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From: "Brahma Chellaney" <brahma.chellaney@vsnl.com> To: <prop1@prop1.org> Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 21:07:13 +0530
Ellen, when you get a chance, can you please announce on your service the publication of the following book edited by me?
Brahma Chellaney (ed.), Securing India's Future in the New Millennium (New Delhi: Orient Longman, 1999).
The book has several chapters on nuclear-missile matters, including the following: Brahma Chellaney, "Nuclear Deterrent Posture" Maharajkrishna Rasgotra, "Countering Nuclear Threats" K. Subrahmanyam, "Countering Missile Threats" Brahma Chellaney, "Challenges to India's Security in the New Millennium".
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Subject: [y2k-nuclear] Brunswick Reactor:
Hurricane Floyd's eye passed directly over it
Date: Mon, 27 Sep 1999 17:30:09 -0700
From: "Russell D. Hoffman" <rhoffman@animatedsoftware.com>
Hi folks:
This is what we have learned from Pamela Blockey O'Brien about the Brunswick nuclear power station in North Carolina:
At 2:48 am on September 16th, 1999, the eye of hurricane Floyd passed directly over it.
One of four main feeder lines on each unit was lost (they had shut the power plants down "JUST in the nick of time"). Parts of the turbine building exterior were lost.
We don't have estimated winds during the storm. There was a loss of power (naturally?) so the back-up generators had to be used.
We don't know why, but most of the emergency sirens were not operable. We also don't know if they ever attempted to use them, but -- probably because of the loss of offsite power -- they didn't have enough power to sound all the sirens if they wanted to.
The Government had put three special NRC inspectors on the site the day before to monitor everything as they moved both units into cold shutdown.
FEMA and the NRC had already set up a command center in advance in Raleigh, North Carolina. They are continuing to monitor and assess the situation.
What is "kind of interesting" to say the least, is they opened up certain bypass valves at the site, which apparently violated North Carolina's Discharge Permits -- the reason they did this was because otherwise the site would have been flooded. But in so doing, they washed any radioactivity loose at the site into the waters of North Carolina. They said that to prevent flooding, they opened up the bypass valves because their installed pump capacity would not have been able to work, according to an NRC librarian at the public document room.
The NRC had issued, for all the plants in the possible path of Floyd, PNOs (Possible Notification of an Event, although they are called "PNO's" not "PNE's" for some reason)) which starts at 29937 and then use the letters of the alphabet, going through how they did it.
People of North Carolina should ask the NRC for copies of the Inspection Reports (which they are now in the process of writing) starting September 15th, 1999, to see in detail how everything went.
Says Pamela Blockey O'Brien, who called me recently with these details, "If I were them, I wouldn't swim, fish or wade anywhere near that dump!"
The NRC said that all the emergency systems worked (they manually SCRAMed both units at the Brunswick site) and the diesel generators worked, but it's very important that everyone get the FULL reports as soon as they come out. All reporters around the world should order these documents, including the FULL reports -- sometimes, the "short form" the NRC uses to whitewash the full reports don't even mention that the full reports are available, so that is why you have to stress that you want FULL reports.
CONTACT:
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Office of Public Affairs Washington DC 20555 Telephone: 301/415-8200 E-mail: opa@nrc.gov
Also, since we don't know many significant details at this time, be sure to ask about any "non-cited" violations as well as all "cited" violations. A "non-cited" violation is something that is technically a violation but is merely noted in the record, and no punishment whatsoever is ever expected to occur. (The vast majority of cited violations are also not punished, although the slap on the wrist varies all the way from limp to flaccid.)
(An example of a non-cited violation (at Hatch, in Georgia): Failure of the licensee (Hatch) to maintain ANY documented surveys when abnormal radiation results were detected during an undocumented survey of a wood storage area. The determination was that the equipment was not working and the people using it were not knowledgeable about the proper procedures.)
There are constant threats of action, which always amount to the NRC being sent a letter by the nuclear power plant operators, explaining that something has been done. That nearly always closes the matter.
This information has been provided to remind everyone that Y2K is only the worst of the terrors we face, but between now and Y2K (about 95 days away) there are over 100 operational years of commercial nuclear power generation coming up, not to mention all the operational years at all the research reactors and military reactors. A holiday is nice, but it is not enough. They must all be shut down forever.
Sincerely,
Russell D. Hoffman With assistance from Pamela Blockey O'Brien, but any errors remain mine, I'm sure. Carlsbad, California, USA September 27th, 1999
* Russell D. Hoffman, Carlsbad, California
Founder and Editor of the Stop Cassini newsletter: http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/index.htm
Learn the madness of NASA's ongoing nuclear policies! Visit the Stop Cassini web site: http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/cassini.htm
Y2K worries? We've got em! Meltdowns, EMPs, Terrorism, you-name-it: http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/y2k/index.htm
Facing facts: Learn about The Effects of Nuclear War here: http://www.animatedsoftware.com/environm/no_nukes/tenw/nuke_war.htm
What is a half-life? (Compares Plutonium 238 to Plutonium 239) http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0146.htm
What is the Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP)? Is nuclear war winnable? http://www.animatedsoftware.com/cassini/nltrs/nltr0128.htm
Hug a tree! Read why it should matter to you what happens to the great Redwoods in California: http://www.animatedsoftware.com/misc/stories/redwoods/redwoods.htm
Why you need encryption: An interview with Phil Zimmerman: http://www.animatedsoftware.com/hightech/philspgp.htm (also available in Spanish)
THE ANIMATED SOFTWARE COMPANY
Russell D. Hoffman, Owner and Chief Programmer
P.O. Box 1936, Carlsbad CA 92018-1936
(800) 551-2726 - (760) 720-7261 - Fax: (760) 720-7394
http://www.animatedsoftware.com
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Russia, China Plan Naval Exercises
The Associated Press Monday, Sept. 27, 1999
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19990927/aponline130334_001.htm
MOSCOW -- Russian and Chinese warships will take part in first-ever joint maneuvers early next month, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported Monday.
The Russian Pacific Fleet destroyer Burny and missile cruiser Varyag will visit the port of Shanghai on Oct. 2-6 to mark China's 50th anniversary and the 50th anniversary of Russian-Chinese diplomatic relations, said Russian Navy spokesman Igor Dygalo.
During the visit, the two Russian vessels will hold joint exercises with ships from China's Eastern Fleet. It will be the first joint maneuver between the two fleets, ITAR-Tass said.
The maneuvers are "another step towards strengthening cooperation and mutual understanding between the military sailors of the two countries," it quoted Dygalo as saying.
Russian-Chinese relations have been warming steadily since the early 1990s, following decades of tension. China is a top client for Russia's ailing military industrial complex, purchasing billions of dollars worth of jets, missiles and submarines.
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Imitating NATO: A Script Is Adapted for Chechnya
New York Times September 28, 1999
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/092899russia-caucasus.html
MOSCOW -- Russia's military leaders have a simple explanation for the bombs raining down on Chechnya. They say they are copying NATO's air campaign against Yugoslavia.
From the fiery explosions at the Chechen republic's oil refineries to the attacks on the television station in Grozny, Russia's generals say they are taking their cues from NATO's tactics in the Balkans.
Col. Gen. Anatoly Kornukov, the commander of the Russian air force, even gave a NATO-style briefing on Saturday. Waving his pointer, he narrated combat videos of Russian air strikes against Chechen targets, evoking comparisons in the Russian press to NATO's commander at the time of the Kosovo campaign, Gen. Wesley K. Clark.
But while NATO's 78-day air campaign forced the Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, to withdraw his troops from Kosovo, military experts here do not anticipate an easy Russian victory.
They warn that there are enormous differences between Yugoslavia and Chechnya, particularly the fact that Chechnya lacks an effective central government that could bring to heel the Islamic militants Moscow is fighting.
Instead of delivering a knock-out blow, Russia's bombing strikes may merely plunge an already lawless region into utter chaos, sow hardship among the civilians and win new recruits for the very militants Moscow wants to neutralize.
"The Russian military is copycatting NATO," said Pavel Felgengauer, a military specialist. "But Chechnya is not Yugoslavia. There was one guy in Belgrade named Slobodan Milosevic who could make decisions. In Chechnya, nobody is in charge. You can't bomb Chechnya into submission because there is nobody to submit."
In a political sense, it is not hard to understand why Moscow might be tempted to imitate NATO's success.
Russia's latest trouble in the Caucasus began in August when thousands of Islamic militants streamed across the border into Dagestan, seeking to establish an Islamic state. The militants were under the leadership of Shamil Basayev, a Chechen warlord, and a man known as Khattab, a Chechen who was born in the Middle East. Neither is under the control of the Chechen president, Aslan Maskhadov.
The rebel incursion into Dagestan was an unwelcome challenge to the Kremlin, already preoccupied by political intrigue. None of its options was good.
The most conservative approach, and the one that Russia initially seemed to settle on, was to evict the rebels from Dagestan and then try to contain them within Chechnya. That was the least risky course but one that left the initiative with the militants.
