greater dictatorial societies."

Fox Television's 24 features Kiefer Sutherland as a sort of "superheroish" counter-terrorism agent who sometimes uses torture to gain information, and this season's plot concerns the race to stop nuclear bombs exploding across the United States. The fourth episode ended with a nuclear explosion in Los Angeles, which prompted some characters on the show to argue for mass arrests and deportations of Muslims in America.

Although many critics slam the show as being slanted to the right or anti-Muslim, the current storyline also touches on the importance of civil liberties to democracies, and even the scenes regarding torture aren't so clear-cut. Sutherland's character, Jack Bauer, is often portrayed as wracked with guilt when forced to resort to brutality in order to get people to talk, and sometimes the show suggests that he went too far.

Full transcript of Gingrich speech:

#
Israel is facing the greatest danger for its survival since the 1967 victory. Israel maintained its dominance since 1967 even after the 1973 failure. In 1984 I wrote that WMD and terrorism would pose a threat for US national security. If two or three cities are destroyed because of terrorism both the US and Israel's democracy will be eroded and both will become greater dictatorial societies.

Three nuclear weapons constitute a second Holocaust. Enemies are explicit in their desire to destroy us. We are sleepwalking through this as if diplomatic engagement will create a fiesta where we will all love one another. The terrorist threats are larger and more formidable than the political system in Israel or the US can cope with. We need a grand strategy similar to the Kenan telegram which formed US policy for the duration of the Cold War, and the 68 plan developed by Nitze in 1950.

We lack the language and goals to address the new environment along with the speed and intensity to counter the contemporary threats. If we have no strategy we will need to be intellectually honest to consider the next step once two cities have been destroyed. My grandchildren are in greater danger than I was throughout the Cold War. What stages are you in Israel going to take if tomorrow morning Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv would be destroyed? Similarly the US needs to consider what policies it would advance if in twenty four hours, Atlanta, Boston and San Francisco were destroyed. These threats will become even more imminent in two or five years time.

Science is spreading rapidly and thus enemies have greater capabilities to break out. China's satellites are indicative of this.

The US should have as an explicit goal, regime change in Iran, as its constitution makes them a revolutionary regime. In 2006 even the Department of State which seeks to deny the nature of reality, noted that Iran is a leading sponsor of terror. What I need is something that will be similar to Reagan's Replacement strategy in Iran. The current unrest in Iran will facilitate this.

The US, Israel and the West have not developed technologies to command urban spaces similar to the sophisticated technologies applied to air and sea-power. Urban technologies have not developed extensively since the 1940's, unlike that of air and sea. Similarly intelligence capabilities must be advanced and sufficiently integrated to contribute to bettering our urban capabilities.

It is important for Israel to discriminate between those who are willing to live with us and those that are not. Those who are not willing to live with one another will either die or live in prison. We should take our enemies at their word. Ahmadinajed is most explicit regarding his intentions as is Hamas when speaking to the New York Times. To those who are willing to live with us, we need to arouse, organize, defend and enrich them.

A Palestinian state with Hamas at its helm will seek to destroy Israel. In conflict one side wins and another loses. If I have to choose between surviving and being killed, I will choose to kill the enemy and to survive. Peace comes as a result for victory and not as a substitute for victory. The number one requirement for long-term peace is the growth of organizations for peace. This would include a Lebanese government willing to take over Southern Lebanon from Hezbollah, an Iraqi government that would be willing to take over factions. The US and Israel have both underestimated this challenge intellectually, as it will take a long period of time with tremendous investment of resources to achieve this desirable end.

The Department of Homeland Security should conduct two nuclear exercises and one biological exercise in major cities such as Philadelphia or Dallas to determine how many causalities would occur and whether hospitals could accommodate the casualties. Last year in Long Beach, California an exercise was conducted to measure the potential effects of the ramifications of a nuclear weapon being set off.

From 1947-1950, while there was an under funding of defense, there was a simultaneous coming to terms intellectually with the threat of Communism. To those that advance a withdraw of troops in Iraq; the onus is on them to explicate the consequences of defeat. In 1979 the US looked weak in the Middle East with the hostage crises and embassies coming under attack. I have been told that there are not enough marine detachments to protect embassies for when they potentially will be under the threat of attack. It is not the Bush doctrine that is at stake, but our very lives. Thus national security should be advanced rather than mere utopianism.

Q & A with Newt Gingrich

Q: There has been a lot of discussion about the Palestinians and Iran, do you think there can be progress in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without first dealing with Iran?

A: Yes.

The United States and its allies should work together to change the regime in Iran. We have zero reason to believe that the current Iranian regime will change its behavior; they have been lying for eighteen years to the International Atomic Agency. Even the United States State Department has had to admit that Iran is the leading supporter of terror in the world. We should learn from the way Ronald Regan strategically changed the regime in Poland, and apply it to Iran.

