------------
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999
From: "Sally Light" <sallight@earthlink.net>
"OBOE" SUBCRITICAL NUCLEAR TEST BLASTS A SOUR NOTE.
OUTRAGED ACTIVISTS HOLD SAN FRANCISCO DEMONSTRATION.
OTHER PROTESTS WORLDWIDE.
For Immediate Release September 29, 1999
Contacts: Sally Light, Tri-Valley CAREs at (510) 527-2057 or (925) 443-7148 Sherry Larsen-Beville, Livermore Conversion Project at (510) 663-8065
Local activists are holding a demonstration tomorrow, September 30, at noon at the international headquarters of the Bechtel Group in San Francisco. They are protesting the US Department of Energy's (DOE) detonation of a subcritical nuclear test, code named "Oboe 1," at the Nevada Test Site. The seventh such test in a series which began in 1997, "Oboe 1" will be detonated Thursday, Sept. 30). Bechtel, which operates the Nevada Test Site (NTS) for the DOE, is located at 50 Beale Street, San Francisco (1 block south of Market St., close to the Embarcadero BART station).
"It's an outrage that DOE continues with yet another test that flies in the face of the US' international treaty obligations, including the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the Non-Proliferation Treaty," stated Sally Light, Nuclear Program Analyst with Tri-Valley CAREs, the Livermore-based "watchdog" over the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where nuclear weapons are designed. Livermore Lab was the primary preparer of the technical package for "Oboe 1."
Subcritical nuclear tests involve blowing up high explosives along with fissile material such as plutonium 239. Performed underground in specially prepared rooms, subcritical tests are used as a to study what happens to the plutonium during the detonations. "Oboe 1" is the first in a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory series of subcritical experiments to be conducted over the next year, focusing on the plutonium ejecta caused by the detonation of high explosives. "Oboe 1" is the first subcritical nuclear test at NTS to be placed in a steel vessel underground in the U1a tunnel complex before detonation.
The DOE states that the purpose of these tests is to ensure the safety & reliability of the nuclear stockpile. However, activists and other critics claim the tests are related to nuclear weapons research & development, and, therefore, are illegal pursuant to international treaties requiring nuclear powers to end the development of nuclear weapons and to achieve eventual nuclear disarmament.
DOE also claims that, since subcritical tests do not rise to the level of self-staining chain reactions, they are not true nuclear tests and thus comply with the CTBT. Critics, however, argue that they are nuclear tests because fissile material is used and also because they are performed to further nuclear weapons R & D, only narrowly skirting the issue of whether they legally violate the CTBT. "Certainly, subcritical nuclear tests violate the spirit if not the letter of the CTBT," stated Sherry Larsen-Beville of the Livermore Conversion Project located in Oakland. She went on to explain that subcritical nuclear tests undermine the CTBT's current international ratification, a process that must include 44 nations. Additionally, subcritical testing also promotes an international arms race. "We had hoped that the "cold war" was really over," she said. "Unfortunately, Russia has answered the US's subcritical tests with a series of their own, which raises the spectre of a renewed arms race. This is a giant step in the wrong direction."
"We're demonstrating to make DOE and Bechtel aware that subcritical tests must be stopped immediately," said Ms Light. "They are a serious risk to the health & safety of both the Western Shoshone tribe on whose land the tests take place, a serious danger to the environment, and a serious threat to the planet's security," she summed up.
Added Ms. Larsen-Beville, "We ask that the US, which created the nuclear era, now end it. Other nations look to the US to take up the mantle of being the post-cold war leader in nuclear disarmament. Complying with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the CTBT by ending subcritical tests would be an excellent first step in the process."
In addition to the San Francisco demonstration, others will occur in Nevada at both the Nevada Test Site and in Las Vegas, as well as in Japan, Australia and Europe.
For further information, please contact Tri-Valley CAREs at (925) 443-7148 or (510) 527-2057.
---
To: Peace Action activists
Fr: Fran Teplitz, Peace Action Education Fund
Re: 7th subcritical test planned at Nevada Test Site
PRIORITY ONE NUCLEAR ALERT Urge House co-sponsorship of the Markey Resolution (H Con Res 74) Urge Senate to set date for ratification vote on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
The Department of Energy (DOE) issued a news release last night, September 28, announcing its seventh subcritical nuclear test, named Oboe 1, on September 30, 1999. The test will take place at the Nevada Test Site.
DOE says the upcoming series of "Oboe" tests in the year ahead will answer questions "about surface phenomena ejecta, such as spall, in weapons materials that is (sic) shocked by high explosives." DOE also states: "The experiments are fully consistent with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty."
This latest test provides additional impetus to our work toward nuclear abolition.
Representatives should still be urged to co-sponsor the Ed Markey Resolution (H Con Res 74) to diminish the stockpile stewardship program which includes subcritical nuclear testing. Genuine stockpile stewardship need only safeguard the nuclear arsenal as it awaits dismantlement, and not promote the design and development of new nuclear weapons.
Senators should still be urged to support ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Urge your Senators to speak out for a "date certain" on which to vote on the treaty's ratification.
Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121.
For an action alert on the Markey Resolution or the CTBT, please contact me at fteplitz@peace-action.org or at 202-862-9740 x. 3004.
---
From: "David Crockett Williams" <gear2000@lightspeed.net>
To: "Abolition 2000 USA" <abolition-usa@lists.xmission.com>, "Abolition Caucus" <abolition-caucus@igc.apc.org>
Subject: (abolition-usa)
Fw: France for Nuclear Remediation
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 16:04:11 -0700
One of the best actions to deal with the radioactive wastes issues including the mobile chernobyl Yucca Mountain plan is to actively work towards fruition of new technologies to remediate nuclear wastes onsite via the Low Energy Nuclear Transmutation (LENT) and Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) processes discovered as a "flip side" to the misnamed "cold fusion" technologies still widely under development. http://www.padrak.com/ine and http://www.infinite-energy.com
--------
Big atomic rhubarb alarm small Canadian town
Reuters September 28,
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/990928/bcl.html
TORONTO, Sept. 28 (Reuters) - A small Ontario town is in an uproar over the big rhubarb stalks that grow near a plant that uses radioactive waste, but officials said on Tuesday the atomic vegetables are safe enough for pies or jam.
The atomic rhubarb, which is growing just southeast of a glow-in-the-dark sign factory in the town of Pembroke, near Ottawa, contains about 1,000 times the radioactive tritium ordinarily found in the area's rainwater.
That alarms residents living close to the plant, which is owned by SRB Technologies (Canada) Inc.
``We are against any involuntary exposure to radiation,'' said Lynn Jones, president of a 200-member citizens' group that collected samples for testing.
``We're concerned because high levels of radioactivity are very dangerous to humans.''
But the Atomic Energy Control Board -- Canada's nuclear safety agency -- has decided the patch of unusually large rhubarb is not hazardous and can still be used to bake a pie or make preserves, said Sunni Locatelli, a board spokesperson.
``We're naturally exposed to radioactivity everyday,'' said Locatelli. ``High doses of of radioactivity can cause genetic defects and cancer, but at these levels there are no dangers.''
The plant manufactures lights powered by the radioactive isotopes of hydrogen. Radiation is not being emitted because the plant is encapsulated, said company vice-president Stephane Levesque.
The company's assurances have yet to persuade Robert Drummie, the manager of a University of Waterloo, Ontario, laboratory that conducted tritium tests on the rhubarb this summer.
He found the rhubarb had 2,000 becquerels (a unit of radioactivity) per liter of tritium - which is about 100 times more than an average garden rhubarb.
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Women Activists Rally for Y2K, Other Nuclear Dangers
U.S. Newswire 28 Sep 11:56
To: National Desk
Contact: Sharon Pickett, 301-365-9307, for Women's Action for New Directions
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0928-110.htm
WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 /U.S. Newswire/ -- At a press briefing today on Capitol Hill, speakers made an impassioned plea for our nation to "Disarm, De-alert and Destroy" nuclear weapons. The press briefing was the concluding event of a three-day conference sponsored by Women's Action for New Directions (WAND).
"Maintaining hair-trigger readiness for nuclear confrontation is unjustifiable in today's world," said Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). "The potential for a missile launch due to misinterpretation of warning systems may well be higher on Jan. 1, 2000, than at any moment since the start of the Cold War. The time is right for a mutual worldwide nuclear stand-down."
"The Cold War is over, but the threat of nuclear weapons still hangs over us like a mushroom cloud. The most fundamental thing we can do for our children is to make sure that they live in a safe and peaceful world," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.), sponsor of the Resolution Calling for a Nuclear Weapons Convention. "Books and booster shots have to come before bombs. We have to get our priorities straight. Instead of preparing to wage war, we should be laying the groundwork for waging peace."
