Posted on 06/13/2005 10:44:24 PM PDT by TexKat
Iraqi troops exit a U.S. Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter for a reconnaissance mission in Momadia. Photo by Ronald Shaw Jr.
Iraqis taking control of Baghdad road
By Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Monday, June 13, 2005
BAGHDAD — Nearly two weeks ago, a special force of Iraqi soldiers took up their new post along one of the city’s most infamous stretches, the link between Baghdad International Airport and the center of Iraq’s newly forming government, the highway known as Airport Road.
The first few days proved a hard test for the new battalion of 261 soldiers, according to Capt. Richard Dunbar, one of eight Americans assigned to assist the Iraqis in coordinating their patrols and responses to attacks.
“It was a rough first night,” Dunbar said.
The first attack on the troops came before midnight, and one was wounded, he said. During the next 48 hours, one soldier was killed and another six were hurt, Dunbar said.
Since then the gunfire has calmed down, Dunbar said, at least relative calm for the road that many westerners tend to call the most dangerous in the capital city. There have been fewer attacks, and the battalion has begun to gather helpful information from the neighbors, he said.
“These guys have made a tremendous impact,” he said Friday morning just outside the battalion’s headquarters, the former Kuwaiti Embassy. The Iraqi soldiers — officially called “special police” because they take orders from the Ministry of the Interior, not the Ministry of Defense — now live in the old embassy building.
Since June 1, they’ve sent patrols along and near Airport Road, positioned shooters behind sandbags aimed at the neighborhoods, and parked older, Russian-made mobile guns along the route to bolster the Americans’ constant patrol of the road.
The road, which the U.S. military has dubbed “Route Irish,” is really a highway. It has two directions of traffic split by a median in the middle and surrounded by parallel side roads and neighborhoods on the outside.
The patrols have to worry about both: Insurgents can place bombs near the median and trigger them as military patrols, embassy vehicles or Iraqi residents drive through. The neighborhoods serve as shelter for snipers, grenade launchers and other attackers, said First Sgt. Clifford Ockman, 34, of Ama, La.
Ockman’s company — Company C, known as Black Sheep — is one of three whose only job is to patrol these six kilometers between the airport and the Green Zone, the collection of Iraqi government buildings, embassies and housing for many international dignitaries and the media.
The Black Sheep have lost more men than any other company within the 256th Bridge Combat Team formed of Louisiana and New York reservists: nine men in the nine months they’ve been deployed.
Their patrol is dangerous because of the popularity of the road. It’s the only way to get to and from the airport, and it’s the direct link to the Green Zone. The frequency of important travelers draws the frequency of attacks, Ockman and others said.
“It’s a very publicized piece of real estate,” said Maj. Christopher Cerniauskas, the operations officer for the battalion that oversees Airport Road.
The three companies’ patrol beat spills over into the neighborhoods, or mulhallahs, that line both sides of the highway, Ockman said. Often the insurgents will fire from the mulhallahs knowing the Americans will come investigate. Then the real attack of sniper fire, rocket-propelled grenades and homemade bombs will start, he said.
“We don’t know if we’re responding to small arms [fire] or if they are luring you in,” Ockman said. “Either way, you’ve got to go.”
On Friday morning, the patrol stopped at a couple of houses where a roadside bomb had exploded just before 6 a.m. A few soldiers suffered minor wounds from shrapnel, Ockman said, but two Iraqi residents were hurt and taken to a local hospital.
The U.S. soldiers found the house where a father and son were injured. The boy had been sleeping inside the house, according to the family. Another small boy lay sleeping in the same room, and a bloody mattress hung on a nearby clothesline.
The family told Ockman they didn’t know any details about the injuries for the father and son, who were still at the hospital.
“Tell them how sorry we are,” Ockman said to a translator helping him talk to the family. In the next few days, more U.S. soldiers will visit to try and get details about the attack and to offer money, toys and food to the injured, Ockman said.
Friday’s patrol, from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., passed without any attack. Ockman’s company usually has the early day shift. They work eight days on, one day for maintenance, and one day off.
