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The path to war

By LISA HOFFMAN
Scripps Howard News Service
September 24, 2002- Quietly and methodically, America is assembling the means 
for a major air and ground war in Iraq, a punishing assault that could easily 
commence by late November.Even though President Bush maintains that he has 
not yet made up his mind whether to wage war with Iraqi President Saddam 
Hussein, and despite Saddam's newly opened door for weapons inspectors, a 
deliberate march toward combat continues.In recent days and weeks, for 
instance, the Pentagon has hired 10 commercial cargo ships capable of 
carrying tanks, helicopters and mountains of ammunition to the Persian Gulf. 
Defense companies are doubling production and adding shifts to replenish the 
stocks of laser-guided bombs and other precision weapons depleted during the 
air strikes in Afghanistan.A Marine unit that specializes in detecting 
chemical and biological attacks is on its way to Iraq's neighbor, Kuwait. The 
expansion and enhancement of Al Udeid Air Base in tiny, nearby Qatar - which 
the Pentagon would need desperately if Saudi Arabia forbids American use of 
U.S. bases there to conduct the war - is nearly finished. It can house 100 
warplanes and has the longest runway in the Middle East.The military has 
begun moving 600 officers and 400 staff from its Tampa, Fla., Central Command 
headquarters to Qatar, where they would set up the U.S. headquarters for a 
war with Iraq. Green Berets and other crucial Army specialists are now under 
a "stop loss" order forbidding them from retiring or leaving the service.The 
Pentagon has asked Britain for permission to base a half dozen or more B-2 
stealth bombers on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, from which they 
would spring the opening salvos of an air strike on Baghdad.Now, the 
bat-winged jets must fly 6,500-mile sorties from their base in Missouri to 
cross-continental war zones and back. Being able to use Diego Garcia would 
cut that travel by half, effectively doubling the utility of the 
radar-evading planes packed with 2,000-pound bombs.And, in what could qualify 
as the first unofficial salvos of a war with Iraq, the U.S. pilots patrolling 
the no-fly zones over two-thirds of Iraq have been ordered to shift their 
focus from stalking small, mobile Iraqi guns and radars that have threatened 
American F-16s, to striking Saddam's air defense command and communications 
structures and links.The reason? To do more lasting damage to Saddam's 
ability to shoot down American planes, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said 
last week.Defense officials say many of the other moves have been in the 
works for months, while still more are simply routine exercises or maneuvers 
of the sort the Pentagon engages in all the time.Even so, they are well aware 
of the sobering message the preparations are sending to Iraq and the rest of 
the world - that the United States is stone-cold serious about going to war 
to rid Iraq of its suspected weapons of mass destruction and end Saddam's 
"evil" regime."If Iraq's regime continues to defy us and the world, (the 
United States) will move deliberately yet decisively to hold Iraq to 
account," Bush said Monday.If the commander-in-chief indeed orders an 
invasion of Iraq, analysts expect the war would entail intense bombing by 
hundreds of warplanes and a fast sweep through Iraq by a 60,000 to 
100,000-person ground force.If Bush adopts that strategy, experts say the 
battle could begin within a month of his order. Even if Bush instead calls 
for a more massive force - one plan under consideration would entail at least 
200,000 troops - preparations would take no more than three months, said 
Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution.In any 
case, America would be ready for war far quicker than it was 11 years ago, 
when it took six months to get 500,000 troops and millions of tons of 
materiel to the Persian Gulf region before Operation Desert Storm against 
Iraq could start."From a military standpoint, we're at much better posture 
than we were (11) years ago," retired Army Gen. George Joulwan, former NATO 
commander, said recently.That is because, after that war, the Pentagon vowed 
to make sure such a plodding buildup would never occur again. Since then, 
America has stored weapons, equipment, provisions and fuel all over the 
region, and vastly improved its transportation equipment and methods.As a 
result, commanders "should be able to deploy as many as 10 tactical air wing 
equivalents and a minimum of two Army divisions within a couple of weeks," 
retired Rear Adm. Stephen Baker, a high-ranking Desert Strom veteran, wrote 
in an analysis for the Center for Defense Information think tank in 
Washington.Already in place and essentially ready to fight are about 400 
warplanes and more than 35,000 U.S. troops arrayed at bases in Kuwait, Oman, 
Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Another 60,000 
soldiers could be airlifted in from Europe and the U.S. mainland in as few as 
two weeks, Baker said.At sea now in the Persian Gulf and nearby Mediterranean 
Sea are about 25,000 Navy sailors attached to two aircraft carrier battle 
groups. A third carrier, the USS Harry Truman, is due in the area in 
November. And the 2,000-person 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit is about to 
begin a month-long amphibious assault exercise in Kuwait, where the 
combat-ready outfit could be ordered to stay put for an imminent incursion 
into Iraq.In warehouses and other facilities around the region are more than 
350,000 tons of military equipment, including at least 100 M1-A1 Abrams 
tanks, 100 armored personnel carriers, and dozens of Bradley fighting 
vehicles, mortars, howitzers, trucks, and enough food and fuel for more than 
a month. In Bahrain, two pre-fabricated field hospitals - with a total of 700 
beds - are stored, ready for quick assembly.Another 200,000 tons of heavy 
weapons, support equipment and other supplies are afloat in the area on 
several pre-positioned ships. Commercial cargo ships have been commissioned 
to bring helicopters and other equipment from Europe.The effect of these 
moves, Baker said in an analysis, is to make a massive war mobilization 
historically swift."If Bush made a decision tomorrow to go to war, and the 
decision was made to go with massive airpower and 70,000 to 90,0000 ground 
troops, it would take non-stop effort of about a month to build up," Baker 
said. "This would be the quickest and most efficient mobilization ever seen 
in military history."On the Web:www.brook.edu - The Brookings 
Institutionwww.cdi.org - Center for Defense Information 




