Flash Gordon Left Me The Keys

Pa. Town Won't Let Amish Men Keep Horses

Officials rejected a request to change a local ordinance so two Amish men could keep horses on their rural central Pennsylvania property, meaning the men have less than a week to remove the animals or face fines of $100 a day.

The horses are an essential form of transportation for the Amish, who generally shun modern conveniences such as electricity, telephones and cars. Daniel King and Daniel Beiler said they use the horses to pull buggies.

"I ain't going to be able to live very long paying $100 a day," King, 26, said after Wednesday's vote by the Walker Township supervisors.

The men's attorney said they would appeal the ruling.

King and Beiler, 31, acknowledged knowing Walker Township had a zoning ordinance prohibiting horses when they bought the land. The township only allows horses on plots larger than two acres, and does not allow horses within villages or in areas zoned for multifamily residential use.

Keith Harter, chairman of the board of supervisors, said the zoning ordinance was necessary because of concerns about animal waste.

The men's attorney, James M. Bryant, said most of the available land where the men could keep horses was either ill-suited or too expensive.

Bryant said he would immediately appeal a judge's May 30 ruling that established the fines. He said he may also appeal in federal court on the grounds the ordinance violates the Constitution and the federal Religious Land Use Act, which exempts religious groups from most local zoning rules unless the restrictions protect public safety.

"We're living in America here. I can't believe you can't have a horse for religious transportation," King said. "It makes no sense at all."

Kids Be Warned: Don't Flush Your Fish

Kids be warned: Flushing your pet fish down the drain will not send it safely into the ocean as depicted in the new computer-animated movie "Finding Nemo."

A company that manufactures equipment used to process sewage issued a news release Thursday warning that drain pipes do lead to the ocean - eventually - but first the fluid goes through powerful machines that "shred solids into tiny particles."

"In truth, no one would ever find Nemo and the movie would be called 'Grinding Nemo,'" wrote the JWC Environmental company, which makes the trademarked "Muffin Monster" shredding pumps.

In the unlikely event Nemo survived the deadly machines, the company added, he would probably be killed by the chlorine disinfection.

Raccoon Spends Two Weeks Atop Tower

Stranded for two weeks atop a 253-foot amusement park tower at Coney Island, a wayward raccoon was finally lured to safety with - what else? - a Nathan's Famous hot dog.

"But without the sauerkraut," said Mark Blumenthal, manager of the Astroland Amusement Park, after the masked marauder was lowered to the ground in a special cage Tuesday.

Dubbed Rocky by park employees, the raccoon had climbed to the pinnacle of the observation tower two weeks ago and burgled the elevator motor room - out of fear or an appreciation for the sweeping, 50-mile view of the Atlantic Ocean and four states.

The raccoon was first spotted two weeks ago by an elevator maintenance worker who saw "a pair of eyes looking at him" from the darkness of the motor room, Astroland employee Carol O'Donnell said.

In a check of the tower a few days later there was no sign of the animal. But last weekend, it was spotted anew, and officials at Astroland, home of the Cyclone roller coaster, decided a rescue was in order.

Blumenthal said the raccoon apparently had scaled a narrow metal ladder inside the tower. "The problem was how we were going to get him down," he said.

Astroland employee Manuel Alvarez took an animal-friendly Have-a-Heart cage, baited with the hot dog and some cat food, to the top of the tower. During the night, the hungry 9-pound procyon lotor walked into the cage, bit the bait and was snared, Blumenthal said.

Sub Hunts for Leaks in N.Y. Water Tunnel

An 8 1/2-foot-long submarine, unmanned but fitted with sensors and cameras, was lowered into the region's biggest water tunnel to search for major leaks in the New York City water supply system.

Experts hope the sub will pinpoint at least three major breaks in the Delaware Aqueduct that could be leaking as much as 1.2 billion gallons of water each month. The aqueduct carries about 890 million gallons each day from reservoirs in the Catskill Mountains - about 70 percent of the supply for the city and parts of Westchester and Putnam counties.

The sub, called Ulysses and built at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, cost $2.4 million. It was lowered into position Thursday through an inspection shaft in Wawarsing in Ulster Country, near the Roundout Reservoir, and was expected to emerge sometime Friday in Kent, 45 miles away in Putnam County.

John McCarthy of the Malcolm Pirnie engineering firm overseeing the project said a preliminary analysis could be ready in two weeks, but three months will be needed to make a full report.

Officials with the city's Department of Environmental Protection said the sub was required because the breaks in the aqueduct might be so large that only the water pressure is preventing a collapse.

The submarine is equipped with sonar to keep it from hitting the walls of the 13 1/2-foot-wide aqueduct.

More Lithuanians Are Eating Crow

A squawking, garbage-loving nuisance in most countries, the wild crow is under attack in Lithuania not for its reputation, but for its tender meat.

A revival of sorts is enveloping part of the Baltic state of 3.5 million, a dietary demand that more Lithuanians eat crow.

"It may sound like an oddity to many," Audrius Gudzinskas, a 44-year-old Lithuanian lawyer leading the back-to-crow movement, told The Associated Press Friday. "But believe me, those birds are really tasty."

The dish was a common sight on the tables of Medieval noblemen who presided over Lithuania's monarchy, then one of Europe's most powerful. The marinated dish was also embraced by impoverished peasants as a cheap and plentiful food source.

Gudzinskas said the traditional meal of crow remained widespread as late as the 1930s but died out after the Soviet occupation, which lasted from 1940 to 1991.

The dish is prepared now as it was then, boiled in cooking oil over a bonfire and served with various vegetables. The younger the birds the better. Crows that are still in the nest and unable to fly are considered delicacies and "taste like quail."

He said hunts for the pitch-colored birds, found nearly worldwide, last several days and involve driving hundreds of kilometers (miles) in search of crow colonies.

Several dozen of the unlikely connoisseurs planned to gather for a crow cookout Saturday in Pakruojis, 160 kilometers (99 miles) north of the capital, Vilnius.

"Pakruojis will become the capital of the crow eaters," he said.