A second option was to mount an all-out ground invasion to rid Chechnya of the rebels once and for all. That approach evoked bitter memories of the disastrous Chechen war, which ended in 1996. Many military experts believe an invasion is politically unsustainable and beyond the means of the deteriorating Russian military.
A third option was air power, the high-tech, relatively low-cost approach that NATO applied so effectively in Yugoslavia. It offered a way to strike back at the militants while holding down Russian losses.
After a month of tangling with rebels in Dagestan, and a series of mysterious fatal bombings in Russia that left the people fearful and the government blaming the militants, Moscow embraced an air campaign.
Kornukov proudly declared that there were "certain parallels" between the Russian air strikes in Chechnya and the NATO campaign in the Balkans.
"The Kremlin is using the scheme NATO applied in Kosovo," the newspaper Vremya declared Monday.
As did NATO, the Russian air force first moved to establish its superiority in the skies over Chechnya. It began by bombing a radar unit at the Grozny airport and destroying the Chechen "air force," which consisted of a single, propeller-driven biplane.
As did NATO, the Russian air force moved on to Chechnya's communications network. It bombed the republic's cellular telephone exchange, saying it needed to prevent the rebels from talking to each other. And it attacked Chechnya's television station.
And as NATO did, Russian warplanes bombed oil refineries. The Russian justification was that the rebels traded in oil on the black market and the air strikes would deprive them of revenue.
And as with NATO, Russia's commanders have sought to prepare the public for a drawn-out campaign. Russian officials have even left open the option of a limited ground offensive. But so did NATO, though Western officials insisted it would be a last resort.
It is the differences, however, that worry many analysts here.
With all of its training and precision-guided ordnance, NATO had its share of "collateral damage," the military's antiseptic term for the accidental killing of civilians.
The Russian air force says it is attacking targets in Chechnya, using SU-25 attack aircraft and SU-24 bombers, equipped with precision weapons. It is likely, however, that most of its ordnance consists of "dumb" gravity bombs.
One Chechen said in a telephone interview Monday that there were many civilian casualties. "They are hitting houses and buildings," he said. "The hospitals are full of injured people."
Kazbek Makhashev, a deputy minister in the Chechen government, said in a statement that more than 420 people have been killed by the Russian air strikes since early September and that more than 1,000 have been wounded.
According to reports from the neighboring republic of Ingushetia, much of the Chechen public is in a state of panic. More than 30,000 Chechens, and perhaps as many as 50,000, have fled across the border seeking refuge from the fighting.
The biggest dissimilarity between Russia's air assault and NATO's campaign involves strategy.
NATO's attacks put enormous pressure on Belgrade to withdraw its soldiers from Kosovo. But no matter how hard Russia bombs Chechnya, Maskhadov has little, if any, influence with Basayev and the militants, most analysts say. The attacks may even end up strengthening the rebels by fueling public resentment against Russia.
Seeking to justify the Russian bombardment, a senior Russian official said that there was a vacuum of authority in Chechnya and that Russia's military campaign would show who was in control.
Boris A. Berezovsky, the tycoon who has involved himself in politics in the region, took a different tack. He said only dialogue with the Chechen authorities and efforts to rebuild the republic would contain the rebels' influence and prevent future acts of terrorism.
With anti-Chechen feeling running high in Moscow, some analysts have questioned whether the air raids are simply a matter of settling scores. They warned that the fighting might spin out of control with unpredictable consequences for Russia, as well as the Caucasus.
"A war is not planned this way," Andrei Piontkovsky, a political analyst, wrote in the newspaper Novaya Gazeta. "Only a bloody massacre."
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Haiti's Police Accused of Lawlessness
U.S.-Trained Force Linked To Killings, Drug Offenses
Washington Post Tuesday, September 28, 1999
By Serge F. Kovaleski
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/28/035l-092899-idx.html
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti-Created four years ago to usher in a new era of impartial justice, the U.S.-trained Haitian National Police force is grappling with allegations that its officers have been involved in a wave of murders, disappearances of detainees, drug-related crimes and other illegal activities.
After 20,000 troops, mostly Americans, dismantled a military dictatorship in 1994 and reinstated Haiti's first democratically elected president, the new police department was to be the cornerstone of justice reform. And even its harshest critics have welcomed the new force as an alternative to the repressive security forces that traumatized Haiti during the military government and the earlier dictatorships of Francois Duvalier and his son and successor, Jean-Claude.
But the implication of members of the new police force in human rights abuses and other illegal activities has focused concern on police lawlessness and raised questions about the department's ability to become an effective and credible force despite the sizable assistance provided by the United States and other countries.
"If you are asking me whether I am more concerned about rot in the police than a year ago, the answer is yes," said Colin Granderson, executive director of an international civilian mission here run by the Organization of American States and the United Nations. "We have both human rights concerns and concerns about the broader conduct of officers, specifically with respect to criminal activity, in particular drug smuggling."
A lot is at stake, not only for this Caribbean nation of 7 million people, the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, but also for the United States, which has spent about $75 million to help train and build the police force.
The alleged police transgressions have further eroded confidence in the department among the Haitian public, which already is widely distrustful of state security. "For me, I feel fear when I see their guns and their dark sunglasses. I want to trust them more and have freedom without worries that they will harm me. But there are too many bad stories," said Raymond Jean, 24, a Port-au-Prince shoeshine man.
From April through June alone, 50 killings, many of them summary executions, were attributed to police, compared to 31 for all of last year, according to Haitian and international investigators. Observers said the sharp increase in part reflects the heightened state of insecurity.
In a case that has drawn widespread attention, a number of officers under the command of Jean Coles Rameau, the Port-au-Prince police commissioner, are under investigation in the deaths of 11 detainees on the night of May 28 in the Carrefour-Feuilles neighborhood.
Seven officers have been arrested in connection with the slayings, including Rameau, who had fled to the neighboring Dominican Republic before he was apprehended and extradited. An eighth officer is at large after escaping from custody. The government has named a special three-judge panel to investigate the killings.
Allegations of police involvement in the drug trade have continued to surface in a country that has become a major transshipment point for cocaine and heroin bound for the United States from South America. Last week, four police officials were dismissed on suspicion of trafficking, a week after a half-dozen officers were arrested on charges of stealing hundreds of pounds of cocaine found on a boat docked in the northern city of Cap Haitien.
Investigators also have received information about plainclothes officers working with illegal vigilante groups that have recently reemerged in some communities, ostensibly in response to an increase in crime. According to a report last month by the international civilian mission, residents in the Port-au-Prince slum of Cite Soleil said 16 people were killed recently by one of the groups headed by police officers.
"Haiti has an authoritarian history, and it is easy to fall back into old practices," said Viles Alizar, coordinator of monitoring for the National Coalition for Haitian Rights. "We know the police are not an army, but they can act very much like one."
Although U.S. officials have expressed frustration over criminal behavior by officers, they said that in the case of human rights abuses the culprits appear to have been acting without official approval.
"The key is that there is no systematic violation of human rights," said U.S. Ambassador Timothy M. Carney, adding, "What is encouraging is that when there are abuses they move to address them."
The police department has been cited for good work -- including seizures of drugs headed for the United States -- despite its limitations; it has been hampered by inexperience and poor resources, ranging from inadequate manpower to a lack of basic equipment.
Officers also have to contend with the impunity enjoyed by many criminals at the hands of corrupt judges in a dysfunctional justice system. Officers are paid about $300 a month, a salary far above Haiti's annual per capita income of $250 but still considered very low.
The police department has dismissed more than 530 officers over the last four years for corruption, abuse of power and other disciplinary infractions. Of that total, 54 are awaiting trial. Because the officers were removed, the size of the force has decreased just as it is facing a surge in crime and violence stemming in part from political instability. The department is scrambling to devise a security plan for upcoming parliamentary elections.
Officials said the number of police officers has dropped from a high of more than 6,500 about 20 months ago to roughly 6,000 today, although police personnel and international observers say the figure is probably lower. "I am concerned about the numbers." said Robert Manuel, secretary of state for public security. "We have to train even more officers, but we do not have the resources."
Officials say it is doubtful that the police force will be able to reach its goal of between 9,500 and 10,000 officers by 2003. "Our view is that they are not doing enough to maintain, let alone build," said Gary Bennett, manager of the U.S. Justice Department police training program in Haiti. "We are at the hardest point of development."
Officers say their jobs have been made more dangerous by the 300 or so Haitian criminals deported each year from the United States and elsewhere and because the United States failed to disarm state security forces after reinstating president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1994. Since the force's first officers were deployed, 59 have been killed.
Manuel and Police Chief Pierre Denize have been the targets of a public campaign -- attributed to members of Fanmi Lavalas, the party headed by Aristide -- that has been described as an effort to destabilize and politicize the police to pave the way for Aristide's return to the presidency.
Aristide, who spent three years in exile in the United States after he was ousted in a military coup in 1992, remains popular among the country's poor and is heavily favored to win next year's presidential election. Fanmi Lavalas has denied any involvement in the campaign against the police.