During most of the patrol, the convoy crawls along the road looking for bombs or bombers, waiting for something to happen.
“One moment you’re bored stiff,” Ockman said of the daily patrols. “The next minute anything happens. I’d rather be bored stiff any day.”
Boredom interrupted by attack happens to patrols throughout the city, said Cerniauskas, the operations chief, during an interview Thursday.
When asked whether Airport Road deserves its popular nickname, Baghdad’s most dangerous road, Cerniauskas shook his head no.
“Does dangerous stuff happen? Yes,” he said. “It’s just like any other road in Baghdad.”
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=29688
By Capt. Steve Alvarez - USA American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, June 14, 2005 – It's been a little more than two months since I returned from Iraq.
More than a year earlier I promised my wife I'd come home safely, and the day I returned, hours after I had come home, I watched my wife eagerly remove the Blue Star Service Banner that hung in our front window, and she happily watched me bring down the yellow ribbon that had hugged our yard's corner tree for a year.
The symbols of my family's hardship and sacrifice were now finally gone from the landscape of my neighborhood. Passersby and neighbors, noting the missing banner and yellow ribbon, stopped by and welcomed me home. My family's soldier was home, and the tattered, frayed ribbon that weathered three Florida hurricanes, and the banner that faded in the setting sun each day were now stowed for posterity.
Before I left Iraq, I, too, removed an item from display. It hung in the public affairs "hooch" at Phoenix Base in Baghdad, and also briefly in my quarters. The item had made the long journey from the United States to Iraq. Now back home, it sits far from the angry sounds of mortar, rocket and small-arms fire so familiar to soldiers in Iraq -- now also familiar to this flag. It is a U.S. flag flown over the U.S. Capitol on the day I became an Army officer.
Before my duty in Iraq, the flag served as a moral compass that guided me and kept my course true after I decided to leave the enlisted ranks and set my course on an officer's career path. It kept me focused and committed to the oath I took when I became a second lieutenant. I kept it within eyeshot in my office. Looking at it as I weighed options more than once helped me make sound military, personal and ethical decisions.
In Iraq, the flag was still a source of direction. The enemy routinely attacked us using indirect fire. On one occasion a round hit our compound, but did not explode. But another hit so close that the wall-draped flag waved slightly from the blast that violently shook the walls.
I looked around the hooch as we hugged the floor, and for some strange reason I felt reassured, safe. "It's going to be fine," I told my soldiers. I stared at the colors as the mortars continued to hit, and found an immense source of strength. I was never able to explain it, but every time we were attacked, if I was in the hooch, I always looked to that flag for a sense of peace, for stability, to keep me focused and grounded.
When I was in Fallujah, Iraqi security forces raised their nation's flag in a scene reminiscent of U.S. Marines raising the flag at Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima, Japan, in World War II. Having seized Fallujah's hospital, one of the major objectives in Operation Al Fajr (Arabic for "dawn"), Iraqi special forces lifted their nation's colors, and in doing so lifted their comrades' spirits. And while the raising of the Iraqi flag inside of Fallujah's city limits was not as dramatic as the Marines raising the U.S. flag in the Pacific, to me, an officer sent to Iraq to help support the training of Iraqi security forces, it was equally inspiring.
As I served in Iraq, I wore the U.S. flag on my uniform. The flag accompanied me as I traveled the sometimes-dangerous streets of Iraq and flew with me in Iraq's not-so-friendly skies. My U.S. flag patches are the only patches from my uniform that I have kept.
Now, symbols of my war service, like my flag patches, are securely tucked away in a keepsake box, and my commissioning flag sits on a shelf in our den encased in wood and glass. Someday I'm sure they will again serve as a source of inspiration.
But today is Flag Day. And for my family, our house is not our home without the flag waving gently, quietly, proudly in the breeze on our front porch. For us, our flag symbolizes that we are free to do what we want, when we want. It represents freedom of spirit, who we are, what we stand for, and what we're willing to endure for liberty.