Some crow-meat lovers recently helped to produce a new light beer called "Young Raven," to wash down the fowl food with.

Pa. Sanctuary Saves Cows From Slaughter

Down an unmarked dirt road in a hilly corner of eastern Pennsylvania, Sankar Sastri calls out to his nine cows who, after a moment, charge around an old stone fence and romp around Sastri like children at play.

"They're all happy today," the former engineering technology professor says.

They have good reason to be. The cows live on Sastri's Lakshmi Cow Sanctuary, one of a scattered web of safe havens across the country protecting the animals from slaughter. Cows are considered holy by Hindus and adored by some animal lovers.

On a recent soggy afternoon, standing beside his century-old barn while wearing a mud-caked New York Yankees cap, Sastri moved among the cows, calling them by name.

"This is Sita. She's very loving. Look at the beautiful blue eyes," said Sastri, who moved to New York from India in 1964. "We say the cow is like a second mother to us. You wouldn't send your mother to slaughter, would you?"

In India, cows are a religious and practical cornerstone of life. Milk is used for nourishment, dung for fuel and cow urine for medicinal purposes. And to Hindus, cows are to be protected not eaten.

Sastri's quiet, 42-acre sanctuary, also home to a tailless cat and a blind and deaf dog, became a solution to a legal battle in Angelica, N.Y., 250 miles northwest of Bangor.

Stephen Voith, his wife, Linda, and the family's two children are followers of a form of Krishna Consciousness, whose followers protect cows.

A court this week told the family it cannot keep cows on its village property because of zoning rules. The Voiths, their four cows included, are soon moving to Sastri's sanctuary.

Voith believes the court decision amounts to religious persecution. He said the family was not popular in the small farming community. In his front yard was a sign that read "Krishna Bhaktivedanta Sustain-a-bull and Wholly Cow Protection Society."

For Indians and followers of Hinduism, cows have a historical and cultural sanctity not easily understood in the West, said George Weckman, a professor who teaches a course in Hinduism at Ohio University.

Cows are holy in ancient religious texts and stories. Above that, Weckman said, they have become ingrained in the thoughts of Hindus.

Cow sanctuaries dot the country. An Adopt-A-Cow farm in Port Royal, Pa., one sustained by donations of animal lovers and Hindus, houses 38 cows. A sanctuary in Carriere, Miss., houses 132, according to its Web site.

In Moundsville, W.Va., 24 cows are protected on a 160-acre farm run by William Dove, also known as Balabhadra das. He incorporated the farm as the International Society for Cow Protection.

"Many of my neighbors are cattle ranchers, but we're all friends," Dove said. "They have their lifestyle and we have our lifestyle."

Dove bought his farm from the New Vrindaban Community, a nearby religious center with more than 100 cows.

Cows have won the hearts of non-Hindus as well.

Helga Tacreiter, who grew up loving dogs, runs a 13-cow sanctuary in Shiloh, N.J., a project she started after working on a dairy farm.

"I met the cows and I was just wowed by them," said Tacreiter, 50.

Tacreiter said she thinks of cows as people in the sense that dogs are sometimes considered family members. To support herself and the farm, she makes and sells "cowches," life-sized, cow-like floor pillows.

If Tacreiter hears that someone thinks she's going to extremes for the cows, she invites that person to her farm. "As soon as they meet the cows, they get it," she said.

Back at the Lakshmi Cow Sanctuary, Sastri's eyes dance as he watches the cows wander away. He wished more people knew them as well as he does.

"They only see them as meat," he said. "Animals have a soul, personality, they interact. Unfortunately people don't see that."

---

R.I. Town Gets Crosswalk to Nowhere

This northwestern Rhode Island town finally got its first crosswalk. The problem is, it leads to nowhere.

The white-striped pedestrian marking popped up about two weeks ago, stretching from a large hedge on one side of a busy country road to a small stone property wall on the other.

"We've been trying to get a traffic light on Route 6 and here they go and put a crosswalk up that would only be good for deer or wild turkeys or turtles or something," said police Chief Donald Kettelle. "It's a crosswalk to nowhere."

Neighbor Bob Larrivee heard commotion late one night and saw strobe lights on Cucumber Hill Road, a busy two-lane stretch along the Connecticut border. He assumed workers were tending to a felled tree, or repainting the fading dividing lines.

"I went out to get my mail the next day, and I noticed it," said Larrivee. "It kind of jumps out at you."

It was painted accidentally by state-hired striping contractors who saw two "Pedestrian Crossing" signs that were posted 20 years ago to get drivers to slow down, said Frank Corrao, chief civil engineer for traffic engineering at the Department of Transportation.

"I wouldn't call it a mistake," Corrao said. "It was inadvertently marked, because they thought they were doing the right thing."

Larrivee, 54, said neighbors have enjoyed it for the most part, laughing about getting jobs as crossing guards, or saying they better use the crosswalk or risk getting a jaywalking ticket.

The state has decided to let the crosswalk - which would cost $200 to remove - fade over time.

"To be honest, I kind of like it," Larrivee said. "It's kind of a landmark."

Rumsfeld Sure WMD Intelligence Will Prove Correct

WASHINGTON, June 6, 2003 – More searching in Iraq will uncover Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said following a meeting with House members yesterday.

Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs Chairman Air Force Gen. Richard Myers also said that three divisions' worth of troops from other nations will join coalition forces in Iraq. This will put less pressure on American forces, DoD officials said.

Rumsfeld said he, the chairman and House members discussed charges that the Pentagon hyped intelligence information on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program. Rumsfeld, who spoke to reporters outside the hearing room, said U.S. intelligence has been good in Operation Iraqi Freedom. "(The intelligence has) been enriched as they've gone through this past period of years, and that I believe that the presentation made by Secretary Powell was accurate and will be proved to be accurate," he said.

Rumsfeld noted that DoD would cooperate if Congress decides to investigate WMD intelligence.

Myers said the United States is in discussions with 41 nations that might provide troops for stability operations in Iraq. Poland has already stepped to the plate and will provide forces. NATO allies said they will support the Polish effort.

Some U.S. Navy and Air Force units have already returned to their home bases.