Dr. Helen Caldicott, founder of WAND and renowned nuclear disarmament leader, warned of nuclear threats related to Y2K. "In less than 100 days, computer systems around the world will inevitably fail," said Caldicott. "There are 4,400 nuclear weapons in Russia and America on hair trigger alert, ready to be launched by a combination of inaccurate computer data and human error. The Russians don't have the money or manpower to fix their Y2K problem. They look at America's actions...the expansion of NATO, the U.S. plans to violate the ABM treaty with a star wars missile defense system, the Senate's refusal to ratify the CTBT...and they are justifiably afraid. When you combine this kind of fear and distrust with the uncertainty of Y2K, you have a disaster waiting to happen."
According to Caldicott, there is still time to address the problem if Presidents Clinton and Yeltsen take immediate steps to de-alert nuclear weapons before Dec. 31.
Echoing Caldicott's passionate call for action was Dr. Patch Adams, the eccentric pediatrician portrayed by Robin Williams in the movie "Patch Adams" and currently executive director of the Gesundheit Institute in West Virginia. "Nothing in the past 30 years has caught my attention like the prospect of nuclear annihilation," said Adams. "The very extinction of the human race is at stake. But we can prevent it, and that's why I'm involved in this work."
The speakers called special attention to the need for reductions in military spending. "The U.S. spends $300 billion a year on weapons and the Pentagon," said Caldicott. "That's a third of a trillion dollars. If we spent a million dollars a minute since Jesus was born, we still would not be up to a trillion dollars. When 42 million Americans have no health insurance and one-third of American children live in poverty, this is an evil that cannot be tolerated."
Caldicott used a four-foot model of a Trident submarine, filled with 192 small balls, to illustrate the firepower of a nuclear submarine. The Pentagon has indicated its willingness to reduce its current arsenal of Trident subs, but Congress will not allow the reduction in force to proceed. Current policies prevent the U.S. from reducing its arsenals below the START I levels until the Russian Duma ratifies START II. Critics of the Pentagon budget point to the Trident as just one example of how money is wasted while human needs are neglected.
The press briefing concludes "Women 2000: Agenda for Action: Securing Our Future," a three-day conference that brought more than 200 elected women leaders and activists to Washington, D.C. from Sept. 25 to 28. Participants lobbied Congressional leaders on issues such as the need to reduce military spending, ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and defeat plans to transport nuclear waste through communities across the nation. The conference was sponsored by WAND, the only national peace organization linking women legislators across the country with local women activists as well as women in Congress in order to address issues of militarism, violence and human needs.
-0- /U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/ 09/28 11:56
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CU-Boulder professor documents controversial history of Rocky Flats
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 28 SEPTEMBER 1999
Contact: Len Ackland Len.Ackland@colorado.edu 303-492-0459
Monteith Mitchell 303-492-5526
University of Colorado at Boulder
http://www.eurekalert.org/releases/ucol-cbp092899.html
For four decades the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant, located 16 miles northwest of downtown Denver, was a key facility in the United States nuclear weapons race.
It was viewed first as a subject of pride by Colorado citizens, who welcomed the booming commercial and residential growth that accompanied it. Gradually, however, many citizens protested its potential danger as a global hazard and a local threat.
After years of political debate and governmental and public scrutiny, plutonium production at Rocky Flats was ceased in 1989. Today the plant's mission is cleanup and closure.
The controversial history of Rocky Flats has been documented for the first time by University of Colorado at Boulder journalism professor Len Ackland in "Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West."
Ackland's story is about the Church family, who came west seeking gold in 1861, settled near what would become the Rocky Flats site and began a lifetime journey of negotiations with the federal government. It is about the government and private corporations that were involved in questionable and even dangerous production practices; loyal plant managers and workers; and citizen activists who challenged the plant's very existence.
It is also about a community that profited from thousands of jobs and contracts but now faces long-term environmental and health risks.
"The story of Rocky Flats epitomizes mistakes made in the 20th century that rested on the myopic notion that a nation can preserve its security by building weapons of mass destruction that place incalculable numbers of men, women and children at risk," Ackland said.
"But the story also shows how citizens can become involved and help change bad government policy."
Ackland has been a member of the CU-Boulder faculty since 1991. He is a former Chicago Tribune reporter and former editor of the "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists." He began researching and documenting the history of the nuclear arms race in 1990 with a research and writing grant funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
He currently teaches graduate level courses in Investigative Reporting and Precision Journalism, a computer-assisted research and reporting class. He also teaches a Ted Scripps fellowship seminar in Environmental Journalism, funded by a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation.
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29 Sep 1999 14:13:49 -0400
From: Bill Robinson <plough@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: Chinese missiles de-mated
To: Abolition Caucus <abolition-caucus@igc.apc.org>
I *knew* I'd seen a speech by *somebody* in the US government stating that Chinese missiles are de-mated (it wasn't Berger though)...
In a speech (http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/archives/1998/walpole_speech_120898.html) delivered 8 December 1998, Robert D. Walpole, National Intelligence Officer for Strategic and Nuclear Programs, stated that "we judge that an unauthorized or accidental launch of a Russian or Chinese strategic missile is highly unlikely, as long as current security procedures and systems are in place. Russia employs an extensive array of technical and procedural safeguards and China keeps its missiles unfueled and without warheads mated."
Presumably only the Chinese know for sure, but this seems to be a pretty confident assertion of the current state of affairs.
Bill Robinson, Project Ploughshares,
Conrad Grebel College, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3G6
Phone: 519 888-6541 x264 Fax: 519 885-0806
E-mail: brobinson@ploughshares.ca http://www.ploughshares.ca
----------------------
From: "Gary Vesperman" vman@skylink.net
Subject: Gibson's letter to Chairman Packard
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 08:22:54 -0700
I just got this e-mail:
Dear Mr. Vesperman,
I apologize for not enclosing the letter from Congressman Gibbons to Congressman Packard in regards to transmuting radioactive waste. Enclosed is a copy of this letter. If you have any problems retrieving this letter, please email me at david.omara@mail.house.gov. I will send you a copy or fax it to you.
Thank you, David O'Mara Legislative Correspondent Congressman Jim Gibbons
(Letter to Packard follows:)
September 13, 1999
Chairman Ron Packard Energy and Water Development Appropriations B2362 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Chairman Packard:
Scientists from my state are part of a team of experienced scientific researchers from several universities and corporations carrying out a scope of work which will directly impact a major international problem - the management of the nation's nuclear waste legacy. American Technologies, Inc. (ATG), a California based company, has sponsored a research program at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for the past 3 years. The work accomplished at Caltech on high energy particle beam technology has demonstrated the significant potential for practical applications of cluster/laser interactions to produce neutrons.
The particle beam, composed of deuterium droplets, has the capability of producing neutrons that can transmutate nuclear waste. The beam is at least 100 times less costly than the currently proposed neutron source from Oak Ridge National Labs. ATG's beam is irradiated by a femtosecond laser, resulting in fusion of deuterons and the production of neutrons in a precisely controlled manner. ATG has at its disposal, a scientific team with the highest credential and track record in the field, to develop this novel neutron source and clearly demonstrate its efficacy in the transmutation of nuclear wastes (See attachment for further details.).
It is clear that upon the successful generation of neutrons as a result of the currently proposed research a number of end-user customers, both governmental and commercial, will be interested. The ATG team has selected as a goal for their research the important opportunity of the destruction of nuclear waste, realizing the uncertainties related to the basic nuclear fuel cycle, chemical separation processes, and waste repository design criteria all provide difficulty in finding the correct "target" isotopes. However, the benefits of another option to the current reactor technologies for the transmutation of nuclear waste are overwhelming whether the targets are fission products, transuranics or certain actinides. Other national and commercial interests may be served by the production of neutrons. Fusion energy, tritium and medical isotope production and the production of interaction product radiations such as extreme ultra-violet (EUV), soft x-rays and x-rays which potentially have unique medical diagnostic and treatment application, are all of great importance.
An unsolicited proposal was submitted to the Department of Energy for "Ultrafast Laser Irradiation of Deuterium Droplets for the Production of Neutrons" in June, 1998. This proposal was for a period of 3 years at a total cost of just under $6 million.
In February of 1999, the DOE responded to ATG's unsolicited proposal. The following comments were received from DOE principals:
o The ATG proposal was one of the best it has ever seen.
o The technology proposal was innovative in its approach to producing neutrons.
o The proposal team, personnel and associations were outstanding.
In spite of the positive technical review, budget limitations and the need to produce near-term clean up results prevented DOE from funding the unsolicited research proposal.
Frankly, it is my view that the recent GAO criticism of the DOE could not be more appropriate than in this case. Congress mandated the DOE to explore and find alternative technologies but the DOE continues to resist. A recent publication (Journal of Science, March, 1999) by Dr. William D. Phillips, Nobel Laureate at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, indicates the ATG researchers are on the right track but maybe in the wrong Agency.
The team and technology I have identified in this letter are real and deserving of funding. I ask your assistance in including $6 million for this project in the DOE, Energy Research and Environmental Management, and/or Department of Commerce, Physics Research Division appropriations. I have included some suggested bill language for your consideration.
