* Governors Agree On Nuclear Cleanup
* Energy, state chiefs sign nuke-cleanup pact
* Wind power helps drought stricken farmers
* Six Questions (National Review)
* Transcript: Defense Department official on Cohen's trip to Russia
* Navy Man Dies in Training Off Sicily
* Air Force pushes for proposed F-22s
* Marines Introduce New Helicopter

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Associated Press Sunday, September 12, 1999; Page A04
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/12/217l-091299-idx.html

DENVER, Sept. 11-Governors from four states--Colorado, South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington--have signed an agreement with the Department of Energy to clean up nuclear wastes after Energy Secretary Bill Richardson acknowledged that the federal government has not done a good job.

The pact, signed Friday, includes goals and deadlines, many of which depend on funding not committed by Congress.

Notably missing from the signing ceremony was the governor of New Mexico, host of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant where much of the waste will be shipped. Richardson promised to work with New Mexico and other states, including Idaho, on similar agreements.

"This is not a session getting the governors together to lobby Congress," Richardson said. "It's how we--the federal government, the Department of Energy and the states--can work together."

---

By Fred Brown Denver Post Capitol Bureau Chief
http://www.denverpost.com/news/news0911e.htm
http://www.azstarnet.com/public/dnews/UA8049.html
http://www.tampabayonline.net/news/news1006.htm

Sept. 11 - U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and four governors Friday signed agreements designed to ensure the expedited cleanup and shutdown of nuclear weapons facilities, including Colorado's Rocky Flats.

"What we've signed is an agreement we will close Rocky Flats by 2006,'' said Colorado Gov. Bill Owens. "It's in writing.''

While the target date has changed over the years, 2006 has been the energy department's timeline for Rocky Flats for some months.

Owens and the other governors, as well as Richardson, hailed the "new spirit of cooperation'' represented by the "statements of principles,'' and Owens said he was "very satisfied'' with the safety procedures.

For their part, the governors pledged to work with their congressional delegations to win approval of a $6 billion Department of Energy cleanup budget for the 2001 fiscal year. In addition to Owens, the others attending the meeting in Denver were South Carolina Gov. James Hodges, Tennessee Gov. Don Sundquist and Washington Gov. Gary Locke.

Richardson stressed, "This is not a session where I got the governors together to help me lobby Congress for money.'' It was, he said, "the foundation for a cooperative, continuing dialogue'' aimed at "longterm . . . real-world solutions for one of America's toughest environmental issues.''

He said it represents a new working relationship between DOE and the states.

"It's more than just symbolic. In the past, the Department of Energy and the states have had a contentious relationship.'' The most important thing about this agreement is that DOE "is making a commitment we hadn't made before,'' Richardson said.

"Decommissioning'' the sites has been controversial because it involves shipping radioactive waste around the country. There have been protests at the Rocky Flats plant north of Golden, where plutonium, the key ingredient of nuclear explosives, was milled during the Cold War era.

Low-level waste from that process, which has been stored on the grounds, already is being shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, and increasingly radioactive wastes will be shipped south at an increasing rate along Interstate 25.

Ken Korkia of the Rocky Flats Citizens Advisory Board said his organization was not a party to this particular round of talks, but he said it was "pretty much what we've been hearing.

"That's the company line. The proof is in the pudding,'' he added.

And Helen Henry of the Unitarian Universalist Network on Indigenous Affairs said her opinion, as a Rocky Flats activist, is that it's safer to leave the radioactive contaminants on-site, because they remain dangerous for thousands of years.

In a well-populated metropolitan area, she explained, there's "a concentration of people to ensure that the monitoring is carried out generation after generation.'' But Richardson said his department has "an unwavering commitment to the continued health and safety'' of the public.

The governors affirmed their confidence in Richardson, saying he has been candid, open and a skilled negotiator.

"We are very encouraged by the spirit of cooperation'' said Tennessee's Gov. Hodges.

The Rocky Flats cleanup represents some $650 million of the $6 billion the Energy Department is seeking for the next fiscal year, Owens pointed out.

The agreement specific to Colorado calls for the state and DOE to:

Develop a plan for interim onsite storage of "transuranic'' waste, primarily items used in handling radioactive materials.

Determine a shipping rate for the waste "that is consistent with the accelerated closure'' of Rocky Flats. An early plan called for 2010 closure.

Plan the future disposal of wastes that have higher levels of radioactivity.

Clean up the grounds and figure out new land-use options.

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AmeriScan: September 1, 1999
http://ens.lycos.com

The U.S. wind energy industry says greater use of wind turbines can reduce air pollution and provide income for farmers who are affected by this summer's drought. More than 1,000 megawatts (MW) of new wind capacity was installed in the U.S. during the past year, which the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) estimates could prevent the emission of 2.2 million tons of carbon dioxide, 11,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, and 7,000 tons of nitrogen oxide each year. Coal is the major fuel source for U.S. electricity, but it is also the major stationary source of pollutants that cause smog and acid rain. Power plants release one third of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, linked to global warming and violent weather patterns. "By developing a fraction of its wind energy potential, the U.S. could reverse this trend toward greater pollution and help clean up the electric generation industry," said AWEA in an advisory last month during the peak of the heat wave. "Wind power is affordable, and growing fast," says AWEA. "And because wind power is pollution-free, it makes it less costly for the entire nation to meet clean air standards and maintain a healthy environment." More windfarms in agricultural prairie states would boost incomes for farmers and provide an economic buffer against drought. Iowa and Minnesota have installed more than half the wind projects during the past year, and farmers lease land for the turbines.