Rumsfeld said that the three divisions of ground forces may start rotating into the country by the fall, but Myers said it could begin sooner. Both men said the relief will be driven by the security situation in the country and not by a date.

There are more than 140,000 U.S. service members in Iraq, DoD officials said.

Large U.S. ground organizations currently in Iraq are the 3rd Infantry Division, the 1st Marine Division, the 4th Infantry Division, the 1st Armored Division, the 101st Airborne Division, the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment and a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division.

In addition, there are Air Force units, special operations teams and logistics support elements in-country. Other air, sea and logistics units are based in Kuwait and other Gulf states.

The services are working on a rotation cycle for service members assigned to Iraq, DoD officials said.

Rumsfeld also said there is now some speculation that "Chemical Ali" -- Ali Hassan al-Majid, Saddam's cousin – may not have been killed in a bombing attack in Basra in April.

"He was in the southern part of the country. They had locations on him. They attacked locations where they believed him to be," the secretary said. "There was some speculation afterwards that they thought that he had been killed. Now there's some speculation that he may be alive. But I just don't know."

DATE=6/6/03

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=PENTAGON / INTELLIGENCE (L ONLY)

NUMBER=2-304085

BYLINE=ALEX BELIDA

DATELINE=PENTAGON

CONTENT=



INTRO: The Pentagon now acknowledges its own intelligence agency reported last year having "no reliable information" that Iraq had chemical weapons -- one of the main reasons cited by the Bush administration for war with Baghdad. More from V-O-A Pentagon Correspondent Alex Belida.



TEXT: Bush administration officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, remain confident that searches by U-S forces in Iraq will eventually unearth concrete evidence of Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons.


So far, no such weapons have been found -- and Pentagon officials now admit the Defense Intelligence Agency, in a classified report last September, said it had no conclusive information that Iraq had produced and stockpiled chemical weapons.


Still, a spokesman for the agency says the Pentagon did know for certain that Iraq had the capability to make such weapons. The official also says there was evidence to suggest it was doing so.


On the surface, the report suggests greater uncertainty about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction efforts than the statements being made before the war by Secretary Rumsfeld and other top officials.


But defense officials note the Pentagon intelligence report was only one of many sources of information on Iraq. They also draw a distinction between the way intelligence experts work and the work carried out by policymakers on the basis of intelligence reports.


The Bush administration has denied slanting intelligence findings to justify a war.


Defense Secretary Rumsfeld met with members of Congress Thursday to answer questions about the administration's pre-war claims about Iraq's weapons programs.


Some members of Congress have voiced interest in investigating the intelligence about those programs. Mr. Rumsfeld has said the Pentagon will cooperate with any inquiry. (Signed)

Feith Denies Pentagon Manipulated Intelligence Reports

A senior U.S. Defense Department official June 4 described as inaccurate
news reports claiming that a special group was formed at the Pentagon to
manipulate intelligence reports about Iraq's links to international
terrorist groups and its weapons of mass destruction program in order to
make a case for going to war.

Douglas Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, told
journalists at a special Pentagon briefing that a small group
functioning within his office from October 2001 to August 2002 did
find some connections between the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, the
terrorist group al-Qaida and weapons of mass destruction. But the
information was used to help Pentagon planners develop a more
effective strategy for fighting a global war on terrorism and not to
make a case for waging war in Iraq, he said.

Feith said the team he formed focused on international terrorist
networks and how they related to states sponsoring terrorism, which
included Saddam Hussein's regime.

"It showed that we cannot simply assume that the only cooperation that
existed in the world among terrorist groups and their sponsors was on
some kind of pure ideological or philosophical lines," he said.

The team was not designed to replace or supersede the work of the
Central Intelligence Agency, nor issue its own intelligence judgments
regarding Iraq's WMD, Feith said. When the team had finished its work
and had found some linkages between Iraq and al-Qaida, it met with CIA
Director George Tenet in August 2002 and shared its observations, he
said.

"These were simply observations of this team based on the intelligence
that the intelligence community had given to us," he said. After the
meeting with Tenet, the team ended its work, he said.

Feith also said the team formed in his office was not designed to
attempt to topple the current Iranian government, as some news reports
inaccurately indicated. He said the future of Iran's current
government will be determined by its people.

DATE=6/4/03

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=CONGRESS/IRAQ W-M-D (L-O)

NUMBER=2-304008

BYLINE=DAN ROBINSON

DATELINE=CAPITOL HILL

CONTENT=


VOICED AT:



INTRO: A senior State Department official has told members of Congress there was no effort by the Bush administration to manipulate information about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to justify U.S-led military action. Testimony by John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control, came amid mounting questions on Capitol Hill about the administration's basis for going to war in Iraq. V-O-A's Dan Robinson reports:


TEXT: Mr. Bolton appeared at a hearing of the House International Relations Committee prepared for some tough questions, and he got them.


One lawmaker, (Massachusetts) Congressman William Delahunt, recalled a previous appearance by Mr. Bolton in January, before the Iraq war, during which he stated that Iraq had stocks of weapons.


And (New York) Congressman Eliot Engel said he was dismayed by media reports quoting unidentified officials about alleged pressure by the Pentagon on C-I-A and other analysts to shape their intelligence findings to favor military action:


/// ENGEL ACT ///


I voted to support President Bush in Iraq, but I'm deeply concerned about reports that the administration twisted the arms of our intelligence analysts to produce an analysis which agreed with the policies you wanted to pursue. If the books were cooked to help push the American people into supporting the war in Iraq, it is very, very troubling.


/// END ACT ///


Mr. Bolton responded by saying that concern about Saddam Hussein's pursuit of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons went back at least a decade. And he had this response to media reports:


/// BOLTON ACT ///


I personally never asked anybody in the intelligence community to change a single thing they presented. And I am not aware of any other official in this administration who did that.


/// END ACT ///


/// OPT /// Mr. Bolton went on to challenge, what he called "the anonymous critics" to present their criticisms in public, adding that he has no problem with investigations by Congress or others:


/// BOLTON ACT ///


I think it is critical that we are completely honest among ourselves about what we found, and where our intelligence succeeded and where it didn't. And I have no fear that at the end of those processes, we will see that the concerns that, not just the administration, but overwhelming majorities of Congress, had about Iraq's W-M-D programs, will be justified.


