Iranian Alert -- December 27, 2003 -- IRAN LIVE THREAD

The US media almost entirely ignores news regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran. As Tony Snow of the Fox News Network has put it, “this is probably the most under-reported news story of the year.” But most American’s are unaware that the Islamic Republic of Iran is NOT supported by the masses of Iranians today. Modern Iranians are among the most pro-American in the Middle East.

There is a popular revolt against the Iranian regime brewing in Iran today. Starting June 10th of this year, Iranians have begun taking to the streets to express their desire for a regime change. Most want to replace the regime with a secular democracy. Many even want the US to over throw their government.

The regime is working hard to keep the news about the protest movement in Iran from being reported. Unfortunately, the regime has successfully prohibited western news reporters from covering the demonstrations. The voices of discontent within Iran are sometime murdered, more often imprisoned. Still the people continue to take to the streets to demonstrate against the regime.

In support of this revolt, Iranians in America have been broadcasting news stories by satellite into Iran. This 21st century news link has greatly encouraged these protests. The regime has been attempting to jam the signals, and locate the satellite dishes. Still the people violate the law and listen to these broadcasts. Iranians also use the Internet and the regime attempts to block their access to news against the regime. In spite of this, many Iranians inside of Iran read these posts daily to keep informed of the events in their own country.

This daily thread contains nearly all of the English news reports on Iran. It is thorough. If you follow this thread you will witness, I believe, the transformation of a nation. This daily thread provides a central place where those interested in the events in Iran can find the best news and commentary. The news stories and commentary will from time to time include material from the regime itself. But if you read the post you will discover for yourself, the real story of what is occurring in Iran and its effects on the war on terror.

I am not of Iranian heritage. I am an American committed to supporting the efforts of those in Iran seeking to replace their government with a secular democracy. I am in contact with leaders of the Iranian community here in the United States and in Iran itself.

If you read the daily posts you will gain a better understanding of the US war on terrorism, the Middle East and why we need to support a change of regime in Iran. Feel free to ask your questions and post news stories you discover in the weeks to come.

If all goes well Iran will be free soon and I am convinced become a major ally in the war on terrorism. The regime will fall. Iran will be free. It is just a matter of time.

U.N. Probe Into Iran's Nuclear Program Widens

December 27, 2003
The Associated Press
The santa Fe New Mexican

VIENNA, Austria -- While Pakistani scientists are believed to have played a major role in advancing Iran's nuclear program, more than a half-dozen other countries are now being drawn into the U.N. investigation, diplomats and arms experts say.

They say a monthslong probe by the International Atomic Energy Agency has traced the origins of Iran's program to the late 1980s, when Iran was supplied with the first drawings on centrifuge technology, its main way of enriching uranium.

The investigations have widened "well beyond" Pakistan, Russia and China to include companies in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and other West European countries, said one diplomat.

There are no U.N. or other international sanctions against Iran that would have prevented foreign companies from providing equipment that could be used in a nuclear program. But investigating companies yielded useful information when the world body investigated Iraq's weapons programs in the early 1990s.

One of those diplomats talking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity also linked Pakistan to North Korea's weapons program, saying U.S. intelligence had "pretty convincing" evidence of such a connection.

Iran and North Korea are the key concerns of the Vienna-based U.N. atomic agency, whose main task is to curb weapons proliferation through inspections and monitoring of countries that have ratified the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

North Korea withdrew from that treaty after the Bush administration revealed the existence of its nuclear-weapons program late last year.

After months of intense international pressure, Iran now is cooperating with IAEA efforts to unravel nearly two decades of covert activities that the United States and other countries say point to a weapons program.

Iran insists its nuclear activities are peaceful. But suspicions have heightened with revelations that it was enriching uranium, and the discovery of traces of weapons-grade enriched uranium on some of its centrifuge equipment.

A diplomat told AP that the agency was following up on three to four different samples of highly enriched uranium -- beyond the two whose existence had been previously revealed.

The agency is trying to trace the origins of the equipment to test Iranian claims that Tehran did not enrich uranium to weapons grade and that the highly enriched traces were inadvertently "imported" on the components. Neither Iran nor the IAEA have revealed the countries of origin, but diplomats had previously told AP that Pakistan, China and Russia were among the probable suppliers.