Thank you for your hard work and help in crafting the Energy and Water Development Appropriations bill. If I can be of any assistance to you regarding this or any other issue please let me know.
Sincerely,
JIM GIBBONS Member of Congress
JG/jv
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Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project
"The Nuclear Waste Policy Act Amendments of 1999" (S1287) may be considered by the Senate as early as the week of October 5th. This legislation would amend the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 (amended 1987), which set in motion a study to determine whether Yucca Mountain, Nevada, was a suitable repository for all of the nation's nuclear waste. So far, indications are that Yucca Mountain is unsuitable for many reasons, including frequent nearby earthquakes and the strong possibility of contaminating the groundwater under Yucca Mountain. The nuclear industry has been pushing for passage of S1287, and Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott has said that it is on his "short list" of bills to be considered before the end of the fall legislative session. S1287 would make the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1996 even worse by:
-authorizing the federal government to take title and assume liability for all commercial nuclear waste in the United States, including all storage costs. This provision places the burden of paying for nuclear waste storage, disposal, and liability squarely on the shoulders of the taxpayers- and takes it off of the nuclear industry.
-allowing "backup storage" at the Yucca Mountain once construction is authorized, or at a private licensed site. Backup storage at Yucca Mountain or another "temporary" site will mean the absolutely needless and terribly risky transportation of radioactive waste from 77 sites through 43 states before a definite decision has been made regarding the permanent storage of radioactive waste. This bailout of the nuclear industry is unacceptable, and it endangers more than 50 million Americans in their homes, schools, and churches because the waste will be travelling directly through their home towns.
-violating U.S. nuclear non-proliferation policy by setting up an "Office of Spent Nuclear Fuel Research" to conduct research and development on plutonium and reprocessing. Both reprocessing and transmutation allow for reuse of nuclear material.
-preventing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from setting "radiation safety standards"-the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) would be responsible for setting these standards instead. In addition, the NRC would be forbidden by law to set release limits for deadly nuclear waste or to specifically protect groundwater resources.
ACT NOW!
-Contact your senators and tell them why they should OPPOSE this bill. A sample letter follows. You can also use the sample letter as talking points to call your senators.
-Contact the White House and tell President Clinton that he should VETO S 1287. As him to officially announce a veto threat. Tell him the EPA should set radiation standards, not the NRC. Also, tell him that "backup storage" is too similar to "interim storage".
SAMPLE LETTER TO SENATOR..
DATE
The Honorable _____________ United States Senate Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator ________:
I am writing to urge you to OPPOSE the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1999 (S 1287). This bill compounds the shortsightedness that has plagued our country since the nuclear age began.
S 1287 threatens the environment and public health and safety. The waste would travel through 43 states, exposing 50 million people to cancer-causing radiation. This legislation takes the authority to set radiation release standards at the nuclear waste disposal site away from the Environmental Protection Agency and gives it to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This action goes against current law, and it threatens public health and the environment because the NRC is willing to set any standard necessary to ensure the approval of a permanent repository site.
S 1287 places the burden of paying for the mess made by nuclear waste generators on American taxpayers. The bill's backup storage provision would allow for the absolutely needless and terribly risky transportation of nuclear waste before final approval of a permanent repository. Further, the costs associated with transporting the waste and cleaning up the accidents will be borne by taxpayers.
Finally, S 1287 violates U.S. nuclear non-proliferation policy by establishing an office specifically to research and develop nuclear fuel reprocessing technologies and share this information with other countries. Developing these technologies could make reprocessed plutonium-used to make nuclear weapons-more available.
Please OPPOSE S 1287. Do not compound the shortsightedness of the past 50 years. Vote against this bill, and vote for a sustainable future. Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely, (signature)
cmep@citizen.org
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From y2k-nukes@envirolink.org
Subject: Senate 100 day report
Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 18:25:11 -0400
Nuclear supplies 20% of the nation's electricity according to the Senate Y2K Committee
US Senate 100 day report
"....but also because peak demand during the winter months will only be about 55% of the electric generation capability. Simply stated, this means that even if 45% of the generation capability is lost-a highly unlikely scenario-there would still be enough electric power available to meet the demand."
http://www.senate.gov/~y2k/documents/100dayrpt/
Seems like shutting down nuclear plants is not too much to ask.
Scott - happen@pipeline.com
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Behind the massacre in East Timor:
The Indonesian military-a creation of the U.S.
Statement from the International Action Center
There can be no hiding the genocide taking place in East Timor. As of Sept. 8 the UN estimated that 200,000 people-one quarter of the population!-had been driven from their homes by the systematic rampages of the Indonesian military.
East Timor is a small country in the south Pacific that was invaded by Indonesia in 1975, shortly after it declared independence from Portugal. The present violence began after the people, in a UN- supervised referendum on Aug. 30, voted overwhelmingly for independence, from Indonesia.
The Indonesian troops' bloody attacks on UN facilities and personnel as well as on the East Timorese have evoked worldwide condemnation.
While Washington is talking weakly about respecting democracy and human rights, it is not putting any real pressure on the Indonesian generals, whom it supplies with military aid, nor on the bankers and businessmen--often generals themselves-- whose existence depends on credit from the IMF and World Bank.
The Indonesian fascist army is a monster that was created by Washington in the 1960s, when the U.S. was escalating the war in Vietnam. Washington tipped the balance toward the fascist right wing of the military by training, equipping and financing a coup. The massacres that followed "elated" the State Department and Pentagon.
This fascist terror in East Timor today is a chilling replay of how the U.S.- trained Indonesian military took power in 1965-66. Claiming to help "local militias" combat communists, the military went from island to island, massacring workers, peasants, students-anyone active in progressive organizations. They destroyed the huge left and anti- imperialist movement in Indonesia by killing at least one million people.
Then, as now, the tone of the U.S. corporate media was fatalistic, as though nothing could be done to stop the slaughter. But this was a cover-up for the U.S. role.
Independent U.S. journalist Allan Nairn has provided documentary evidence of collusion between the Indonesian military, the so-called "militias," and the United States. According to the East Timor Action Network the U.S.-trained elite unit Kopassus is taking part in the current destruction in East Timor.
U.S. SUPPORTED 1975 INVASION
Washington supported Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in 1975. Pres. Gerald Ford and Sec. of State Henry Kissinger visited Jakarta immediately before the invasion.
A month later, a U.S. State Department official told the daily newspaper The Australian on Jan. 22, 1976, that "In terms of the bilateral relations between the U.S. and Indonesia, we are more or less condoning the incursion into East Timor. The United States wants to keep its relations with Indonesia close and friendly. We regard Indonesia as a friendly, non-aligned nation--a nation we do a lot of business with."
The U.S. government has a consistent record of propping up the fascist military against popular movements. The Indonesian military, in turn, has maintained a climate of repression welcomed by U.S. multinational corporations that have flocked to Indonesia to exploit the land and the people.
Critics of U.S. policy who mistakenly believed Washington's propaganda that it attacked Yugoslavia to stop "ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo are now appealing to the same imperialists to intervene in this situation. Any U.S. intervention, if it takes place, would be the Haitian type, protecting the interests of the corporations and repressing the people's movement.
WHAT'S AT STAKE?
The current reign of terror is directed in the most immediate sense against the 800,000 people of East Timor. But it is also aimed at terrorizing the 200 million Indonesian workers and farmers. After 35 years of brutal fascist rule they have finally begun to organize openly again for their rights. The same U.S.-backed generals are using arrests, killings and jail sentences. However, they have not succeeded in breaking this new workers' movement.
Last summer, huge demonstrations by students and workers led to the resignation of President Suharto, one of the generals who led the 1965 fascist coup. Suharto's close partner, B.J. Habibie, then took over as president. Behind Habibie is the same ferocious military leadership bent on protecting their enormous privileges through bloody terror, if necessary.
For corporate interests there's a lot at stake. There is $11 billion expected from offshore oil and natural gas in the Timor area, under development by Indonesia and Australia. (July 21, AP)
Demonstrations have been called by solidarity groups in countries around the world. This kind of direct solidarity with the Timorese people against the fascist Indonesian military must be stepped up, but it must also point the finger at U.S. imperialism-the power behind the fascist generals.
STOP U.S. FUNDING OF EAST TIMOR MASSACRE!
International Action Center 39 West 14th Street, Room 296 New York, NY 10011 email: iacenter@iacenter.org http://www.iacenter.org phone: 212 633-6646 fax: 212 633-2889
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USA TODAY Thursday, September 2, 1999
Letters to the Editor, p. A16
Turkey's chilling plan to have nuclear reactor
What would the loss of human life have been if there had been a nuclear accident during Turkey's devastating earthquake?
Ironically, the one person who could contribute to making this chilling scenario a reality was in Istanbul when the quake struck. U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson was in Turkey to advocate on behalf of an American consortium seeking to construct Turkey's first nuclear power plant just 13 miles from an active fault line ("Unstable region sits on many fault lines," News, Aug. 19).