/// END ACT /// /// END OPT ///


Congressional skepticism has increased in recent weeks amid comments by such senior officials as Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz appearing to downplay previous administration certainty about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.


Mr. Bolton says he is confident that as U-S efforts in Iraq continue, including interviews with Iraqis who worked in weapons programs, that more information will emerge.


That's not enough for many lawmakers. Steps are underway in the Senate and the House to examine the question more closely.


/// REST OPT /// One House member and Democratic presidential hopeful, (Ohio) Congressman Dennis Kucinich, is using a special procedure known as a "resolution of inquiry" to force the White House to provide Congress with all information it had on Iraq's weapons prior to the war. (signed)

DoD Briefing on Policy and Intelligence Matters
(Briefing on policy and intelligence matters. Participating were Douglas J. Feith, under secretary of defense for policy, and William J. Luti, deputy under secretary of defense for special plans and Near East and South Asian affairs.)



Feith: Good morning.



Bill, do you want to join me up here?



The reason that we were interested in meeting with you this morning is to help lay to rest some stories that have been circulating about the Defense Department that are not true and are beginning to achieve the status of urban legends. So we thought we would try to help straighten the record out.



There are four issues that I think I'd like to address. One is this so-called, or alleged intelligence cell and its relation to the Special Plans Office. Secondly is the issue of intelligence judgments regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Third is the department's alleged intent to topple the Iranian regime, about which there have been a number of inaccurate news stories. And finally, our policy and the Defense Department's views on the organization called the MEK, the Mujahedeen e Khalq, an Iranian terrorist group. And I'd like to start with a review of some of these items, and then my colleague, Bill Luti and I will be happy to take some of your questions.



On this so-called intelligence cell, which has been hyped in various publications as a Department of Defense effort to create a unit that would somehow substitute for the CIA, I'd like to give you what actually is the story. After the September 11th attack, I identified a requirement to think through what it means for the Defense Department to be at war with a terrorist network. This was an unusual circumstance -- warfare has traditionally been against nation states -- and we understood that it presents a number of peculiar conceptual challenges to be at war with a network, or as I've described it as a network of networks of terrorist organizations.



So, I asked for some people to think through -- first of all, to review the large amount of intelligence on terrorist networks, and to think through how the various terrorist organizations relate to each other and how they relate to different groups that support them; in particular, state sponsors. And we set up a small team to help digest the intelligence that already existed on this very broad subject. And the so-called cell comprised two full-time people. This is why you see that I think it's almost comical that people think that this was set up as somehow an alternative -- (Chuckles.) -- to the intelligence community or to the CIA. I mean, it was two full-time people. They drew from time to time on assistance from a few others. I mean, altogether, we're talking about four people, five people, you know, at one time or another, doing the work.



The team began its work in October of 2001. It was not involved in intelligence collection. Rather, it relied on reporting from the CIA and other parts of the intelligence community. Its job was to review this intelligence to help digest it for me and other policymakers, to help us develop Defense Department strategy for the war on terrorism. And as I said, it looked at these interrelationships among terrorist organizations and their state sponsors. It did not confine its review to Iraq or al Qaeda. I mean, it was looking at global terrorist networks and the full range of state sponsors and other sources of support for terrorist groups. Its main conclusion was that groups and states were willing to cooperate across philosophical, ideological lines.



So, it came up with the -- a number of interesting connections of where, for example, Sunni and Shi'a groups cooperated, or religious- based groups cooperated with secular groups or states. And so it showed that we cannot simply assume that the only cooperation that existed in the world among terrorist groups and their sponsors was on some kind of pure ideological or philosophical lines. I mean, this is not that shocking for anybody who remembers that, for example, the Nazis and the Soviets had a strategic alliance also. But it was a very important point, because there was a lot of debate in government circles and in academic circles about whether these different groups do in fact cooperate across these philosophical lines.



I think what has become the focus of a lot of the press stories about this is the fact that in the course of its work, this team, in reviewing the intelligence that was provided to us by the CIA and the intelligence community, came up with some interesting observations about the linkages between Iraq and al Qaeda. And when they did, and they brought those to the attention of top-level officials here in the department, and we arranged for a briefing of these items to Secretary Rumsfeld, he looked at that and said, "That's interesting. Let's share it with George Tenet." And so some members of the team and I went over, I think it was in August of 2002, and shared some of these observations. And these were simply observations of this team based on the intelligence that the intelligence community had given to us, and it was just in the course of their reading it, this was incidental to the purpose of this group. But since they happened to come up with it and since it was an important subject, we went over, shared it with George and people at the CIA. My impression was it was pretty well received, and that was that. It was one meeting.



There have been a number of misperceptions about this team. One of them is that, there have been several press articles that have identified this team with the Special Plans Office in Dr. Luti's organization. Dr. Luti is the deputy under secretary of defense for -- let me get it right --



Luti: Special Plans and Near Eastern/South Asian Affairs.



Feith: Special Plans and Near Eastern/South Asian Affairs.



Luti: Twenty-seven countries.



Feith: And this intelligence cell -- alleged -- which is this team that did this particular project, which was not an intelligence project -- it was a matter of digesting other people's intelligence products -- this team is not -- was not part of that office; wasn't related to it. In fact, the team stopped doing its work -- basically, once we had that meeting with the CIA and the team had given us a report on these terrorist network interconnections, there was no team anymore. And they stopped doing their work before the Special Plans Office, if I have it straight, was actually created within Dr. Luti's organization.



Q: (Off mike.)



Luti: October of 2002. We had -- a decision was made in August of 2002 to reorganize, and Doug will explain to you why. But those are the dates.



Q: And that team stopped in August 2002?



Feith: Roughly. The -- (Chuckling.) -- and the Special Plans Office was called Special Plans, because at the time, calling it Iraq Planning Office might have undercut the -- our diplomatic efforts with regard to Iraq and the U.N. and elsewhere. We set up an office to address the whole range of issues regarding Iraq planning.