On the Palestinian front, the United States and Israel have not made the necessary investments in dominating and controlling urban spaces. If we look at the technology that was used to control urban spaces in the 1940's and we look at the technology for controlling the seas and the skies in the 1940's and compare then to today it is clear that there has been much less investment into the ability to control urban areas. The United States and Israel need to develop intelligence to gain both military and economic dominance so that we can discriminate against those who want to live with us and those who don't. Those who don't want to live with us will either have to die or go to prison. If they say not a single Jew will live, then we should take them seriously. If they say its either us or them, I choose us. If we are going to live with the Palestinians then we need to gain control of their urban spaces and we need to arouse those who support us from within their community. We can't live next to a Palestinian state that wants to destroy Israel. In the end one side wins and the other loses, peace will come after victory and cannot be a substitute for it.

Q: What are the threats around us?

A:

Long term peace will require a growth of organizations willing to fight for peace. The growth of a Lebanese government that is willing to take control of the south and fight against Hezbollah, and the growth of an Iraqi government that is willing to fight for peace and up hold law and order is what we need. Both the United States and Israel have underestimated how big of an investment and how difficult of a task this will be. The era of defeating states ended in 1973 and was replaced with and era of working with allies that want to help you, and we haven't confronted that yet.

Q: Ronald Lauder As we hear democrats saying that we want to pull out of Iraq, and talking about the Patriot Act; are we talking about WWII prior to the appeasement? What is going to happen in standing up to the challenge?

A:

First the ( US ) Department of Homeland Security needs to hold two exercises of what would happened if a nuclear weapon is deployed against us, and one exercise with a biological weapon, to be used on an American city like, Dallas or Pittsburg. These would look into what the effect would be on the city, for example how many casualties there will be, and how many hospitals will be lost. They did one such test in Long Beach, California. This is not paranoia by the Bush administration, but their legitimate worries about how dangerous the world has become, and most Americans believe this.

In 1930 we thought we could accommodate Hitler, this was not the case. Today it's impossible to engage Syria and Iran as partners for peace. Just look at how Chaves and Ahmedinajad behave, and this should show us that we need to change our national security polices. The Bush program is inadequate, but the American people need to realize that there lives are at stake, not the legacy of the Bush administration.

Anyone who proposes that we pull out of Iraq needs to understand the price of defeat. The last time the United States was seen as weak and defeated, 1979 and 1980, we had a 444 day long hostage crisis in Iran, and an ambassador killed in Afghanistan. Those who advocate for defeat must be aware that they will bear the burden of our allies losing faith in us as well as China beginning think that it may be able to seize Taiwan.

Michael Chertoff: 21st Century Will Get More Dangerous

AFP
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday the world is facing a critical test as it seeks to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists, and that there will be no way "to put that genie back in the bottle" if it fails.

Chertoff told a high-level panel on terrorism at the World Economic Forum that the century will only get more dangerous as technology improves, and that global leaders must make some hard decisions now if they want to avert catastrophe.

"What we face in the 21st century is the ability of even a single individual, and certainly a group, to leverage technology in a way to cause a type of destruction and a magnitude of destruction that would have been unthinkable a century ago," he said. "And that is only going to get worse."

Chertoff said failure would mean a calamity that would dwarf even the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in its magnitude.

"You can't put that genie back in the bottle once a weapon of mass destruction or a nuclear bomb gets into the hands of a terrorist," Chertoff said. "You are not going to be able to reclaim that and it is going to transform the way in which we live."

Another panelist, British Conservative party leader David Cameron, said it was critical for Western democracies to face the new threat posed by al-Qaida with tough new laws, but also with steady thinking in order to avoid trampling on core beliefs.

"There are some big changes that we have to make ... but when we make those changes, its vital we get this balance right and don't lurch into an ineffective authoritarianism," Cameron said. "We've got to be very strong in combatting terrorism but equally strong in defending liberty, democracy and the things we are actually fighting for."

Chertoff bristled at criticism that some of the steps the United States has taken to combat terrorism - particularly the use of secret CIA prisons, the establishment of military tribunals to try terror suspects, and what critics see as a relaxing of the rules against torture - have degraded fundamental human and civil rights. He said governments must be realistic in an age of increasing dangers.

"We should not sacrifice fundamental human rights, but I think it is important also not to treat every departure from the ordinary set of rules that we use in criminal cases and treat that as a catastrophic departure from fundamental human rights," he said. "We have to be precise about what truly is fundamental and what isn't fundamental."

Terrorism has been a theme at the World Economic Forum since the Sept. 11 attacks, and this year has been no exception. The panel brought Chertoff and Cameron together with Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and the EU's terrorism coordinator, Gijs de Vries.

Outgoing U.S. National Intelligence Director John Negroponte was highly critical of Pakistan in remarks before Congress last week, saying the country has become a "sanctuary" for Taliban and al-Qaida militants who cross into neighboring Afghanistan to kill American and NATO troops.

Casualties in Afghanistan have risen sharply in recent months as the Taliban has stepped up operations and suicide attacks. Afghan leaders have accused Pakistani security forces of secretly trying to foment unrest, while publicly professing to be allies.

In his remarks, Aziz said Pakistan views the problems in Afghanistan as an internal issue, and repeated Pakistan's assertion that it has been wildly successful in fighting terrorism.

The country has captured hundreds of militants, but it is also believed to be home to several top al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, who have evaded a five-year dragnet.

