news at 4

PHILADELPHIA – A Pennsylvania school district accused of secretly switching on laptop computer webcams inside students’ homes is under investigation by federal authorities, a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case told The Associated Press.

The FBI will look into whether any federal wiretap or computer-intrusion laws were violated by Lower Merion School District officials, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official was not authorized to discuss the investigation, told the AP on Friday.

Days after a student filed suit over the practice, Lower Merion officials acknowledged Friday that they remotely activated webcams 42 times in the past 14 months, but only to find missing student laptops. They insist they never did so to spy on students, as the student’s family claimed in the federal lawsuit.

Families were not informed of the possibility the webcams might be activated in their homes without their permission in the paperwork students sign when they get the computers, district spokesman Doug Young said.

“It’s clear what was in place was insufficient, and that’s unacceptable,” Young said.

The district has suspended the practice amid the lawsuit and the accompanying uproar from students, the community and privacy advocates. District officials hired outside counsel to review the past webcam activations and advise the district on related issues, Young said.

Remote-activation software can be used to capture keystrokes, send commands over the Internet or turn computers into listening devices by turning on built-in microphones. People often use it for legitimate purposes — to access computers from remote locations, for example. But hackers can use it to steal passwords and spouses to track the whereabouts of partners or lovers.

The Pennsylvania case shows how even well-intentioned plans can go awry if officials fail to understand the technology and its potential consequences, privacy experts said. Compromising images from inside a student’s bedroom could fall into the hands of rogue school staff or otherwise be spread across the Internet, they said.

“What about the (potential) abuse of power from higher ups, trying to find out more information about the head of the PTA?” wondered Ari Schwartz, vice president at the Center for Democracy and Technology. “If you don’t think about the privacy and security consequences of using this kind of technology, you run into problems.”

The FBI opened its investigation after news of the suit broke on Thursday, the law-enforcement official said. Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman may also investigate, she said Friday.

Lower Merion, an affluent district in Philadelphia’s suburbs, issues Apple laptops to all 2,300 students at its two high schools. Only two employees in the technology department were authorized to activate the cameras — and only to locate missing laptops, Young said. The remote activations captured images but never recorded sound, he said.

No one had complained before Harriton High School student Blake Robbins and his parents, Michael and Holly Robbins, filed their lawsuit Tuesday, he said.

According to the suit, Harriton vice principal Lindy Matsko told Blake on Nov. 11 that the school thought he was “engaged in improper behavior in his home.” She allegedly cited as evidence a photograph “embedded” in his school-issued laptop.

The suit does not say if the boy’s laptop had been reported stolen, and Young said the litigation prevents him from disclosing that fact. He said the district never violated its policy of only using the remote-activation software to find missing laptops. “Infer what you want,” Young said.

The suit accuses the school of turning on Blake’s webcam while the computer was inside his Penn Valley home, allegedly violating wiretap laws and his right to privacy.

Blake Robbins told KYW-TV on Friday that a school official described him in his room and mistook a piece of candy for a pill.

“She described what I was doing,” he said. “She said she thought I had pills and said she thought that I was selling drugs.”

Robbins said he was holding a Mike and Ike candy, not pills.

Holly Robbins said a school official told her that she had a picture of Blake holding up what she thought were pills.

“It was an invasion of privacy; it was like we had a Peeping Tom in our house,” Holly Robbins told WPVI-TV. “I send my son to school to learn, not to be spied on.”

Neither the family nor their lawyer, Mark Haltzman, returned calls from The Associated Press for comments this week.

The remote activations helped the district locate 28 of the 42 missing computers, Young said. He could not immediately say whether the technology staff was authorized to share the images with Matsko or other officials.

Either way, the potential for abuse is nearly limitless, especially because many teens keep their computers in their bedrooms, experts said.

“This is an age where kids explore their sexuality, so there’s a lot of that going on in the room,” said Witold Walczak, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, which is not involved in the Robbins case. “This is fodder for child porn.”

WASHINGTON (AFP) –
President Barack Obama’s administration plans to rebrand its military operation in Iraq “Operation New Dawn,” beginning September 1, a Pentagon memorandum shows.