Luti: And if I may, it's clear to make a distinction; it's a policy planning office, just like -- in my shop, I have essentially three directorates: A Middle East directorate with a handful of people working, a South Asia directorate with a handful of people working, and I used to have a Northern Gulf directorate, which we expanded to meet the incredibly stepped-up requirements in the summer and fall of last year to deal with Iraq. We needed help, we needed people. So, we expanded it. And that's what I do -- policy planning.



Feith: So, I mean, there have been some people who have kind of concocted a goulash of snippets about this team that was working on the terrorist interconnections and the Special Plans Office, and they mixed them up when there's no basis for the mix.



As I mentioned, this team that was doing the terrorist analysis was not focused on Iraq. I mean, they focused -- they did not have a narrow focus. It was a global -- it was a global exercise, even though this particular report that -- briefing, I should say, that was prepared and given to the CIA focused on Iraq and al Qaeda because, as I said, that kind of fell out incidentally from the work that they were doing on global terrorist networks.



Third, there are some press accounts that have tied the team to what is called the intelligence collection program, which was a program for debriefing Iraqi defectors over recent years. And in fact the team had nothing to do with that program or the transfer of the management of that program from the State Department to the Defense HUMINT [Human Intelligence] Service.



And the -- with regard to this intelligence collection program, the reports that were obtained from the debriefings of these Iraq defectors were disseminated in the same way that other intelligence reporting was disseminated, contrary to one particular journalist account who suggested that the Special Plans Office became a conduit for intelligence reports from the Iraqi National Congress to the White House. That's just flatly not true. And in any event, that was a Defense Intelligence Agency/Defense HUMINT Service function, and not -- it was not anything that was run out of the policy organization. So again, this is part of the goulash of inaccuracies.



And then finally there were some accounts that asserted that the team dealt with the weapons of mass destruction issue, and there have been a number of stories in recent days that suggested that this was a team that somehow developed the case on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and it didn't -- I mean, it -- and that is also flatly not true. The team was focused on terrorist networks; it was not focused on weapons of mass destruction.



Now on this issue of intelligence judgments -- now to get to my second topic, the intelligence judgments on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, Secretary of State Powell talked about our intelligence sources when he gave his presentation on February 5th to the U.N. Security Council. He played tapes of Iraqis who were discussing -- these were intercepts of Iraqi communications in which there were discussions of the concealing of weapons of mass destruction from U.N. inspectors. Secretary Powell cited the reports of witnesses and informants. He discussed the U.S. government's knowledge of Iraq procurement efforts in the weapons of mass destruction field. And he cited the old U.N. inspectors’ organizations reporting on weapons of mass destruction, for which Iraq had never accounted adequately.



And these judgments were based on intelligence that -- intelligence reports and intelligence analysis that not only went back years but predated this administration. In February 1998 President Clinton said, "Iraq continues to conceal chemical and biological weapons and the missiles that can deliver them, and Iraq has the capacity to quickly restart production of these weapons." Secretary of Defense Cohen, in -- also in 1998, said, "I believe that Iraq is developing them, because they've used them in the past. The acquisition of these types of weapons does make Saddam Hussein a major player in the region. He's concerned about the power, and the opportunity to have nuclear or biological or chemical weapons gives him the status and the ability to project that power to intimidate the neighbors in the region." And there are similar quotations from Vice President Gore and others.



The -- it -- from our perspective, it's pretty clear that the intelligence community's judgments concerning Iraqi weapons of mass destruction did not undergo a major change between the Clinton and Bush administrations. And that's -- without regard to the issue of whether the officials from the previous administration agree or disagree with the policies of this administration about how to deal with the problem, the basic intelligence reports did not undergo any kind of change from the previous administration to this one.



On the third point that I raised, on this issue of reports about the department's attitude toward toppling the Iranian regime, there was a recent Financial Times article that grossly misrepresented Secretary Rumsfeld's views on Iran. It is true that the United States government wants Iran to turn over all al Qaeda members currently in Iran and to comply with its obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. But as for the future of the Iranian government, that's a matter to be decided by the Iranian people. And our policy is what President Bush has said: that we see Iranian citizens risking intimidation and death as they speak out for liberty and human rights and democracy. Iranians, like all people, have a right to choose their government and determine their own destiny, and the United States supports their aspirations to live in freedom. And everything that we have done and that we support in this department is consistent with and captured in that statement by the president. And it's not good to be reading inaccurate descriptions of what our policy is on Iran.



A sub-point on that is the last point that I wanted to address in these opening remarks, and that is the issue of the policy toward the MEK, the Mujahedeen e Khalq. The United States has designated the MEK a foreign terrorist organization; it is on the State Department's list of such organizations. Accordingly, we demanded the surrender of MEK forces in Iraq. That demand is being complied with, and the MEK forces are being disarmed.



Now, earlier in the war, a U.S. commander on the ground reached a temporary cease-fire with the MEK which he justified on the grounds that it enabled our forces to contain the MEK forces in cantonment areas, while not having to fight against them or to actively disarm them. And it was also a way of making sure that these MEK forces were not going to get into a clash with the pro-Iranian forces. There were a number of different groups floating around in Iraq that were not under our control, and we didn't want them clashing in a way that could interfere with our operations.



Now, because of that local decision to work out this temporary arrangement, there were some people who believed that we were giving the MEK special treatment, and there were even news stories that said that the Defense Department planned to use the MEK as a Northern Alliance-type organization -- making the analogy to Afghanistan -- as a Northern Alliance-type organization against the government of Iran. There never was such a plan. We will not do that. We view the MEK as a terrorist organization and we are treating it as such.



And with that, I will be happy to take your questions.



Q: On Iran, you made the point that the administration supports the aspirations of the Iranian people. The question seems to be how far are you going -- that's important to what kind of support you're talking about, and people are speculating that you could go as far as supporting by either actively undermining the existing government or by taking military action. And can you define exactly how far you would go?