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Time for a Deal on Iraq
Washington Post Tuesday, September 28, 1999; Page A25
By Scott Ritter
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/28/015l-092899-idx.html
The past two weeks have witnessed frantic diplomatic maneuvering by the United States and the United Kingdom to head off use of a veto in the upcoming Security Council deliberations over how best to deal with Iraq's disarmament obligation. The British diplomats, together with their American counterparts, understand that any such use of a veto would threaten the viability of the Security Council as an organization committed to enforcing its own dictates, and would strengthen Iraq's resolve to continue defying the law.
Despite the concerted U.S.-British efforts, diplomats at the United Nations in the end divided along established lines of contention that have long impaired the Security Council's ability to speak with one voice on Iraq. The United States and the United Kingdom back strict implementation of Council resolutions requiring Iraq to get rid of its weapons of mass destruction. Russia, France and China have taken a much more lenient stance; they would give Iraq a clean bill of health despite significant shortfalls in the accounting of its prohibited weaponry.
This split has paralyzed the Security Council's ability to deal with Iraq's refusal to cooperate with the weapons inspectors of the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), who were withdrawn from that country on the eve of Operation Desert Fox in December 1998 and have not been allowed by Iraq to return since then. It was Operation Desert Fox that sowed the seeds of the Council's current discord, with Russia, China and France blaming the United States and the United Kingdom for acting without the authority of the Council and, worse still, using UNSCOM, an organ of the Council, for purposes other than mandated by Security Council resolution.
While these charges have been strenuously denied by the two countries and by UNSCOM's embattled former chief, Richard Butler, they have enough credibility to ensure that UNSCOM, as it is currently organized and mandated, will never return to Iraq.
Following the failure of their various diplomatic initiatives, the United States and Britain are now scrambling to create the basis for some form of consensus among the permanent five Council members prior to the U.N. body's deliberations. Unless a breakthrough is achieved, these deliberations will likely bog down in heated debate and, ultimately, witness the use of a veto by Russia, China and/or France to block any new disarmament measures. Even an abstention by two or three of the permanent members would pave the way for an Iraqi refusal to accept any new resolution.
Constructing an acceptable consensus will require a series of compromises. America and Great Britain should accede to any demands by the French, Russians and Chinese to bring the inspection process more firmly under the Security Council's control. But certain "red lines" need to be established and maintained to make any consensus solution viable. These should include guarantees that any new inspection regime will be comprehensive, intrusive and active, making use of a wide range of technologies in addition to on-site inspections and interviews. Furthermore, the inspectorate must be professional, which means veteran UNSCOM inspectors should be allowed to serve, especially in senior management positions. Finally, any inspection program must incorporate stringent export-import control mechanisms.
In return for a viable program of monitoring-based inspections, the United States and United Kingdom should agree to the suspension of economic sanctions along the lines of proposals put forward by France. This, more than anything else, is what the French, Russians and Chinese want. If, in exchange for an end to sanctions, the United Nations could emerge with credible inspections and a Security Council united with regard to Iraq's disarmament obligation, that would be a great accomplishment indeed. Unfortunately, it is an unlikely outcome, given the deeply entrenched position of the Clinton administration not to yield on the lifting of sanctions until Iraq has fully complied with its disarmament obligations.
The alternative to compromise is bleak. The most recent report on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction put out by the White House makes a case for active measures to counter any reconstitution of Iraq's prohibited weapons, highlighting the need to get viable inspections back on track in Iraq. But it makes clear that the United States "will use the means at our disposal to detect and deal with reconstitution." Any failure of the Security Council to act regarding Iraq could push the United States to launch "Desert Fox II," bombing in and around Baghdad in an effort to destroy Iraqi industrial targets believed capable of, or actually involved in, the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction. Such an escalation of hostilities outside the framework of the Security Council could prove fatal to any hope of ever reviving meaningful weapons inspections in Iraq.
The writer resigned from UNSCOM in 1998 after eight years as a weapons inspector in Iraq.
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NATO to cut troops in Bosnia
UPI September 27, 1999
By NANCY L. TORNER
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/u/990927/15/international-nato
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sept. 27 (UPI) Plans to cut the number of NATO-led troops in Bosnia-Herzegovina by about one-third will be hammered out over the next few weeks, NATO military commander Gen. Wesley Clark said at a news conference in Sarajevo today.
There currently are some 30,000 troops keeping peace in the former Yugoslav republic that declared independence in 1992.
"We are going to take down the number of troops, we said, by about one third, and we'll be looking at the various security requirements in each area," Clark said.
"We will be working with each of the nations who are contributors," Clark said, adding, "As you know, nations have to decide what they want to put into this force it's a national commitment, it's a national decision."
Clark is in Sarajevo with NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana to discuss concerns about Bosnia-Herzegovina's three-member presidency before Solana leaves his post later this year to take charge of foreign policy for the European Union.
There are currently some 30,000 troops keeping peace in this former Yugoslav republic that declared independence in 1992.
"There must be still greater progress in the return of refugees, particularly in the minority area," Solana said. "State institutions, including the Standing Committee on Military Matters, must be strengthened, and the problem of corruption must be addressed urgently by Bosnia's leaders."
But these outstanding issues won't prevent NATO from drawing down troops, Clark said. NATO commanders are looking at various procedures and rules of command in the current force in order to make the smaller force more "agile and robust," Clark said.
When some 60,000 NATO troops arrived here at the end of 1995, they were to be here for a year. The mandate has since been extended indefinitely.
"The international community will be involved in Bosnia-Herzegovina as long as we're needed. But as I've said many times, the local leadership has to know that this is not a commitment that will last forever," Solana said.
He added, "It's time for the whole of Bosnia-Herzegovina to shoulder more of the responsibility for its own stability, and its own security."
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Libya denies IRA weapons supply
UPI September 27, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/u/990927/12/international-ira
TRIPOLI, Libya, Sept. 27 (UPI) Libya denied Monday a British newspaper report that it had dispatched weapons to the Irish Republican Army in 1996.
A source with the Libyan Foreign Ministry said the British government "knows well that Libya has no link with the Irish Republican Army and this issue has been discussed and closed years ago."
Commenting on a report published by the Sunday Times on Sunday saying Libya supplied the IRA with weapons three years ago, the source said "such rumors do not deserve any comment exceeding pity on those propagating them."
He reiterated that "Libya condemns terrorism in all its forms based on its eagerness that security, peace and justice prevail in the world," and denied allegations made "from time to time about military camps for foreigners on its territories."
The source warned against such media reports and what he called campaigns against his country which "do not serve the ambitions of both countries in promoting their ties and cooperation."
Libya has previously called on United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to send inspection teams to confirm there are no foreign military camps in the North African country.
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Apaches brought in as show of force
UPI September 26, 1999
By BETH POTTER
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/u/990926/14/international-military
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Sept. 26 (UPI) At least 12 American Apache attack helicopters were brought to Kosovo late this week as part of an increasing show of KFOR air power here.
"Thunder runs," or air exercises near Kosovo's border with Serbia, started this week with the Apaches. The exercises are being done to "show we're here," said an anonymous source in the American sector of the now 50,000-strong NATO-led KFOR forces.
The Americans expect to bring in 24 Apaches altogether in the coming days, the source said. The helicopters are to be based at the American Camp Bondsteel near Gnijlane in the southwestern part of the province. Brought in from Macedonia, the helicopters originally were based in Tirana, Albania, during a 72-day NATO air war in the region this spring.
Saturday, a KFOR spokesman confirmed that three British Harrier jets have been to Kosovo at least twice in the last four days. The jets, based in Gioia Del Colle, Italy, a British air base, are used for close air support missions.
Earlier in the week, KFOR spokesmen announced air exercises would be done near the Serbia-Kosovo border. Under the military-technical agreement signed in Kumanovo June 3 that ended a NATO air war, both sides abide by a 25-kilometer air buffer zone. On the ground, the buffer zone is five kilometers.
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EUROTECH, Ltd. Negotiates Final Details on $100 Million Deals for Radiation-Resistant EKOR
September 27, 10:46 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 27, 1999--EUROTECH Ltd. (OTC BB:EURO) Following a letter of intent to apply the radiation-resistant EKOR material in nuclear waste and nuclear power projects, EUROTECH and European representatives, and Euro-Asian Physical Society (EAPS) scientists met last week to finalize details of the agreements.
The historic meeting involving EAPS was one of the few times that the Russian scientists, who created EKOR, have been outside of Russia.
The initial test demonstration of EKOR, which is a routine and essential process required by every nuclear country when introducing a new technology, is planned to commence in November. This period of several months will constitute the evaluation and licensing phase. Wider application of EKOR will commence immediately afterwards. The scope of the projects is expected to approach $100 million.
Due to the sensitivity of the projects and at the request of the primary customer, the customer will announce details of the contracts at a time that will suit his purposes.
EKOR was created after the 1986 Nuclear Accident at Chernobyl, Ukraine to address the problems of radioactive dust suppression and fuel-containing mass encapsulation. As previously announced, EUROTECH, Ltd. is currently participating in a project with the Chernobyl Shelter and Ukraine to apply EKOR at the failed reactor site.