That's what kept me focused in Iraq and kept me believing in our mission. To me, the flag represents my family, our way of life -- many, united as one. And maybe that's what Flag Day is all about. The flag is something different to everyone, and in that disparity there is unity, a bond.
I've returned to my life as a part-time soldier, and I am in Washington performing my annual training. It comes as no surprise that on my son's first visit to Washington, the first two places we visited were the Marine Corps War Memorial and the National Museum of American History.
The Marine Corps War Memorial, which depicts that famous World War II flag raising, now reminds me of the nascent Iraqi forces raising their country's colors in Fallujah. The symbolism behind the monument has become, for me, one and the same with the symbolism of that moment in Fallujah.
And draped at the entrance of the National Museum of American History is a symbol of sorrow, resolve, determination and inspiration -- the mammoth flag that covered the span across the Pentagon's damaged walls the morning after Sept. 11, 2001.
And as expected, the encased flag in my den and the flag patches I wore on my uniform are once again serving as a source of inspiration.
You are, after all, reading this article.
(Army Reserve Capt. Steve Alvarez was public affairs officer for Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq.)
www.chinaview.cn 2005-06-15 03:26:49
AMMAN, June 14 (Xinhuanet) -- The Jordanian Foreign Ministry announced Tuesday that the country will host a donor conference on Iraq reconstruction in Amman in coming July.
The ministry said in a statement that there has been an initial agreement on holding the ministerial conference to help the war-torn country realize security and stability.
The statement, however, noted that the agenda and the exact datefor convening the conference will be decided by donors during theirmeeting in Brussels due on June 20.
Jordan's Foreign Minister Farouk Qasrawi will lead a delegation to the Brussels conference,which will probe means of backing the political process in Iraq,according to the statement.
During their previous meetings in Tokyo and Madrid, the donor countries had offered financial assistance to help thereconstruction of Iraq. Enditem
Posted on Tue, Jun. 14, 2005
LE BOURGET, France (AP) - Raytheon Co. said Tuesday it has developed a high-powered microwave beam to defend airliners from missiles and is urging the U.S. government to deploy it at major airports to foil possible terrorist attacks.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has already acknowledged concerns about the potential for attacks on jets from shoulder-fired missile launchers. In August, it awarded two $45 million contracts to Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp. and Britain's BAE Systems PLC to develop anti-missile lasers for commercial planes.
But Raytheon, a Waltham, Mass.-based defense electronics supplier, argued in a presentation at the Paris Air Show that its ground-based system is more cost-effective and, unlike the on-board alternatives, already tested in the field.
Its technology, called ``Vigilant Eagle,'' uses a network of infrared sensors to set up a ``protective dome'' around an airport. When a surface-to-air missile is detected, a billboard-sized microwave gun blasts the missile with a high-energy microwave beam, confusing its guidance system and preventing it from finding its target.
Mike Booen, vice president for directed energy weapons at Raytheon Missile Systems, said a prototype had ``proven effective'' in tests but declined to give a success rate.
Tucson, Arizona-based Raytheon Missile Systems has also offered to carry out further trials in the United States or at Iraq's Baghdad International Airport -- where a DHL freighter made an emergency landing last year after being struck by a shoulder-launched missile.
In 2002, two missiles narrowly missed an Israeli charter plane carrying 271 people after takeoff from Mombasa, Kenya. U.S. airports including Los Angeles have since tightened security in response to the threat posed by portable missile launchers, which are readily available for as little as $2,000 on the black market, police say.
Raytheon argues that 70 percent of U.S. inbound and outbound flights could be protected by equipping the busiest 30 domestic airports, at a cost of $25 million each.
By contrast, Northrop Grumman says the cost of its on-board system will work out to less than $1 million per plane -- although both Raytheon and Rand Corp., the defense research group, say the figure could be considerably higher.
The Department of Homeland Security said it does not rule out the eventual deployment of a ground-based system if it were to prove more effective.
``We are open to all technological alternatives,'' said spokesman Donald Tighe.