Feith: Our policy is to urge the Iranians, as the president has done publicly and as other top administration people have done, to urge them to stop their support for terrorism -- Iran is one of the world's leading supporters of terrorist organizations -- to comply with their obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and stop the development of nuclear weapons. And we know that there is widespread unhappiness in the country about the failures of the clerical regime. And the president has expressed his sympathy with the aspirations of the Iranians to have a free country. And that's our policy. And that's what we're willing to say and do.



And there are a lot of countries in the world who are coming increasingly to understand the dangers that this state support for terrorism and the development of nuclear weapons by countries that are not supposed to be developing them -- that represents the international security. And so, we're getting increasing international support for this kind of an approach. And we hope that the Iranians will change their policies.



Q: [And now] to the intelligence, one of the more puzzling aspects of all of this for a lot of people is the Niger letter, and why U.S. officials seem so willing to accept and promulgate what appears to people who were knowledgeable about it to have clearly been a forgery. Can you explain -- and there's been a couple of congressional requests for information about that. Can you shed some light on that?



Feith: I mean, I'm aware of it in general. I don't know how much light I could shed on it.



Luti: No, no, I can't either. No. I believe that that is an issue between the source of the document and the analysts in the government in the intelligence community, and they're sorting that out. We're not particularly as policy people involved in that process.



Q: I want to challenge your assumption here that the intelligence has remained consistent throughout the '90s. This administration, starting in September, painted the picture of an imminent threat from weapons of mass destruction, yet the DIA -- this is -- and this is something that U.S. News and World broke [a past sentence of] of this week, said in September, there's no reliable information on whether Iraq is producing and stockpiling chemical weapons. Just square the circle. You say the intelligence has been consistent, but yet you painted a much more imminent threat than anybody in the Clinton administration did during the '90s.



Feith: I think what we -- what we have been stressing is that September 11th highlighted the special dangers that come from the connection of weapons of mass destruction to state sponsors of terrorism. The September 11th attack forced a lot of people to rethink the dangers of both terrorism and weapons of mass destruction in light of the possible connection between the two. And the willingness of terrorist organizations to do as much damage as they possibly can was something that was driven home, you know, powerfully, by the September 11th attack. And the recognition that if a terrorist organization, perfectly willing to do as much damage as it possibly can, could get its hands on weapons of mass destruction from one of the state sponsors that is otherwise providing support to it, then the possibility exists, the danger exists that you could have an attack that would kill many times the number of people that were killed on September 11th.



So that caused a reassessment of the nature of the threat and the risk. That's a different issue from the analysis of whether one believes that the Iraqis possessed the capability to use chemical weapons, biological weapons; whether they had a program that was aiming toward the development of nuclear weapons. On the basic question of whether the Iraqis had the capability, I don't think there was any kind of major discontinuity in the analysis over the years from the intelligence community.



Q: Well let me push back then, because Rumsfeld, starting in September, and the president talked about that they had a capability. They had -- they produced -- they have weapons; they have this; they have that. That was a lot stronger than the Clinton people or the intelligence community publicly talked about in the '90s, and your DIA is even saying this now in September of '02, raising questions about we don't have reliable information.



Feith: As I -- I mean, I quoted from -- President Clinton said, in 1998, Iraq continues to conceal chemical and biological weapons. And the U.N., in its report, I believe it was in January of '99, when UNSCOM [United Nations Special Commission] shut down its operations, said that there were large quantities of chemical and biological weapons materials that were unaccounted for. And this was precisely the point that President Bush stressed in -- and I don't remember whether it was in his U.N. speech or his State of the Union speech, but he made a major focus on what the UNSCOM report from 1999 said about chemical and biological weapons in Iraq.



So, I mean, this is -- this was not news. I mean, a number of the recent stories have suggested that the basic question of whether the Iraqis -- whether there was intelligence to support the conclusion that the Iraqis had these weapons, there have been a number of stories that have suggested that this whole issue arose in recent months, and it didn't, it went back years.



Q: I think the question is that the issue -- you put a finer point on it than in past years and you raised the bar in terms of what Iraq allegedly had, and now we're seeing that they might not have had what you allegedly said they did.



Feith: Well, we'll see. We'll see what they had.



But the main thing that I think was different in the way this administration talked about the issue from the past, were the conclusions, the strategic conclusions that we came to as a result of the September 11 attack, and the particular strategic problems that arise from a recognition that you can't rely to the extent that we did in the past, or that at least some people did in the past, you can't rely on deterrence to deal with the problem of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of state sponsors of terrorism because the possibility that those state sponsors might employ chemical weapons or biological weapons by means of a terrorist organization proxy means that they could use the weapons without leaving their fingerprints, as it were, on the attack. And that meant that the traditional deterrence approach was not adequate.



Q: If I could just go back, Mr. Secretary, and look at the relationship -- I think three key relationships you have tried to -- (inaudible) -- I think; the one between the intelligence team and the special plans office, the intelligence team the Iraqi exile project, and the intelligence team and the assessment on weapons of mass destruction. Let me make sure I understand this now. The team is going to put out a report that's going to become a part of a larger body of material that policymakers, including those in the special plans office, would look at, right? So it's not to say while they may not have been resident in the same office, I would -- it certainly sounds like special plans would be aware of and would -- and have available those reports that they make, right? I mean, they would --



Feith: If the -- yeah, I mean, if the connection is that a team that is analyzing a policy problem by looking through a lot of intelligence is going to generate a briefing that is going to come to the attention of various offices -- I mean, that's true. That connection exists. There were various offices that were informed by, you know, that briefing.



Q: And given the importance that this team had within your office, would it not also be logical that the special plans office would give its -- whatever reports came from the team special significance? And this is something you're looking at, you created especially to look at the intelligence in a different way --



Feith: No, no, you see, it was not created to look -- there is this idea -- again, there have been a number of press stories that have said that the reason this team was created was because we wanted the intelligence looked at in a different way. That's not true. It was -- what happened was, on September 11th we were attacked, and the president announced we are in a global war against terrorism. And the office that's responsible for strategy is my office. And we asked ourselves: What does it mean to be at war against terrorism? What -- and how is this different from previous wars conceptually? How does one develop a strategy for fighting an international network?