EKOR is a silicon geo-polymer able to maintain its physical properties after hundreds of years' exposure to radiation. EKOR's properties make it ideally suitable for nuclear waste management and it's compatible with current methods of nuclear waste management methods.
EUROTECH Ltd. is a diversified technology holding company formed to capitalize on business opportunities through the acquisition and commercialization of advanced technologies developed by prominent research institutes and individual researchers worldwide.
Certain information and statement included in this release constitute ``forward-looking statements'' within the meaning of the Federal Privates Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.
Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements of the company to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements.
Contact:
EUROTECH Ltd., Washington by Aim Corporate Relations Dawn VanZant, 800/665-0411 Heidi Hirst, 800/588-2544
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Ratification falls short in nuke test ban treaty
Reuters Sep 28, 1999
http://www.dogpile.com - search Infoseek
UNITED NATIONS, Sept 28 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has officially called for a conference on the nuclear test ban treaty, a requirement if the accord failed to go into force three years after it was open to signature, the United Nations said.
The meeting, chaired by Japan, is to take place in Vienna from Oct. 6 to 8 under terms of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which calls for a conference to speed up approvals if the legislatures of 44 nations with nuclear capabilities did not ratify the convention.
The treaty bans all explosions in the environment, whether in the atmosphere, space or underground, regardless of size. A 1963 treaty barred explosions in the atmosphere and another one in 1974 set some limits on underground tests.
Since the CTBT was open for signature on Sept. 24, 1996, 154 nations have signed the convention and 45 of them have ratified it, the United Nations said on Monday.
Among the 44 countries with nuclear weapons, power stations or other atomic capabilities, all but India, Pakistan and North Korea have signed. But only 21 of those nations to date have ratified the treaty.
All five declared nuclear powers -- the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China -- signed the treaty. But only Britain and France have ratified it.
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, noting that President Bill Clinton became the first world leader to sign the treaty three years ago, chastised the Republican-controlled Senate last week for not ratifying the accord.
Responding to concerns that the treaty would weaken U.S. defence, she said, ``They have failed to explain how our security can be damaged by asking others to end explosive testing.'' Consequently, she said the United States would have observer status at the Vienna conference rather than being in the forefront of the discussions.
India has vowed not to sign the treaty until the declared atomic powers devise a timetable for destroying their nuclear arsenals. Pakistan will not sign until India does.
The United States and Russia are each estimated to deploy more than 7,000 nuclear warheads, compared to 512 in France, 464 in Britain and 284 in China.
The 21 nuclear-capable countries that ratified the treaty are: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Poland, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden as well as Britain and France.
For the treaty to take effect, however, ratification is still needed from 23 countries: Algeria, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Mexico, Romania, South Korea, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of the Congo as well as India, Pakistan, North Korea, the United States, Russia and China.
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Nuclear Weapon Detection System Uses Ziatech Computers and QNX Software to Help Monitor Treaty Compliance
Winning U.S. Department of Energy Design Combines Rugged Computer and RTOS
Company Press Release Sept. 27, 1999
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/990927/ca_ziatech_2.html
SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Embedded products combining the compact, reliable computers of Ziatech Corp. and the responsive real-time software of QNX(r) Software Systems are found in countless mission-critical applications throughout the world.
Yet one award-winning Ziatech/QNX design is doing its part to make sure the world remains safe for all embedded computing applications, regardless of the computing architecture and operating software.
A U.S. Department of Energy design, incorporating the products of ESC exhibitors Ziatech (Booth 1802) and QNX (Booth 1618), detects the airborne radioactive products of nuclear testing, and will be used worldwide to support the United Nation's Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
Developed at the United States Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., the Radionuclide Aerosol Sampler/Analyzer (RASA) is one of several to search for and analyze clues that indicate illegal nuclear testing.
Viewed as one of the world's most important detection technologies because it actually captures a small part of the weapon itself (radiation), the RASA system was awarded the coveted R&D 100 Award. Sponsored by R&D Magazine, this annual award recognizes significant new technologies and products, such as the RASA system, which is reportedly 100 times more sensitive than its nearest rival.
The Department of Energy design joins such diverse past winners as Polacolor film, the flashcube, the automated teller machine, the halogen lamp, the fax machine, the liquid crystal display, and the Nicoderm anti-smoking patch.
According to the system's designers, the small, furnace-sized system is sensitive enough to detect small amounts of radiation, inexpensive enough for all countries to afford and, because it is often placed in remote locations, rugged enough to run in unfriendly environments for several months without servicing.
The Department of Energy design team met its objectives with a system controlled by a Ziatech single board computer running QNX 4. The modular Ziatech single board computer condenses the attributes of a desktop PC into a small and extremely rugged format. QNX provides robust, real-time control with multitasking that enables the segmentation of several interrelated tasks and a reliable method of communicating with the various data centers of the system.
The Ziatech/QNX system controls a physical measurement system that uses a set of continuous filter paper strips, a segmented sample head, and a high-resolution germanium gamma-ray detector. The paper strips are advanced mechanically into the sample head through which large volumes of air are filtered. After a decay period, the strips are placed in front of the gamma-ray detector for radiation measurement.
In addition to measuring nuclear activity, the UPS-protected RASA system also monitors its own health through secondary sensors for temperature, voltage, air velocity, and other environmental conditions.
Ziatech and QNX work closely together to pre-test the operation of QNX on Ziatech's computers, and Ziatech offers an optional QNX development toolkit with software device drivers and other utilities to streamline QNX implementation for several of its single board computers.
About QNX Software Systems
Founded in 1980, QNX Software Systems is the industry leader in real-time, microkernel OS technology. The company has established a strong customer base in a variety of industries, including consumer electronics, transportation, telecommunications, medical instrumentation, process control, point-of-sale, and telephony. QNX products are distributed in more than 100 countries worldwide. Visit http://www.qnx.com.
About Ziatech Corp.
Ziatech is the leading innovator of applied computing solutions for telecommunications and Internet applications. The company supplies Original Equipment Manufacturers with solutions ranging from single board computers to fully integrated systems designed for mission-critical applications.
Ziatech offers the industry's most comprehensive product line of CompactPCI, a standard it created and continues to enhance through advancements such as multiprocessing and high-availability technology. An ISO 9001-certified company, Ziatech partners with one of the world's largest contract manufacturers of electronics, to build computers that meet international certification requirements and the highest standards of quality.
With headquarters in San Luis Obispo, Calif., Ziatech operates a worldwide network of representatives and distributors, with sales offices throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. More detailed information on Ziatech is available on the World Wide Web at http://www.ziatech.com.
Contact:
Ziatech Corp., San Luis Obispo Phil Nash, 805/782-4500 ext. 6044 phil_nash@ziatech.com http://www.ziatech.com or QNX Software Systems Paul Leroux, 613/591-0931 paull@qnx.com http://www.qnx.com
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FBI Plans Hit List
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/local/state/new_mexico/story.html?s=v/rs/19990927/nm/index_1.html#5
WASHINGOTN, D.C. There's more controversy surrounding the Wen Ho Lee investigation at Los Alamos National Laboratories. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is planning to create a list of about 500 people nationwide who have access to nuclear secrets. The Bureau will then screen them for connections with China. The move will impact government installations, universities and private contractors.
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Nuclear Waste To Leave INEEL
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/local/state/idaho/story.html?s=v/rs/19990928/id/index_1.html#2
IDAHO FALLS Two more shipments of nuclear waste will leave the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory this week. Twenty-eight barrels of waste will leave the eastern Idaho site today. Another shipment will leave by truck on Thursday for the trip to New Mexico. The shipments of waste to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad are the third and fourth to be made from INEEL but there are over 300-thousand barrels that will ultimately be moved.
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Owner of Connecticut Nuclear Plant Accepts a Record Fine
New York Times September 28, 1999
By MIKE ALLEN
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/regional/ct-millstone-fine.html
HARTFORD -- The owner of the Millstone Nuclear Power Station in eastern Connecticut admitted Monday that it had falsified environmental records and deliberately promoted unqualified plant operators. The owner, Northeast Nuclear Energy Company, pleaded guilty to 23 Federal felonies and agreed to pay $10 million in fines, the largest penalty ever for a nuclear plant in this country.
The violations took place from 1994 to 1996.
In entering the guilty plea in United States District Court here, Northeast admitted that hydrazine, a toxic chemical used to reduce corrosion of pipes, had gushed into Long Island Sound at a rate of one gallon an hour during 1996 and that testers at the company had diluted their samples with ocean water to hide the problem from Federal regulators.
Federal prosecutors said Monday that they were unable to prove environmental harm from the hydrazine.
The company also admitted that after it submitted fraudulent information to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 12 control-room operators received Federal licenses. Problems with the training program at Millstone came to light in 1996 when six of seven candidates for control-room operator licenses failed Federal exams, prosecutors said.
In presenting the evidence in court Monday, the prosecutors said the corner-cutting could have put the plant in the hands of workers unable to prevent a crisis.