Experts worldwide have warned of an enormous environmental risk being taken by Turkey if the plant is built. In a recent study, the consulting firm Earthquake Forecasts emphasized that a nuclear accident would be "horrific -- millions of people in Turkey and surrounding areas would be hit with disabling and lethal radiation." Thus, a U.S.-supplied nuclear power-pant in that region would amount to an environmental time bomb.
Concerns are also being raised about the likelihood of the use of this technology for a nuclear weapons program. The same technology that helped start the nuclear arms race on the Indian subcontinent is now being introduced to Turkey, an already highly militarized state. A nuclear Turkey will be the surest way to guarantee a comparable arms race in one of the world's most volatile regions.
Turkey's escalating military adventurism against virtually all of its neighbors should further underscore that placing nuclear power into the hands of governments that have not yet developed the political maturity to harness it can soon develop into the greatest global security threat of the coming century.
Phillip Spyropoulos, executive director American Hellenic Media Project New York, N.Y. _________________________
(2)
THE BOSTON GLOBE Sunday, September 5, 1999
Letters to the Editor, p. D6
Planned N-plant in Turkey would be a time bomb
Your initial reports on the earthquake in Turkey mentioned the alarming fact that US Energy Secretary Bill Richardson was in Istanbul at the time of the devastation but did not note that he was representing an American-led consortium that is seeking to build Turkey's first nuclear power plant just 13 miles from an active fault line.
Experts worldwide have warned of an enormous environmental risk if the plant is built. A study by Earthquake Forecasts said a nuclear accident in Turkey would be "horrific" - millions would be hit with lethal radiation.
While Tolga Yarman, a Turkish scientist, has warned that "Turkey is not ready for nuclear power," the United States is seeking to place an environmental time bomb there.
The proposed reactors have raised yet another fear. In 1981, Israeli jets bombed Iraq's Osirak reactor to avert an Iraqi nuclear weapons program. Now concerns are being raised about the likelihood that Turkey, already a highly militarized state, might use this technology for a nuclear weapons program.
A nuclear Turkey would guarantee an arms race in one of the world's most unstable regions.
P.D. SPYROPOULOS, director American Hellenic Media Project New York
_________________________
(3)
Earthquake A Nuclear Wake Up Call
by P. D. Spyropoulos
Your reports have ignored the alarming fact that U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson was in Istanbul during Turkey's devastating earthquake representing an American-led consortium seeking to build Turkey's first nuclear power plant just 13 miles from an active fault line.
Experts worldwide have warned of an enormous environmental risk being taken by Turkey if the plant is built. A recent study by Earthquake Forecasts emphasized that reactors posed an "unacceptable level of risk" and that a nuclear accident would be "horrific - millions of people in Turkey and surrounding areas [would be] hit with disabling and lethal radiation."
While prominent Turkish scientist Tolga Yarman has warned that "Turkey is not ready for nuclear power", the U.S. is pursuing its bid to place an environmental time-bomb in the eastern Mediterranean.
The proposed reactors have raised yet another fear. In 1981, Israeli jets bombed Iraq's Osirak reactor to avert an Iraqi nuclear weapons program. Now concerns are being raised about the likelihood of Turkey, already a highly militarized state, using the acquisition of this sensitive technology for a nuclear weapons program.
A nuclear Turkey will guarantee an arms race in one of the world's most unstable regions. Moreover, Turkey's escalating military adventurism against virtually all of its neighbors demonstrates that placing nuclear power into the hands of governments that have not yet developed the maturity to harness it will likely translate into the greatest global security threat of the coming century.
P. D. Spyropoulos is an attorney and the Executive Director of the American Hellenic Media Project, a non-profit think-tank created to address bias in the media and encourage independent, ethical and responsible journalism. Letters and commentaries by Mr. Spyropoulos have been published in The Baltimore Sun, The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The Daily Telegraph, The Economist, El Nuevo Herald (Miami), Forbes Global, The Irish Times, The New York Post, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, The Orlando Sentinel, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Plain Dealer, The St. Petersburg-Times (Fla.), The Tampa Tribune, The Toronto Sun, USA Today, The Village Voice, and The Washington Times.
American Hellenic Media Project
PO Box 1150 New York, NY 10028-0008
ahmp@hri.org www.ahmp.org
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Cities demand nuclear hearings
National Post (Canada) September 29, 1999
Adrian Humphreys
http://www.nationalpost.com/news.asp?f=990929/90093&s2=national&s3=news
Two city councils have made official the growing unease of Ontario communities that will be exposed to two shipments of plutonium -- one the remains of U.S. nuclear warheads and the other from Russian weapons.
The city councils of Sault Ste. Marie and North Bay have passed motions calling for "meaningful and thorough" public hearings before the nuclear material travels along the province's highways en route to Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.'s nuclear testing facility at Chalk River in the Ottawa valley.
"Plutonium is the most dangerous substance ... because it is a weapons-usable material," said Sarah Campbell, a North Bay councillor. The two shipments of weapons-grade plutonium are expected to arrive this fall or winter.
Assuming Transport Canada approves the routes, the U.S. plutonium will be trucked across the border at Sault Ste. Marie and will pass by Sudbury and North Bay on the way to Chalk River.
The Russian plutonium will be shipped along the St. Lawrence Seaway, passing Quebec City and Montreal, before landing at Cornwall, Ont., where it will be loaded on to a truck and driven past the outskirts of Ottawa before reaching the atomic facility.
Canada agreed to accept test samples of plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons to see if they can be processed by AECL for use in CANDU nuclear reactors.
The test is designed to use the plutonium from surplus nuclear weapons as nuclear fuel, which renders it useless for future weapons production, said Larry Shewchuk, spokesman for AECL.
Mr. Shewchuk dismisses the concerns as "fear of the unknown."
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CTBT sore point, but Indo-US lovefest on
India Express (Bombay) September 29, 1999
Chidanand Rajghatta
WASHINGTON, SEPT 28: There may not be a marriage of true minds yet, much less a honeymoon. But the engagement is certainly on and hotting up.
Presenting External Affairs Minister with a collection of foreign policy essays titled Engaging India, United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright last night reaffirmed President Clinton's ardent desire to visit the sub-continent, while urging New Delhi to ``create a positive environment for the trip,''-- a euphemism for signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Singh, in turn, reiterated New Delhi's desire to see a more conducive atmosphere being created for the new government to sign the treaty -- a fairly direct suggestion that the US ease up on issues like sanctions, export controls, entities list, and other punitive measures that Washington has used to reign in India.
Between reiteration of these broad sentiments, there appeared to be a closing of gap in perceptions during the 45-minute meeting which officials from both sides spoke about inpositive tones.
Singh told Albright that New Delhi was looking forward to Clinton's visit once the elections were over and a new government is in place. ``So is the President. That is a missing piece in his life, perhaps his presidential and personal life,'' US officials quoted Albright as responding.
The two met -- for the second time in recent months after an August pow-wow in Singapore -- for 45 minutes at Albright's hotel suite in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly session.
(Albright also met later Pakistan's Foreign Minister Sartaz Aziz, amid a distinct expressions of concern and unhappiness in the administration over the state of affairs in that country and Islamabad's backsliding on its commitment to sign the CTBT.)
But it was the Albright-Singh meeting officials chimed about. The two have struck a famous equation despite the obvious and continuing differences between the two countries on nuclear issues. Shortly before they met in Singapore, Albright called Singh``my good friend whom I have known for long,'' despite having met him only last year.
Here in New York, she continued her charm offensive against the starchy Indian minister as she sought to further the US nuclear control agenda.
On the book Engaging India which she presented to Singh, she inscribed: ``I cannot attest to all the articles in this volume but I can endorse the title. Shall we?'' The book is a collection of essays on Indo-US relations and is edited by Indian scholars Seema Gahlaut and Anupam Srivastava among others.
India has baulked at making any formal commitment about signing the CTBT under the excuse that it is going through elections, but Washington has now extracted a promise that the new government -- which for all practical purposes everyone assumed will be a BJP-led dispensation -- will attend to the issue expeditiously the moment it takes office.
In fact, for starters, Singh invited Albright for a recce visit ahead of President Clinton's trip and she is said to haveaccepted the offer. Officials will work on the dates for this visit which could occur later this year. The two sides have zeroed in on a window between January and March 2000 for Clinton's visit but no firm date has been set.
Washington initially demanded that India and Pakistan sign the CTBT as a pre-condition to Clinton's visit, but that insistence has now been dropped, officials indicated.
But Washington is far from accepting India as a nuclear power or acknowledging its nuclear yearnings. In fact, Albright did raise questions about the New Delhi's nuclear doctrine although officials said it was not discussed in isolation. She told Singh that stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction is one of America's highest priorities for the next century. Singh reiterated India's own views on nuclear disarmament and said the so-called nuclear doctrine was only a draft discussion paper by an advisory body and was not an adopted document.