But Jack Pledger, Northrop's director of infrared counter measures, said deploying a ground-based system to the biggest airports would simply invite attacks at smaller ones as well as leave U.S. flights exposed overseas.
``The money spent on protecting those few bases just drives the threat to another place that is unprotected,'' Pledger said.
Pledger, who was also speaking at the air show in the northern Paris suburb of Le Bourget, said Northrop's prototype system will be tested in a Federal Express MD-11 and a Northwest Airlines Boeing 747 in coming months. The company hopes to obtain certification from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration by the end of the year.
Shares of Raytheon fell 16 cents to $38.93 Tuesday afternoon on the New York Stock Exchange.
Saddam and Dujial
6/13/2005 01:02:00 PM
Al-Dujial is an area about 60 KM North of Baghdad in which Saddam was exposed to an assassination in July 1982. It is an agricultural area with plenty of fruits and palm trees gardens. While SH was passing with his covey cars through the area, brave youths from this Shiite populated region, intercepted and attacked him with the rifles, RPGs and guns from the orchards by hiding in between the trees, the ditches and on the top of trees inside the gardens. Some of his guards (10) were killed instantly and he was wounded in his right arm.
SH convoy consist armored Mercedes and other vehicles which are all similar shape for camouflaging. He was sitting in the last car. When attacked, he jumped and hides behind the wreckage of the burned cars. Barzan his half brother was the Chief of the Mukhabarat system which was the most brutal security system especially under Barzan. This system led the operation of the destruction of Dujial.
They immeidatly send army from this system, the army, the security, and the special forces including units from the Baath party and isolated Dujial from the rest of Iraq for many weeks. 1000 men were immediately arrested.
Within few hours later the bulldozers, helicopters and tanks wiped out the area and turned the most beautiful gardens and houses into a desert. Hundreds of families were arrested indiscriminately. The operation was carried out by his half brother Barzan Tikriti. Many peoples died under tortures and the others disappeared until this moment. Those who were executed were children, old men, women and adults. The executions were based on doubts, being Shiites and to terrorize the people that the punishment facing them if they think to attack SH is terrible and extraordinary which will burn the every thing.
Since that time until the fall of the regime in March 2003, Dijeel exposed to sever punishments. The youths from Dujial were not allowed to enter the universities, they have no rights to request any basic right, they stripped out of any services, and were then not given any job in the state or the army or police or high education and so on. Simply they lived in a prison called Dujial inside a bigger prison called Iraq.
More than 450 Dijeeli victims were killed. About 200 family vanished and no one knows where! He changed its name from Dujial into Al-Fares which means (the Knight)! The name Dujial is by the river Dujial which is a diminutive term derived from Dujial which is the River Tigris.
Two days ago the Iraqi Special Tribunal asked SH and his thugs who appeared in the video today about the events of Dujial in which they killed indiscriminately innocent people and wiped out the area by leveling its gardens, houses, and killing even sheep and other animals stood in their way!
Saddam answered that he was not responsible for it but done by those who are responsible for the security of the President which have nothing to do with him. However his half brother Barzan gave evidence before convicting Saddam as the top leader for this atrocity and others. Barzan was one of the most brutal members of that regime after Saddam and Ali Chemical.
The nightmare of the people of Al-Dujial continued for more than 21 years and only ended by the fall of the regime 2003.
Saddam and all the bloody killers have to stand in front of justice as soon as possible; today before tomorrow.
http://hammorabi.blogspot.com/
June 14, 2005
DAKAR, Senegal A senior U-S military official says there are signs of growing cooperation between Islamic extremists in Iraq and northern Africa.
The officer says forensic investigations have revealed that 20 percent of suicide car bombers in Iraq are Algerian. Roughly five percent come from Morocco and Tunisia.
The officer says terrorism cells in the Middle East and northern Africa have been increasingly joining forces as they face crackdowns in their own countries.