The memo, signed by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, shows the Pentagon approving a request to switch the name of the US military effort in Iraq from its current designation — “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

“The request… is approved to take effect 1 September 2010, coinciding with the change of mission for US forces in Iraq.

“Aligning the name change with the change of mission sends a strong signal that Operation Iraqi Freedom has ended and our forces are operating under a new mission,” Gates wrote in the memo, first reported by ABC News.

The document, which is addressed to General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, adds the rebranding “presents opportunities to synchronize strategic communication initiatives… and recognize our evolving relationship with the government of Iraq.”

The move quickly drew criticism from Military Families United, a national security pressure group.

“You cannot end a war simply by changing its name,” Brian Wise, the group’s executive director, said in a statement.

“Despite the administration’s efforts to spin realities on the ground, their efforts do not change the situation at hand in Iraq.

“Operational military decisions should not be made for purposes of public relations but should be made in the best interests of our nation, the troops on the ground and their families back home.”

Obama ran for office in 2008 on a platform that emphasized a pledge to withdraw US troops from Iraq and focus on the war in Afghanistan.

There are now some 97,000 US troops stationed in Iraq, the first time the number has fallen below 100,000 since the US-led invasion of the country in 2003, according to the Pentagon.

That figure is scheduled to fall to around 50,000 by the end of August, with those troops left behind functioning in advisory and training roles solely.

All US troops are scheduled to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011.

BAGHDAD – A suicide car bomb exploded Thursday outside the gate of the main government compound in the capital of Iraq’s Anbar province, killing at least 13 people, including four police, a health official said.

The attacker detonated his explosive-packed car at the compound housing the governor’s office, police headquarters and courts in downtown Ramadi.

The province, where al-Qaida-backed Sunni insurgents once held sway, has seen a rise in attacks against security forces and government officials in recent months. The incident also comes amid fears that next month’s elections will stoke political violence.

The blast also wounded at least 26 people, said Dr. Khudhair Khalaf, the director of the provincial health authority.

Debris from the car bomb could be seen strewn on the bloodstained pavement in front of the compound, along with slippers and a red-checkered traditional tribal headdress. The force of the explosion damaged two civilian cars and a police vehicle and shattered the windows of a nearby restaurant.

Anbar was the site of some of the war’s most intense fighting between U.S. forces and insurgents in the key cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, though the province is comparatively peaceful now.

The government compound in Ramadi was once the scene of daily attacks during the height of the insurgency in 2005 and 2006, with the governor hunkered down in his office protected by a platoon of U.S. Marines while insurgent mortar shells rained down.

By the end of 2006, many former insurgents began to rebel against al-Qaida, and joined forces with the U.S. military, who paid fighters to participate in pro-government Awakening Councils.

Despite an overall decline in violence, insurgents still regularly attack security forces and government officials.

Twenty-two people were wounded Thursday when a parked car bomb exploded near an Iraqi police convoy in Mosul, 225 miles (360 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad, a police official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have warned of a possible spike in attacks ahead of the election, and Iraq has ratcheted up security in Baghdad and other potential trouble hotspots in the run-up to the polls.

In the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, 180 miles (290 kilometers) north of Baghdad, Iraqi, U.S. and Kurdish troops have been jointly conducting “pre-emptive” raids against suspected insurgents ahead of the vote, said police Brig. Gen. Sarhad Qadir, an operations field commander.

Qadir said 26 people have been detained in raids that began 10 days ago.

Also Thursday, Iraqi security officials said they have arrested eight people for allegedly ripping down campaign posters that are plastered across Baghdad. They face up to a year in jail under an elections law that is being enforced for the first time since Saddam was ousted in 2003.

Vandals have also torn down posters promoting Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in the southern Iraqi cities of Basra and Amarah.

Thursday’s bombings underscore the insurgents’ ability to hit the government despite the security clampdown. They also come amid escalating political tensions in the country since a government-backed vetting committee banned hundreds of candidates with ties to Saddam’s outlawed Baath Party from running in the March elections.

Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top American commander in Iraq, said earlier this week the U.S. has intelligence that links two senior Iraqi officials overseeing the work of the committee — Ahmed Chalabi and Ali al-Lami — to Iran.