US officials said Albright also offered American support for Indiaand Pakistan to resume, ``as soon as possible,'' direct dialogue between their two prime ministers initiated last February in Lahore. The two also discussed the proposed new world trade talks as well as the importance of counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism efforts, including concerns about exiled Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden.
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American warning to Pakistan Brigadier (R) Usman Khalid
JAMAADI-US-SANI 18, 1420
SEPTEMBER 29, 1999 WEDNESDAY
http://frontierpost.com.pk/art1sep-29.html
The American warning to Pakistan against change of government by "unconstitutional means" became public on 21 September. There have been a wide variety of reactions from politicians, academics and journalists. Some dislike it and consider it an "unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of Pakistan." And there are others who consider it a "timely warning" to preclude another martial law.
Actually it is neither. It constitutes recognition by the US that Nawaz Sharif is in trouble even with his own supporters because he surrendered to American diktat over Kargil and his readiness to sign the CTBT. The warning has reassured Nawaz Sharif that he need not fear the opposition because the PPP accepts the American diktat even more readily. However, the Americans have taken notice that the armed forces of Pakistan do not want the CTBT to be signed, and that they support the resistance in Kashmir and Taliban rule in Afghanistan. The warning has been taken to reflect American anxiety about the recurrence of martial law; actually they are worried about the Taliban. That explains why the US made its threats to Afghanistan in respect of Osama bin Laden on the very day (4 July) that Nawaz Sharif signed the document of surrender in Washington. The timing of Shahbaz Sharif's visit to the US, the warning to the Pakistan Army, and a UN Security Council resolution on terrorism give credence to the same conclusion.
The official stand of the US is that it wants Pakistan to sign the CTBT and to restrain forces of Jihad. But it also wants India to sign the CTBT and is worried about its aggressive conduct on the world scene claiming superpower status. This was starkly displayed by the speech of its foreign minister to the UN General Assembly and its draft nuclear doctrine. Jaswant Singh had an "objection in principle" to Pakistan's claim on Kashmir; it could not accept religion as the basis of polity. He, thus, challenged the basis of partition in 1947. India wants to fight the war it lost in 1947 once again. Those still keen on confidence-building measures need to read that speech again. The fact is that if Pakistan did agree to roll-back its nuclear programme under US pressure, it would be much more difficult to restrain Indian megalomania. The US must understand that. That is perhaps why the pressure on Pakistan, to sign the CTBT and to restrain Jihad in Kashmir, is not as severe as it could have been. But the Nawaz Sharif administration had quite different concerns.
Nawaz Sharif was worried that since he had lost the support of the public, he could be put under pressure by the army to resign. The Shahbaz Sharif mission to the US was a pathetic display of the ignorance, paranoia and ineptitude of Nawaz Sharif. And he got what he deserved, not what he wanted. He was told that the pressure to sign the CTBT was off provided he extended help and support to the US in removing the Taliban from power in Afghanistan. The proverb, out of the frying pan into the fire, was invented for such occasions. Nawaz Sharif is in no position to bargain. Shahbaz Sharif returned with a long face and a longer list of US demands.
In a democracy the leaders are expendable but national interests and objectives are not. Pakistan's democracy does not pass this test. The prime minister cannot be removed until the end of his five-year term. According to the constitutional amendment made by Nawaz Sharif, any MP who defies the whip even on an ordinary bill (let alone the motion of no-confidence) loses his seat in the assembly. The opposition may initiate a motion of no-confidence but it cannot succeed until some members from government benches support it. It is still possible that Muslim League MPs may elect a new leader outside the Parliament and then initiate a motion of no-confidence. But that is very unlikely. The US advice that changes of government should be by constitutional means is not much help.
The claim that parliamentary system is superior to the presidential form because it provides for a quick change in government by a motion of no-confidence, has proved to be hollow. The US does like democracy but only when it is led by ignorant, indecisive, weak, corrupt and unpopular politicians. America can twist their arm more easily. Nawaz Sharif has been declared "suitable" to lead a Third World third-rate democracy.
The US approves of our Constitution, which does not provide for a change in governments and allows time and opportunity for the country to be undermined by international instruments. It allows for more permanent change in the wake of atrophy of the society and collapse of the economy which make the country ungovernable.
Afghanistan has been selected as a country to be given full (G-8) treatment by international instruments of coercion and subversion. Pakistan has been put on notice. If it co-operates over Afghanistan, it would buy time. While it may get respite, it would be next on the list.
The mistake that third-rate leaders of Third World countries make is that they consider the mood of the moment in leading western countries as firm and unchangeable perception of their national interest. The fact is that their main concerns are with domestic politics and their leaders know little and care even less about the hopes and aspirations of peoples in far-off lands. When a people express its aspirations with violence, they often get to be noticed. When they continue to be ignored, they often resort to terrorism.
Sometimes terrorism is wanton and foreign-inspired. No government has any dispute or difficulty with the UN Security Council resolution in dealing with wanton or mercenary terrorism. But Osama is neither wanton nor mercenary. His role in the Afghan Jihad has been exemplary and he has inspired many a people in their effort to secure freedom. That he turned against the West in response to the severe and indiscriminate bombardment of Iraq was not entirely unreasonable.
In any case, we need to remind ourselves of the examples of Lebanon and Somalia. The West was looking at both those countries the way they are looking at Afghanistan, Pakistan and Indonesia today. The West pushed and pushed until neither had any government. That was the time terrorism reached new heights. If the US pushes Afghanistan the same way and puts pressure on Pakistan to get involved against the Taliban, the consequences would be too dire to imagine. It is hoped Nawaz Sharif and those aspiring to power in Pakistan realise what a heavy responsibility is placed on Pakistan to save the region from American madness.
A nation is not a proper nation until it is able to spell out its national interests and objectives clearly. The quality of national quests determines the quality of the nation. India is a big country but a third-rate nation because it harbours imperial ambitions in post-imperial world. It subverts its neighbours and their neighbours in increasingly arrogant and blatant efforts to extend its area of commanding influence.
America was a great country as long as it led the fight against the new imperialism __ Soviet imperialism. It helped nations struggling for freedom all over the world. It enjoyed world leadership, as it was in harmony with the anti-imperialist mood of the world. Now it is confused. While it played a crucial role in securing self-determination in South Africa, Eritrea, Bosnia and Kosovo, it supports imperialism of India denying support to national liberation movements of Kashmiris, Sikhs, Assamese in that country. Pakistan must carry much of the blame for it. We have never spelt out our national objectives and aspirations properly.
It is time we displayed pride in being a truly post-imperial Muslim nation-state having rejected our imperial past (of Moghul and Afghan Empires in India) as a model. We should be proud of our support to the right of all nations to be free and independent from imperial strangleholds __ political as well as economic. We should be forthright in saying that the support is not restricted to words and that we are prepared to play our role in consolidating the region to which we belong. We have bonds of history and religion with the Middle East and even more with Central Asia. We should say with confidence that we seek Muslim solidarity in preference to political unity. We should assist in dealing with problems of mutual interest by fraternal dialogue, refrain from public criticism of each other, and condemn foreign intervention in our fraternal affairs.
Our first and foremost national objective is the liberation of Jammu and Kashmir. We judge our friends and foes by the touchstone of support to this objective. India has one route into Jammu and none into Kashmir but it has 600,000 troops. We have twelve routes and 100,000 troops. We have a military edge over India. The UN Security Council resolved as far back as 1949 that the people of the state would decide the future of Kashmir in a UN-supervised plebiscite. India rejects the resolution, thus conceding that it would lose the plebiscite. Kashmiris are a part of our nation and the state is morally ours. We also have a moral edge. We have a right to fight for Kashmir in each and every part of it. We are not foreigners in Kashmir. The cause is just. It is the duty of each one of us to help our brothers and sisters in Islam when their life, honour and property are under threat. The resistance in Kashmir is Jihad. If that makes us terrorists, we need to tell the world that we are proud of being that.
Our second national objective is the security of our northern frontier. We have to tell the world that we would not permit Afghanistan to become a barrier between Central Asia and us now that it has become a bridge.
Pakistan is a great country because of the post-imperial philosophy of its foundation, the profoundness of its current objectives, and the spirit of sacrifice that its people have been able to marshal at every critical juncture in their history. Pakistan would not tolerate the rule of quislings. We have done great things together in the past but the Americans are now on a collision course with Pakistan. They are wrong in their perception as well as their objectives in Afghanistan. They are wrong even by the yardstick of their self-interest. If every political party in Pakistan were prepared to go along with the Americans over Afghanistan, they would still be wrong. The issue is of such vital importance that the people of this country would readily sacrifice the 'democracy of quislings' for it.
The armed forces of Pakistan have been steadfast in playing their role in safeguarding the security of the country. They have sought to safeguard the nuclear deterrent of Pakistan, resisted pressures to withdraw support from the Mujahideen in Kashmir, and have been steadfast in their support to the Taliban in Afghanistan. All of these are of vital importance to Pakistan's security and survival.