The United States has reacted by funneling more money and troops into north and northwest Africa to train and equip armies to combat the growing threat from local terrorist and insurgent groups.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press
Geraldo Rivera signs new contract with Fox News Channel
June 14, 2005
By DAVID BAUDER - AP Television Writer
NEW YORK - Geraldo Rivera, who has been a war correspondent and host of his own weekend show on Fox News Channel, said Tuesday he had signed a four-year contract to stay at the network.
Rivera gave few details, other than to say he "got a promotion."
The network confirmed it had re-signed Rivera, naming him correspondent-at-large. Rivera will keep his Saturday evening show "At Large."
Rivera had quit his CNBC legal affairs show and joined Fox News as a war correspondent shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, saying he didn't want to be on the sidelines during a big story.
He caused some controversy as a war correspondent. The Pentagon asked that he be taken out of Iraq following a report during the war where he outlined planned troop movements in the sand. Rivera apologized and said it was inadvertent.
During a recent article in The Atlantic Monthly, Rivera was quoted as questioning whether he should stay at Fox or try to start a more high-profile show at another network.
"Fox has first dibs, but the problem with Fox and me is they're wildly successful," Rivera told the magazine. "Where are you going to put me? Who are you going to knock out? Every single slot is filled. From 3 o'clock to 11 o'clock they've got a hit show."
He likened himself to a franchise ballplayer at the end of his career.
"I'm like Randy Johnson or Roger Clemens," he told the magazine. "That's who I identify with: old guys who still can throw 95-mile-an-hour fastballs."
Rivera scored an exclusive interview for Fox News Channel with Michael Jackson before his trial. Rivera criticized the prosecutor in Jackson's case and said he would shave his mustache if Jackson was found guilty.
With the innocent verdict, Rivera told The Associated Press he would probably speak to Jackson this week but wasn't sure if he would seek an interview for Fox.
"I don't know if I'm interested, really, in pursuing that," he said. "I've made my point. My point wasn't about Michael, it was about the Constitution of the United States, and fundamental fairness."
Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press
http://www.katu.com/entertainment/story.asp?ID=77785
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, June 13, 2005 – U.S. Third Infantry Division soldiers conducted a raid in southern Baghdad on June 11, uncovering a weapons cache that led to the arrest of several men, according to coalition officials in Iraq.
The soldiers - from A Battery, 1st Battalion, 9th Field Artillery - found 15 60 mm mortar rounds and one 122 mm artillery round in a barren field behind a small house. The cache was about 500 meters from a suspected launch site for rocket attacks against Camp Rustimiyah.
The soldiers also found $17,900 in U.S. $100 bills. Second Brigade Combat Team legal personnel were on hand to assist in proper evidence collection, which officials said can greatly affect the chance of securing a court conviction for offenders.
"The soldiers are good with evidence collection, but I'm making sure we preserve fingerprints and get pictures," said Capt. Margaret Kurz, 2nd Brigade attorney. "Pictures and sworn statements are everything in Iraqi courts - it's crucial that we get a picture connecting the suspect with the evidence."
After an explosive ordnance disposal team secured the mortar and artillery rounds, a man pulled his car into the driveway, and was stopped and searched by 1st Battalion, 9th Field Artillery quick-reaction force soldiers. He was detained after his car was found to contain several AK-47s and large-caliber handguns.
"The operation today was designed to disrupt the support network for the insurgency, and we've done that," said Army Lt. Col. Steven Merkel, battalion commander. "This goes a long way toward keeping our soldiers safe, and keeping the people of Iraq safe."
Also, with the help of the Iraqi people, U.S. and Iraqi security forces found a bomb maker, a terrorist financier and weapons caches in Baghdad on June 11 and 12, officials noted.
An Iraqi civilian told Task Force Baghdad soldiers about a roadside bomb emplaced on a major highway in southeast Baghdad on June 12. When the soldiers went to the site, they found wires running to the nose of a 155 mm artillery round.
The soldiers secured the area to prevent anyone from getting hurt, and called in a team of explosives experts. Fifty minutes after receiving the tip, the explosives team safely detonated the bomb.