Maine revolts against digital U.S. ID card

reuters
Maine lawmakers on Thursday became the first in the nation to demand repeal of a federal law tightening identification requirements for drivers' licenses, a post-September 11 security measure that states say will cost them billions of dollars to administer.

Maine lawmakers passed a resolution urging repeal of the Real ID Act, which would create a national digital identification system by 2008. The lawmakers said it would cost Maine about $185 million, fail to boost security and put people at greater risk of identity theft.

Maine's resolution is the strongest stand yet by a state against the law, which Congress passed in May 2004 and gave states three years to implement. Similar repeal measures are pending in eight other states.

"We cannot be spending millions of state dollars on an initiative that does more harm to our state than good," said Maine's House Majority leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat, in a statement that called it a "massive unfunded federal mandate."

The ID act sets national standards for licenses which will have to include a digital photo, anti-counterfeiting features and machine-readable technology.

States will have to verify documents presented with license applications such as birth certificates, Social Security cards and utility bills, and will have to link their license databases so they can all be accessed as a single network.

States also will have to verify that a person applying for a license is in the country legally. States will be able to issue separate credentials to illegal aliens so that they will still be able to drive.

The National Governors Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures and the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators said in a September report that the law would cost states more than $11 billion over five years and take at least another seven years to implement.

"It's a national ID card on steroids," said Barry Steinhardt, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Technology and Liberty Project. "This will indeed be a real nightmare.

But backers say the driver's license -- a primary means of identification in the United States -- is fundamentally insecure because of widespread identity theft.

Some 227 million people hold drivers' licenses or identity cards given out by states, which issue or renew about 70 million each year.

Can More Aid Save Afghanistan?

TIME
The Bush Administration's efforts this week to get its NATO allies to contribute more troops and money to Afghanistan — by pledging more of both from the U.S. — are a reminder of mounting problems in Washington's �other� war. Indeed, even if, as expected, the Administration's request for $10.6 billon more to beef up the Afghan security forces and reconstruction efforts sails through Congress, the additional funds are unlikely to arrive in time to help the Afghan security forces hold their own against the Taliban's spring offensive.

"If we had built the capacity of the Afghan national army and police, we would not be in the position we're in right now, facing a serious challenge in the spring from the Taliban," Afghan Ambassador Said Jawad told TIME on Thursday. "There was an underinvestment in building the capacity of the Afghan security forces, as well as [of] the Afghan government to deliver services. And now we are paying a price for that."

In the wake of the Taliban ground offensive in southern Afghanistan last summer and fall, Afghan officials pledged to have 70,000 soldiers and 82,000 police officers deployed by October 2008, years ahead of schedule. But the Afghans have been pleading for help to fund the recruitment, training and equipping of those forces — and aid has been surprisingly slow in coming. Only recently, according to Jawad, has the Afghanistan government been able to raise the pay of Afghan soldiers from $70 to $100 a month. If the new U.S. aid package goes through, Jawad told TIME, the government will also be able to offer policemen $100 a month.

Even then, the wages paid by the security forces are minuscule compared to what a fighter can earn working for a heroin-trafficking warlord. Still, says Jawad, government recruiters are able to play on patriotism and moral duty. "We should not look at strictly on a dollar basis," he says. "This is building Afghanistan, and the other path is destroying Afghanistan. So people are willing to take some sacrifices providing they're able to feed their children."

The new military aid package announced Friday is designed to help equip government forces with helicopters, heavier weapons and armor, and communications gear that would give them the capacity to operate independently against Taliban guerrillas in harsh terrain. But that won't happen in time to face the Taliban's anticipated spring offensive. So, the Pentagon also announced Wednesday that 3,200 soldiers from the U.S. 10th Mountain Division will have their tour of duty in Afghanistan extended by four months. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he is likely to ask President Bush for several thousand more American troops augment the 24,000 already there, and Washington is pressing NATO allies to provide more troops of their own — and in some cases, to ease restrictions on those forces being deployed in the combat zone in the south.

Boosting troop levels in Afghanistan is unlikely to meet the sort of congressional opposition facing President Bush's proposed Iraq troop surge. Democratic Senators Hillary Clinton and Evan Bayh, in fact, earlier this month urged Secretary Gates to send more soldiers to prevent failure in Afghanistan.

A major challenge facing efforts to ward off the Taliban challenge is ensuring greater cooperation from Pakistan, where U.S. and NATO officials have said Taliban leaders are based. Although, under pressure from the U.S., the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan have agreed to cooperate to secure the border, Ambassador Jawad acknowledges that such cooperation �has not been fully implemented yet."

The $2.6 billion in reconstruction aid sought by the Bush Administration will go largely to building an electrical power distribution system — only 6% of Afghans now have dependable electrical power, according to Jawad — and to constructing roads. Farmers unable to move crops to market in the cities are turning to opium growing because the harvest, reduced to opium paste, then processed to morphine base or finished heroin, is relatively imperishable and highly concentrated — and the trafficking groups handle all the transportation headaches. But Afghan and U.S. officials acknowledge that Afghanistan's viability as a state depends on whether the security and infrastructure can be put in place to nurture a legitimate economy in the hinterlands.

How hot is the heat-ray gun?

bbc
The US military revealed a heat-ray gun, the Active Denial System (ADS), to reporters this week.