Russia has acknowledged signing a contract with Iran in the mid-1990s to deliver equipment that could be used for laser enrichment of uranium, but officials in Moscow say the contract was canceled several years later in response to U.S. pressure in the initial stages of the program.

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/main.asp?SectionID=2&SubSectionID=8&ArticleID=37743

"This is the Apocalypse"

December 27, 2003
The Associated Press
Ali Akbar Dareini

Overwhelmed rescue crews picked through entire city blocks of rubble in search for survivors and bodies a day after an earthquake ruined this southeast Iranian city. With the death toll in the thousands, Iran appealed for international help and promised to waive visas for foreign relief workers.

The scope of the tragedy was so vast that a reliable death toll was impossible to pin down so soon after the magnitude 6.5 quake hit Bam early Friday. The Interior Ministry's early estimate on Saturday was 20,000 dead, while two leading rescue officials said the toll could eventually double.

"As more bodies are pulled out, we fear that the death toll may reach as high as 40,000. An unbelievable human disaster has occurred," said Akbar Alavi, the governor of the city of Kerman, the provincial capital.

The leader of one relief team, Ahmad Najafi, said in one street alone in Bam on Saturday, 200 bodies had been extracted from the rubble in one hour's work. Workers used their bare hands and shovels, while a few bulldozers moved piles of bricks in the search for bodies and survivors.

A man with white turban and graying beard dug into and lifted rubble from the remains of his house, where his family was buried. When a hand of his teenage daughter appeared, he fainted and collapsed, and eventually, the bodies of his daughter, wife and two sons were brought out.

With hospitals in the area destroyed, military transport planes had to evacuate many wounded for treatment to Kerman, and even to Tehran.

"There is not a standing building in the city. Bam has turned into a wasteland. Even if a few buildings are standing, you cannot trust to live in them," Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari told reporters Saturday.

One man interrupted Lari as he spoke. "My father is under the rubble," the man said, his face streaked with tears. "I've been asking for help since yesterday, but nobody has come to help me. Please help me. I want my father alive."

Lari tried to calm the man down and assigned an aide to see that he got assistance.

Authorities had new trouble to deal with Saturday. About 800 convicts escaped from the Bam prison, guard Vahid Masoumpour told The Associated Press. The prison lies outside the city and its walls fractured or collapsed without killing any inmates.

Thousands of residents of the city spent Friday night outdoors, sleeping under blankets in temperatures close to freezing. A few hundred slept in tents erected by relief workers, and more tents arrived Saturday.

Men and women were seen slapping their own faces and beating their chests in an Islamic ritual of mourning.

"This is the Apocalypse. There is nothing but devastation and debris," Mohammed Karimi, in his 30s, said Friday when he brought the bodies of his wife and 4-year-old daughter to the cemetery.

The government appealed for international aid and said it would waive visa requirements for foreign relief workers.

"The disaster is far too huge for us to meet all of our needs," President Mohammad Khatami said Friday. "However, all the institutions have been mobilized."

Many countries responded, and relief crews from across Europe began arriving. A search-and-rescue team from Los Angeles — mostly county firefighters — was getting ready to go as well.

Bam's population was 80,000 before the quake, and surrounding villages were also severely damaged.

In one of the city's cemeteries, relief workers were digging and a bulldozer was excavating a mass grave. More than 20 corpses were already lying in the mass grave. A cleric and 10 relatives were saying prayers over an individual grave.

The quake destroyed much of Bam's historic landmark — a giant medieval fortress complex of towers, domes and walls, all made of mud-brick, overlooking a walled Old City, parts of which date back 2,000 years. Television images showed the highest part of the fort — including its distinctive square tower — crumbled like a sand castle down the side of the hill, though some walls still stood.

The quake struck at 5:28 a.m., while many were asleep. The state news agency IRNA put the magnitude at 6.3; the U.S. Geological Survey measured it at 6.5. Survivors were panicked throughout the day by aftershocks, including one that registered a magnitude of 5.3, according to the geophysics institute of Tehran University.

The interior minister said 70 percent of residential Bam had been destroyed, and there was no electricity, water or telephone service. Iran's Red Crescent, the Islamic equivalent of the Red Cross, said rescue and relief teams had been sent to Bam from numerous provinces.