Chalabi denied the allegations in a campaign speech Thursday to supporters in Baghdad.

“I would say his (Odierno’s) statements are unfounded,” Chalabi told supporters. “The fact that he continues to try to attack me and Mr. Ali al-Lami for a relationship with various bodies in Iran is unhelpful.”

Chalabi also said he has political relationships with authorities in a number of countries that have an interest in Iraq.

___

Associated Press Writers Chelsea J. Carter and Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad and Yahya Barzanji in Sulaimaniyah contributed to this report.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) –
A man in Israel with the same name as an alleged member of a hit squad that assassinated a top Hamas militant in Dubai said Tuesday he was “angry, upset and scared” over what he called a misidentification.

Dubai police listed “Melvyn Adam Mildiner,” a British national, as one of 11 Europeans suspected of killing Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a luxury hotel in the Gulf emirate last month.

The Palestinian militant group Hamas has blamed Israel for last month’s killing of Mabhouh, and Dubai police have said they could not rule out Israeli involvement.

Dubai issued international arrest warrants for all 11 suspected killers of Mabhouh for premeditated murder, the emirate’s deputy attorney general Essam al-Humaidan said in a statement Tuesday.

Speaking in British-accented English, Melvyn Adam Mildiner, resident of a town near Jerusalem, told Reuters he had nothing to do with the assassination and had never been to Dubai.

“I woke up this morning to a world of fun,” he said in a sarcastic tone, after Israeli newspapers splashed names and photos of the suspects distributed by Dubai.

“I am obviously angry, upset and scared — any number of things. And I’m looking into what I can do to try to sort things out and clear my name,” he said in a telephone interview.

“I don’t know how this happened or who chose my name or why, but hopefully we’ll find out soon,” said Mildiner, a technical writer.

A photo of “Melvyn Adam Mildiner” released by Dubai did not match a picture of the Israel-based Mildiner on his Twitter social networking page, though some features were similar.

“It’s not me. Which is one silver lining on this entire story because at least I can point to it and say, ‘Look, that’s not me,” Mildiner said.

“I have my passport. It is in my house, along with the passports of everybody else in my family, and there’s no Dubai stamps in it because I’ve never been to Dubai,” he said.

NO COMMENT

Israel has refused to comment on the killing and allegations by Hamas that its Mossad intelligence service was responsible.

A security source in Israel said the target, Mabhouh, played a key role in smuggling Iranian-funded arms to Islamist militants in the Gaza Strip. Hamas confirmed the information.

Israeli hit squads have used foreign passports in the past, notably in 1997 when agents entered Jordan on Canadian passports and bungled an attempt to kill Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal.

One of the agents had a passport bearing the name of a Canadian in Israel, who said his identity was stolen.

Israel apologized in 2005 after two suspected Mossad men were jailed in New Zealand for obtaining New Zealand passports illegally.

In 1987, Britain protested to Israel about what London called the misuse by Israeli authorities of forged British passports and said it received assurances steps had been taken to prevent future occurrences.

Gad Shimron, a former Mossad field officer, said it has since become more difficult to provide operatives with false papers that can pass muster.

“These days, any border policeman has near-instant access to international databases where he can authenticate documents. That means that passports used by spies have to be as close as possible to the real thing,” Shimron told Reuters.

The 11 suspects named by Dubai include British, Irish, German and French passport holders. A government source said six other people, not yet identified, were also suspects.

Mossad is widely believed to have stepped up covert missions against Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia and Iran’s nuclear project. Among killings attributed to Mossad were that of Hezbollah commander Imad Moughniyeh in Damascus two years ago.

In Paris, a French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said it was unable to confirm the authenticity of the passport used by one of the suspects.

Ireland and Britain said they were seeking more information from Dubai about the possible involvement of their nationals.

“Based on checking the information that has appeared in the media, no such Irish passports exist,” a spokesman at Ireland’s foreign ministry said.

MARJAH, Afghanistan – Two U.S. rockets slammed into a home Sunday outside the southern Taliban stronghold of Marjah, killing 12 civilians after Afghanistan’s president appealed to NATO to take care in its campaign to seize the town.