The technology brings a new, more disorientating dimension to crowd control.

Rioters know where they are with a water cannon: they can see where the cooling is coming from.

Likewise, tear gas smokes before it stings and baton rounds are meant to bounce before they hit the crowd.

A millimetre-wave beam is different: a hot blast which, at a maximum range the Pentagon says is 10 times greater than that of other "non-lethal weapons", effectively comes out of nowhere, silently and invisibly.

Longer, lighter, simpler

"Imagine you're a marine guarding your post and you see some suspicious-looking people coming towards you at a distance," said Susan LeVine, principal deputy of the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons (JNLW) Directorate which tested the system.


RIOT CONTROL MILESTONES
1958: British Army use CS tear gas in Cyprus
1960s: Lorry-mounted water cannon used in US
1960s: UK uses baton rounds - wood, rubber, finally plastic
1980s: Pepper spray - a bear repellent - adopted by US police forces

"You will be able to engage them at a point well beyond small-arms range so that you can give them a clear signal to stop," she told the BBC News website.

Bill Sweetman, technology and aerospace editor for Jane's Information Group, believes the primary purpose of the heat-ray gun will be to disperse a crowd which could be concealing gunmen.

The beam, he says, has advantages over existing non-lethal weapons other than range:

* it is more economical, as you can keep generating power pulses in different directions while there is petrol in the generator

* it is less indiscriminate than tear gas and less cumbersome than water cannon

* it is more accurate as it travels at the speed of light and is not subject to the effect of wind

'Not to be trusted'

The heat beam may be an advance on the water jet but it is causing alarm for other reasons.

People hit the pain waves and don't know which way to run
Dr Steve Wright
Leeds Metropolitan University

"What happens when people are in the first rows of a dense crowd and cannot flee?" asks Dr Steve Wright, associate director of Leeds Metropolitan University's Praxis Centre, which studies conflict resolution technology.

"How do subjects exposed from a distance know where to flee from the beam?

"People hit the pain waves and don't know which way to run."

Such a weapon also has the potential to cause panic and deadly stampedes, Dr Wright says.

He is also concerned that America is developing weapons of "tuneable lethality" whereby "you can tune in the amount of pain the weapon provides, from heating to death".

Put to the test

Alan Fischer, media relations manager of Raytheon, which built the ADS as well as making its own commercial version Silent Guardian, is concerned that some people have been likening the technology to a microwave oven.

It is a bit of a uni-tasker and my feeling is that uni-taskers of one kind or another seldom cause military revolutions
Bill Sweetman
Jane's Information Group

Some of the confusion may arise from the fact that Raytheon built the first microwave oven back in 1947.

The millimetre wave may, like microwaves and radars, operate in the radio frequency spectrum but it is "only designed to go a very shallow distance into the skin", Mr Fischer told the BBC News website.

"This has nothing to do with microwaves or microwave cooking or anything like that," he says.

Dr Wright asks if Pentagon tests on healthy service volunteers adequately reflect the potential effect on pregnant women, children and babies.

Ms LeVine, one of the 600-odd people exposed to the beam in tests, says that health tests have been rigorous:

"We've looked at the risk of injuries, at the risk of skin cancer, birth defects, impact on fertility and everything has proved to be negative."

Chinks in the armour?

But how vulnerable might it be in the field to what the Pentagon calls "counter-measures"?

Dr Wright suggests that something as simple as household foil and "a fine metal mesh in front of the eyes" could counteract it.

Attempts to get around the beam would only prove its value, Ms LeVine argues.

"The point of ADS is to assess intent so if somebody is coming at you and they have knocked up something that clearly shows they are going to try and get by this beam, the system has already done its job," she says.

Bill Sweetman questions whether the Humvee-mounted version of the ADS - a "pretty obvious target" - would be vulnerable to a rocket-propelled grenade.

As far as Ms LeVine is concerned, "a lot of vehicles would be vulnerable to an RPG".

But the Jane's editor is not convinced the heat-ray gun will prove a decisive weapon.

"It is a bit of a uni-tasker and my feeling is that uni-taskers of one kind or another seldom cause military revolutions," he says.

It may serve its military purpose well enough, Mr Sweetman adds, but law enforcement is a different story.

"I don't think you would use this unless you thought there was a risk of the other side escalating it into lethal force," he says.

"I don't think you would use this against a bunch of Millwall football fans on the rampage."

HOW HEAT-RAY GUN WORKS

1 360-degree operation for maximum effect
Antenna, linked to transmitter unit, can be mounted on vehicle
Automatic target tracking
2 Antenna sealed against dust and can withstand bullet fire
3 Invisible beam of millimetre-wave energy can travel over 500m
4 Heat energy up to 54C (130F) penetrates less than 0.5mm of skin
Manufacturers say this avoids injury, although long-term effects are not known

////////////
What happens when you put a living creature in a microwave? You dont want to get shot with this microwave gun.

Secrecy Is at Issue in Suits Opposing Spy Program - New York Times

Secrecy Is at Issue in Suits Opposing Spy Program - New York Times

By ADAM LIPTAK
The Bush administration has employed extraordinary secrecy in defending the National Security Agency’s highly classified domestic surveillance program from civil lawsuits. Plaintiffs and judges’ clerks cannot see its secret filings. Judges have to make appointments to review them and are not allowed to keep copies.