Entire neighborhoods in Bam had collapsed. On one street, only a wall and the trees were standing. People carried away injured, while others sat sobbing next to the blanket-covered corpses of their loved ones. One man held his head in his hands and wailed.

The quake's epicenter was outside Bam, and nearby villages were also damaged in the region, which is home to about 230,000 people and lies about 630 miles southeast of the capital, Tehran.

In Iran, quakes of more than magnitude 5 usually kill people because most buildings are not built to withstand earthquakes, although the country sits on several major fault lines and temblors are frequent. Iran has a history of earthquakes that kill thousands of people, including one of magnitude 7.3 that killed about 50,000 people in northwest Iran in 1990.

The United Nations cultural agency, UNESCO, asked Iran for permission to send an UNESCO team of experts to the city's historic fortress, which has been under consideration for the agency's list of protected World Heritage Sites.

Parts of the Old City — once an important stop on the Silk Road through Asia — date back 2,000 years, though most of the structures were built in the 15th to 18th centuries.

Khatami declared three days of mourning. "God willing, we will try even harder to meet your needs," he said in a phone call to Kerman's governor that was aired on television.

Shocked Iranians mobilized to help. In Tehran, volunteers jammed a blood donation center. In Fars province, neighboring Kerman, the governor asked for donations of blankets and food and for volunteers to head to Bam to help in relief work.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=736&e=4&u=/ap/20031227/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_earthquake

U.S. Sends Medical Supplies, Searchers to Iran

December 27, 2003
The Associated Press
Scott Lindlaw

CRAWFORD, Texas -- The Bush administration is sending 150,000 pounds of medical supplies to quake-ravaged Iran in a military airlift, government officials said Saturday.

The administration is also dispatching teams of about 200 search-and-rescue and medical experts from Fairfax County, Virginia, Los Angeles and Boston, the officials said.

The military and civilian teams will work with the International Red Cross, the Iranian Red Crescent Society and the United Nations to determine needs and distribute the supplies.

Among the medical supplies being shipped to Iran are blood, food and other humanitarian rations, the officials said. The effort is being coordinated by the White House, State Department and the Pentagon, which is supplying at least a half-dozen cargo planes, several of them from Kuwait.

The airlift could mark a significant step forward in relations with Iran, which President Bush branded part of an ``axis of evil'' last year for allegedly seeking weapons of mass destruction.

Two Americans are among the casualties in the devastating earthquake that rocked southeastern Iran, a State Department official said Saturday.

Spokesman Lou Fintor said one American was killed and another was injured in Friday's powerful quake in the ancient city of Bam.

The State Department did not release the names of the two Americans, who were visiting the city's 2,000-year-old citadel at the time.

Fintor said the injured American has been hospitalized in Tehran and is receiving medical care. The injuries are serious but do not appear to be life-threatening, he said.

Iran's Interior Ministry has estimated that about 20,000 people were killed in the earthquake, but rescue officials said the number could be twice as high.

More than 30,000 people were injured.

In a statement of Friday, President Bush offered his condolences to ``all those touched by this tragedy.''

http://cbsnewyork.com/national/US-Iran-aa/resources_news_html

OFFICIALS OFFER CONFLICTING FIGURES ON THE TOLL FROM THE QUAKE

TEHRAN-Kerman, 27 Dec (IPS)

More than 24 hours after the strong earthquake that destroyed the old Iranian city of Bam in the southeastern Province of Kerman, the authorities have not been able to provide an official toll of dead and wounded.

While the official news agency IRNA quoted some local officials as having refuted certain media claims, including one by Iran Press Service on the toll from the Friday earthquake, Health Minister Ahmad Pezeshkian confirmed that out of the city’s 80.000 to 90.000 inhabitants are dead or wounded, with more than 5.000 transferred to hospitals in other cities.

Director of Iran’s Natural Disasters Headquarters Abbas Jazayeri told reporters that the injured have been taken to hospitals in Khorasan, Fars, Isfahan and Yazd provinces. Jazayeri said some of the injured had undergone outpatient treatment, and others have been hospitalised.