Inside Marjah, Marines encountered “death at every corner” in their second day of a massive offensive to capture this bleak mud-brick city filled with booby traps, hardcore Taliban fighters and civilians unsure where to cast their loyalty.

Marines confronted a fierce sandstorm as they ducked in and out of doorways and hid behind bullet-riddled walls to evade sniper fire. To the north, U.S. Army troops fought skirmishes with Taliban fighters, calling in a Cobra attack helicopter against the insurgents.

Insurgents littered the area with booby traps and explosives before the offensive, and the sound of controlled detonations — about three every hour — punctuated the day along with mortars and rocket fire.

“Our children are very scared by the explosions. When will it end?” asked Zaher, a 25-year-old poppy farmer who like many Afghans goes by one name.

The civilian deaths were a blow to NATO and Afghan efforts to win the support of residents in the Marjah area, a major goal of the biggest ground offensive of the eight-year war. Marjah, which had a population of 80,000 before the offensive, is a Taliban logistical center and a base for their lucrative opium trade which finances the insurgency.

The rockets were fired by a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, at insurgents who attacked U.S. and Afghan forces, wounding one American and one Afghan, NATO said in a statement. Instead, the projectiles veered 300 yards (meters) off target and blasted a house in the Nad Ali district, which includes Marjah, NATO added.

The top NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, apologized to President Hamid Karzai for “this tragic loss of life” and suspended use of the sophisticated HIMARS system pending “a thorough review of this incident,” NATO said.

Before the offensive began Saturday, Karzai pleaded for the Afghan and foreign commanders to be “seriously careful for the safety of civilians.”

Karzai’s spokesman Waheed Omar said the president “is very upset about what happened” and has been “very seriously conveying his message” of restraint “again and again.”

Allied officials have reported two coalition deaths so far — one American and one Briton, who were both killed Saturday. Afghan officials said at least 27 insurgents have been killed in the offensive.

In unrelated incidents in southern Afghanistan, NATO said two service members died Sunday — one from small-arms fire and the other from a road side bomb explosion. The international force did not disclose their nationalities, but the British defense ministry reported that a British soldier died Sunday of wounds suffered in an explosion.

Marines and Afghan forces met only scattered resistance when they swooped down by helicopter on the impoverished farming community before dawn Saturday. A day later, however, Taliban attacks were escalating, with small bands of fighters firing rifles and rocket-propelled grenades at troops moving slowly through the bombs and booby traps hidden in homes, residential compounds and along the rutted streets.

“It seems these guys want to get a bit closer,” Lt. Carl Quist said as bullets whizzed overhead.

Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, a top Marine commander in the south, predicted it could take 30 days to clear Marjah because of all the hidden explosives.

Marines said they would have preferred a straight-up fight to what they called the “death at every corner” crawl they faced as they made their way through the town.

“Basically, if you hear the boom, it’s good. It means you’re still alive after the thing goes off,” said Lance Corp. Justin Hennes, 22, of Lakeland, Florida.

To bypass heavily mined bridges, Marine engineers erected their own Vietnam-era metal spans over canals that irrigate opium poppy fields.

As Marines pushed deeper into town, gunfire forced them to take cover in buildings and compounds not yet cleared of booby traps. In one compound, a dog trained to detect explosives discovered a massive bomb hidden in a pile of trash.

Some troops complained that the strict rules issued by McChrystal to spare civilians were making their job more difficult and dangerous. Under the rules, troops cannot fire at people unless they commit a hostile act or show hostile intent.

U.S. soldiers operating near Marjah said the Taliban can fire on them, then set aside their weapon and walk freely out of a compound, possibly toward a weapons cache in another location.

A few crafty, determined insurgents can keep a larger force engaged for hours with some degree of impunity.

“The inability to stop people who don’t have weapons is the main hindrance right now,” said 1st Lt. Gavin McMahon of Brooklyn, N.Y. McMahon. “They know how to use our ROE against us,” referring to the Rules of Engagement.

In areas where troops have wrested control from the Taliban, the second phase of the operation is under way — trying to convince civilians that their future lies with the government and not the insurgents.

Several shuras, or meetings with community leaders, have been held in Marjah and the surrounding Nad Ali district with more planned.