Judges have even been instructed to use computers provided by the Justice Department to compose their decisions.

But now the procedures have started to meet resistance. At a private meeting with the lawyers in one of the cases this month, the judges who will hear the first appeal next week expressed uneasiness about the procedures, said a lawyer who attended, Ann Beeson of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Lawyers suing the government and some legal scholars say the procedures threaten the separation of powers, the adversary system and the lawyer-client privilege.

Justice Department officials say the circumstances of the cases, involving a highly classified program, require extraordinary measures. The officials say they have used similar procedures in other cases involving classified materials.

In ordinary civil suits, the parties’ submissions are sent to their adversaries and are available to the public in open court files. But in several cases challenging the eavesdropping, Justice Department lawyers have been submitting legal papers not by filing them in court but by placing them in a room at the department. They have filed papers, in other words, with themselves.

At the meeting this month, judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit asked how the procedures might affect the integrity of the files and the appellate records.

In response, Joan B. Kennedy, a Justice Department official, submitted, in one of the department’s unclassified filings, a detailed seven-page sworn statement last Friday defending the practices.

“The documents reviewed by the court have not been altered and will not be altered,” Ms. Kennedy wrote, and they “will be preserved securely as part of the record of this case.”

Some cases challenging the program, which monitored international communications of people in the United States without court approval, have also involved atypical maneuvering. Soon after one suit challenging the program was filed last year in Oregon, Justice Department lawyers threatened to seize an exhibit from the court file.

This month, in the same case, the department sought to inspect and delete files from the computers on which lawyers for the plaintiffs had prepared their legal filings.

The tactics, said a lawyer in the Oregon case, Jon B. Eisenberg, prompted him to conduct unusual research.

“Sometime during all of this,” Mr. Eisenberg said, “I went on Amazon and ordered a copy of Kafka’s ‘The Trial,’ because I needed a refresher course in bizarre legal procedures.”

A federal district judge in the case, Garr M. King, invoked another book after a government lawyer refused to disclose whether he had a certain security clearance, saying information about the clearance was itself classified.

“Frankly, your response,” Judge King said, “is kind of an Alice in Wonderland response.”

Questions about the secret filings may figure in the first appellate argument in the challenges, before the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, on Wednesday. The three judges who will hear the appeal met with lawyers for the Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union on Jan. 8 in a judge’s chambers in Memphis.

“The court raised questions about the procedures the government had used to file classified submissions in the case and the propriety and integrity of those procedures,” said Ms. Beeson, associate legal director of the A.C.L.U., which represents the plaintiffs in the appeal.

“They were also concerned about the independence of the judiciary,” given that “the Justice Department retains custody and total control over the court filings.” Ms. Beeson said.

Nancy S. Marder, a law professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law and an authority on secrecy in litigation, said the tactics were really extreme and deeply, deeply troubling.

“These are the basics that we take for granted in our court system,” Professor Marder said. “You have two parties. You exchange documents. The documents you’ve seen don’t disappear.”

A spokesman for the Justice Department, Dean Boyd, said employees involved in storing the classified documents were independent of the litigators and provided “neutral assistance” to courts in handling sensitive information. The documents, Mr. Boyd said, are “stored securely and without alteration.”

The appellate argument in Cincinnati will almost certainly also concern the effects of the administration announcement last week that it would submit the program to a secret court, ending its eavesdropping without warrants.

In a brief filed on Thursday, the government said the move made the case against the program moot.

Ms. Beeson of the A.C.L.U. said the government was wrong.

At least one case, the one in Oregon, is probably not moot. It goes beyond the other cases in seeking damages from the government, because the plaintiffs say they have seen proof that they were wiretapped without a warrant.

In August 2004, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which was investigating an Oregon charity, al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, inadvertently provided a copy of a classified document to a foundation lawyer, Lynne Bernabei.

That document indicated, according to court filings, that the government monitored communications between officers of the charity and two of its lawyers without a warrant in spring 2004.

“If I gave you this document today and you put it on the front page of The New York Times, it would not threaten national security,” Mr. Eisenberg, a lawyer for the foundation, said. “There is only one thing about it that’s explosive, and that’s the fact that our clients were wiretapped.”

Ms. Bernabei circulated the document to two directors of the charity, at least one of them in Saudi Arabia, and to three other lawyers. She discussed them with two more lawyers. A reporter for The Washington Post, David B. Ottaway, also reviewed the document.

The full significance of the document was apparently not clear to any recipient, more than a year before The New York Times disclosed the existence of the N.S.A. program in December 2005.

The F.B.I. learned of the disclosure almost immediately in August 2004, Judge King said at a court hearing last year, but made no effort to retrieve copies of the document for about six weeks.

When it did, everyone it asked apparently returned all copies of the document. In a statement reported in The Post in March, for instance, Mr. Ottaway said he the F.B.I. had told him that the document had “highly sensitive national security information.”

“I returned it after consulting with Washington Post editors and lawyers, and concluding that it was not relevant to what I was working on at the time,” Mr. Ottaway said.