The investigation, previously secret, came to light in court Monday when the company waived indictment and pleaded guilty. As part of the plea agreement, the company was put on three years' probation, which allows prosecutors to monitor operations more closely.
The Millstone case is just the second time that a nuclear power plant owner had been found guilty of felonies. Fifteen years ago, after the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pa., which began the industry's plunge from public acceptance, Metropolitan Edison pleaded guilty to falsifying records at the plant.
Officials at Millstone said they hoped Monday's pleas would end the long period in which the plant has been considered a national symbol of mismanagement in the nuclear power industry. In 1997, Millstone was assessed a civil fine of $2.1 million by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. In 1996, a Time magazine cover story treated the plant as an egregious example of lax enforcement of Federal regulations.
The three reactors in Waterford, Conn., were shut down under orders from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission because of problems with design, safety and paperwork. One of the three reactors is being decommissioned, while the other two have been restarted and are producing energy.
Since 1996, the utility has hired new executives and taken steps that it says would prevent violations in the future. Federal prosecutors, while describing the old offenses in harsh terms, said in Monday's proceedings that they had confidence in the new managers.
After the large number of Millstone candidates flunked their licensing tests, investigators discovered that they had not put in the required number of training hours nor mastered the maneuvers that Millstone had falsely claimed, the Government charged. Some of the candidates have since been retrained and are now on the job, the company said.
Federal prosecutors said economic pressure brought on by deregulation of the nuclear industry had contributed to the violations. "Rather than treat the problem," said Joseph C. Hutchison, an assistant United States Attorney, "the shortcut was taken so there was some economic saving."
Hutchison said complaints by community groups and workers at the plants had led to the three-year Federal investigation.
Stephen C. Robinson, the United States Attorney for Connecticut, said of the agreement, "No matter who you are, no matter how big or how powerful, if you endanger our citizens, if you violate the law, if you lie to regulators and choose profits over the public, we will come after you."
Michael G. Morris, the chairman and and chief executive of Northeast Utilities, the parent of Northeast Nuclear, did not dispute a statement that the violations were deliberate, but said the public had never been in danger. As he left the courthouse Monday, Morris attributed the violations to "inattention to detail" and "inadvertence," not deregulation. "The whole notion that you react differently in a competitive marketplace is true, but it doesn't cause this kind of behavior," he said. He said the lesson for plant owners was "it's better to operate within all of the laws and the requirements because these kind of fines, these kinds of embarrassments, will come your way if you don't."
Morris was hired in 1997, after the offenses took place. Nevertheless, Judge Robert N. Chatigny called him to the front of the court this morning and told him sternly he hoped the plea reflected a commitment by the company "to be a better citizen in the future than it was in the past."
Judge Chatigny added that despite the efforts of those who work in the public interest, "Ultimately, the public has to depend on the good faith, honesty and integrity of the people who manage our large companies."
A spokeswoman for Northeast Utilities, Mary Jo Keating, said the plea agreement should help with the plans to sell the plant, as required by state legislation deregulating the industry. "The worst thing in the market is any kind of uncertainty," she said from the company headquarters in Berlin, Conn.
David M. Pittinos of the Toxics Action Center, an environmental group in West Hartford, said today's plea vindicated residents who had been worried about mismanagement and safety at the plant. The admissions were especially damning, he said, because "these companies typically offer to do just about anything to weasel out of criminal charges and reach some out-of-court settlement."
In addition to the 23 counts involving the nuclear plant, another subsidiary, Northeast Utilities Service Company, pleaded guilty to two felonies resulting from the use of a fire hose to dilute water samples taken at Devon Station, a coal-fired power plant in Milford. Prosecutors said that their case against the service company was complete, but that their investigation was continuing and that individuals might be prosecuted.
As part of the $10 million in fines, Northeast Utilities agreed to donate $1 million to endow a business ethics chair at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, and $650,000 for an environmental clinic at its School of Engineering; $1 million to help local towns buy riverfront land for conversion into public parks, and $650,000 to Riverfront Recapture, a Hartford group, for its leadership camp for disadvantaged city youth.
The agreement specified that the gifts were not tax deductible. The company said it did not intend to pass the costs on to consumers.
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STANDARD Missile-3 Successfully Completes First Test Flight
Company Press Release Sept. 27, 1999
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/990927/ma_raytheo_1.html
PACIFIC MISSILE RANGE FACILITY, KAUAI, Hawaii--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The STANDARD Missile-3 (SM-3) successfully completed its first flight test Sept. 24 at the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai, Hawaii. Designated Control Test Vehicle-1A (CTV-1A), the missile demonstrated the first shipboard launch of SM-3. The launch, from USS Shiloh, is the first in a series of at-sea firings scheduled over the next two years. SM-3 is under development by Raytheon Company (NYSE:RTNA - news; NYSE:RTNB - news).
SM-3 and the AEGIS Weapon System comprise the Navy Theater Wide ballistic missile defense system. SM-3 is designed to intercept an incoming theater ballistic missile (TBM) before it enters the earth's atmosphere.
``This successful STANDARD Missile-3 test is the first, integral step toward deployment of a robust Navy Theater Wide program,'' said Rear Admiral William W. Cobb, Jr., program executive officer for Theater Surface Combatants, Naval Sea System Command. ``Navy Theater Wide is being developed as the key defense against the threat of incoming theater ballistic missiles for our troops and marines ashore. The outstanding performance of SM-3 in this test proves we are well on our way.''
The test launch marked a significant milestone for the SM-3 program as it demonstrated the weapon's airframe performance and reliability during launch, booster separation, second stage guidance and control through second stage separation. In addition, data collected from the test is essential to validating the high fidelity simulation being used to predict SM-3's performance.
``We are pleased with the test results and SM-3's performance. The test validates the solid, incremental evolution of SM-3's technology and confirms our belief that it will perform exactly as designed, once it's deployed with the fleet,'' said Jerry K. Lockard, Raytheon vice president and general manager of the company's Missile Systems business unit, Tucson, Ariz.
SM-3 is the most technologically advanced and latest version of the STANDARD Missile family. SM-3 will provide exoatmospheric, theater-wide defense against medium- and long-range tactical ballistic missiles. Raytheon delivered the SM-3 flight test missile used in CTV-1A to the U.S. Navy Aug. 9, 1999, at a roll-out ceremony in Tucson.
STANDARD Missile currently serves as the U.S. Navy's primary anti-air warfare missile. Several configurations are in development or production. Each is designed to meet specific mission requirements while retaining required capabilities against legacy ship threats. STANDARD Missile is operational on U.S. Navy guided missile cruisers, destroyers and frigates and with 13 international navies. The SM-3 mission is to defend against theater ballistic missiles in the outer atmosphere. The SM-2 Block IVA configuration, also in development, will retain STANDARD Missile's anti-air warfare capability, while adding the ability to engage short-range theater ballistic missiles in the atmosphere.
Raytheon Company, based in Lexington, Mass., is a global technology leader that provides products and services in the areas of commercial and defense electronics, engineering and construction, and business and special mission aircraft. Raytheon has operations throughout the United States and serves customers in more than 80 countries around the world.
Contact:
Raytheon Company Cynthia Curiel, 520.794.7810 http://www.raytheon.com
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Greenpeace protests against British nuclear fuel carrying ship
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/weekly/newsnat-27sep1999-46.htm
A British-flagged vessel carrying recycled nuclear fuel has entered a Japanese port under heavy protection from coastguard ships warding off Greenpeace protesters.
Surrounded by more than 30 coastguard vessels, the Pacific Teal docked at the port of Okuma, about 240 kilometres north of Tokyo, earlier this morning.
The ship will unload 210 kilograms of mixed plutonium-uranium oxide, or MOX fuel, for the Tokyo Electric Power Company - the first shipment of the fuel to Japan.
The Pacific Teal spent two months sailing from France to Japan with its sister ship, the Pacific Pintail, which left a British port to unload the fuel at another Japanese nuclear plant.
The Pacific Pintail, loaded with 225 kilograms of the same fuel, is expected to enter a port in the Sea of Japan later this week.
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Dole's Top Priority: Missile Defense
Washington Post Tuesday, September 28, 1999
By David Von Drehle
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/28/040l-092899-idx.html
Republican presidential candidate Elizabeth Dole sketched a world bristling with nuclear threats yesterday and said her top priority, if elected, would be development of missile defense systems for the United States and its allies.
Dole delivered what was billed as her third major address on foreign policy to a standing-room-only audience at the College of Charleston in Charleston, S.C. As she has in the past, she charged the Clinton administration with weakening the nation's defenses and underestimating the menace of rogue nations.
"Instead of developing a strategic framework for our nation's security," she said, "surveys and focus groups determine our foreign policy."
Dole's speech was the latest sign that the specter of nuclear war could return to the national debate after a decade on the wane. The subject has appeared in other recent speeches by Republicans; last week, Texas Gov. George W. Bush called for a missile defense system and pledged to spend $20 billion on new weapons research.