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U.S., Russia Working On Y2k Glitches
Reuters Sep 29, 1999
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=95402&html
WASHINGTON, The United States and Russia have found potential Year 2000 glitches in all but one of seven Cold War-era "hotlines" and are rushing to correct them, a top Pentagon official told Congress on Tuesday.
Assistant Secretary of Defense Edward Warner, together with colleagues from the Energy and State departments, outlined a U.S. drive to help Russia cope with Y2K-related disruptions.
In testimony to the Senate Special Committee on Y2K, Warner said the Clinton administration was giving Moscow Y2K-compliant software and computers to correct "program deficiencies in outage reporting, monitoring and channel reroute operations."
The Defense Department is seeking to meet about $15.5 million in Russian requests for things like emergency generators, fire trucks, warhead handling vehicles, radios and backup communications, Warner said.
Citing safety concerns about the 68 Soviet-designed nuclear power reactors in Russia and eight other former Soviet bloc states, Deputy Assistant Energy Secretary Ken Baker said: "The worst enemy is time right now."
He said Energy Department experts were working bilaterally and through groups like the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency to fix Y2K vulnerabilities in Russian and Eastern European nuclear reactors.
The Y2K glitch stems from the use of two digits to represent years, like 99 for 1999. Unless fixed, computers may read 00 as 1900 instead of 2000. That could trip critical systems, including power grids, and lead nuclear plants to shut down if they lose "off-site" backup power.
Among other things, U.S. experts were urging plant operators to start diesel generators a day or two before New Year's eve to ensure adequate backup power for reactors if power grids failed, Baker said.
PREVENTING ANOTHER CHERNOBYL
The ultimate goal, he said, was to prevent the highly remote danger of a meltdown like that at Ukraine's Chernobyl No. 4 reactor in 1986.
The U.S. government has deemed enhancing the safety of Soviet-era nuclear reactors "a vital national security interest," he testified.
State Department officer John Beyrle said Russia, pinched for cash, may experience Y2K-related problems for "months" into 2000.
"It will be prudent to view post-Y2K Russia ...as a country that may continue to rely on the U.S. and other countries for help in overcoming computer-related disruptions," he said.
Senator Richard Lugar, Republican of Indiana and a panel member, noted that despite current congressional probes of alleged official Russian corruption, the issue appeared to be not if the United States should help Russia but how quickly Y2K help could arrive.
Committee Chairman Robert Bennett, Republican of Utah, and Vice Chairman Chris Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, urged the administration to waste no time in crafting responses to possible Russian post-Y2K travails.
To avoid misunderstandings during the date change, the United States and Russia agreed on Sept. 13 to set up a joint "Center for Y2K Strategic Stability" at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
In addition to sharing missile launch information, Russian and U.S. officers staffing the post will be able to talk through any defense-related problems that emerge during the calendar rollover, Warner said.
"Assured communications between U.S. and Russian leaders is a priority at all times, and of particular concern over the millennium date change," said Warner, who is responsible for strategy and threat reduction.
NUCLEAR-TIPPED MISSILES
The United States and Russia each keep roughly 2,500 nuclear-tipped missiles pointed at one another on hair-trigger alert despite the collapse of the old Soviet Union in December 1991 and the end of the Cold War.
They began installing the seven direct communications links, popularly known as hotlines, in 1963 to guarantee immediate communication when needed.
Among them are direct links between the two presidents; between the secretary of state and the foreign minister; and a data link between nuclear risk reduction centers on both sides. A secure link also is key to operations of the temporary Center for Y2K Strategic Stability.
The precise nature of the other Moscow-Washington "hotlines" may be classified, Warner told Reuters.
He said a "critical" Y2K-related issue was the security of Russia's nuclear stockpiles, which the United States has spent millions to keep safe from guerrilla groups.
"Of special concern are the security systems in nuclear storage sites affecting access control ... fire detection and suppression and warhead inventory and accountability," he said.
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Defending America against Missiles
Center for Security Policy
September 29, 1999, NewsMax.com
http://216.46.238.34/articles/?a=1999/9/29/53846
In a campaign appearance yesterday in Charleston, South Carolina, former Secretary of Labor and presidential candidate Elizabeth Dole powerfully illuminated two serious vulnerabilities: 1) that of the American people to the growing threat of ballistic missile attack and 2) that of the Clinton-Gore administration to principled criticism of its incompetent, if not malfeasant, conduct of U.S. security policy. On the latter score, she declared:
"For the past seven years, under the Clinton-Gore administration, that leadership, strength, and resolve have been sadly lacking. With the end of the Cold War, many of our opportunities to create a safer world and increase our own security have been squandered....
"The result of this kind of policy-making is clear: The reliability and credibility of the United States as an ally and global power have been seriously eroded. Our ability to advance our interests with the world's major powers, and contain its rogue regimes, has waned. The world remains a very dangerous place, and we Americans are today even more vulnerable to missile attack than we were seven years ago."
A Call to Arms
In a speech marked by repeated commitments, if elected, to return to the successful foreign and defense policies of Ronald Reagan, Mrs. Dole made three especially noteworthy pledges:
"In the Dole Administration, this era of wishful thinking, vacillation, and equivocation will end. I will lead the United States firmly and resolutely....The United States will rebuild and restore its military. 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.
"Second, I will end the United States' adherence to the now invalid Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. There are only three options for this treaty: modify it, replace it, or ignore it as invalid. Common sense tells us that the authors of this treaty did not intend to bind us to a deal that reflects the technology and security environment of 27 years ago. But this is the precise effect of current policy.
"Third, I will strongly oppose making the United States a party to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. This treaty is neither effective nor verifiable. And there is no evidence that it would reduce proliferation. Rogue regimes can be expected to refuse to sign it - or sign it, and still violate it. If North Korea launches a missile at Hawaii, or even our mainland, neither this treaty nor good intentions can turn it back.
"At least until such time as our country and its forces and allies overseas are protected by robust missile defense, we must assure that the ultimate guarantor of our security - our nuclear arsenal - is as safe and effective as we can make it. Our nuclear deterrence can only be sustained if there is confidence in that deterrent. And this confidence can only be sustained through testing, which this treaty would prohibit."
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Report: EU mulls death penalty ban
UPI September 29, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/u/990929/07/international-deathpenalty
BRUSSELS, Belgium, Sept. 29 (UPI) The International Herald Tribune reports today that the European Union is planning to introduce a motion in the U.N. General Assembly demanding a global moratorium on the death penalty.
The motion is expected to closely resemble one that was passed in April by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva. That resolution has been accepted by 30 countries and rejected by 11, including the United States and China.
The Tribune said the political directors of EU foreign ministries will meet next week to discuss the text of the resolution.
The EU resolution is likely to call on states not to impose the death penalty on anyone suffering from a mental disorder.
In the United States, 38 states allow the death penalty.
No country is allowed to belong to the Council of Europe if it retains the death penalty. The European Convention on Human Rights calls for the abolition of the death penalty.
The measure to be sent to the General Assembly would not be binding, but could be used to exert moral pressure on about 70 countries committed to retaining the death penalty.
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US warns of possible terrorism
UPI September 28, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/u/990928/14/international-terrorism
PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Sept. 28 (UPI) The U.S. Office in Kosovo has urged Americans to take precautions against a potential terrorist threat.
The office, estimated at about 25 people and growing, is the official U.S. representation in the province, which technically is still part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
In the last week, the office has taken increased security measures here, including closing off the street where its three main buildings are based. American and ethnic Albanian security guards now carry batons.
No specifics were available as to the type of threat, although a press statement said the threat is without distinction between the American diplomatic corps in the province and others working here.
There are 6,400 U.S. troops in Kosovo acting as peacekeepers, who have been made aware of the threat, said Pentagon spokesman Rear. Adm. Craig Quigley.
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Iran aims to produce four new missiles
Reuters Sep 28, 1999
http://www.dogpile.com - search Infoseek
TEHRAN, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Iran, seeking to develop its arms industry to self-sufficiency, on Tuesday inaugurated 25 defence projects, including four new missiles, state television said.
It said the projects included two laser-guided heavy anti- armour missiles named ``Thunder'' and ``Tosan,'' a medium-weight anti-armour missile called ``Super-Dragon'' and an anti-aircraft missile ``Misaq.''
``These productions seek to boost the level of the Islamic republic's defensive and preventive capabilities,'' the television said.
The missiles are the latest of a series produced by Iran in recent years.
``Iran today is stronger than ever and it invites all countries to stability. A strong Iran is the best guarantor of peace and security in the region,'' President Mohammad Khatami, who inaugurated the projects, was quoted by the television as saying.
``The region's countries can jointly and without the presence of foreign forces ensure the region's security,'' the president added, in reference to Western naval and air forces based in the strategic Gulf waterway and neighbouring Gulf Arab states.
During a military parade last week commemorating the start of the 1980-1988 war with Iraq, the army paraded its recently- manufactured long- and medium-range Shehab missiles. Revolutionary Guards showed off their own surface-to-surface ``Zelzal'' missile.