In a sworn statement in June, a lawyer who had the document, Asim Ghafoor, said the bureau took custody of his laptop computer “in order that the document might be ‘scrubbed’ from it.”

The computer was returned weeks later.

In February 2006, the charity and the two lawyers who say they were wiretapped sued to stop the program, requesting financial damages. They attached a copy of the classified document, filing it under seal. They have not said how they came to have a copy.

Three weeks later, the lawyers for the foundation received a call from two Justice Department lawyers. The classified document “had not been properly secured,” the lawyers said, according to a letter from the plaintiffs’ lawyers to the judge.

As Mr. Eisenberg recalled it, the government lawyers said, “The F.B.I. is on its way to the courthouse to take possession of the document from the judge.”

But Judge King, at a hurriedly convened hearing, would not yield it, and asked, “What if I say I will not deliver it to the F.B.I.?”

A Justice Department lawyer, Anthony J. Coppolino, gave a measured response, saying: “Your Honor, we obviously don’t want to have any kind of a confrontation with you. But it has to be secured in a proper fashion.”

The document was ultimately deposited in a “secure compartmented information facility” at the bureau office in Portland.

In the meantime, copies of the document appear to have been sent abroad, and the government concedes that it has made no efforts to contact people overseas who it suspects have them.

“It’s probably gone many, many places,” Judge King said of the document at the August hearing. “Who is it secret from?”

A Justice Department lawyer, Andrew H. Tannenbaum, replied, “It’s secret from anyone who has not seen it.”

He added, “The document must be completely removed from the case, and plaintiffs are not allowed to rely on it to prove their claims.”

Judge King wondered aloud about the implications of that position, saying, “There is nothing in the law that requires them to purge their memory.”

Mr. Eisenberg, in an interview, said that was precisely the government position. “They claim they own the portions of our brains that remember anything,” he said.

In a decision in September, Judge King ruled that the plaintiffs were not entitled to review the document again but could rely on their recollections of it. In October, they filed a motion for summary judgment, a routine step in many civil litigations. In a sealed filing, they described the classified document.

Government lawyers sent Judge King a letter saying the plaintiffs had “mishandled information contained in the classified document” by, among other actions, preparing filings on their own computers.

In a telephone conference on Nov. 1, Judge King appeared unpersuaded. “My problem with your statement,” he told Mr. Tannenbaum, “is that you assume you are absolutely correct in everything you are stating, and I am not sure that you are.”

Mr. Boyd of the Justice Department said the government “continues to explore with counsel ways in which the classified information may be properly protected without any intrusion on the attorney-client privilege.”

U.S. warns of bloody Taliban spring fightback

KABUL, Jan 26 (Reuters) - The United States, stepping up its commitment to Afghanistan and pushing European allies to follow suit, on Friday warned the country faced a bloody and dangerous spring offensive from an emboldened and strengthened Taliban.

"I think we will face a strong offensive and will have a difficult and dangerous and bloody spring," U.S. assistant secretary of state for south and central Asia Richard Boucher told the BBC, calling the guerrillas virulent and tough.

"But we are also better set up to deal with it."

Last year was the bloodiest since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001. More than 4,000 people, a quarter of them civilians, were killed and more than 160 foreign soldiers.

A tough winter, with snow blocking mountain passes, has contributed to the annual lull in fighting, but analysts warn the Taliban, bolstered by drug money and safe havens in Pakistan, will fight back strongly after the thaw in a few months.

"The Taliban phenomenon is largely a southern phenomenon. Now, it's very virulent. It's tough. But we're dealing with it," Boucher said.

"They're actually under pressure -- they're under pressure from all sides. Not only from NATO and the Afghan army, but also to some extent from Pakistan as well."

Washington this week extended tours of duty for some of its troops in Afghanistan, effectively boosting troop levels by 2,500 for the next few months, and is asking Congress for an extra $10.6 billion for security and reconstruction.

At a meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels called by the United States, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday pushed European nations to do more in the embattled country.

Ethiopia-Eritrea impasse could lead to new war - UN

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The stalemate between Horn of Africa neighbors Ethiopia and Eritrea is a major threat to stability that could trigger renewed war in the volatile region, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Wednesday.
Ethiopia-Eritrea impasse could lead to new war
"Not only does the overall situation remain unsettled, but it has also continued to worsen over the last month," Ban said in his latest progress report to the U.N. Security Council on the long-stalled Ethiopia-Eritrea peace process.

"The potential for this situation to deteriorate further or even to lead to renewed hostilities is real, especially if it is allowed to continue indefinitely."

Ban's warning as the 15-nation Security Council heads for a vote at the end of the month on a resolution expected to cut the peacekeeping mission to 1,700 U.N. troops from 2,300.

Last May the council trimmed the peacekeeping force to 2,300 troops from 3,300.

Ban's report recommends that the council extend the mission's mandate for another six months but is silent on whether it should further reduce the number of troops. Without a council vote, the mandate would expire January 31.

U.N. troops were first sent to Ethiopia and Eritrea in 2000 to enforce a cease-fire ending a 1998-2000 border war that killed 70,000 people.