So it just was kind of an obvious thing to do. I asked for some people to review the existing intelligence on what do we know about the nature of these terrorist networks. This was not because we were dissatisfied with, as some of the news stories have suggested -- it's not because we were dissatisfied with the intelligence or the intelligence analysis. It was because we needed people looking at that intelligence, good intelligence produced by the CIA and other agencies -- we needed people looking at it from the point of view of what do we need to understand from this intelligence about these connections to allow us to develop a Defense Department strategy for the war on terrorism.



Q: That's looking at intelligence in a different way, with a different perspective.



Feith: Well -- but I mean, not as --



Q: (Off mike.)



Feith: -- but it's been portrayed as this was done --



Q: They did not find their own intelligence. They took existing intelligence, given this new perspective, given this new focus you've asked them to address, and said, "Here. Here's a new way of looking at it." Right? That's what you asked for.



Feith: You could say that, except the way it --



Q: All right. Let me move on to my second point, then.



Feith: Well, let me just say, the way it's been portrayed in a number of stories was that this was set up because there was dissatisfaction with what the intelligence community had done. That's not true. It was set up because we had a different function to be performed; we had a different mission to be performed. We had to develop a strategy to fight the global war on terrorism. And so, we needed to take this material and review it in that light.



Q: Point two, on the Iraqi exile project. While these guys didn't run, obviously, the interrogations or anything, they obviously took the information that was provided for them from those interviews, right? And they looked at it and they put it in a larger context, as well. That's part of the existing intelligence, no? Part of their definition?



Luti: No, Eric (sp), who took those reports and looked at them?



Q: The team.



Luti: No, no.



Q: They were ignorant of that when they did their analysis?



Luti: No, the information collection program was removed from the State Department and deposited into Defense HUMINT Service to ensure that proper tradecraft was used, accounting procedures. And it was a program to interview Iraqi defectors.



Q: Right.



Luti: The INC would remove them from Iraq to a different location. DHS [Defense HUMINT Service] teams would go to that location, debrief them according to the tradecraft -- all the professional tradecraft that's required -- and then they would write a report. Those reports would go into the intelligence system, writ large --



Q: Right. And that would be one of the many things that this team would look at, right, and draw upon for your -- for the tasks that they were assigned, correct?



Feith: There were lots [of customers] throughout the building --



Luti: Many customers, not only --



Q: Were those reports given any extra weight or significance by this team that you're aware of?



Luti: The information collection program was moved into the Defense HUMINT --



Q: That's a mechanical issue. I'm asking about the report that they produced, giving the fresh information that Iraqi exiles are providing. And that's now going into the system. Among all of the other things that they're going to look at, does the team hone in on these type of reports as a special source and give them that hint of added significance, that you're aware of? That's essentially what the accusation --



Luti: No more than -- in fact, I'm trying to remember when --



Q: (Inaudible.) -- you weigh it -- the intelligence that is coming from defectors was given unusual and disproportionate weight among all the other sources.



Luti: I don't know.



Q: Do you agree with that?



Luti: No. I don't know what the basis of that charge -- no, no, there's been no basis for that. None whatsoever.



Q: But the third point was you said there's no connection between this team and WMD. But you've just said that the relationship between terrorists and terrorist states and WMD has been -- is -- that was -- demonstrated how they --



Feith: No, I didn't mean no connection between the team and WMD. If I said that, I misstated it. What I said is it was not the purpose or the special focus of this team to look at WMD. Its focus was to look at terrorist networks and the connection.



Q: (Inaudible.) -- terrorist networks, and you've just explained how what 9/11 demonstrates is that terrorist networks and WMD and their acquisition thereof are importantly intertwined. And so, how do you not look at WMD when you're looking at terrorist networks in the case of Iraq?



Feith: No, I didn't mean to suggest that they didn't look at WMD at all. I'm saying that the mission that this team was given was not: Look at WMD. The mission that they were given was: Help us understand how these different organizations relate to each other and to their state sponsors.



Q: That may not have been their stated mission, but certainly that's one of the things they found, right?



Feith: I imagine -- yes, I imagine that they looked at WMD along with other stuff. All I'm saying is it was not as it is portrayed in a number of erroneous press stories that we've read. It was not the purpose of this group to focus on the WMD issue.



Staff: Sir, I hate to bring this to a close, but I know you're at the end of your time here. Maybe you can take one or two more.



Q: Critics have raised the issue of the slanting of intelligence findings, the alleged slanting, basically to conform with the views of top policymakers. Can you say what pressure, if any, was put on intelligence analysts in the CIA, DIA, anywhere else, to endorse the view of Iraq possessing chemical and biological weapon stockpiles and reconstituting the nuclear weapons program as an imminent threat to U.S. interests? And can you rule out that intelligence analysts may have perceived that this pressure existed, whether it did or not?



Feith: I know of no pressure. I can't rule out what other people may have perceived. Who knows what people perceive? I know of nobody who pressured anybody. We have a -- we have a normal and, I think, useful interchange between the intelligence community and its customers, basically the policy community. It is not a one-way transmission. If people understand the way intelligence -- the intelligence agencies relate to their customers, they understand that it's -- there's a process of back and forth where we get reports, I get a briefing every morning. I know that Secretary Rumsfeld has talked about this too. I mean, we're all, I think, in the same boat, those of us who get daily briefings from the CIA. I get a briefing. As I'm being briefed, questions occur to me. I ask for clarification of items. I sometimes say, "Well, that's an interesting point. That suggests that it might be good to get a report on x, y, and z. And I'd like to learn more about that." And those questions go back and they produce additional work and reports. And the intelligence community prides itself on being responsive when its customers raise questions and make requests for additional information or clarification or tables or historical perspective on some topic. I mean, things go back and forth all the time. And, I mean, that is the way a good system works.



And in this particular case, we, as customers, were analyzing this information about terrorist networks, and when we happened to come up with some interesting observations, we took them back and gave them to the intelligence community. And I must say, I was very pleased with the response that we got. I mean, people over there said that's -- you know, that's worthy of looking at and study. And I think that, you know, that George Tenet received it very well and found it useful.