* *

AmeriScan: September 1, 1999
http://ens.lycos.com

Contaminated packages were sent from Indiana based Spectrum Pharmacy to three hospitals after an accident spilled radioactive material in a laboratory. On Tuesday, lab technicians were preparing Cardiolite, a compound used to take images of the heart and arteries to look for coronary blockages. Cardiolite is combined with technetium 99-m, a radioactive isotope. After the compound is injected into a patient's vein, special equipment can detect the radioactivity in the heart and arteries. As technicians heated Cardiolite and technetium to combine them, the glass container exploded, sending radioactive liquid onto one technician's face and clothing. Though the lab was decontaminated, three hospitals have reported receiving packages of Cardiolite from Spectrum with exterior contamination. Technetium has a half life of only six hours, so the radioactivity of the contamination is reduced by half every six hours. "By now, it's only 1/32 of what it was when it started out," says Monte Phillips, technical assistant for the Division of Nuclear Safety at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The lab technician may have received, at most, 20 times the normal diagnostic dose of technetium, and hospital personnel would have received much less, Phillips says.

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National Review, September 11, 1999
http://www.nationalreview.com/six/six_questions.html

Yesterday the CIA issued a declassified report, asserting that the threat to the United States from missile attack is increasing. Over the next fifteen years, "emerging systems potentially can kill tens of thousands, even millions of Americans." The report says an ICBM missile threat from China, Russia, and North Korea is "likely." It rated the threat from Iran as probable and Iraq as possible.

For advocates of a missile-defense system, the report is the latest support for their case. We grabbed Mitch Kugler, a veteran of the missile-defense debate and a close student of national-security issues for a quick six questions....

Mitch Kugler is Staff Director on the Subcommittee on International Security and Proliferation, Committee on Governmental Affairs.

Note: Mr. Kugler's comments are based entirely upon the CIA's unclassified summary of the national-intelligence estimate.

Q: Should anyone who has been following this issue closely be surprised by this report? Why not?

A: The only surprise is that the administration allowed competent intelligence analysts to supervise and write this report. In the past, this administration had its ballistic missile-threat intelligence estimates written by people who, for example, didn't consider Alaska and Hawaii to be part of the United States. Pretending that the two states closest to the North Korean missile threat aren't part of our country made it easier for intelligence "analysts" to proclaim, as they did in 1995, that the missile threat to the U.S. was many years off. And, of course, Clinton-administration officials seized upon this judgment to justify its policy of leaving American citizens vulnerable to rogue-nation missile threats.

Q: How can Democrats continue to oppose missile defense in light of this news and other recent reports?

A:Opponents of missile defense have never allowed facts or logic to pollute their arguments, and shouldn't be expected to do so now. Remember, these are the people who regard defending one's nation to be a provocative act.

Q: We've been talking about missile defense for over a decade now. Why hasn't anything happened?

A: Actually, quite a bit has happened, though it's not surprising that ballistic missile-defense success is rarely reported. There has been steady progress on every part of the missile-defense program, despite the best efforts of the administration and its congressional allies to obstruct these efforts by trying to reduce funding and erect arms-control barriers to progress. Arms-control obstructionism is used to reduce the effectiveness of each of our programs, and in most cases this also has resulted in programs that are more expensive than they would otherwise be.

Q: Arms controllers will say the report shows the need to negotiate START III with the Russians.

A: The report's unclassified summary makes clear that the proliferation of missile hardware, technology, and know-how is to be expected. And, despite the best efforts of our intelligence agencies, we should also expect developments about which we will be unaware. In short, we should expect surprises.

According to Russian government officials, the Russian long-range nuclear force will be reduced by 75% by the middle of the next decade because Russia cannot afford these weapons. All START III does is reduce America's force structure, as the Russian economy is doing a better job reducing its nuclear force structure than U.S. negotiators ever will. The meaning of this is very simple: The United States does not need to purchase what it can get for free. Particularly given that the price the administration is willing to pay for Russian reductions that will happen anyway is to leave U.S. citizens vulnerable to ICBM attack.

Q: Many opponents to national missile defense insist rogue states can deliver a nuclear weapon to the United States more easily by a ship or plane than by an ICBM. Is this a valid point?

A: Rogue nations can certainly use means other than ICBMs to deliver nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons into the United States. Our nation must protect itself against all of these delivery methods. But our failure to have a perfect defense against the "ship with a nuclear weapon sailing into the N.Y. harbor" scenario doesn't mean, as missile defense opponents insist, that we therefore need not protect ourselves against the ICBM threat.

Q: Why would rogue nations invite retaliation by launching an ICBM at America? Wouldn't the anonymity of a ship-delivered nuclear weapon be better for them?