For Dole, the nuclear threat is the thread connecting the pieces of a tough, internationalist foreign policy. She warned that the United States is vulnerable to devastating attack, denounced two major arms control treaties, called for heightened security in U.S. nuclear labs and endorsed continued engagement with China and Russia.
"China and North Korea can deliver bombs on Hawaii and Alaska," she said. "Even our mainland is vulnerable. . . . Some hostile power could launch short-range missiles from ships off our east and west coasts and target 145 million Americans."
Her response: "We will develop and implement national and theater missile defense systems. Once and for all, Americans will be defended from foreign attack. Indeed, there can be no higher priority for any president."
Dole said it is time to abandon the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which restricts the development of defensive systems. And she condemned the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which is pending in the Senate, saying that it would undermine the deterrent value of the U.S. nuclear stockpile.
Rogue states such as North Korea should not be treated as equals, Dole said. Dealing with China, however, will require a great deal of nuance. Dole described a "two-track approach to foster democratic reform" in China. The political track would involve meetings with key leaders to promote reform, while the economic track would attempt to open up China through increased free trade. At the same time, she would urge Congress to increase aid to Taiwan.
Although Dole blasted the Clinton administration policy toward China, it was not clear--except in a few details--how her approach would differ from current U.S. policy.
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Dole Tells Students About Her Foreign Policy Platform
New York Times September 28, 1999
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/092899wh-gop-dole.html
CHARLESTON, S.C. -- The seats were taken Monday and so the undergraduates plunked down in the center aisles, and when those filled they lined up along the walls and then across the back.
A heavily female crowd turned up to hear Elizabeth Dole outline her foreign policy platform in an auditorium at the College of Charleston, drawn more by the marvel of a woman running seriously for President than by the subject of her speech.
Speaking a week after Gov. George W. Bush of Texas delivered his own foreign policy address at the Citadel, Charleston's legendary military academy famous for its efforts to bar women, Mrs. Dole covered many of the same themes as Bush, the front-runner for the Republican Party's Presidential nomination.
Invoking former President Ronald Reagan, whom she credited with bringing down Communism, Mrs. Dole proposed a post-cold-war weapons buildup to reinforce the country's nuclear arsenal, reminiscent of the Reagan era.
She said the current Administration had been taken in by the "empty promises" of weak treaties and by "rogue and outlaw nations" threatening the United States with weapons of mass destruction.
Mrs. Dole criticized aid to Russia, saying the money had "disappeared into offshore accounts and the wallets of Russian officials," while "the Russian people suffer."
Her Administration, she said, would work with "policies, not personalities," an implicit slap at the Clinton Administration for propping up the increasingly discredited President of Russia, Boris N. Yeltsin.
Coming a few days after Mrs. Dole delivered a major speech on education, the uppermost issue in the minds of voters, the foreign policy speech today appeared to be an attempt to lend heft to a campaign that was forging ahead despite Bush's daunting financial advantage. The Bush campaign has collected $52 million; Mrs. Dole would not say how much she had collected but her quarterly filing with the Federal Election Commission in July had listed contributions of $3.5 million.
Like Governor Bush, Mrs. Dole vowed to increase military spending and abandon the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, criticizing an Administration that, she said, "failed to develop a strong national or theater missile defense system."
She also opposed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, calling it "neither effective nor verifiable." The treaty, which banned nuclear test explosions, was signed by President Clinton in September 1996 but has not been ratified by Congress.
She criticized the Administration for treating China as a "strategic partner" despite human rights violations and its development of advanced weapons systems that, she said, could threaten the United States. China "imprisons and persecutes dissidents and religious believers," she said. "It employs prison labor. It steals our nuclear and other military secrets."
It was not clear how the "two-track policy" she proposed to promote open markets and political reforms in China would differ from current goals in Washington.
"Throughout the world, the United States will treat authoritarian and totalitarian states, such as North Korea, as rogue regimes, not as our equals," Mrs. Dole said. "We will encourage and strengthen democratic oppositions within these countries wherever possible."
If Bush had tried to build credibility for his foreign policy platform by listing experts he consulted in preparing it, Mrs. Dole did so by mentioning a trip she made to Poland in 1989 when she served as Secretary of Labor for her rival's father, President George Bush.
She reminded audiences that as Secretary of Transportation under Ronald Reagan, she was the first woman to head a branch of the armed forces -- the Coast Guard. And today, she spoke of trips she had made to Somalia, Bosnia and Croatia as head of the American Red Cross.
Several women who turned out to hear Mrs. Dole said they did not normally keep up with politics, but became interested when teachers mentioned that Mrs. Dole would be speaking.
"It's just the whole idea of her being the first woman running for President," said Laura Bogan, a senior majoring in business and marketing. "I think it's just kind of neat that she's running."
Afterward, however, Ms. Bogan said she did not usually keep up with foreign affairs so she did not understand much of Mrs. Dole's speech. Though she voted for Bob Dole in 1996, Ms. Bogan was still undecided about Mrs. Dole after hearing the speech.
Several students had apparently not been told that the speech would focus on foreign policy and appeared disappointed.
Sharniqua Austin, a sophomore studying biology, said she wanted to hear Mrs. Dole talk about domestic issues. "I was wondering about the state of the U.S., like what she thought about things here, as opposed to things in other countries," Ms. Austin said.
Mrs. Dole has frequently noted that her campaign is attracting an "invisible army" of Americans disaffected by politics in Washington.
Monday's speech suggested that her success may ultimately depend on motivating that "army" into voting for her.
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Treaties No Protection From Nuclear Attack - Dole
Reuters Sep 27, 1999
By Schuyler Kropf
http://www.dogpile.com - search Infoseek
CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) - Republican presidential hopeful Elizabeth Dole said Monday the United States cannot rely on international treaties or nuclear test bans to protect it from the threat of foreign missile attacks.
Adopting the ``peace through strength'' theme of former President Ronald Reagan, Dole pledged to rebuild the U.S. military and develop a national missile-defense system while ''forging new relations'' with China and Russia.
``By acting quickly and forcefully to provide for the security of our citizens, and by forging new relations with Russia and China from a position of strength and resolute purpose, we will restore our nation's credibility abroad,'' she said.
Delivering what advisers billed as a major foreign policy speech at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, Dole blasted the Clinton administration for failing to combat looming threats to U.S. national security and seemingly allowing public opinion polls to dictate foreign policy.
``This administration seems to view foreign affairs through the prism of domestic policy and opinion polls,'' she said in an advance copy of the speech provided to reporters. ``Can you imagine -- instead of leading, the administration lets surveys and focus groups determine our foreign policy.''
A former president of the American Red Cross and two-time Cabinet member, Dole, 63, is seeking to break out of a pack of Republican presidential hopefuls trailing front-runner Texas Gov. George W. Bush in national polls.
In a CNN/Time poll released Friday, Dole, with 8 percent support, trailed Bush, with 53 percent, and former Vice President Dan Quayle, with 9 percent. Quayle, however, was set to drop out of the race.
Dole said international nuclear test ban treaties are unverifiable, and there is no evidence they would reduce the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
If elected president, Dole said she would end U.S. adherence to the international Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and oppose making the United States a signatory to the international Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
``Rogue regimes can be expected to refuse to sign it -- or sign it and still violate it,'' she said.
``If North Korea launches a missile at Hawaii, or even the mainland, neither this treaty nor good intentions can turn it back.''
Dole said she supports China's entry into the World Trade Organization to open that country's markets, and pledged to work with political leaders and institutions as part of a ``two-track approach to foster democratic reform'' there.
To stabilize Russia politically and economically, Dole said she would target financial aid to programs that benefit the Russian people instead of financing ``endemic corruption'' in that country.
``Its nuclear secrets, dangerous weapons, and even its scientists may be available to the highest bidder. Yet the Clinton-Gore team has rewarded Russia with billions of dollars in indiscriminate U.S. aid -- much of which seems to have disappeared into offshore accounts and the wallets of Russian officials,'' she said ``Meanwhile, the Russian people suffer.''
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DIGEST
Washington Post Tuesday, September 28, 1999
Compiled from reports by the Associated Press, Bloomberg News, Dow Jones News Service, Reuters and Washington Post staff writers; Page E01
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/28/055l-092899-idx.html
Northeast Utilities agreed to pay the biggest fine in the 40-year history of the U.S. nuclear-power industry for lying about the qualifications of some of its plant-operator trainees and for illegally discharging pollutants into Long Island Sound, authorities said. Berlin, Conn.-based Northeast, New England's biggest electric utility, will pay $10 million after two of its subsidiaries pleaded guilty to 25 felony counts of making false statements to federal regulators and environmental violations at the Millstone nuclear power plants in Waterford, Conn.
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Connecticut Utility Pleads Guilty
Associated Press Monday, Sept. 27, 1999
By Donna Tommelleo
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19990927/aponline170316_000.htm
HARTFORD, Conn. -- Northeast Utilities pleaded guilty Monday to violating federal nuclear-safety and clean-water laws and agreed to pay $10 million, including the biggest penalty in the history of the nuclear power industry.