"It is clear when events like this happen that the Iraqi people want Iraq to be a safer place for everyone," said Sgt. 1st Class Anthony Stimmel, an operations noncommissioned officer for 1st Battalion, 64th Armored Regiment. "They are stepping forward to make this country a better place, secure their own freedom and defeat the terrorists."
The man who provided the tip will receive a reward, Stimmel added.
Acting on another tip earlier, Iraqi police officers arrested three terror suspects - including two foreigners residing in Iraq illegally - and seized weapons and bombs from a house in central Baghdad on June 12.
The police captured three suspects at a house in the Mustansirya district of Baghdad. They also found three AK-47 assault rifles and two bombs hidden in the garage.
"The training and joint operations we have been conducting with the Iraqi police is really paying off," said Capt. Pedro E. Vazquez, an operations officer with the 720th Military Police Battalion. "I am certain the Iraqi people are watching with pride as the successes of the Iraqi security forces continue to mount."
On June 11, an Iraqi approached a patrol from the 1st Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 6th Iraqi Army Division, and told them where a suspected bomb manufacturer lived.
The patrol went to the house in central Baghdad's Adhamiyah district and found an anti-tank missile in the initial stages of being made into a bomb. The soldiers took the bomb maker into custody.
"The citizen who told the Iraqi soldiers about the bomb maker saved the lives of a lot of civilians, soldiers and police officers," said Lt. Col. Clifford Kent, Task Force Baghdad spokesman. "It's another example of how terrorists' efforts to intimidate Iraqis are failing."
Earlier, a joint Iraqi and U.S. military police patrol noticed what appeared to be a roadside bomb with red wires leading from the device to a house 50 meters away.
When the patrol searched the house, they discovered two concrete blocks with munitions inside, 60 pounds of explosives, two bags of plastic explosives, and radios and pagers set up to be used as trigger devices for the bombs.
Iraqi police also found a mold to build more bombs, a map of Baghdad and another map of Baghdad's oil infrastructure, both of which could have been used to identify potential targets.
(Compiled from Task Force Baghdad news releases.)
Related Site: - Multinational Force Iraq
14 June 2005
Rice Sees Iraqi Reconstruction as Important Cause
Secretary discusses Iraq, North Korea, Russia with MSNBC
http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2005&m=June&x=20050614173114ndyblehs0.1021845&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html
An Iraqi soldier stands on a bridge overlooking an U.S. army lorry set ablaze after being attacked by a roadside bomb in southern Baghdad June 14, 2005. Attacks in various parts of the country left over 20 people dead and over 70 injured today. Photo by Ali Jasim/Reuters
U.S. soldiers walk past an army lorry as it burns after being attacked by a roadside bomb in southern Baghdad June 14, 2005. Attacks in various parts of the country left over 20 people dead and over 70 injured today. Photo by Ali Jasim/Reuters
An U.S. army lorry is ablaze after being attacked by a roadside bomb in southern Baghdad June 14, 2005. Attacks in various parts of the country left over 20 people dead and over 70 injured today. (Ali Jasim/Reuters)
US soldiers patrol in the Al-Ray neighbourhood of south Baghdad as part of 'Operation Lightning'. Almost six of 10 Americans, 59 percent, want a full or partial pullout of US troops from Iraq, according to a poll published in USA Today(AFP/Yuri Cortez)
In this photograph released by the Iraqi Special Tribunal on Monday June 13, 2005, chief trial Judge Raid Juhi listens to former dictator Saddam Hussein during questioning. It was unclear when or where the questioning took place. An announcement said Saddam was being questioned about crimes related to the execution of at least 50 Iraqis in 1982 in the Shiite town of Dujail, (80 kilometers) 50 miles north of Baghdad, in retaliation for a failed assassination attempt against him. (AP Photo/IST)
WRAPUP 2-U.N. seeks end to nuke standoffs with N.Korea, Iran
14 Jun 2005 23:16:47 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Louis Charbonneau and Francois Murphy
VIENNA, June 14 (Reuters) - The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency appealed on Tuesday to North Korea to give up its atom bomb programme and urged Iran to work harder to assure the world it is not following Pyongyang's lead.