A: The unclassified version of the new national intelligence estimate responds to this question directly, stating, "... acquiring long-range ballistic missiles armed with WMD [weapons of mass destruction] will enable weaker countries to do three things that they otherwise might not be able to do: deter, constrain, and harm the United States." It also states, "Though U.S. potential adversaries recognize American military superiority, they are likely to assess that their growing missile capabilities would enable them to increase the cost of a U.S. victory and potentially deter Washington from pursuing certain objectives." Deploying a national missile defense eliminates the ability of rogue states to coerce the United States by brandishing their rudimentary ICBMs, however many they eventually have. And should a rogue launch his missiles at America, a national missile defense would protect us.

To read more about -

Associated press: CIA Wary on N. Korea, Iran Missiles
Washington Times: White House stood firm against implementing missile defense
BBC: US fears growing missile threat
Sunday Times (London): Rogue states raise fears as nuclear arms spread
Ballistic Missile Defense Organization: Why Ballistic Missile Defenses ? The Threat
Centre for Defence and International Security Studies : Missile Threats: An Overview
Centre for Defence and International Security Studies : Missile News and Views
Centre for Defence and International Security Studies : Gen. James T. Hackett on Countering Countermeasures

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10 September 1999 US Information Agency Press Release
http://www.usia.gov/cgi-bin/washfile/display.pl?p=/products/washfile/latest&f=99091003.plt&t=/products/washfile/newsitem.shtml

A senior Defense Department official told reporters at the Pentagon September 10 that Defense Secretary Cohen will pursue a range of bilateral defense cooperation issues when he travels to Russia September 12 to 14.

While in Moscow, Cohen and Russian Defense Minister Sergeyev will sign a joint statement that will ensure Russian participation in setting up a Center for Strategic Stability and Y2K in Colorado to monitor potential early warning missile launch data. The facility, to be based at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, will be jointly staffed by Russian and U.S. military personnel.

The joint statement to establish the center is not prompted "because we anticipate that there is any great problem at stake here," the official noted. "We just think it is useful to, in fact, share this data and provide a buffer against problems that might emerge from third sources," he said.

Cohen and Sergeyev will also discuss strategic arms control with respect the future modifications of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, U.S. national missile defenses (NMD), and the second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and a subsequent follow-on treaty.

The defense secretary will also observe the U.S.-sponsored Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program in action when he visits a submarine construction facility along the Kola Peninsula where the Russian Typhoon-class strategic ballistic missile submarine will be dismantled soon using CTR funds. Since the program's inception, Congress has appropriated $1.7 billion to reduce the legacy of former Soviet chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and $2 billion more will likely be spent on this effort in the coming five to six years, the official said.

Following is the transcript of the background briefing:

(begin transcript)

Captain Taylor: Good morning. My name is Tim Taylor. For those of you who haven't met me yet, I'm the replacement for Colonel Dick Bridges. I look forward to meeting the rest of you shortly.

This morning a Senior Defense Official will brief you on Secretary Cohen's upcoming trip to Russia. This brief will be on background. The suggested attribution is to a Senior Defense Official.

Briefer: Let me make just a few opening remarks and then I'd be happy to get to your questions.

The Secretary will be leaving on Sunday to go to Moscow to visit with his counterpart the Minister of Defense of Russia, Marshal Sergeyev. The purpose of this visit is in fact to resume the dialogue between the two Ministers that is one of the centerpieces of our continuing cooperation with the Ministry of Defense of Russia.

The two Ministers last met together, as some of you know who were present at that event, in the middle of June in association with the issue of where Russian peacekeepers would serve along with NATO peacekeepers and peacekeepers from other nations in Kosovo. Prior to that the two have met on several different occasions at NATO meetings and Secretary Cohen visited Russia in January or February of 1998. I think January. But in the winter of 1998.

The purpose of the trip I think as Ken noted in some discussion yesterday is really three major topics. The overarching purpose is our defense cooperation, our bilateral defense cooperation. So we will be discussing where we stand in those efforts, what we're going to do in order to develop the game plan or the work schedule for continuing cooperation for the rest of this year and on through the year 2000.

This builds upon a set of sustaining relationships that we've had between the two Ministries, or our Department and their Ministry, and between the Ministers, if you will, which was certainly the case with Secretary Perry and on now into Secretary Cohen.

One of the elements within that that is perhaps most prominent in a temporal sense is cooperation on Y2K. We began to discuss with the Russians the possibility of cooperation on defense-related issues in the year 2000 transition way back in the fall a year ago. We had begun engagement at the staff level and even very serious expert engagement on this matter in the mid spring. Then in the wake of the differences between our two governments over Kosovo, those activities were suspended for a period. They began to resume in early August and there was a major meeting among specialists on these matters in Moscow in late August.

We will be reviewing where we stand on further activities of this nature through the end of the year. And one of the elements of that has been this question of setting up a Center for Strategic Stability and Y2K which will be set up at Colorado Springs to be jointly manned by Russian and American military personnel to monitor early warning, potential early warning data, launch detection data provided by the United States in the timeframe from the latter part of December into the early part of January.

We had begun to discuss the possibility of this facility again in the conversations we had last winter and spring. The Russians have agreed that this facility should be established and have agreed to participate in it, and Secretary Cohen and Minister Sergeyev will be signing a joint statement in Moscow committing the two sides to proceed with this particular effort associated with our wider set of cooperation on Y2K.