"According to Health Ministry’s statistics, 65 to 70 per cent of the population in Bam are either dead or wounded, some in critical conditions", the Minister told the independent news agency ISNA.

The Interior Ministry also estimated 20,000 dead and 30.000 injured, but two leading rescue officials said the number could be twice as high.

But Deputy Governor General of Kerman for Political and Security Affairs Mohammad Farshad said in an interview with IRNA on Saturday that certain media reports on tolls from Friday’s deadly quake in Bam were not correct, insisting that the figure is much less than what they announce.

"The figures are not correct; no precise statistics on the number of casualties are available yet but it seems that number of the victims is less", he said, adding 7,000 of the injured have thus far been carried to hospitals in Kerman and the nearby provinces.

Based on the latest surveys, Bam has a population of 100,000, Mr. Mohammad Ali Karimi, Kerman’s Governor said the bodies of 2,500 of the quake victims were buried as late as 12:00 pm on Friday, adding that the burials have been continuing throughout Saturday.

He further stressed that 300 planes and helicopters have carried out rescue operations in the quake-stricken city.

As international relief is arriving from across the world and people are complaining from the authorities slow reaction to the needy ones, reliable sources said tents, blankets, clothes, foodstuff and warm garments as well as sniffer dogs, life-detectors, ambulances, heavy and light machinery are urgently needed for the quake victims.

Rescue teams from several dozen countries had started arriving at the quake scene, the United Nations announced, and a 40-tonne UN cargo aircraft carrying aid equipment was due to leave on Sunday.

The transport plane was to fly from southern Italy carrying with 40 tonnes of tents, tarpaulins, blankets, generators and water purification tablets, donated by Italy and Norway.

The international Red Cross in Geneva appealed for almost 10 million euros (12 million dollars) to provide aid to some 200,000 people over a six-month period.

"There is not a standing building in the city. Bam has turned into a wasteland. Even if a few buildings are standing, you cannot trust to live in them", Interior Minister Hojjatoleslam Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari told reporters Saturday.

Thousands of residents of the city spent Friday night outdoors, sleeping under blankets in temperatures close to freezing. A few hundred slept in tents erected by relief workers, and more tents arrived Saturday.

Men and women were seen slapping their own faces and beating their chests in an Islamic ritual of mourning.

"The disaster is far too huge for us to meet all of our needs," President Mohammad Khatami said. "However, all the institutions have been mobilised".

Red Crescent Society, Natural Disasters Headquarters, the Islamic Republic Army, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, police and Ministry of Health are busy rendering relief services to the victims in the quake-hit areas.

"Many people braving the night's cold and darkness searched in vain their ruined houses in search of relatives buried under the ruins", one local journalist told Iran Press Service, complaining from the absence of order and coordination in providing essential services.

The quake destroyed much of Bam's historic medieval fortress complex of towers, domes and walls, all made of mud-brick, overlooking a walled Old City, parts of which date back 2,000 years. Television images showed the highest part of the fort — including its distinctive square tower — crumbled like a sand castle down the side of the hill, though some walls still stood.

ENDS IRAN EARTHQUAKE UPDATE 271203

http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2003/Dec-2003/iran_earthquake_toll_271203.htm

US seeks bin Laden here, there and everywhere

By Mark Huband and Mohsen Asgari
Published: December 26 2003 18:43 |
Last Updated: December 26 2003 18:43

Much of the story behind Saddam Hussein's eight months on the run has yet to be made public. But US military and intelligence officials say the Iraqi dictator never wandered far from the banks of the Tigris. Remaining within the Sunni heartland, he scrambled from one farmhouse to the next, sometimes by car or van, sometimes by boat.

By contrast, Osama bin Laden, leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist group, appears to have become far more adept at evading the manhunt.

The US is unshaken in its will to find its other most-wanted fugitive. Last week, General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, vowed that Mr bin Laden "will be captured some day, just like we captured Saddam Hussein".

But Gen. Myers went on to say that the al-Qaeda leader was likely to be hiding "where he has some support, where he can buy support, and probably in very difficult terrain".

The common belief is that this terrain lies somewhere on the 1,500 mile (2,400km) wild and sparsely populated frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Mr bin Laden and a handful of loyal followers could be anywhere in the high mountain passes or the tribal lands where the writ of neither Islamabad nor Kabul counts for much.