As part of the peace agreement, both countries pledged to accept a new border as set out by an international commission.

But the new border was never marked out after Ethiopia rejected part of it and Eritrea objected that Ethiopia was not being held to its word, leading to a four-year impasse.

More recently, Eritrea has piled restrictions on the U.N. force, arbitrarily arrested U.N. staff, ordered some humanitarian relief groups to leave the country, and sent armed personnel into a buffer zone set up by the United Nations between the two countries, Ban said.

"The current impasse is a serious source of instability for the two countries as well as the wider region," Ban said, pointing to the recent brief war in neighboring Somalia pitting government forces reinforced by the Ethiopian military against Islamist troops backed by Eritrea.

"The two governments need to take the political decision to put the conflict behind them, for the sake of their own people," Ban said.

Troops Authorized to Kill Iranian Operatives in Iraq

Troops Authorized to Kill Iranian Operatives in Iraq

Administration Strategy Stirs Concern Among Some Officials

By Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 26, 2007; A01

The Bush administration has authorized the U.S. military to kill or capture Iranian operatives inside Iraq as part of an aggressive new strategy to weaken Tehran's influence across the Middle East and compel it to give up its nuclear program, according to government and counterterrorism officials with direct knowledge of the effort.

For more than a year, U.S. forces in Iraq have secretly detained dozens of suspected Iranian agents, holding them for three to four days at a time. The "catch and release" policy was designed to avoid escalating tensions with Iran and yet intimidate its emissaries. U.S. forces collected DNA samples from some of the Iranians without their knowledge, subjected others to retina scans, and fingerprinted and photographed all of them before letting them go.

Last summer, however, senior administration officials decided that a more confrontational approach was necessary, as Iran's regional influence grew and U.S. efforts to isolate Tehran appeared to be failing. The country's nuclear work was advancing, U.S. allies were resisting robust sanctions against the Tehran government, and Iran was aggravating sectarian violence in Iraq.

"There were no costs for the Iranians," said one senior administration official. "They are hurting our mission in Iraq, and we were bending over backwards not to fight back."

Three officials said that about 150 Iranian intelligence officers, plus members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Command, are believed to be active inside Iraq at any given time. There is no evidence the Iranians have directly attacked U.S. troops in Iraq, intelligence officials said.

But, for three years, the Iranians have operated an embedding program there, offering operational training, intelligence and weaponry to several Shiite militias connected to the Iraqi government, to the insurgency and to the violence against Sunni factions. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, the director of the CIA, told the Senate recently that the amount of Iranian-supplied materiel used against U.S. troops in Iraq "has been quite striking."

"Iran seems to be conducting a foreign policy with a sense of dangerous triumphalism," Hayden said.

The new "kill or capture" program was authorized by President Bush in a meeting of his most senior advisers last fall, along with other measures meant to curtail Iranian influence from Kabul to Beirut and, ultimately, to shake Iran's commitment to its nuclear efforts. Tehran insists that its nuclear program is peaceful, but the United States and other nations say it is aimed at developing weapons.

The administration's plans contain five "theaters of interest," as one senior official put it, with military, intelligence, political and diplomatic strategies designed to target Iranian interests across the Middle East.

The White House has authorized a widening of what is known inside the intelligence community as the "Blue Game Matrix" -- a list of approved operations that can be carried out against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. And U.S. officials are preparing international sanctions against Tehran for holding several dozen al-Qaeda fighters who fled across the Afghan border in late 2001. They plan more aggressive moves to disrupt Tehran's funding of the radical Palestinian group Hamas and to undermine Iranian interests among Shiites in western Afghanistan.

In Iraq, U.S. troops now have the authority to target any member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, as well as officers of its intelligence services believed to be working with Iraqi militias. The policy does not extend to Iranian civilians or diplomats. Though U.S. forces are not known to have used lethal force against any Iranian to date, Bush administration officials have been urging top military commanders to exercise the authority.

The wide-ranging plan has several influential skeptics in the intelligence community, at the State Department and at the Defense Department who said that they worry it could push the growing conflict between Tehran and Washington into the center of a chaotic Iraq war.

Senior administration officials said the policy is based on the theory that Tehran will back down from its nuclear ambitions if the United States hits it hard in Iraq and elsewhere, creating a sense of vulnerability among Iranian leaders. But if Iran responds with escalation, it has the means to put U.S. citizens and national interests at greater risk in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Officials said Hayden counseled the president and his advisers to consider a list of potential consequences, including the possibility that the Iranians might seek to retaliate by kidnapping or killing U.S. personnel in Iraq.

Two officials said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, though a supporter of the strategy, is concerned about the potential for errors, as well as the ramifications of a military confrontation between U.S. and Iranian troops on the Iraqi battlefield.

In meetings with Bush's other senior advisers, officials said, Rice insisted that the defense secretary appoint a senior official to personally oversee the program to prevent it from expanding into a full-scale conflict. Rice got the oversight guarantees she sought, though it remains unclear whether senior Pentagon officials must approve targets on a case-by-case basis or whether the oversight is more general.

The departments of Defense and State referred all requests for comment on the Iran strategy to the National Security Council, which declined to address specific elements of the plan and would not comment on some intelligence matters.