In one village, Qari Sahib, Afghan officials met with residents Sunday, promising to provide security, pave a road and build a school and a clinic. In exchange, they urged the villagers to renounce the Taliban and push militants to reintegrate into society. To show good faith, a resident who had been arrested for alleged militant activity was freed.

“This is all to the benefit for you people but we need your cooperation,” Deputy Gov. Abdul Sattar Mirzekwal, told more than 100 villagers gathered outside a mosque. “Do not let the Taliban come into your area and disrupt security.”

Most villagers at the shura expressed support for the government. Others expressed skepticism, laughing and paying little attention to the officials’ promises.

Abdul Wali, a 23-year-old farmer, said he hoped people would give the government a chance.

“I’m afraid that if they do not join with the government, there will be fights, clashes and gunbattles in our village,” he said. “I hope the government will fulfill all the promises it is making.”

____

Associated Press writers Noor Khan in Kandahar, Rahim Faiez in Helmand province, and Deb Riechmann, Heidi Vogt and Tini Tran in Kabul contributed to this report.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) –
The U.S. military freed a Reuters photographer in Iraq on Wednesday, almost a year and a half after snatching him from his home in the middle of the night and placing him in military detention without charge.

The U.S. military has never said exactly why it detained Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed — who worked for Reuters as a freelance TV cameraman and photographer — and locked him away for so long, saying the evidence against him was classified.

“How can I describe my feelings? This is like being born again,” Jassam told Reuters by telephone as he was greeted emotionally by his family.

U.S. and Iraqi forces smashed in the doors of Jassam’s house in Mahmudiya town, south of Baghdad, in September 2008 and whisked him away, first to Camp Bucca, a desert prison on the Iraq-Kuwait border, then the smaller Camp Cropper detention center near Baghdad airport.

Jassam is one of several Iraqi journalists working for foreign news organizations who have been detained by the U.S. military, often for months at a time, since the 2003 U.S. invasion. None has ever been charged, triggering criticism from international journalism rights groups.

“I am very pleased his long incarceration without charge is finally over,” Reuters editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said.

“I wish the process to release a man who had no specific accusations against him had been swifter.”

In Mahmudiya, friends and relatives crowded into Jassam’s small family home, greeting him with hugs, tears and sweets.

“I still cannot believe my son is next to me,” said his mother, Fadhila Alwan. “Thanks be to God. I cannot speak. I will keep him in my arms for days but I will not be able to get enough of him.”

‘SECURITY THREAT’

The U.S. military has asserted that Jassam was a “security threat” because of “activities with insurgents,” it said last year, without giving details.

The term “insurgents” generally refers to Sunni Islamist groups. Jassam is a Shi’ite Muslim.

The military said on Wednesday he was freed under a security pact, effective last year, which required the United States to hand over its thousands of Iraqi detainees to Iraqi authorities.

“As such, detainees that are approved for release by the government of Iraq will be released according to their threat level. It was his time to be released,” the U.S. military said.

The U.S. military still has almost 6,000 detainees who must be handed to Iraqi authorities. If they face Iraqi criminal charges they will be tried, if not they will be freed.

The Iraqi Central Criminal Court ruled in 2008 that there was no case against Jassam.

A month before arresting him, U.S. forces detained Reuters cameraman Ali Mashhadani and held him for three weeks without charge, the third time he had been detained.

“This is happy news but at the same time sad news,” said Ziad al-Ajili, head of The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, and Iraqi press lobby group. “Who is going to compensate Ibrahim for the 17 months he spent in prison innocent of all the accusations the American army made against him?”

(Additional reporting by Aseel Kami; Writing by Jack Kimball and Michael Christie; editing by Tim Pearce)

VIENNA – Iran pressed ahead Monday with plans that will increase its ability to make nuclear weapons as it formally informed the U.N. nuclear agency of its intention to enrich uranium to higher levels.

Alarmed world powers questioned the rationale behind the move and warned the country it could face more U.N. sanctions if it made good on its intentions.

Iran maintains its nuclear activities are peaceful, and an envoy insisted the move was meant only to provide fuel for Tehran’s research reactor. But world powers fearing that Iran’s enrichment program might be a cover for a weapons program were critical.