The two countries, which U.S. President George W. Bush has called part of an "axis of evil" of states seeking the world's deadliest weapons, are among the main issues being discussed by the governing board of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at its quarterly meeting this week.
North Korea, which says it has the bomb, kicked out all U.N. nuclear inspectors on Dec. 31, 2002. Later it withdrew from the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, becoming the first country to pull out of the landmark arms control pact.
"I continue to believe in the importance and urgency of finding a solution to the current situation," IAEA director-general Mohamed ElBaradei said of North Korea in a speech to the agency's board of governors.
"The agency stands ready to work with the DPRK (North Korea), and with all others, towards a solution that addresses the needs of the international community to ensure that all nuclear activities in the DPRK are exclusively for peaceful purposes, as well as addressing the security needs of the DPRK," he said.
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is the official name of North Korea.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
The Bush administration, under fire for what critics call its failed North Korea policy, expressed confidence on Tuesday that "one way or another" Pyongyang ultimately would give up its nuclear weapons.
"One way or another they're not going to have these systems," said Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, the top U.S. diplomat dealing with Pyongyang.
"And so the real issue for them is what are the terms under which they'll give them up," he said during a two-hour appearance before the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations panel.
As part of ElBaradei's investigation to determine whether Iran's nuclear programme is peaceful, he urged Tehran to allow IAEA experts to return to a military site called Parchin, which they visited once but have since been barred from visiting.
"I would ... ask Iran to support the agency's efforts to pursue further its investigation of the Lavizan-Shian and Parchin sites," he said, adding his inspectors wanted to visit "areas of interest" at Parchin.
Parchin, the centre of Iran's munitions industry, and Lavizan are among the sites where the United States suspects Iranian scientists have conducted research related to the development of nuclear weapons.
Iran says it has no interest in such arms, only in civilian nuclear technology to generate electricity. ElBaradei has no hard proof Iran wants the bomb, but says the "jury is still out" on whether Tehran has a covert military atomic programme.
IAEA experts visited Parchin earlier this year but Iran rejected a request for a follow-up. The United States believes Iran may have experimented with high explosives appropriate for atomic weapons at Parchin, 30 km (19 miles) southeast of Tehran.
A senior Iranian official did not say Iran would reopen Parchin's doors to inspectors, but said it was willing to talk.
ElBaradei said in a speech to the 35-nation IAEA board that he wanted "access to dual-use equipment and other information related to the Lavizan-Shian site". The agency began looking at Lavizan last year after the site was razed.
The Iranians have admitted that Lavizan was once a military research and development site but denied conducting any nuclear weapons research there or anywhere else in Iran.
ELBARADEI BACKS U.S. PROPOSAL
The 62-year-old Egyptian also threw his weight behind a U.S. proposal aimed at bolstering global nuclear security and cracking down on states that violate non-proliferation rules.
ElBaradei, who won a third term as IAEA director-general on Monday after the United States gave up its campaign to oust him, said the U.S. plan to set up a new IAEA committee was useful.
Diplomats on the board said ElBaradei had opposed the plan when it was first proposed by Washington earlier this year. The U.S. proposal had undergone significant revisions since then to overcome IAEA objections, they said.
This week, the IAEA board is also expected to approve a request by Saudi Arabia to sign an agreement that would severely curtail the agency's ability to verify that Riyadh does not have any nuclear secrets, diplomats on the IAEA board told Reuters.
The "small quantities protocol" is an accord states which say they have little or no nuclear material can sign with the IAEA. The agency has said it is a dangerous loophole in the IAEA inspection regime because the U.N. body lacks the right to verify that states meet all non-proliferation requirements.
The United States, Australia and the European Union have all asked Saudi Arabia to withdraw its request to sign the IAEA agreement but Riyadh refused, the diplomats said.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L14163556.htm
AlertNet news
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