Q: Two questions. Are any of the people who were on the intelligence team, which you said is now no longer doing that work, are any of those people still paid by the department and perhaps in other parts of your organization basically doing that same work on other topics? That's my first question. Are any of those people still there doing that work, perhaps on Iraq or on WMD?



And my second question, I am really puzzled why you two gentlemen are exactly doing this briefing today. Neither of you are well known to come down here and talk about what you read in the news media. Were you asked to do this briefing by Secretary Rumsfeld, by the White House, by Torie Clarke? Do you have any sense that there's some article coming out somewhere in the news media that you're trying to respond to ahead of time?



Feith: On the latter question first, there have been enough articles that have come out already on these subjects that have been inaccurate that -- and it's quite clear that some of the articles that are inaccurate are getting reverberations in numerous other articles that clearly are derivative of the mother lode of inaccuracies here and there. And we just -- and since it directly relates to our office, we just thought it might be useful to straighten the record out. So --



Q: So this briefing was your idea?



Feith: This briefing was my idea. And -- I mean, I hope it is in the nature of a public service.



Now, the first question you asked was --



Q: Is anybody who was on that intelligence team doing that work still --



Feith: Well, as I mentioned before you arrived, the --



Q: No, I was here.



Feith: Oh. Okay. The team that has gotten so much attention was two people, full-time. (Chuckling.) I mean, this is much less than one would infer from a lot of the press coverage of it. And altogether, as I said, there might have been a half a dozen people who were in and out, working either on the team full-time, part-time.



Q: (Off mike.) --



Feith: And some of those people -- because some of them were Reserve officers, so I mean, I think they're -- they've moved on, but some of them are people who are still in the government.



Q: May -- what I'm not understanding is, are any of those half dozen people -- bluntly, what I'm trying to ask -- doing the same work, perhaps not in an assembled team --



Feith: No, this was a project.



Q: I understand that.



Feith: So the answer's no.



Q: But the question is, I want to make sure there's no bureaucratic misunderstanding. That team has been disbanded. That label is gone. But is that work, candidly, going on somewhere else?



Feith: "Disbanded" is a peculiar term to apply. They had a project. They finished their project.



Q: And the project -- fine. The project is done. Nonetheless, is that work of reviewing information still going on in your organization? Is that basic task --



Feith: I would say that there are hundreds and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people in this building who review intelligence for policy purposes every day. So that work is ongoing by thousands of people in this department.



Q: So why did you need these special people?



Feith: As I explained, we had a particular requirement to review the existing intelligence, to help us develop the strategy for the Defense Department for the global war on terrorism.



(Cross talk.) I'll take one last question here. This lady has had her hand up.



Q: And couple of -- (Inaudible.) -- here. These two people you say you had managed to come up with a link, you say, between al Qaeda and Iraq -- using the same intelligence, because you didn't gather intelligence -- that the CIA hadn't really come up with, and then you present this to George Tenet. Is that just coincidental that these two -- was their analysis more intense?



Feith: I don't think it's all that unusual or hard to understand. If a large amount of material is reviewed by fresh eyes -- I mean, this -- I think this would apply to -- you know, any intelligent people sitting down with this pile of intelligence, looking it over, reading it over, has a chance of finding certain things in it. I mean, ask yourself why new history books get written about old events. I mean, people look over very often the very same material. But in light of experience or just because they see something that nobody had seen before, certain connections become clear or appear, and, you know, new hypotheses get developed and new facts surface. I mean, it's not that mysterious. It's just -- there was an enormous amount of intelligence about terrorist networks that had been developed for many years before September 11th. And the idea that we would look at it again in light of September 11th and maybe see some new things in it shouldn't be that surprising.



Q: But you act as if the other intelligence agencies weren't looking at it that way.



Feith: No, they were. I -- no, I'm not acting that way.



Q: Only in post-9/11. So why --



Feith: They were too, but, I mean, I don't know why it should surprise anybody that any given group of people looking at a mass of material might come up with a few interesting insights that other people didn't come up with.



Q: And in --



Q: Why not just hire the CIA to do it then? I mean, that's what they do full time.



Feith: Because, well --



Q: (Inaudible.) -- the DIA, and you have to get in your own people and say, "This is what we're looking for. Go find it."



Feith: No. Nobody -- nobody helped -- see, this suggestion that we said to them -- "This is what we're looking for. Go find it." -- is precisely the inaccuracy that we are here to rebut.



Q: Can I just do one final one. Can I just --



Q: Can you give us an example of information that they found that did not fit those scenarios; that did not say there was an imminent danger; that did not present the facts that there was a belief that they were -- had an active and ongoing weapons of mass destruction program? Was that a part of what they found --



Feith: No, as I told you, the main thing that the briefing of this team produced was not this Iraq-al Qaeda connection. That was incidental. The main thing that the team produced was it helped -- it helped educate a lot of people about the fact that there was more cooperation and interconnection among these terrorist organizations and state sponsors across ideological lines than many people had appreciated before. That was really -- I mean, to sum it up in a sentence, that's it.



Q: Just one final point. What do think now of --



Feith: And this is her final point.



Q: (Laughs.) What do you think of the intelligence now? You said we'll see about the weapons of mass destruction, and yet some of the intelligence thus far that the United States was told about has been wrong. The Iraqis didn't use chemical weapons when American troops advanced. The first 200 sites you've checked that were suspected sites for weapons of mass destruction had nothing. You're backing away from some of the other sites, unless you get further intelligence. Can you assess the intelligence thus far?



Feith: The process of gathering information about the Iraqi programs is underway. I'm not going to come in and preempt the careful work that's being done. As you all know, there's a major new team going over to make systematic and comprehensive the work on studying what exists in Iraq and what became of this and that, about which we had information regarding the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs. They'll do their systematic and comprehensive work, and they'll come back and report.



Q: Can we talk about the last couple of months, though?



Feith: Thank you all.



Q: What about the last couple of months?



Feith: I'm not going to preempt what the team is -- (Off mike as he leaves the podium.)