But in response to questions about the "kill or capture" authorization, Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the NSC, said: "The president has made clear for some time that we will take the steps necessary to protect Americans on the ground in Iraq and disrupt activity that could lead to their harm. Our forces have standing authority, consistent with the mandate of the U.N. Security Council."

Officials said U.S. and British special forces in Iraq, which will work together in some operations, are developing the program's rules of engagement to define the exact circumstances for using force. In his last few weeks as the top commander in Iraq, Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr. sought to help coordinate the program on the ground. One official said Casey had planned to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a "hostile entity," a distinction within the military that would permit offensive action.

Casey's designated successor, Army Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, told Congress in writing this week that a top priority will be "countering the threats posed by Iranian and Syrian meddling in Iraq, and the continued mission of dismantling terrorist networks and killing or capturing those who refuse to support a unified, stable Iraq."

Advocates of the new policy -- some of whom are in the NSC, the vice president's office, the Pentagon and the State Department -- said that only direct and aggressive efforts can shatter Iran's growing influence. A less confident Iran, with fewer cards, may be more willing to cut the kind of deal the Bush administration is hoping for on its nuclear program. "The Iranians respond to the international community only when they are under pressure, not when they are feeling strong," one official said.

With aspects of the plan also targeting Iran's influence in Lebanon, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories, the policy goes beyond the threats Bush issued earlier this month to "interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria" into Iraq. It also marks a departure from years past when diplomacy appeared to be the sole method of pressuring Iran to reverse course on its nuclear program.

R. Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, said in an interview in late October that the United States knows that Iran "is providing support to Hezbollah and Hamas and supporting insurgent groups in Iraq that have posed a problem for our military forces." He added: "In addition to the nuclear issue, Iran's support for terrorism is high up on our agenda."

Burns, the top Foreign Service officer in the State Department, has been leading diplomatic efforts to increase international pressure on the Iranians. Over several months, the administration made available five political appointees for interviews, to discuss limited aspects of the policy, on the condition that they not be identified.

Officials who spoke in more detail and without permission -- including senior officials, career analysts and policymakers -- said their standing with the White House would be at risk if they were quoted by name.

The decision to use lethal force against Iranians inside Iraq began taking shape last summer, when Israel was at war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Officials said a group of senior Bush administration officials who regularly attend the highest-level counterterrorism meetings agreed that the conflict provided an opening to portray Iran as a nuclear-ambitious link between al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and the death squads in Iraq.

Among those involved in the discussions, beginning in August, were deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams, NSC counterterrorism adviser Juan Zarate, the head of the CIA's counterterrorism center, representatives from the Pentagon and the vice president's office, and outgoing State Department counterterrorism chief Henry A. Crumpton.

At the time, Bush publicly emphasized diplomacy as his preferred path for dealing with Iran. Standing before the U.N. General Assembly in New York on Sept. 19, Bush spoke directly to the Iranian people: "We look to the day when you can live in freedom, and America and Iran can be good friends and close partners in the cause of peace."

Two weeks later, Crumpton flew from Washington to U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa for a meeting with Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top U.S. commander for the Middle East. A principal reason for the visit, according to two officials with direct knowledge of the discussion, was to press Abizaid to prepare for an aggressive campaign against Iranian intelligence and military operatives inside Iraq.

Information gleaned through the "catch and release" policy expanded what was once a limited intelligence community database on Iranians in Iraq. It also helped to avert a crisis between the United States and the Iraqi government over whether U.S. troops should be holding Iranians, several officials said, and dampened the possibility of Iranians directly targeting U.S. personnel in retaliation.

But senior officials saw it as too timid.

"We were making no traction" with "catch and release," a senior counterterrorism official said in a recent interview, explaining that it had failed to halt Iranian activities in Iraq or worry the Tehran leadership. "Our goal is to change the dynamic with the Iranians, to change the way the Iranians perceive us and perceive themselves. They need to understand that they cannot be a party to endangering U.S. soldiers' lives and American interests, as they have before. That is going to end."

A senior intelligence officer was more wary of the ambitions of the strategy.

"This has little to do with Iraq. It's all about pushing Iran's buttons. It is purely political," the official said. The official expressed similar views about other new efforts aimed at Iran, suggesting that the United States is escalating toward an unnecessary conflict to shift attention away from Iraq and to blame Iran for the United States' increasing inability to stanch the violence there.

But some officials within the Bush administration say that targeting Iran's Revolutionary Guard Command, and specifically a Guard unit known as the Quds Force, should be as much a priority as fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Quds Force is considered by Western intelligence to be directed by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to support Iraqi militias, Hamas and Hezbollah.

In interviews, two senior administration officials separately compared the Tehran government to the Nazis and the Guard to the "SS." They also referred to Guard members as "terrorists." Such a formal designation could turn Iran's military into a target of what Bush calls a "war on terror," with its members potentially held as enemy combatants or in secret CIA detention.

Asked whether such a designation is imminent, Johndroe of the NSC said in a written response that the administration has "long been concerned about the activities of the IRGC and its components throughout the Middle East and beyond." He added: "The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Force is a part of the Iranian state apparatus that supports and carries out these activities."

Staff writer Barton Gellman and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.