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American Ecology Chairman and CEO Jack Lemley
Assumes Chief Operating Officer Responsibilities
Sep 27, 1999
http://www.dogpile.com - search Infoseek
BOISE, Idaho--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 27, 1999--Jack K. Lemley, chairman and chief executive officer of American Ecology Corporation (Nasdaq:ECOL), today announced he has accepted the additional responsibilities as chief operating officer following the resignation of Joe Nagel to pursue other opportunities.
Lemley said Nagel has agreed to work on a special projects consulting basis for American Ecology in the coming months.
"Joe Nagel helped re-engineer American Ecology and move the company into a position of operating strength, and we are pleased he will be available to us to keep a focus on key opportunities in the near term," Lemley said.
Additionally, Lemley said he has expanded the responsibilities of Zaki Naser, vice-president of the company and the general manager of operating subsidiary US Ecology's hazardous material disposal facility at Beatty, Nev. Naser was appointed executive vice-president and operations and marketing manager of American Ecology, Lemley said, and will be based in Las Vegas.
Boise, Idaho-based American Ecology provides processing, packaging, transportation, remediation and disposal services for generators of hazardous, non-hazardous and low-level radioactive waste at licensed facilities throughout the United States. The company has been delivering environmental solutions since 1952.
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System To Watch For Cuba Radiation Takes Shape 01:54 p.m Eastern
Reuters Sep 28, 1999
By Ben Iannotta
http://www.dogpile.com - search Infoseek
KEY WEST, Fla. (Reuters) - The steady hum coming from an inconspicuous white shack near the Florida tourist playground of Key West is the sound of emergency managers scouring the tropical trade winds for signs of more than just hurricanes.
The second of six regional stations in the U.S. Caribbean Radiation Early Warning System has just been put into operation. It is designed to monitor radiation from Cuba's yet-to-be-completed nuclear electricity generating station.
Four years ago, the U.S. Congress ordered an investigation into Cuba's plan to build two Soviet-style nuclear power reactors near Juragua, Cuba, just 200 miles from the tourist hot spot at Florida's southern tip.
The Pentagon was directed to set up a $2 million network of air sampling stations from Port Aransas, Texas, to Key West out of fear that lax Cuban construction standards and Soviet-era design could cause a nuclear calamity on the U.S. doorstep.
Though work on the Cuban reactors has since stalled, work on the U.S. Caribbean Radiation Early Warning System has not.
Pacific-Sierra Research, a Pentagon contractor in Arlington, Virginia, opened the second of six regional monitoring stations last week on Stock Island, adjacent to Key West. The station is nestled between a loading dock and a boatworks on the campus of the Florida Keys Community College.
The first station, in St. Petersburg, Florida, was put into operation earlier this year. Others will be opened in Miami and three other locations around the Gulf of Mexico.
``We want to be in a position to know if (Cuban) operations or maintenance practices need improvement. We don't want to wait until a catastrophic accident to find out they haven't been doing a good job,'' said nuclear engineer Bob Shipman, who directs the project for Pacific-Sierra.
CUBAN AND US PROJECTS CONTROVERSIAL
Construction of the Juragua reactors was suspended in 1992 following the collapse of the Soviet Union and its economic aid to Cuba. In May this year, Russia and Cuba announced they were forming a joint venture to complete the project.
U.S. officials say Cuban construction practices and the Soviet-era design of the reactors are not up to American or international nuclear standards. But Western companies have appeared reluctant to participate, partly because of opposition to it from the United States.
Shipman said the reactors containment vessels might not withstand the intense steam pressures that would build up in a nuclear mishap.
And Stuart Altman, a Defense Department nuclear physicist, said he was concerned that construction may resume with materials that have been sitting out in the tropical rain and sun for years.
If the reactors are ever finished, Shipman said Key Westers should worry most during the winter, when seasonal cold fronts are preceded by strong winds from the south.
In the summer, trade winds would probably carry the radiation northwest into the Gulf of Mexico. Temperate winds would then turn the radiation back east toward the Florida peninsula from St. Petersburg to Tallahassee, he said.
Inside the Key West station, a vacuum pump sucks 18,000 cubic feet of air an hour past a radiation detector, Shipman said. The detector is hooked up to a personal computer, which is electronically linked to the Pentagon's Center for Monitoring Research near Washington, D.C.
An alarm will be sent automatically to emergency managers from the unmanned station in the event of a radiation leak.
Construction of the detection network has been controversial in the United States because the hardware will scour the air for radiation from reactors that are not yet operating.
But Shipman defended the project, saying the monitoring stations need to be in place well before the reactors are up and running. He said it will take two years to set up the network and another year to profile existing radiation through the four seasons.
Radiation background is affected by hospitals and other facilities that use radioactive substances, Shipman said.
``You really want to understand the background. The last thing you'd want to do is storm into the U.N. pointing your finger at Cuba and find out it's coming from Turkey Point,'' he said, referring to a nuclear reactor near Miami.
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Slovakia Praised For Plans To Close Down Nuclear Plants
Radio Free Europe September 29, 1999
By Breffni O'Rourke
http://www.centraleurope.com/features.php3?id=95382
The European Union and three EU candidate countries -- Slovakia, Lithuania and Bulgaria -- have long been in a simmering dispute about the closure of atomic power plants that Brussels considers unsafe. RFE/RL correspondent Breffni O'Rourke reports that according to an EU announcement today, it looks as though Slovakia, at least, has listened to the EU's demands for action.
Slovakia has won praise from the European Union on a question with an important bearing on that country's application for EU membership, namely the issue of nuclear safety.
The EU Executive Commission in Brussels today said the Slovak government has officially set a date to close two nuclear reactors at the Bohunice power station. The two reactors will be closed down between 2006 and 2008. Commission spokesman Jean Christophe Filori welcomed Bratislava's decision to set clear closure dates for the reactors, which the EU has long considered unsafe. Slovak State Secretary Jan Figel announced the dates today in talks with EU officials.
Filori pointed clearly to the importance of the issue by saying that in making this commitment, the Slovak government has confirmed that joining the EU is an "overriding political priority." He said the commission had indicated it would help pay the cost of the closures.
Filori was saying, in effect, that the advancement of Slovakia's EU candidacy depends on action from Bratislava to close down the Bohunice reactors. His words echo the new tough line set early this month by the EU's new commissioner for enlargement, Guenter Verheugen. Verheugen gave Slovakia, Lithuania and Bulgaria until the end of this year to provide clear timetables for the closure of a total of eight unsafe reactors.
If they did not do so, he said, they could forget about receiving invitations to open concrete negotiations on membership at the EU's December summit in Helsinki. Two of the eight reactors are located at the Ignalina power plant in Lithuania and four at the Kozloduy plant in Bulgaria, as well as the two at Slovakia's Bohunice plant. Verheugen said all eight fail to meet European safety standards.
He said that apart from firm closure dates, he also wants by the end of the year clear word from the three countries on what they plan to do with their nuclear wastes, and also their energy strategies for the future.
Slovakia today took a step toward meeting Verheugen's demands. The closure timetable, however, appears relatively loose, with 9 years remaining before the reactors are fully closed. Whether this will satisfy Slovakia's neighbor Austria remains to be seen. EU member Austria, which is strongly anti-nuclear, has demanded closure of the Bohunice reactors "as soon as possible," although it has not set a deadline.
The Lithuanian government has already set a tentative date of 2005 for closure of the first of Ignalina's two reactors. A date for the decommissioning of the second is supposed to be determined in 2004. But any dates are subject to parliamentary approval, and this introduces an uncertainty into the matter.
Opposition politicians have already assailed the Lithuanian government for appearing overeager to bow to Brussels' demands. Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus has tried to smooth troubled waters by saying he considers the political debate healthy. He suggests that there is no point antagonizing the international community, especially in view of the fact that Lithuania enjoys an oversupply of energy production.
The Bulgarians have likewise set informal dates for closure of the four oldest reactors at Kozloduy, namely 2004 for the first pair, and 2008 to 2010 for the second pair. EU officials were in Bulgaria earlier this month for negotiations, but no definitive agreement was announced.
Radio FreeEurope/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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Slovak nuclear closure plan unacceptable - Austria
Reuters Sep 28, 1999 Eastern
http://www.dogpile.com - search Infoseek
VIENNA, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Austrian Chancellor Viktor Klima on Tuesday rejected Slovakia's plan to begin shutting reactors at its Bohunice nuclear power station six years later than expected, adding that such a delay would hamper Bratislava's ambitions to join the European Union.
``This date is not acceptable for Austria. They have broken their word,'' Klima told reporters, referring to Slovakia's original agreement to close the outdated Soviet-designed plant in 2000.
The Slovak economy ministry said on Monday it planned to shut the two reactors at the V1 block of the controversial plant -- just 60 km (40 miles) from the Austrian border -- in 2006 and 2008.