There are other elements of cooperation as well. I won't go into those at this point. I could in response to questions if that's of interest.

Another issue that really is in cooperation but has a broader character is the issue of our cooperation in peacekeeping in Kosovo. So the two ministers will discuss the ongoing peacekeeping efforts in Kosovo with a particular focus on the cooperation between Russian and American peacekeepers in the American sector there, and they will review how things are proceeding and discuss the road ahead in that area as well.

Finally, there will be also discussion of strategic arms control related matters. The issues associated with the ABM Treaty, national missile defense, and strategic arms reduction -- START II and START III -- are issues certainly between our two governments. They're issues in which at various levels we are engaged in a process of discussion with the Russians at this time, and there will be some discussion of these matters between the two Ministers in the context of the wider, ongoing dialogue between the two countries on these key matters.

Those are the subjects to be covered on Monday in Moscow, on Monday the 13th. The Secretary, the centerpiece of the day will be the meeting with Minister Sergeyev and his staff. There will be a few other meetings as well. We will have an opportunity to meet with Duma members. Those that have particular responsibility in defense and foreign policy will meet with the Secretary for a kind of roundtable discussion at Spaso House, the residence of the U.S. Ambassador in Moscow. We will also have a chance to meet with a couple of key Russian politicians - Grigory Yavlinskiy and Mr. Primakov.

On Tuesday we will leave Moscow and go north to the Kola Peninsula area, to Arkhangel'sk and then on to Severodvinsk. There we will be observing activities associated with our Nunn/Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program. We, of course, have been engaged in the so-called CTR program since 1993 or so. We have appropriated, Congress has appropriated over $1.7 billion associated with cooperation with Russia in reducing the Soviet legacy of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

One of the key parts of that has been our assistance to the Russians in drawing down, in helping dismantle some of their submarine force, their ballistic missile carrying submarines as they have been phased out of the Russian arsenal in conjunction with their obsolescence and with Russian moves to stay within the various arms control treaties, within the START treaty.

We have been cooperating and have provided substantial facilities at the Zvezdochka Shipyard in Severodvinsk, and we will be visiting that shipyard. We will also be visiting the nearby major submarine construction facility where within the coming months we will begin the dismantling of the Typhoon class strategic ballistic missile carrying submarines.

While there on Tuesday, at approximately mid-day, among other things we'll take specific note of a recently concluded contract for us to begin to work within the context of CTR to do the dismantlement of the Typhoon submarines.

QUESTION: Is that $1.7 (billion) incidentally a cumulative figure?

Briefer: That's a cumulative figure up through the present. There is yet another more than a billion dollars, maybe $2 billion that we look towards spending in the coming years, over the next five to six years.

Q: An additional $2 billion.

Briefer: Yes. I can get you that exact number. Let me check and make sure I have that.

Q: Can you go through what the U.S. position is right now with regard go the ABM Treaty? What it is you want to do. There have been reports that you want changes that will allow you to station 100 interceptors...

Briefer: I'm not prepared to go into depth on the nature of our, the specifics of some of the issues here. I will say some general things on that matter.

We, of course, began to engage the Russians on this question of limited national missile defense in the ABM Treaty last winter. We had meetings including a meeting that Strobe Talbot headed that went to Moscow in February. That general process of engagement on the needed modification of the ABM Treaty to accommodate limited NMD deployment should the United States decide to proceed with such deployment has been resuming over these last few weeks and will continue in the weeks ahead.

We are convinced that there is a serious emerging threat of long-range missile attack capabilities coming in the hands of rogue states like North Korea and Iran. We, as you know, way back in the beginning of the year the Secretary of Defense announced that within the FYDP (Five Year Defense Program) there would be dollar set aside if there was to be a positive decision made by the President after consulting with his advisors on moving down the road toward deployment of a limited national missile defense, and we put money in the FYDP that would cover the costs within the FYDP for such a limited system.

The decision on whether there would be such a deployment continues to be one that will be made at the beginning of next summer, but the President has consulted with his advisors on trying to understand the overall character of the deployment were we to decide to go ahead next summer, and on that basis we have begun to engage the Russians in a more specific manner about the question of ABM Treaty modification.

Q: Can you say, there are many different aspects to that whole topic. Which, can you give us an example or two of the specific aspects of that problem that he's going to discuss with...

Briefer: He will discuss the general issue and about the need to make the adjustment. He will not be, Secretary Cohen will not be going into considerable detail about the potential nature of the modifications. He will talk at a more general level about the necessity, about our perspective on this, on our belief that we should in fact accommodate the treaty to the possibility that we would move ahead in this direction.

Q: In other words he's not going to negotiate...

Briefer: He is not going there to negotiate.

Q:...to impress upon them what the threat is...

Briefer: He is going to talk about the threat and talk in general about where our approach lies, but the more detailed negotiation is not his responsibility.

Q: Can I ask you on the issue of where he's going to visit, can we get the spellings of those two things? And what's happening at both sides...

Briefer: Both sides are collocated. They are across a small bay from one another and they are in the town of Severodvinsk, and I'll get you -- Northern Davinsk. Sever is northern. S-E-V-E-R-O-D-V-I-N-S-K. I think.

Q: That's the town.