But sporadic and unconfirmed sightings of Mr bin Laden have also begun to crop up further afield. These include sightings in Kashmir, Pakistan's tribal areas and Baluchistan on the border with Iran.

Even if these do not amount to a reliable guide to his whereabouts, they are a tribute to his elusiveness. In one recent account, a man with links to Iran's intelligence services and hard-line Revolutionary Guard Corps (RGC) has told the Financial Times that he saw the al-Qaeda leader in Iran two months ago. He saw him arrive at an RGC guest house close to the small town of Najmabad, west of Tehran, on 23 October.

The al-Qaeda leader, accompanied by Ayman al-Zawahiri, his deputy, was being driven by RGC officers when they arrived at the guest house, a 90 minute drive from Tehran.

A meeting taking place in the building was suddenly halted to allow the two men to use it. The witness said both had subtly changed their appearances, with trimmed beards hair cut short. Neither was wearing their traditional turbans, he said, and both were dressed in Pakistani-style clothes and carrying long shawls across their shoulders.

Senior Iranian security officials strenuously deny the claims. The country is holding an unknown number of al-Qaeda activists, and has provided a list of names to the United Nations. But it has denied that any senior al-Qaeda figures are among those being held, and says those in the country are under house arrest. Hamid Reza Asefi, foreign ministry spokesman, said: "It is a baseless allegation and is not true at all. It is a fictitious interview with an unknown eyewitness. It is like a fantasy. Any group with any sort of interest does not back bin Laden in Iran, and he has no room in Iran."

The vehemence of the Iranian denial is a reflection of how serious the country - which George W. Bush, US president, defined as a part of an "axis of evil" - views any accusation that could make it a target of US action. Officials within the reformist government of President Mohamed Khatami also deny that Mr bin Laden has ever been in Iran. Mr Khatami's strong suspicion of al-Qaeda's Sunni fundamentalism has fed fears that Iran could itself become a target for Mr bin Laden's organisation.

The ewitness to the sighting near Najmabad did not think the government knew about the alleged visit, and said rogue hardliners in the RGC may have organised it independently.

But a senior Iranian security official said: "There have been so many similarly false stories that said bin Laden has been in Tabriz or Qazvin, but they were rumours. People tantalised by the $25m ) [offered by the US as a reward] have created these myths."

But western intelligence officials are less sure. One said the main focus of the search remained the Pakistani-Afghan border region but "it is not out of the question that he is in Iran, as we know he has been able to move around".

Those chasing Mr Hussein struggled to find him in the Sunni triangle, north of Baghdad. Those pursuing Mr bin Laden do not have the luxury of restricting their search to one district - or even to one country.

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1071251778420&p=1012571727088

U.S. Airlifting Disaster Aid into Iran:
First flights since failed hostage-rescue raid in 1980

December 27, 2003
CNN
CNN.com

WASHINGTON -- To offer assistance to Iranian earthquake victims, the United States will send its first military flights into the country since an elite force tried to rescue U.S. hostages in April 1980.

Operation Desert One was a failed, top-secret mission designed to rescue 66 hostages held in the capital, Tehran.

Mechanical problems in Iran's Great Salt Desert caused the mission to be aborted. As one of six helicopters departed, it crashed into a C-130 cargo plane, causing an explosion that killed eight servicemen.

The U.S. did not try a second rescue attempt, and the hostages were eventually released. The United States has no diplomatic ties with Iran, a nation that President Bush has labeled part of the "axis of evil."

The new mission will include more than 200 personnel and more than 150,000 pounds of medical supplies, including blood, to provide emergency assistance for the victims of Friday's earthquake in Bam, Iran, the White House said Saturday.

The earthquake -- with a magnitude of 6.6 -- hit the ancient city before dawn, killing between 5,000 and 20,000 people. As many as 30,000 people are believed to have been injured, the Interior Ministry said.

The flights carrying personnel to assist victims of the earthquake were scheduled to depart three U.S. Air Force bases -- Dover, March and Westover -- on Saturday, a Bush administration official said.

The medical supplies would be sent from U.S. bases in Kuwait, the White House said.