Malaria studies shed new light on killer parasite

By LEE BOWMAN
Scripps Howard News Service
October 02, 2002- Researchers have closed the genetic loop between the genes 
of malaria and its most common mosquito carrier, presenting the best chance 
in history to corral or defeat the deadly parasite.Coupled with the existing 
maps of human gene sequences completed in 1999, the new discoveries published 
Wednesday in the journals Nature and Science will give scientists new tools 
for research."For the first time in this disease murder mystery, we've got 
the genes for the bullet (the parasite), the gun (the mosquito) and the 
victim (humans) all mapped out," said Dr. Stephen Hoffman, a biotech 
researcher who first proposed the mosquito project while at the Naval Medical 
Research Lab.Although the findings have no immediate medical application, 
they open an array of potential new targets for drugs or vaccines against the 
single-celled malarial parasite, plasmodium falciparum, and possible new ways 
to block transmission of malaria from Anopheles gambiae, the mosquito that 
spreads the most deadly form of the disease.According to the World Health 
Organization, there are between 300 and 500 million attacks of malaria each 
year, resulting in 1.5 to nearly 3 million deaths, with Africa bearing the 
brunt. An average of 1 million children die from malaria each year.The 
parasite enters the human blood stream with a mosquito bite and migrates to 
the liver, where it goes through one stage of reproduction and then completes 
its life cycle with a new infection of red blood cells. It is this stage of 
infection that breaks down the blood cells and causes the bouts of fever and 
chills that are hallmarks of the disease.Debilitating and life-threatening 
complications of malaria include severe anemia, attacks on the brain and 
respiratory distress. Although the disease is rare in the United States, 
outbreaks resulting from travelers bringing the parasite home have occurred a 
number of times in recent years, including an apparent strike on two teens in 
the Virginia suburbs of Washington.But because malaria is mainly a disease of 
the developing world, research efforts to find new drugs and other cures have 
been limited. Even after the multimillion-dollar effort to plot the mosquito 
and malaria genes, the scientists involved expressed concern that there will 
be little money available to exploit their work."It is our hope that 
researchers will use the genome sequences to accelerate the search for 
solutions to diseases affecting the most vulnerable of the world's 
population," said Malcolm Gardner of The Institute for Genomic Research in 
Rockville, Md., head of the parasite project. "Genome sequences alone provide 
little relief to those suffering from malaria."Only three new anti-malarial 
drugs have been introduced in the past 25 years, and the parasites are 
increasingly resistant to known treatments."We expect this research will 
catapult malaria science into a new era, but this is just the beginning of 
opening a door to a new era of endeavors against this terrible scourge," said 
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and 
Infectious Diseases, which provided funding to both research 
efforts.Knowledge gained from the mosquito genome will also be put to 
immediate use in better controlling the spread of other diseases, including 
West Nile virus that is spreading across the United States, and dengue and 
yellow fevers, transmitted by Anopheles and other species of 
mosquitoes.X...X...XThe dozens of scientific papers on the two species goes 
beyond a mere inventory of genes to analysis of the function of many of the 
proteins encoded in the genes and others studies of the relationship between 
parasite, carrier and host.For instance, researchers from Vanderbilt 
University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign identified 276 
genes out of the mosquito blueprint of about 14,000 that control elements of 
the insect's sensory system, all crucial in guiding the creatures to their 
favorite meal: human blood."If we can identify the receptors that mosquitoes 
use to smell humans, we should be able to design novel repellants and 
attractants that can substantially reduce incidence of mosquito-borne 
diseases," said Lawrence Zwiebel, an assistant professor of biological 
sciences at Vanderbilt.Robert Holt of Celera Genomics, who spearheaded the 
mosquito gene sequencing work, did a special study of genes that were 
activated or deactivated when a mosquito feeds on blood, tagging a number of 
bits of DNA involved in digestion, lipid synthesis and egg production that 
might be disrupted by new insecticides or transmission-blocking vaccines."I 
think the most important thing we'll gain from this in the immediate future 
is understanding the molecular basis of resistance to insecticides and 
finding new insecticide targets," Holt said.Although the function of more 
than half the genes are still not certain, the map offers new understanding 
about the parasite's metabolism, its outer structures, evolution, and new 
targets for vaccines, drugs and possibly other ways to boost human immunity 
to the parasite. Some people carry a gene that makes them resistant to 
malaria, for instance, and molecular comparisons may make it possible to 
expand this trait to more people.On the Net: 
www.sciencemag.orgwww.nature.com/nature