Briefer: Arkhangel'sk is a larger city which will be about an hour's drive away. So you fly into Arkhangel'sk, you go by automobile, bus, whatever transport it turns out to be. They go to Severodvinsk. There are two facilities there...

Q: Military?

Briefer: No, the facilities are both industrial facilities. It's a defense industrial construction facility, where they construct strategic submarines, where they constructed many of their submarines over a long period.

Q: It's a shipyard?

Briefer: It's a submarine shipyard.

Q: How far north is that?

Briefer: It's right along the Kola Peninsula. I don't know the... It's classically along the Arctic Circle there. You'd have to look, I can't tell you.

Q: Is Mr. Cohen is going to discuss the situation in Dagestan? And is he going to offer Russia any kind of technical or reconnaissance assistance concerning the situation?

Briefer: We will be prepared to discuss that question if that is the desire of Minister Sergeyev. It is not one that we have put on the agenda, and -- this is on the question of Dagestan. I'm not prepared to talk about what would be the substance of that discussion.

Q: Can we go back briefly to the visit to the shipyard there. Is he going to see one of the Typhoon class subs or...

Briefer: There is a Typhoon tied up there awaiting entry into, to be the first to go into the dismantlement process. So it will be there and we will see it. It has not yet been brought into the particular way, if you will.

Q: When will they start cutting this up? Do they chop it up?

Briefer: I'll have to get you that. It's in the coming months.

Q: What's the other class of sub that they have already begun dismantling?

Briefer: Oh, there have been several of them. Let me get it to you. They're undoubtedly -- Did we do any Yankees or just Deltas? Yankees are so old they probably sent a long time ago. Earlier Delta submarines.

Q: And the relative significance of the Typhoon getting taken apart is what?

Briefer: Well, the Typhoon is interesting in that it is the most modern Russian submarine, and yet it turned out for its own internal reasons to have a relatively short service life. The Russians have made the decision that in light of that they are going to begin the process of their dismantlement.

Q: How many will be dismantled all together?

Briefer: I'll have to check into that. I know there are a total of six Delta submarines. I don't know what the contract provides.

Q: You mean Typhoon submarines?

Briefer: I'm sorry. Typhoon submarines.

Q: One of the things that Cohen might have to address is the vote by the House International Relations Subcommittee yesterday to cut $590 million to Russia because they may or may not have been sharing missile technology with Iran. What's his message going to be about that? Is he going to be recommending a veto to the President? Or is he going to be saying yeah, you guys better stop doing that?

Briefer: I don't know on that matter.

Q: To go back to arms control, is there... There have been reports on these latest negotiations with Talbot where the Russian side is suggesting that the Americans are linking an agreement on modifying the ABM Treaty with proceeding to START III negotiations without ratification of START II. Is that...

Briefer: No. Our policy continues to be that we strongly support and urge the ratification of START II. We have talked with the Russians and our talks have always been they are not negotiations about START II, I mean about START III. We have had discussions of our respective views on START III. But we've said, both sides agree we should not start negotiations until START II is ratified.

Q: What you're doing in effect though is getting START III ready so there will not be lengthy negotiations once START II is approved.

Briefer: It's certainly our desire. The idea that these two ought to proceed in parallel is absolutely correct. We do believe that we ought to work on the modification of the ABM Treaty with moving ahead to either further reductions, as were agreed at Helsinki, on START III. And your characterization is right. We'd like to be in a position to move ahead swiftly in those matters, and we certainly have continued to urge the Russian government to engage the Duma beginning this month on the possibility of ratification.

Q: What are the prospects...

Briefer: It's hard to tell. It's one of those things that ebbs and flows. By all indications the Duma was on the brink of ratification on two occasions within the last year, and we'll just have to see. They've been in recess for a long period. There clearly has been the impact of the events in Kosovo. We'll just have to see in the coming weeks.

Q: In fact at the urging, the leaders at Spaso House...

Briefer: Certainly. He has done that in the past. He will continue to say we strongly believe it is in our mutual interest to move along the strategic arms reduction path, and that includes ratifying START II, moving on quickly to negotiate further reductions under START III. We will certainly talk with the Duma members about that being our desire.

Q: Besides Y2K and Kosovo, what are the other areas of bilateral cooperation? Do you hope to increase exchanges of officers, that kind of thing? Or is that going on now?

Briefer: We have programs of foreign military financing where they are able to buy non-lethal equipment of various types. We have international military education and training arrangements in the technical areas. We have had exercises over the years with the Russians on many occasions. We've had three major peacekeeping-related exercises. I guess we had two. And we've had other exercises in search and rescue and a variety of things.

We have quite a substantial set of military-to-military contacts between both senior officers and more junior officers that have been able to visit in both directions, and in some cases to discuss specific issues. Let me give you an example.

There's been a longstanding process of engagement between what was the Strategic Air Command, now the Strategic Command on one hand, and the Strategic Rocket Forces and other nuclear-related strategic elements of the Russian armed forces. When Marshal Sergeyev was the head of the Strategic Rocket Forces he visited the United States on more than one occasion and he hosted successive commanders-in-chief, from General Lee Butler onward through each of the leaders. Since Sergeyev has left that position his successor, General Yakovlev, has hosted, for example, General Habiger and Admiral Meis the former and current commanders-in-chief of STRATCOM.