The plans were made after extensive discussions between the U.S. and Iranian governments, the Bush administration official said.

In a statement, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the United States is working with "Iranian authorities, the United Nations, and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent to rapidly deploy humanitarian assistance.

"The United States will deploy civilian teams composed of more than 200 experts in urban search and rescue, emergency surgery, and disaster response coordination," including medical response teams from Boston, Massachusetts, and local disaster response teams from Los Angeles, California, and Fairfax County, Virginia, the statement said.

Disaster response experts will be sent from the United States Agency for International Development and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

At least one U.S. citizen was killed in the earthquake and another was injured, a State Department official said.

The two Americans -- whose names were not released -- were in Bam to visit the city's 2,000-year-old citadel, the State Department official said.

The injured American has been hospitalized and is receiving medical care for injuries that are serious but not life-threatening, the department official said.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/12/27/iran.us.aid/index.html

Poor Facilities Hamper Iran Rescue Efforts

December 28, 2003
The Peninsula
Agencies

BAM, Iran -- Rescue worker Omid Alipour had been given a luminous jacket but no shovel.

After a whole night clawing away at the levelled remnants of the ancient Silk Road city of Bam, shattered by a violent pre-dawn earthquake on Friday, he sheepishly admitted his team had only recovered three injured from the rubble.

“There are probably 20,000 still buried under the ruins,” an exhausted, dust-covered Alipour said. “We don’t have anything, just our bare hands.”

The official IRNA news agency reported an international sniffer dog team had recovered 20 people alive from the debris.

Alipour’s team may just have had their bare hands but they had no shortage of help.

Iranians from all corners of the country have poured into Bam to help shift the crumbled mud-brick that crushed to death at least 20,000 people and injured more than 30,000.

Blood clinics in Tehran are overwhelmed by a rush of eager donors. Collection centres for food and blankets are being set up across the capital.

But for so many people, it was too late.

Hundreds of bodies have already been tipped into broad trenches hollowed out by mechanical diggers. Cemeteries were crammed to overflowing with fully-clothed corpses and the stench of death was beginning to pervade the streets.

Fatemeh, 35, was burying her two children. “I am burying myself in this grave,” she said.

Taher, 50, was inconsolable, sobbing “wake up, wake up” to the body of his teenage son Farzad.

Television showed the injured, bloodied and bandaged, being crammed into aircraft and flown to cities around the country. It said 3,000 had been flown to hospitals in other cities.

Iran’s normally sharply divided newspapers have united in grief across the conservative and reformist camps.

The reformist Sharq newspaper said Iranians had to learn to live with earthquakes: “Nature is not violent, it is man that makes himself vulnerable by not observing the rule of nature”. It also called for enforcement of the country’s widely-flouted construction laws.

Iranian earthquake experts have attacked the Islamic Republic’s dismal earthquake education and public fatalism.

“Most people think what God wills, will happen. This is absolutely wrong. This thinking is poisonous,” Bahram Akasheh, professor of geophysics at Tehran University, told Reuters in an interview in October.

Twenty people were pulled from the ruins of the quake-devastated city after being located amid the rubble by sniffer dogs provided by the Iranian army or European donors, the official Irna news agency reported.

Iranian reluctance to allow foreign rescue teams to bring the animals delayed international relief efforts after quakes in Iran in 1990 and again last year. But since the mid-1990s a growing number of Iranian theologians have justified the use of sniffer dogs to save human life and on Friday the interior ministry specifically appealed for international donors to send the animals.

The dogs provided by the Iranian army are normally used in the fight against traffickers of heroin and cannabis from neighbouring Afghanistan and Pakistan headed for Europe and the Gulf.

Between 65 and 70 percent of 90,000-strong population of Bam was killed in Friday’s pre-dawn temblor, which razed the fortress city’s historic heart.

Thousands are believed to lie buried amid the ruins and the race has been on to rescue them as night-time temperatures plummeted to below zero degrees Celsius.

http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Gulf%2C+Middle+East+%26+Africa&month=December2003&file=World_News2003122811754.xml

Survivors Deplore Poor Rescue Efforts

December 27, 2003
The Peninsula
Agencies

BAM -- Survivors of the massive earthquake were beside themselves with grief yesterday, as the scale of the catastrophe swamped rescue workers.