Britain said the Islamic Republic’s reason for further enrichment made no sense because it is not technically advanced enough to turn the resulting material into the fuel rods needed for the reactor.

France and the U.S. said the latest Iranian move left no choice but to push harder for a fourth set of U.N. Security Council sanctions to punish Iran’s nuclear defiance.

Even a senior parliamentarian from Russia, which traditionally opposes Western ambitions for new U.N. sanctions, suggested the time had now come for such additional punishment

Konstantin Kosachev, head of the international affairs committee of the State Duma — the lower house of parliament — told the Interfax news agency that the international community should “react to this step with serious measures, including making the regime of economic sanctions more severe.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had already announced Sunday that his country would significantly enrich at least some of the country’s stockpile of uranium to 20 percent. Still, Monday’s formal notification was significant, particularly because of Iran’s waffling in recent months on the issue.

Western powers blame Iran for rejecting an internationally endorsed plan to take Iranian low enriched uranium, further enriching it and return it in the form of fuel rods for the reactor — and in broader terms for turning down other overtures meant to diminish concerns about its nuclear agenda.

Telling The Associated Press that his country now had formally told the International Atomic Energy Agency of its intentions, Iranian envoy Ali Asghar Soltanieh said that IAEA inspectors now overseeing enrichment to low levels would be able to stay on site to monitor the process.

He suggested world powers had pushed Iran into the decision, asserting that it was their fault that the plan that foresaw Russian and French involvement in supplying fuel from enriched uranium for the Tehran research reactor had failed.

“Until now, we have not received any response to our positive logical and technical proposal,” he said. “We cannot leave hospitals and patients desperately waiting for radio isotopes” being produced at the Tehran reactor and used in cancer treatment, he added.

The IAEA confirmed receiving formal notification in a restricted note to the agency’s 35-nation board made available to The Associated Press.

Iran’s atomic energy organization informed the agency that “production of less than 20 percent enriched uranium is being foreseen,” said the note.

“Less than 20 percent” means enrichment to a tiny fraction below that level — in effect 20 percent but formally just below threshold for high enriched uranium.

At the same time, the note indicated that Iran was keeping the agency in the dark about specifics, saying the IAEA “is in the process of seeking clarifications from Iran regarding the starting date of the process for the production of such material and other technical details.”

On Sunday, Iranian officials said higher enrichment would start on Tuesday.

At a news conference with French Defense Minister Herve Morin, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates praised President Barack Obama’s attempts to engage the Islamic Republic diplomatically and chided Tehran for not reciprocating.

“No U.S. president has reached out more sincerely, and frankly taken more political risk, in an effort to try to create an opening for engagement for Iran,” he said. “All these initiatives have been rejected.”

Morin said France and the U.S. agreed that there was no choice but “to work for new measures within the framework of the Security Council” — a stance echoed by Israel, Iran’s most implacable foe.

Tehran’s enrichment plans are “additional proof of the fact that Iran is ridiculing the entire world,” said Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. “The right response is to impose decisive and permanent sanctions on Iran.”

Although material for the fissile core of a nuclear warhead must be enriched to a level of 90 percent or more, just getting its stockpile to the 20 percent mark would be a major step for Iran’s nuclear program. While enriching to 20 percent would take about one year, using up to 2,000 centrifuges at Tehran’s underground Natanz facility, any next step — moving from 20 to 90 percent — would take only half a year and between 500-1,000 centrifuges.

Achieving the 20-percent level “would be going most of the rest of the way to weapon-grade uranium,” said David Albright, whose Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security tracks suspected proliferators.

Soltanieh declined to say how much of Iran’s stockpile — now estimated at 1.8 tons — would be enriched. Nor did he say when the process would begin. Albright said enriching to higher levels could begin within a day — or only in several months, depending on how far technical preparations had progressed.

Apparent technical problems could also slow the process, he said.

Iran’s enrichment program “should be like a Christmas tree in full light,” he said. “In fact, the lights are flickering.”

While Iran would be able to enrich up to 20 percent, a senior U.S official told the AP that the research reactor would run out of fuel before enough material was produced. He asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the issue.

Britain’s Foreign Office said the “enriched uranium could not be used for the Tehran Research Reactor as Iran does not have the technology to manufacture it into fuel rods.”