We have also worked with the Russians on sharing ideas and techniques and procedures on maintaining the security of nuclear weapons. One thing that we'll be urging the Russians is to resume a process of reciprocal visits by appropriate officer experts on these matters where they compare notes, visit facilities, and so forth.

Q: Has much of this been put on hold since the Kosovo operation? And will it resume now or has this pretty much continued?

Briefer: Most thing were put on hold. Not all, but a vast majority in our relationship with Russia across the board, in most areas. One that was not, and they are now in the process of resumption. This is an important step toward that process of resumption.

Q: There are some areas where it's still in suspension?

Briefer: Well, we are really moving forward and hope to build on this particular meeting. Then we have a couple of meetings between the Joint Staff and the General Staff, between a delegation that I will head and one that is headed by a senior Russian general. It's called the Defense Consultative Group. Both of those sets of talks are tentatively scheduled to be held this fall, and they will help us get back on track in these matters.

Q: How contentious do you expect the Kosovo discussions to be? The Russians have complained about the way KFOR is operated in terms of affecting the Serbs. They've complained about the disarmament of the KLA.

Briefer: I have little doubt that the Russians will express their points of view on these matters to us, and we will frankly discuss with them our views as well.

We are impressed with the fact that cooperation is proceeding effectively, particularly in our sector, and we are anxious to try to make sure that that model can be matched in other sectors as well.

Q: There's been a lot of discussion in Russia in recent weeks about the -- this is in the aftermath of the Kosovo war--about the necessity to depend on nuclear weapons for their national defense. Especially including defense of the new generation of miniaturized weapons.

Is the Secretary alarmed by this? Is there going to be discussion on this? Is this having an impact on the CTR program and other cooperative programs?

Briefer: I can't speak for the Secretary's state of mind on this or any other matter.

The Russian discussion of, in their military doctrinal writings and discussions with one another, and as they've expressed them to the external audience, has certainly put some greater emphasis on their potential use of nuclear weapons, or integrating them into their strategy in extreme circumstances if they're threatened by war. That clearly has occurred over these last few years. The Secretary certainly is well aware of this, as are we.

The issue of whether there's going to be a new generation of nuclear weapons is less clear an issue. I can't comment on his point of view on those matters. The Russians have an ample supply of nuclear weapons from the old Cold War era, both theater and strategic. So the issue about weapons--that's not a key driver in their ability to have a nuclear response.

Q: Speaking of great numbers of nuclear weapons, Russia of course still has thousands and thousands of tactical nuclear weapons which they don't openly discuss much in terms of numbers. The United States is anxious for them to get rid of those from two standpoints. They don't want them to have them, and number two, (inaudible) steal them. Will that come up?

Briefer: At the Helsinki Summit in 1997 one of the topics that was agreed would be part of START III would be taking first steps to address the problem posed by theater nuclear weapons. So they are already sort of on the agenda from both sides as issues to be discussed. The might be touched upon, but again, since the Secretary is not there to negotiate in detail at all about, or even to do discussions in detail about START III, he's unlikely to get into much of those types of issues in any detail.

The Russians, of course, committed themselves back in 1991-1992 to a set of unilateral reductions when the two Presidents announced unilateral initiatives on both sides. We have proceeded to implement those initiatives of President Bush and the Russians tell us that they've come a fair amount of way implementing theirs. We continue to talk with them about those matters periodically.

Q: On Y2K, when did they agree to participate in that facility? And can you give us some of the nuts and bolts...

Briefer: The formal agreement will really be with the signing of the Joint Statement. They indicated it first when I was visiting there in mid-August, and then they confirmed that and we worked in combination, we worked jointly on the Joint Statement. So the Joint Statement has been negotiated in detail between the two governments.

Q: How many Russians would there be likely? And also, what's your assessment of their readiness and that they're likely to have a problem on the Russian side?

Briefer: We are not doing this because we anticipate that there is any great problem at stake here. It's much like the wider issue of the shared early warning initiative the two Presidents signed a year ago. We just think it is useful to in fact share this data and provide a buffer against problems that might emerge from third sources. For instance the infamous case of the Russian apparent reaction to a Norwegian sounding rocket that was launched, I think, in 1995.

But in any case, I want to make very clear it's not because we think we're teetering on the edge of a potential false launch or anything of the sort. We just think it is a very useful thing to extend our cooperation in areas of this nature to include this, and at this time of Y2K transition, were there to be some sort of problem it would certainly be useful to have our people in direct contact and direct communication with one another.

I don't have the exact number of the number of Russians. I'm not sure we've yet agreed on the number of Russians that will come. But we're talking something between 10 and 20, I would think.

Q: It only lasts for a few months, is that right?

Briefer: It is supposed to be set up in December and completed sometime in January.

Q: This is...

Q: I just want to be clear. You meant terminated in January?

Briefer: Yes. It is to be set up in Colorado Springs on, it used to be called Peterson Field. I guess it's called Shreever Field now. Shreever Air Force Base.

Q: At Space Command Headquarters?

Briefer: It's in that complex of buildings on Shreever Air Force Base.

Q: It's not at Cheyenne?

