Notebook: Pentagon enlists PR firm to help explain war

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has hired a well-known District of Columbia public-relations firm to help it explain U.S. military strikes in Afghanistan to global audiences, part of a broader Bush administration campaign to reverse a rising tide of opposition in the Islamic world, U.S. officials confirmed yesterday.

The firm, the Rendon Group, has worked for U.S. government agencies, including the CIA, which paid it to boost the image of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), a U.S.-backed group of Iraqis opposed to Saddam Hussein.

That effort in the mid-'90s ended with an investigation by the CIA's inspector general over how a reported $23 million was spent in behalf of the INC and its leader, Ahmed Chalabi.

The Pentagon is paying Rendon to monitor the news media in 79 countries, conduct focus groups, create a counterterrorism Web site that will provide information on terrorist groups and the U.S. campaign against terrorism, and recommend ways the U.S. military can counter disinformation and improve communications.

Lt. Col. Kenneth McClellan, a Pentagon spokesman, said the contract is for $397,000 and lasts 120 days.

Money laundering included in anti-terrorism package

WASHINGTON — House negotiators have agreed to a Senate demand to include money-laundering legislation in President Bush's anti-terrorism package, clearing the last major hurdle to passage, senators said yesterday.

The Senate and House probably will take up the compromise next week, said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman.

Negotiators agreed Wednesday to end after four years the new wiretapping, electronic-surveillance and secret-search portion of the legislation, the most contested part of the package.

The White House has signed off on the compromise, Senate aides said.

House and Senate members have not decided on the final version of the money-laundering plan. But both versions are intended to fight money laundering around the world, thwart the financing of terrorism and protect the U.S. banking system from illicit money.

Flights at Reagan airport will increase next week

WASHINGTON — Flights in and out of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport will be increased to allow travel to 17 additional cities beginning next Friday, the Transportation Department said yesterday.

The new cities include service to and from Seattle, Atlanta and Houston. Flights to eight other cities began Oct. 4, when Reagan National became the last major commercial airport to reopen after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The flights will begin after stringent security precautions are in place.

These include requiring passengers to go through two security checkpoints, showing identification twice; and expanded identification checks for airport employees and flight crews. Pilots also must fly direct routes in and out of the airport rather than following the Potomac River.

$360,200 bid for Harley to benefit tower fund

BURBANK, Calif. — Jay Leno's celebrity-autographed Harley-Davidson motorcycle and a matching truck drew a top bid of $360,200 on eBay, with proceeds going to the Twin Towers Fund for victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The talk-show host will announce the name of the winning bidder on NBC's "The Tonight Show" tonight.

Leno asked celebrities who visited his show to sign the limited edition Harley-Davidson FXDL Dyna Low Rider, including Nicole Kidman, Nicolas Cage, Denzel Washington, Tom Cruise and Heather Locklear.

Vice president thanks workers at trade center

NEW YORK — Vice President Dick Cheney, kept largely out of sight since the terrorist attacks, toured the World Trade Center rubble yesterday and thanked firefighters and construction workers at the site.

Wearing a baseball cap emblazoned with NYPD and FDNY, the vice president shook hands with firefighters and signed hardhats.

"They've done a tremendous job," he said of the workers.

Wages for airport screeners going up by 50 percent

NEW YORK — Airport workers who screen passengers and baggage are seeing wages rise by up to 50 percent as airlines and security companies try to curb notoriously high turnover and attract new employees.

With a huge push to improve airport security after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, there is a growing demand for such workers and an emphasis on finding better-qualified ones.

"Virtually all the screening companies are raising wages," said James McNulty, executive vice president of operations at Pinkertons.

The average nationwide salary for the nation's 18,000 airport baggage screeners is roughly $6 an hour, according to the Service Employees International Union, which represents many of them. The federal minimum wage is $5.15 an hour.

United, the nation's second-largest airline, recently signed a new contract with Argenbright Security to increase the average pay of airport screeners at United terminals nationwide to $9 to $12 an hour, from $6.50 to $8 an hour, spokesman Joe Hopkins said.

Southwest Airlines will increase its $30 million annual security budget by millions, spokesman Ed Stewart said.

CNN office in Afghan city damaged by U.S. forces

NEW YORK — A CNN office in the Afghan city of Kandahar had its windows blown out when U.S. forces apparently attacked a vehicle on a nearby road, the network said yesterday.

Two employees working at the time had taken cover outside of the office and were unhurt, CNN said.

Although Western reporters aren't allowed in the Taliban-controlled section of Afghanistan, CNN has maintained a presence in Kandahar with a few people contracted to provide the network information. CNN won't identify its people within Afghanistan.

Smuggled shipments appear to reach Taliban military

NEW YORK — The Taliban's military appears to be receiving smuggled truckloads of jet fuel and gasoline through its borders, despite attempts by neighboring countries to shut off shipments, a U.S. official said yesterday.

Afghanistan has almost no capacity to supply its own fuel domestically, with the exception of a small heating-oil plant in the north, and relies heavily on truck shipments from the six nations that share its border.

Its normal suppliers, including Pakistan and Turkmenistan, ended deliveries before the Western airstrikes, the official said.

Officials at the International Energy Agency, the global energy watchdog based in Paris, said the most likely path for smuggled fuel is through Iran, a country that has criticized both the United States and the Taliban, and which shares a long border with Afghanistan.

The Taliban's military reportedly consists of a number of Soviet-era tanks and fighter planes, as well as personnel carriers, which include pickups, for troop movements.

30,000 e-mails are sent out from Navy ship in Arabian Sea

ON BOARD THE U.S.S. CARL VINSON — Somewhere in the Arabian Sea, one of the most heavily protected ships in the Navy is sending out around 30,000 e-mails a day.

The ship's library is fitted with a dozen Internet terminals that are occupied almost constantly by sailors squeezing in a few minutes in a busy day to write home and check on the news.

One sailor from Illinois has an office job onboard so he has access to a computer much of the day. He says he sends dozens of e-mails everyday.

"I write to my family, friends and e-mail buddies," he said, taking a break in the library to read his Bible.

"There's one lady I met through military mail, we've been e-mailing for four years. She's about 65. She just likes sending emails."