INTERNATIONAL



U.N. inspectors face daunting mission in Iraq

By LISA HOFFMAN
Scripps Howard News Service
September 17, 2002- More than 220 U.N. weapons inspectors from 44 countries 
are poised to return to Iraq.But before inspectors can resume the hunt for 
weapons of mass destruction - interrupted four years ago when Iraq so stymied 
their work that the United Nations pulled them out - sticky procedural 
details must be hashed out.Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein pledged Monday that 
inspectors can return without the conditions he has insisted on in the past. 
But no promise has been made that they can then have free rein to scour 700 
suspected weapons sites that dot the country - including some that Iraq has 
decreed off-limits for years for reasons of "national integrity."What follows 
is a look at who the inspectors are, the timetable for their potential return 
and the daunting job that would await them.- Who are the inspectors?Selected 
from around the world for their expertise in a range of areas, the 220 
include technicians with experience in chemical and biological weaponry, and 
missiles, as well as linguists, chemists, geologists, international trade 
specialists and customs experts.Most inspectors operate under the U.N. 
Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, an organization that in 
1999 replaced the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq, or UNSCOM, as it was 
called.UNSCOM folded in 1998, after Iraq accused its inspectors of spying for 
the United States and barred them from returning. In response, President Bill 
Clinton launched Operation Desert Fox, a bomb-and-missile assault on 
suspected Iraqi weapons sites.Also available for Iraq duty are about 15 
nuclear-weapons inspectors from 11 countries who serve under the 
International Atomic Energy Agency.- When could they begin work?Although the 
inspectors say they are fully trained, packed and ready to depart 
immediately, they would be unlikely to go for at least an estimated three 
weeks, according to U.N. officials.During that time, the U.N. Security 
Council would first have to debate and craft a resolution on the matter. 
Then, the world body must iron out with Iraq such procedural details as 
establishing offices in several Iraqi cities, setting up a communication 
system, having access to helicopter and airplane landing sites, and 
installing monitoring equipment. In the past, Iraq has quibbled over all 
these matters and could again, despite Saddam's pledge for an unconditional 
return of inspectors.The fact that Iraq's message contained no companion 
promise to allow the experts free and unfettered access to all potential 
sites is likely to serve as another point of protracted negotiation - if not 
the complete torpedoing of the inspectors' return, as it has in the past.Ever 
since Iraq agreed in 1991 to destroy its weapons of mass destruction and 
missiles to carry them, Saddam has decreed dozens of sites off-limits to 
inspectors, including his palaces, which experts believe he has used to hide 
tons of deadly sarin gas, anthrax and an arsenal of munitions, as wells as 
equipment to make the weapons.- What would the inspectors' task be?To nose 
around Iraq to try to sniff out what, if anything, Saddam has accomplished 
during the four "dark years," as the United Nations describes the time since 
inspectors left.So far, officials have identified at least 700 potential 
sites to inspect. Some are those that in the past were suspected of being 
storage sites or laboratories, others are structures Iraq rebuilt after the 
1998 bombing campaign.The inspectors would use spy planes for aerial mapping, 
airborne sensors to detect chemicals, other detectors for waterborne 
contaminants and ground-penetrating radar. Satellite photos have recently 
shown dozens of trucks at the site of a former biological weapons facility 
outside Baghdad that had been destroyed by U.S. air strikes; inspectors would 
likely make a beeline for that facility.In general, U.N. officials estimate 
it would take teams of four or five inspectors several months to examine 
known sites - if Iraq does not impede their work.But U.N. reports on earlier 
UNSCOM missions are filled with accounts of Iraqi obstruction. Officials lied 
outright about assorted matters, secretly moved materiel, forged documents, 
threatened to hold inspectors hostage and ginned up crowds of ordinary Iraqis 
to keep U.N. workers from assorted sites."Cheat and retreat" became the catch 
phrase used by inspectors to describe the tactics of their Iraqi hosts. The 
White House warned Tuesday that Saddam is likely to reprise that 
approach."This is a man who has delayed, denied, deceived the world," 
President Bush said about Saddam. "For the sake of liberty and justice for 
all, the United Nations Security Council must act ... in a way to hold this 
regime to account, must not be fooled."