Prosecutors said the utility's offenses included releasing pollutants into Long Island Sound and supplying deliberately inaccurate information on employee license applications.
The public was never in any immediate danger, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency. And none of the violations involved any leaks of radioactive material, said Hubert Miller, NRC regional administrator.
The investigation is continuing, and authorities would not rule out prosecution of individuals.
Two NU subsidiaries, Northeast Utility Service Co. and Northeast Nuclear Energy Co., agreed to pay $6.65 million in fines and make $3.35 million in donations, including $1 million to the University of Connecticut for a chair in ethics and $1 million for the state's open-space preservation program.
"We failed to live up to what was required of us as a responsible corporate citizen and as a leader in our community," NU chairman Michael Morris said in a statement. "Today we are paying a very steep price for that failure."
Half of the sum is for nuclear safety violations, the biggest penalty in the history of the nuclear power industry, prosecutors said.
The violations occurred between 1994 and 1996 at the Millstone nuclear power plant near Waterford and at the Devon Generating Station in Milford, which uses conventional fuel.
Millstone has been under close scrutiny from the NRC for years. In 1996, the complex was ordered shut down because of safety concerns. Authorities credited some of the Millstone whistle-blowers with helping start the investigation that resulted in Monday's pleas.
Two of Millstone's reactors are back in operation. The third is being mothballed.
The company was convicted of falsifying the records of 19 people applying for nuclear operating licenses at Millstone. Prosecutors said the utility falsely claimed the workers had fulfilled the training requirements.
Six water environmental counts centered on the unauthorized discharge of pollutants into Long Island Sound from Millstone and Devon. In addition, prosecutors said the company diluted water samples, invalidating the results of tests for pollutants.
"It created a situation where no one really knew how much was being dumped into Long Island Sound," said Steven Herman, EPA assistant administrator for enforcement.
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Nuke Tank Explosion Said Unlikely
Associated Press Monday, Sept. 27, 1999
By Linda Ashton
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19990927/aponline181726_000.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Nuclear-Blob.html
YAKIMA, Wash. -- Radioactive waste has risen like bread dough in a million-gallon storage tank at the Hanford nuclear reservation, provoking concerns about a possible explosion or environmental contamination.
The managers at the Department of Energy site near Richland, less than 10 miles from the Columbia River in south-central Washington, say both scenarios are unlikely.
"The chance of explosion is very low," said Rick Raymond, the project manager for the contractor, Lockheed Martin Hanford. Still, "any time you have a situation where you're trapping gas faster than releasing it, it's an unacceptable situation and needs to be dealt with in an urgent manner."
The radioactive waste in Tank SY-101 is a byproduct of the process used to extract plutonium from uranium irradiated at Hanford's now-defunct nuclear reactors. The tank contains cesium and decaying organic materials that generate hydrogen, nitrogen, nitrous oxide and ammonia.
The tank became notorious in the late 1980s and early '90s as Hanford's "burping" tank because it released thousands of cubic feet of gas every three months or so. If an ignition source had been present, the flammable gases could have exploded.
A mixer pump installed in 1993 took care of the problem by allowing the continuous escape of small amounts of gas.
But it also created a new problem no one expected - without the periodic releases of huge amounts of gas, bubbles began to build up in the meringue-like crust floating in the liquid waste.
The crust began to thicken and grow. It is now about 10 feet thick in a tank just over 38 feet tall. The top of the crust is 26 inches from the top of the tank, although it was 2 inches higher in May, when Hanford managers began releasing gas at the same rate it is produced.
While the possibility exists that the waste could spill over and breach the tank, the 5/8-inch-thick steel welds on the double-shell tank should prevent that from happening, Raymond said.
Beginning in late October or early November, Lockheed Martin Hanford will begin pumping out Tank SY-101, diluting 300,000 gallons of the radioactive brew as it is transferred to another tank, and then diluting the 700,000 gallons still in SY-101 with water.
That should be a permanent fix, said Craig Groendyke, manager for the SY-101 project for the Energy Department's Office of River Protection.
Hanford was established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Plutonium for nuclear weapons was produced at the site until 1986.
The site has 54 million gallons of radioactive waste stored in 149 aging single-shell tanks, 67 of which have leaked. Newer tanks, such as SY-101, have two shells, and none have leaked.
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Justice Hires 1st Science Adviser
Associated Press Monday, Sept. 27, 1999
By Michael J. Sniffen
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19990927/aponline184142_000.htm
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department hired its first chief science adviser Monday - Donald Prosnitz, a physicist from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.
Prosnitz will be on a two-year detail as the department's chief science and technology adviser from the lab where he was the chief scientist for the Nonproliferation, Arms Control and International Security Directorate.
"This newly created post enables us to consolidate the responsibility for technology policy in one position," Attorney General Janet Reno said.
Prosnitz is the second physicist drawn from the Energy Department's nuclear weapons laboratories to take a top Justice Department job. By coincidence, the laboratories currently are a focus of an FBI investigation into whether China stole secrets about U.S. nuclear warheads in recent years.
In October 1997, Donald M. Kerr Jr., a physicist-engineer who spent six years as chief of the government's Los Alamos National Laboratory, where nuclear weapons were designed, became assistant FBI director in charge of the bureau's crime laboratory.
In a brief interview, Prosnitz said "familiarity with the government" might be the reason Justice has twice turned to the national laboratories for a scientist.
Prosnitz will advise Reno on research, development, procurement and legislation relating to technological issues like computer crime or the use of DNA evidence. Indeed, his first task was to attend a meeting of the department's advisory Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence.
He also will serve as the department's liaison to the scientific community.
"Dr. Prosnitz's wealth of education, experience and management in the scientific community make him the right person for the job," Reno said. "He is well-suited to coordinate the Justice Department's efforts on complex and novel technological issues such as investigating computer crimes and threats to our critical infrastructure, the use of DNA evidence and forensic analysis issues."
He was graduated from Yale University with a degree in engineering and applied science in 1970 and received his doctorate in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1975.
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Lockheed to sell eight businesses, reshuffles officers
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Seth Hettena
http://www.washtimes.com/business/business2.html
Lockheed Martin Co. announced a major restructuring yesterday, including changes in top management and a corporate realignment. The Bethesda, Md. defense contractor said it plans to sell eight businesses that employ about 9,000 people.
The businesses to be sold include a New Hampshire company that makes "black box" data recorders in airplanes and a Washington state company that is cleaning up a nuclear-reactor site.
The businesses have combined annual revenues of $1.4 billion.
The two local businesses Lockheed Martin may sell employ about 350 people.
Fifty of them work at the company's space electronics and communications division in Manassas, Va. and 300 work at its Bethesda energy-technologies unit, said Lockheed spokesman James Fetig.
Some Wall Street analysts said they were disappointed that Lockheed, the No. 1 defense contractor in terms of sales, decided not to tackle problems in its aerospace business, which has experienced some costly setbacks and failures.
Lockheed, which had 161,000 employees and $26 billion in sales last year, will reorganize into four core businesses by the end of the year, replacing five semiautonomous sectors that often competed with each other, said Mr. Fetig.
The reorganization will result in an unspecified number of layoffs at Lockheed's Bethesda headquarters.
"You're looking at a company trying to get its arms around what they own following the acquisition of several dozen companies over the last decade," said Christopher H. Mecray of Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown.
"This is one of the steps they're taking to flatten out a structure that has kind of gotten out of control."
Changes were also announced at the top. Robert J. Stevens will take over as chief financial officer, replacing Philip J. Duke, who is leaving the post after less than a year. Arthur E. Johnson replaces Mr. Duke as vice president of corporate strategic development.
Lockheed said the actions would not affect its earnings outlook for 1999 and 2000. Sale of the eight businesses is expected to offset the anticipated $1 billion in lost revenue.
Lockheed's reorganization effort, which began in June, comes in the hopes of restoring sagging profits and investor confidence. The company reported a second-quarter loss in July of $41 million, due in part to launch failures.
Investors seemed generally pleased with the details of the reorganization. Lockheed's stock, which has been in a slump, rose $1.56, or 5 percent, to $32.19 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Some analysts, however, said the company's reorganization did not go far enough to stem the company's losses.
"Our bottom line to our investors is, it won't hurt, it might help a little, but it's not the solution to poor earnings performance," said Joseph Campbell of Lehman Brothers. "While this was a major strategic review, a major strategic review isn't what's going to make the market go up."
Investors attracted to Lockheed's stable, modestly growing defense business don't like the risky space business, he said.
Lockheed Martin suffered four launch failures between August 1998 and April of this year. More than $2 billion in military and private satellites were either destroyed or placed in useless orbits. An independent review blamed cost-cutting, lack of quality control and the loss of experienced personnel.
Earlier this month, Boeing beat out Lockheed for a $4.5 billion government spy-satellite contract.
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Embassy Row
'Iron chain' of missiles
THE WASHINGTON TIMES September 28, 1999
By James Morrison
http://www.washtimes.com/internatl/embassy.html
More than 50 years after Winston Churchill warned of an Iron Curtain of Soviet domination, another British conservative is using a similar analogy to warn of a new threat to democracy.