Dozens of bodies littered the streets of the city, built almost entirely from mud brick and ill-equipped to withstand disaster, witnesses said. Bereaved residents wandered the streets pleading for the authorities to speed up rescue efforts after the historic centre of the city — once a jewel in the crown of Iran’s rich culture — was completely destroyed.

Streets were packed with frightened survivors. Bawling infants and dazed adults who escaped the collapse of their homes gathered in city squares, cowering from the piercing cold under woollen blankets. “No-one has come to help us, all we are after is a tent. I feel I could die tonight it’s so cold,” said Yousefabadi, 25.

The dead were piled onto the back seats of cars or heaved into trucks. Brick and rubble-strewn pavements were peppered with the prostrate injured, some on intravenous drips. Workers dug trenches that were hastily filled with corpses. As soon as the graves were dug, survivors buried their dead, foregoing the traditional Muslim rite of washing them beforehand because they were impossible to perform. As men and women watched in tears, the diggers quickly dumped earth on top.

Ruhollah Bahrami, a shopkeeper, also felt let down by the authorities. “If this were the West, we would have had plenty of help by now,” he said.

President Mohammad Khatami acknowledged the Islamic Republic was stretched and Iran appealed for international aid. The government said it had sent 19 aircraft to ferry survivors to hospitals and it was using helicopters to lift out some of the injured.

Television showed dirty and dazed survivors packed into one commercial airliner. Many were bloodied and some were wrapped in sheets. Several nations were sending teams of doctors and rescuerswith sniffer dogs and special equipment to locate survivorsburied beneath rubble.

But Maryam, 17, accepted the ambulances would come too late. “I have lost all my family. My parents, my grandmother and two sisters are under the rubble,” she said. Maliheh, 50, said she had lost her three children and was desperate for a mobile phone to contact family and friends.

Old women beat their heads and smeared their faces with dirt before the corpses of their relations laid out in rows, and state television showed people wailing as their severely injured relatives were taken to Tehran for treatment.

As night fell and temperatures headed below zero, people lit fires to keep warm and made torches from palm branches for light as they dug with bare hands for survivors. Bam was without water, gas or electricity. Residents scoured for any kind of vehicle that would take them to refuge in the province’s main city of Kerman.

http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Gulf%2C+Middle+East+%26+Africa&month=December2003&file=World_News200312274544.xml

U.S., Iran Hold Direct Talks on Quake Relief

December 27, 2003
Reuters
Mark Felsenthal

CRAWFORD, Texas -- U.S. and Iranian officials put aside diplomatic differences to directly discuss humanitarian aid after the earthquake in Iran that claimed tens of thousands of lives, a State Department official said on Saturday.

The United States will send government and civilian emergency workers and 75,000 tons of medical supplies to Iran, the White House said.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in a statement that the United States was working with Iranian authorities, the United Nations and the International Red Cross and Red Crescent to quickly send aid to Iran after the devastating earthquake in the city of Bam, where officials estimate the death toll at 20,000.

The U.S. announcement followed rare direct talks between U.S. and Iranian officials, State Department spokesman Lou Fintor said.

"Given the urgency of the situation we deemed direct contact to be the most appropriate channel," Fintor said.

Washington broke relations with the Islamic republic after students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days.

President Bush, in his 2002 State of the Union speech, branded Iran as part of an "axis of evil." But the president offered condolences to the families of the dead and injured on Friday and promised the United States would provide humanitarian aid.

U.S. officials usually communicate with Tehran through intermediaries, often channeling messages through Swiss diplomats.

But Fintor denied there was diplomatic significance to the direct contacts with Iran.

"There is no political angle. There is a humanitarian catastrophe in Iran and our only mission is to alleviate the human suffering associated with yesterday's earthquake," he said.

Iran's quick acceptance of help contrasts with its rejection in 1990 of outside doctors, workers, blood supplies, sniffer dogs and used clothes after an earthquake claimed 36,000 lives and injured 100,000 people.

The United Sates will send medical response teams from Boston, Los Angeles and Virginia and disaster experts from government agencies, McClellan said. The U.S. military will deliver medical supplies from bases in Kuwait, said the spokesman, who was with Bush at his Texas ranch.