Legal constraints could tie Iran’s hands as well. A senior official from one of the IAEA’s 35 board member nations senior official said he believed Tehran was obligated to notify the agency 60 days in advance of starting to enrich to higher levels.

The official asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the issue.

The Iranian move came just days after Ahmadinejad appeared to move close to endorsing the original deal, which foresaw Tehran exporting the bulk of its low-enriched uranium to Russia for further enrichment and then conversion for fuel rods for the research reactor.

That plan was welcomed internationally because it would have delayed Iran’s ability to make a nuclear weapons by shipping out about 70 percent of its low-enriched uranium stockpile, thereby leaving it with not enough to make a bomb. Tehran denies nuclear weapons ambitions, insisting it needs to enrich to create fuel for an envisioned nuclear reactor network.

The proposal was endorsed by the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — the six powers that originally elicited a tentative approval from Iran in landmark talks last fall. Since then, however, mixed messages from Tehran have infuriated the U.S. and its European allies, who claim Iran is only stalling for time as it attempts to build a nuclear weapon.

Iran has defied five U.N. Security Council resolutions — and three sets of U.N. sanctions — aimed at pressuring it to freeze enrichment, and has instead steadily expanded its program.

______

Associated Press writers Danica Kirka and David Stringer in London, Anne Flaherty in Paris, Matthew Lee in Washington, James Heintz in Moscow and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

BAGHDAD (AFP) –
Iraqi MPs were set to meet on Monday to debate a controversial decision to allow hundreds of candidates linked to executed dictator Saddam Hussein’s Baath party to compete in next month’s elections.

Parliament speaker Iyad al-Samarrai called off an emergency session Sunday as he said lawmakers had not yet received a judicial report needed before they start their debate.

Parliament will reconvene at 1:00 pm (1000 GMT) on Monday, Samarrai said.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s government last week branded a judicial panel’s decision to reinstate the candidates as “illegal” and recalled parliament for Sunday.

But only 75 of the war-torn country’s 275 MPs had been present for Sunday’s session.

There were demonstrations on Sunday against the overturn of the ban in Baghdad and the dominant Shiite cities of Basra and Najaf.

Several hundred protesters congregated outside Baghdad provincial government headquarters, carrying banners that read “No to the return of criminal Baathists,” and “No Baathists or Saddam.”

In Najaf, hundreds of tribal chiefs, religious leaders and citizens were similarly opposed.

“We don’t agree on the return of those who destroyed Iraq, killed innocent people and stole the wealth of the country, and we demand the government and parliament stop them,” said Haidar Daabel, a 35-year-old teacher.

The judges decided on Wednesday to allow the previously barred candidates to stand, saying they would examine their files after the polls and would eliminate them if they were found to be Baathists.

A statement from Maliki’s office on Saturday said leaders had “agreed on the need to resolve the issue of those barred (from the elections) according to the law.”

It was released after a meeting between Maliki, Supreme Court chief Madhat al-Hammud, parliament speaker Samarrai, deputy speaker Khaled al-Attiya and Deputy Prime Minister Roz Nuri Shawis.

The officials also decided “to ask the magistrates to issue a ruling based on the evidence they were given and to accomplish their duty before campaigning starts” on February 12, the statement said.

The blacklist was compiled last month by an integrity and accountability committee, sparking tensions between the country’s Shiite majority and its Sunni Arab former elite.

It includes — both Sunni and Shiite — suspected Baathists and alleged members of Saddam’s once deadly Fedayeen (Men of Sacrifice) militia and Mukhabarat intelligence division.

The election, the second in Iraq since Saddam’s ouster, is seen as a test of reconciliation between the Sunni minority dominant under the former dictator and the Shiite majority represented by the present government.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday she was “heartened” by the decision to reinstate the previously banned candidates and urged all parties to do nothing to undermine the legitimacy of elections.

The row over who can take part in the vote, however, has underscored the fragility of Iraq’s democracy, alarming Washington which sees the election as a crucial precursor to a complete military withdrawal by the end of 2011.

There are currently 107,000 US troops in Iraq, but the number is scheduled to fall to 50,000 by August when all American combat soldiers are due to pull out.