Iain Duncan-Smith, a member of the British Parliament, is in Washington this week to alert U.S. officials that Europe is ignoring the "iron chains of [missile] proliferation . . . growing in power and strength" from the Pacific to North Africa.
Mr. Duncan-Smith, who addressed the American Enterprise Institute yesterday, also met editors and reporters at The Washington Times to explain that he is trying to "stir up the debate" in Europe over a missile-defense system.
"At least the debate is going on here," he said.
He said the report of a commission headed by former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has created hardly a ripple of concern in European capitals, even though it warned that the United States and Europe could soon be within striking distance of missiles armed with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons from terrorist states.
"They are not going to talk about it, if they can avoid it," he said. "If they talk about it, they will have to do something about it, and that means spending more money, which they don't want to do."
Defense spending is falling throughout Europe. Britain's defense budget has fallen 23 percent since 1990, he said.
In his speech to AEI, Mr. Duncan-Smith said, "Europe's lack of interest in the Rumsfeld report is curious given that . . . the threat presented by rogue states deploying missiles armed with weapons of mass destruction is even maturing more quickly for Europe than it is for the U.S. . . .
"The inescapable fact is, Britain and America will soon be living in a world in which a growing number of hostile states will be able to strike our cities, our armed forces and our allies."
Mr. Duncan-Smith is also suspicious of politicians who advocate complete European unification, which would include a joint military force that would undermine NATO.
"To those who regard the creation of common European defenses as an essential step in the creation of a federal European state," he said, "the mounting evidence of [the proliferation] of missiles and weapons of mass destruction is deeply inconvenient . . . because it reminds them of America's indispensability as an ally."
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In Shift, Secretary Supports Bill That Overhauls Energy Dept.
New York Times September 28, 1999
By ERIC SCHMITT
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/092899nuke-oversight.html
WASHINGTON -- Reversing course, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson says he will recommend that President Clinton sign a $289 billion Pentagon budget bill that overhauls the Energy Department, creating an agency within the department to oversee nuclear weapons programs.
For several weeks, Richardson has threatened to ask the president to veto the bill, arguing that the move to revamp the department in response to accusations that China had stolen nuclear weapons information would undermine his authority.
But on Sunday, Richardson relented in the face of veto-proof margins in both the House and Senate and the prospect of opposing a popular bill that gave 1.4 million troops their largest raise in 18 years.
"I recognize the importance to the troops of the pay raise, readiness and retirement legislation," Richardson said Monday through a spokeswoman, echoing comments he made on Sunday that he would try to redress the parts of the reorganization he found confusing.
White House officials said Monday that Clinton would sign the bill within the next several days.
The bill would create an agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration, with some autonomy within the Energy Department. The agency's director, an under secretary of Energy, would have broad authority over policy, budgeting and counterintelligence for nuclear programs. The director would report to the Secretary of Energy.
Richardson and some Democrats in the Senate had argued that an agreement hammered out last month between House and Senate negotiators would blur the lines of authority between Richardson and the new agency.
In addition, the National Association of Attorneys General wrote Clinton to express concern that provisions of the bill would weaken existing oversight of the Energy Department's environmental, safety and health operations.
Despite Richardson's lobbying, lawmakers brushed aside his concerns. The House earlier this month approved the agreement, called a conference report, by a vote of 375-45. The Senate followed last week, by a vote of 93-5. Both margins were much larger than the two-thirds majority needed to override a Presidential veto.
In the end, many legislators and their aides said it was politically impossible to oppose a raise for the military at a time when the armed services were having trouble recruiting and retaining top-quality troops.
In an illustration of how officials in Washington have tried to put the best face on a bureaucratic defeat, Richardson and Democratic critics have changed their tune, saying that provisions they once called untenable are now tolerable.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., voted against the conference report but voted for the overall bill last week.
"A strong Secretary of Energy may be able to overcome these difficulties and address the Department's problems in an effective manner," Levin said.
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Richardson Backs Defense Bill
The Associated Press Sunday, Sept. 26, 1999
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19990926/aponline183100_000.htm
WASHINGTON -- Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said Sunday he will recommend President Clinton sign a $288.9 billion defense bill, satisfied about resolving concerns over a new nuclear weapons agency and a department reorganization.
Congress last week overwhelmingly agreed to the changes, which came in response to months of allegations about Chinese espionage at the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories.
The reorganization was in a defense bill that raises military pay and offers a 4.4 percent across-the-board increase in Pentagon spending, including more money for military housing and hardware.
Under the bill, a private with two years of service would see his or her basic monthly pay increase from $1,076 to $1,128.
The measure also contains a sweetener provision that allows even higher increases - up to 10.3 percent - for mid-career officers the military particularly wants to retain. An officer who had reached the rank of major in 10 years, for instance, could see his or her monthly basic pay increase to as much as $4,252.
"It's critical that the troops get their pay raise and ... this is an important national security bill," Richardson said in a telephone interview.
"I believe we can interpret the provisions so there are clear lines of responsibility and the secretary is in charge and we protect our national security."
The legislation would set up a separate, semiautonomous agency within the Energy Department - the National Nuclear Security Administration - to oversee the government's nuclear weapons program.
The reorganization plan grows from months of controversy about lax security at the Energy Department and the alleged theft by China of nuclear warhead secrets from the labs, dating back 20 years.
Proponents believe the new agency would streamline control over nuclear weapons programs and provide increased accountability for security and counterintelligence.
Richardson has argued that the new agency would be given too much autonomy and would interfere in security and counterintelligence improvements he already has made in response to Chinese espionage concerns.
The White House on Thursday signaled a willingness to approve the bill after Clinton heard from key GOP senators and met with Richardson. Spokesman Joe Lockhart said at the time there had been no formal decision about signing the measure, but "we're going to continue to work through this." That still was the case Sunday, the White House said.
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Rebel Says Colombia May Be Next Vietnam
By Reuters September 27, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-colombi.html
SAN VICENTE DEL CAGUAN, Colombia (Reuters) - The United States maintains a larger military presence in Colombia than it publicly acknowledges and could find itself drawn into a conflict with Marxist rebels similar to the Vietnam War, a senior guerrilla leader says.
``The spiral of intervention that the North Americans have unleashed is very dangerous,'' Ivan Rios, a commander of the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC), told Reuters in a weekend interview, referring to the Americans.
``It's possible that this isn't going to be like some little Vietnam but that it will turn out to be a big Vietnam,'' said Rios, a member of the FARC's policy-making joint chiefs of staff.
Rios, 37, spoke in his headquarters overlooking the main square of this muddy cattle town in the center of a Switzerland-sized area of savanna and jungle that the government ceded to rebel control in November as an inducement to enter into talks to end Colombia's 35-year-old conflict.
American officials estimate that on average no more than 150 to 250 U.S. military personnel are in Colombia, the third-largest recipient of U.S. security assistance this year.
But Rios said the American presence was much larger, claiming the United States was deeply involved in efforts to bolster the poorly trained and poorly equipped Colombian army and police to put them on a more equal footing with the 17,000-strong FARC.
``In Colombia we calculate that there are approximately 2,000 North American military personnel,'' said Rios, tilting back the brim of his olive-drab military cap, which is adorned with a red-and-black pin showing the image of Ernesto ``Che'' Guevara, the Argentine-born Cuban revolutionary figure.
``Some of them are involved in espionage, others serve as delegates to the various security forces, such as the DAS (state security police) or the police. Still others are out there training battalions or piloting military spy planes like the one that crashed (in July),'' he said.
The U.S. embassy declined to comment on Rios' remarks. The United States has maintained that its military aid to Colombia is earmarked exclusively for counternarcotics efforts, not for fighting the FARC or the smaller National Liberation Army.
But Rios said the five American soldiers killed in the crash of the U.S. spy plane in July were on an espionage mission that had nothing to do with counternarcotics efforts.
The guerrilla leader also said the FARC was ready to face an invasion force, and a U.S. bombing campaign if necessary, to achieve its goals, including the building of a Socialist state.
Rios said President Andres Pastrana and hard-liners in Washington have been gearing up for all-out war in Colombia and prying open the door to the same sort of direct U.S. involvement that occurred in the conflicts of Central America in the 1980s and Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s.
The peace talks are due to resume soon after a three-month paralysis partly blamed on rebel rejection of an international verification commission in the area they control.
But Rios, a fierce critic of growing U.S. aid for Colombia's military and anti-drug operations, said he sees the peace process as leading nowhere because it has little apparent backing in Washington or among Colombia's wealthy elite.
And he said the negotiating process itself was something that has been manipulated by Pastrana to protect powerful economic interests that are among the root causes of violence in Colombia.
``The government's will to make peace is losing credibility,'' he said.
``The government's message, alongside the North Americans, is that we should sit down (at the negotiating table) and behave ourselves. 'Either you talk, and allow certain conditions to be imposed upon you, or there's going to be an invasion.' That's the message they've been putting out bit by bit,'' said Rios.