Briefer: I guess Shreever has become Falcon. I'm sorry. I'm getting mixed up. Peterson Field, not in Cheyenne Mountain. It's still Peterson Air Force Base. It's Falcon that became Shreever.

Q: Ten or 20 Russians will be taking part in this?

Briefer: That's my estimate.

Q:...supposed to be two American officers and...

Briefer: No, it's a total of those, in order to be able to--once you man it, you will man it on a 24-hour basis for a limited amount of time. To give you teams to rotate through there it will take a number of people. I can get you that number.

Q: Like 10 to 20 Russians, though.

Briefer: Yes.

Q: And there will be an American contingent...

Briefer: There will be an American counterpart contingent.

Q: In Russia?

Briefer: No. This is a single center being set up temporarily at Colorado Springs at Peterson Air Force Base.

Q: Will the Secretary be discussing that longer term project for the early warning in Moscow?

Briefer: On that he will at least mention our desire to get our experts back together to again start moving forward on that issue.

Q:...cut off?

Briefer: Those negotiations were suspended due to the Kosovo business. The two sides had had a very productive meeting just prior to the outbreak of the Kosovo conflict, and we believe that we are likely to be back. Both sides desire to get back into these negotiations over the next month or so.

Q: That's...

Briefer: That is the sharing of early warning at a Joint Warning Center which the two Presidents agreed would be located in Moscow.

Q: Does the Secretary plan to discuss a program of American assistance to (unintelligible) of Russian forces from the former Soviet Republics?

Briefer: Not that I'm...

Q: Some kind of (unintelligible) program, and the United States plans to offer, if I'm right, $83 million of this program in five coming years.

Briefer: That doesn't ring a bell with me. Since I'm in charge of this, I should know it.

Q: At the Early Warning Center will there be any talk about inviting other countries into it? Or is it just going to be limited to the U.S. and Russia?

Briefer: It is going to be limited to the U.S. and Russia. It is associated with those countries who have early warning systems that might have Y2K problems and the only two countries that have extensive early warning systems are the United States and Russia.

Q: Will you be delivering any other Y2K messages...

Briefer: We've been trying to not just say fix your systems. We're trying to share our experience on techniques in doing so and so forth in a constructive way since the beginning of that cooperation last winter.

Q: Is he going to do that...

Briefer: He won't do that personally. He and I think Minister Sergeyev will endorse any continuing engagement on these matters over the next few months by appropriate experts.

Press: Thank you.

(end transcript)

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WORLD IN BRIEF Compiled from news services Sunday, September 12, 1999; Page A28
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/12/259l-091299-idx.html

The Navy said one sailor was killed and another was injured during a weapons training exercise aboard the Norfolk-based aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt in the Ionian Sea southeast of Sicily.

Aviation Storekeeper 3rd Class Richard King II of Southfield, Mich., 24, was killed, officials said. The injured sailor was not identified.

---

September 12, 1999 USA Today
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncssat01.htm

SEATTLE (AP) - Inside a Boeing Co. laboratory chock-full of computer terminals and projection screens, teams of technicians are ''flying'' the F-22, a next-generation warplane whose future is clouded by a fierce debate over whether America needs the most expensive fighter jet ever built.

The Boeing lab, with a fully fitted F-22 cockpit sitting front and center, is working out the bugs in nearly 2 million lines of computer code. They give the airplane, nicknamed Raptor, a sophisticated electronic ''brain'' that distinguishes it from every fighter now in the sky or on the drawing board.

''It's a dramatic step forward'' for U.S. air power, says Bob Barnes, Boeing's top overseer of the project.

Some on Capitol Hill are less enthusiastic: The House this summer voted to withhold $1.8 billion that had been earmarked to begin Raptor production, surprising the Air Force and F-22 contractors led by Lockheed Martin Corp.

The fate of the $63 billion project may be decided in House-Senate negotiations starting this month on whether to release the $1.8 billion.

Skeptics ask: What is so special about the F-22 that the Air Force cannot live without it, especially because the plane it would replace, the F-15 Eagle, already is acknowledged as the best fighter in the world?

The Air Force gives a two-part answer: the aviation electronics, or avionics, that Boeing is developing, and the Raptor's radar-evading stealth and unique ability to ''cruise'' at supersonic speeds without using afterburners. Combined, they give Raptor pilots an edge in ''situational awareness'' - seeing the ''big picture'' in the air battle better than the enemy does.

Even so, critics want to know why the Air Force needs this extra advantage, and whether the country can afford it, given the money pinch that is limiting modernization in other areas of the military.

''We need to rethink our ideas on what our requirements are in a changed world. Who are our enemies?'' says Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif. He is leading the charge in the House to force a ''pause'' in the F-22 program. The Air Force says such a delay effectively would kill the program.

Lewis, who visited Boeing to see its avionics work during Congress' August recess, says he is impressed at the technology. But he believes the Air Force is sinking too much into the F-22 at the expense of other less glamorous requirements such as buying more aerial refuelers and designing a new bomber.

The Air Force says the F-22 is prudent insurance against potential new air threats in the 21st century. The Air Force's argument is that while the F-15 is the best in the world today, it is beginning to lose its edge to new European and Russian fighters that one day could be exported in large numbers.