Separately, World Vision, a major U.S.-based humanitarian relief organization, announced it plans to airlift supplies to Iran next week.

World Vision said it would send an airlift of $250,000 worth of supplies including plastic sheeting and water purification tablets and equipment early next week.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=4049458

Now Iran must face the political aftershocks

By John Simpson
(Filed: 28/12/2003)

Apart from a tidal wave, no natural phenomenon is as terrifying as an earthquake. As the earth bucks and heaves underneath you, throwing off the feeble constraints that mankind has built on it, you realise how helpless we are when the forces of the planet choose to exert themselves.

In Iran, as in India, Turkey and Mexico - three other countries which have suffered severe earthquakes in recent decades - the disasters have been made far worse by bad and careless building. Bam's suffering was caused as much by shoddy construction as by seismic action.

Iran, one of the most beautiful countries on earth, both in terms of landscape and architecture, has been horribly vulnerable to earthquakes during the past quarter-century. In 1978, 1990 and now 2003, there has been frightening destruction and loss of life, worse than any other country has suffered during this period.

The sight of the citadel of Bam, dominating the landscape as you cross the Dasht-e Kevir desert, was always a magnificent one. Now, many of the buildings within the citadel walls have been shaken to a mass of reddish-brown dust as the sun-dried bricks simply crumbled under the pressure. There was little wood to absorb the sudden shock: Bam rises up in the centre of a vast arid plain, with few natural sources of timber nearby.

The citadel itself dates at least from the days of the Parthians, 2,000 years ago. They presented a persistent threat to the Roman Empire. The rest of the town, built around the citadel's base, had been largely unchanged since the late 17th or early 18th centuries. It is nearly as much an aesthetic and cultural disaster as a human one.

The bolder Western tourists who went there and were delighted by its air of unchanged majesty, and by the spectacular views over the surrounding plain, were never large in number, but in recent years even they have been staying away because of the danger of attack and kidnapping in the lawless area between Bam and the Pakistani border; Baluchistan has always been a tricky place for Westerners to penetrate. Now, presumably, no tourists will go there at all, and the money they once brought with them will be spent elsewhere.

The Iranian government has had a great deal of experience in dealing with the aftermath of earthquakes, and the rescue operation is likely to be relatively efficient. It is helped by the genuine efforts of many other countries, including Britain and the United States.

Earthquakes have always had a strong political aftershock in Iran; the one in Tabas, which killed 15,000 people, was used by the enemies of the Shah to undermine his reputation for good and concerned government. Now the Americans are trying to turn the Bam earthquake to a more peaceful advantage. President Bush abated his habitual threatening tone towards Iran and made a statement of generous concern. Unlike the quieter American assistance that followed last year's smaller earthquake, Mr Bush was open about America's willingness to help.

The quarrelsome, competitive press in Teheran has reported this fully. Iranians are people of considerable generosity of spirit, and do not forget these things. Ever since the revolution of 1978-9, the relationship between Britain and Iran has always been a difficult one, but it was at its friendliest and closest after the 1990 earthquake, close to the Caspian Sea, which killed 35,000 people.

The government of Margaret Thatcher immediately offered help and aid on a large scale, and President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was touched and grateful that the country, which was often regarded as its enemy, should have stood by Iran at such a time. Soon, a high-level delegation from London visited Teheran, and the strange on-again, off-again relationship between the two countries became noticeably warmer for a time.

Now, swift and generous aid from both Britain and America may offer a new opportunity for closer links with Iran: assuming, of course, that Washington wants that. Britain certainly does, and Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, has put his personal prestige into the balance to try to improve the relationship. It is the difficult, gridlocked politics of Iran itself that have prevented closer links between London and Teheran during the past year.

As experienced Western volunteers fly in to Iran to help, and Europe and America give large amounts of money to the charities that are co-ordinating the relief work, we will have another chance to improve the atmosphere with a country which is never easy to deal with, but which is too important to leave out in the cold.

And there is another opportunity. The Iranian government has shown itself to be remarkably concerned with its historical and architectural heritage. We should do what we can to help Iran rebuild Bam in something like its past glory.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/12/28/wqke228.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/12/28/ixnewstop.html

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