The Air Force wants to build 339 F-22s to replace the F-15 in a combat role the Air Force calls ''air superiority.'' That means the plane is supposed to defeat an enemy's air defenses - in the air and on the ground - in order to shield more vulnerable ground-attack planes like bombers and other fighters, and slow movers like AWACS radar warning planes, aerial refuelers and surveillance planes.

The F-22's avionics are designed to allow a pilot to identify, target and kill enemy aircraft well beyond visual range. Flying alone, the pilot can pull together navigational, surveillance, targeting and other vital information in an easy-to-use format that frees him to concentrate more fully on the air battle.

The avionics technologies are blamed by some, however, for early delays and cost increases.

The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said in a report in March that the schedule for completing development of Boeing's cockpit electronics appeared overly ambitious. The GAO also questioned the wisdom of allowing the Air Force to start F-22 production before even one of the test aircraft has flown equipped with the Boeing-made avionics.

The avionics flight testing is scheduled to start next summer, and the final version of the avionics is not expected to be ready until September 2003 - barely two years before the first F-22s are to enter the Air Force.

The flight tests so far have been geared toward verifying the plane's aerodynamics, speed and maneuverability.

Boeing says it is confident the avionics will work as advertised, although it acknowledges feeling pressure to deliver on time.

''The hill we have to climb on that is a difficult one, but I believe we can do it,'' says Barnes.

Boeing also fell behind in early manufacturing of the F-22's wings but says it is now back on course. Boeing makes the rear section of fuselage that holds the engines made by Pratt & Whitney. Lead contractor Lockheed Martin makes the rest of the fuselage, the stabilizers, the radar and the communications and navigation system. Final assembly is at Lockheed's Marietta, Ga., plant.

Technical issues aside, what troubles the F-22's skeptics most is that this is not even the most expensive fighter program in the Pentagon's budget; there are three new fighters in various stages of development. If all three types are built in the numbers now planned the bill is likely to exceed $330 billion.

''We can't afford them all,'' Lewis said in an interview.

Besides the F-22, the Pentagon has its Joint Strike Fighter program, which would build about 3,000 fighters at a projected cost of $220 billion for the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, plus Britain's Navy and Air Force.

The third fighter program under way is the Navy's F/A-18E Super Hornet, which is a new version of the existing F/A-18 strike aircraft made by Boeing. The Navy intends to buy about 548 of the new planes for $46 billion.

In the Air Force's battle to save the F-22 it asserts that only this aircraft can assure U.S. dominance of the air in the decades ahead. And yet the Navy, in extolling the value of its new Super Hornet, says it can ''totally dominate'' any fighter in world today or projected to exist in the next 20 years.

--------------

Filed at 1:45 a.m. EDT September 9, 1999, By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Helicopter-Plane.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Marine Corps' first production MV-22 Osprey left its mark at the Pentagon -- two big burn spots on the carefully manicured lawn -- as it showed up the helicopter it will replace by flying in on fixed wings and landing on a patch of grass.

Defense Secretary William Cohen welcomed the tiltrotor aircraft Wednesday as a revolutionary aircraft for combat and peacetime use.

``It's going to change the way in which we approach everything from assault operations to disaster relief to humanitarian aid and peacekeeping,'' Cohen told a crowd of Pentagon officers, members of Congress, diplomats and other guests.

Several members of Congress flew in on the aircraft and other guests climbed aboard before it departed, its two propjet turbines burning into the grass.

Looking oddly old-fashioned as a fixed-wing plane, with two hugely oversized propellers, the V-22s magically morph into helicopters of the future. It takes 20 seconds for the Osprey to make that conversion, offering new capabilities for troop deployment, interdiction and search and rescue.

``This is the revolution in military affairs,'' said Cohen, describing the aircraft as the ``epitome of what our forces will need and what they will become in the 21st century.''

The vertical-lift aircraft, also known as a convertiplane, flies at twice the speed, has four times the range and carries twice the payload of the aging CH-46 helicopters it will replace. A Vietnam-era CH-46 landed alongside the Osprey, which was also joined by a sleek tiltrotor test prototype, the XV-15, a potential civilian version.

``The V-22 is going to cut our response time from weeks down to days and days down to hours,'' Cohen said.

The Marines plan to have 360 of the MV-22s by 2013. The Air Force is expected to order 50 of another version, the CV-22, and the Navy is acquiring 48 HV-22Bs.

Jointly produced by Bell Helicopter Textron of Fort Worth, Texas, and Boeing Co., in Ridley Park, Pa., the aircraft can achieve speeds over 400 mph and an altitude of 25,000 feet. It is designed to carry up to 24 troops or external loads of 15,000 pounds. It can fly 2,000 miles and land on a dime.

Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa., who flew in on the V-22, said the program has strong bipartisan support in Congress, which rejected Bush administration efforts to kill it.

Critics have assailed its high cost and safety. The House has approved $856 million to buy 11 next year -- one of the biggest items in the defense budget. Early safety concerns plagued the innovative aircraft, but builders say modifications from the original design have made it lighter and safer.

``It's the only major program canceled and completely restored,'' Weldon said.

Military planners see the aircraft as a means of getting more U.S. troops and pilots safely out of danger zones and enhancing drug interdiction, humanitarian and civilian rescue capabilities.