The ministry's plan, which was submitted to the EU's executive, the European Commission, on Tuesday but has not yet been made public, is also expected to raise the question of EU compensation for losses incurred as a result of the shutdowns.
Klima said the Austrian government had not yet received a copy of the closure schedule but he had already written to EU Commission President Romano Prodi, current EU council president Finland and the Slovak government making clear its position.
``We have made our European partners and the Slovak government aware that this decision does not comply with the agreement and that immediate talks must be held immediately.''
Asked whether that meant anti-nuclear Austria would veto Slovakia's inclusion in EU accession talks, Klima said his government's position remained unchanged.
``We have always said there can be no EU entry with unsafe nuclear reactors. All EU states say definitely no entry with unsafe nuclear reactors -- that is clear.''
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Russian general gives nuclear arsenal eight years
Reuters Sep 28, 1999
http://www.dogpile.com - search Infoseek
MOSCOW, Sept 28 (Reuters) - A senior Defence Ministry official said on Tuesday Russia had at the most eight years to replace its ageing nuclear arsenal before it becomes obsolete, Interfax news agency reported.
Colonel-General Anatoly Sitnov was speaking to reporters as the State Duma, the lower house of parliament, opened debate on the draft 2000 budget, from which the military wants more cash.
``The resources of Russia's nuclear weapons are strictly limited and run out in 2007,'' Interfax quoted Colonel-General Anatoly Sitnov, who is in charge of procurement.
``By then, we will need a full replacement of ground and naval components of the strategic nuclear forces,'' he added. ``The air component (strategic bombers) can last until 2015.''
Most military analysts say that, because Russia's underfunded and badly trained conventional forces are declining, its nuclear arsenal is the key military factor for maintaining national security and at least semi-superpower status.
Russia has developed a new generation of ballistic missiles, Topol-M, which it hopes will replace old rockets. A handful of the missiles have been deployed.
Sitnov said Russia had to switch to new nuclear weapons by 2007 if it wanted to maintain its nuclear shield and meet the terms of the still unratified START-2 arms reduction pact signed with the United States in 1993.
Under START-2 accord Russia and the United States would slash their deployed nuclear warheads from about 6,000 each to no more than 3,500 each by 2007.
The U.S. Senate has ratified the treaty, but Russia's Communist-dominated Duma has held back, concerned in part by fears the United States is planning to break out of another disarmament pact, the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.
A freeze in relations with NATO introduced by Russia during the alliance's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia earlier this year has further delayed the ratification of START-2.
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New Contractor Ready At INEEL
Yahoo Idaho Briefs, September 29, 1999
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/local/state/idaho/story.html?s=v/rs/19990929/id/index_1.html#5
(IDAHO FALLS) -- The times, they are a changing... at the INEEL. A third shipment of low-level radioactive waste left the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Lab yesterday, bound for permanent burial in New Mexico. The fourth shipment this year will leave tomorrow but thousands will follow in the years to come. On Friday, Bechtel B-and-W Idaho assumes responsibility for the management and operation of the Energy Department site in eastern Idaho. Bechtel replaces Lockheed Martin which did not bid on another five-year contract.
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Drought Nearly Shuts Down Vermont Yankee
Yahoo Vermont Briefs, September 29, 1999
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/local/state/vermont/story.html?s=v/rs/19990929/vt/index_1.html#3
(VERNON) -- Vermont Yankee, the nuclear power plant in Vernon, was nearly shut down this summer by the drought and heat. The plant is allowed under its license to use water from the Connecticut River to cool its reactors, as long as the water temperature stays below 85 degrees. The reactor's operations superintendent told the State Nuclear Advisory Panel this week that drought conditions during the summer created serious cooling problems for the plant. River temperatures came within two degrees of shutting the plant down.
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New System May Kill Germs With Light
Yahoo California Briefs, September 29, 1999
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/local/state/california/story.html?s=v/rs/19990929/ca/index_1.html#12
(KEARNEY MESA) -- A San Diego company is developing a system using bright light to kill germs, viruses and bacteria with flashes of light. Scientists at Maxwell Technologies are using lights 90-thousand times brighter than daylight. The light can reportedly sterilize liquids and boil dangerous forms of radiation. They discovered the process while studying why energy impulses from nuclear bombs knock out electronics and satellites.
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U.S. Energy Secretary To Tour Russian Nuclear Sites
Reuters Sep 28, 1999
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=95276
MOSCOW, U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson arrives in Russia on Tuesday to tour U.S.-Russian nuclear non-proliferation programs set up to deal with vast stockpiles of nuclear material built up during the Cold War.
Richardson was due to land in Moscow from Vienna on Tuesday afternoon and leave immediately for the port of Murmansk on the northern Barents Sea on the first leg of a five-day tour, the spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Moscow said.
The embassy said in a statement that the U.S. and Russia had both amassed huge stockpiles of plutonium and highly enriched uranium, the essential materials for nuclear weapons.
The U.S. Department of Energy, which maintains the nuclear weapons stockpile in the U.S., is now working with Russia to stop nuclear weapons materials and knowledge from falling into the hands of what it calls "rogue nations and terrorists."
Richardson, in Russia at the invitation of the Ministry of Atomic Energy and the Russian Navy, will visit Severomorsk near Murmansk, Dmitrovgrad near Samara on the river Volga, and the formerly closed nuclear city of Sarov, also on the Volga.
He will return to Moscow on Friday, and is expected to give a news briefing on Saturday to discuss the results of his trip.
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Energy Bill Avoids Deep Cuts at Labs
Albuquerque Journal September 29, 1999
By Ian Hoffman
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/7news09-29-99.htm
The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed a $21.3 billion spending bill Tuesday that staves off deep cuts at the U.S. Department of Energy and its weapons labs in New Mexico.
The 96-3 Senate vote sends the bill to the White House, where aides to President Clinton recently dropped an earlier veto threat. The Energy and Water Appropriations Bill traditionally serves as a grab-bag of popular water projects -- $44 million worth for next year in New Mexico alone -- and Energy Department money for everything from solar power research to the salaries of weapons scientists.
Executives at Sandia and Los Alamos weapons labs earlier expressed concern that Congress would slash their budgets in anger over allegations that Los Alamos lost U.S. nuclear warhead secrets to China.
The labs still stand to lose roughly $20 million apiece in basic science funds, but the new bill spared their bread-and-butter money for weapons research.
"I'm very pleased we're able to fund that at a very healthy level," said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. Domenici led successful opposition to a $1.1 billion shortfall in the House version of the bill.
"This bill provides a level of funding that I believe will allow the labs to continue to carry out the valuable work they do," said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M.
The bill boosts overall security spending by $45 million. But Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, who sought a larger increase, criticized the bill as damaging to science and stronger security measures at 70 DOE sites.
The bill underscores a sharp divide between Congress and the Clinton administration over tightening security at the weapons labs.
Despite concern over possible Chinese nuclear espionage at the labs, Congress rejected the latest Clinton administration requests for money to strengthen security -- especially computer security -- inside the U.S. Department of Energy.
Instead, Congress addressed security lapses chiefly through a major overhaul of the Energy Department. Led by Domenici, lawmakers parceled DOE's nuclear-weapons work into a new semi-independent agency, the National Nuclear Security Administration. Its director will be a DOE undersecretary and report to Richardson and his successors, but the agency is otherwise largely free of the rest of the Energy Department.
This spring, Richardson ordered scores of new security measures at the weapons labs. And he regrouped DOE's scattered security apparatus under two new, high-ranking directors for security and counterintelligence. To fund those changes, Richardson requested an additional $65.2 million in the energy and water bill, including $35 million for computer security. Congress did not include the requests in the bill's final form.
DOE inspectors recently named computer security as the labs' greatest vulnerability for potential losses of nuclear secrets. It remains possible, for example, for a spy employed within the labs to copy classified weapons information onto a disk and walk out the door. Also, DOE inspections found, the labs' protected but unclassified systems remain vulnerable to attacks or data thefts by insiders.
With the $35 million, DOE proposed to equip its computer networks with devices to thwart hackers and insiders from stealing sensitive information. In future requests, DOE officials expect to seek as much as $450 million for a complete retool of its computer networks that would, for example, nearly eliminate disk and tape drives on computers holding top-secret weapons data.
In a prepared statement, Richardson said the bill "barely meets the country's national security needs and undercuts our international leadership in science."
He shied from threatening to recommend a presidential veto, however.
The White House dropped a threat to veto the bill over a provision giving developers a stronger stance in building on federally protected wetlands.
Domenici and colleagues felt the bill contained enough money for security for now.
"The question is, how much more can you spend on the current system when you're going to change it in the next two months?" Domenici said.
"We believe when they go to implement this, they will find they have enough money to do security," he argued on the Senate floor. "But I'm not going to be open to resolving this problem (now) just by putting huge amounts of new money in."
At Los Alamos, lab director John C. Browne warned employees that the new bill shows little growth in the lab's $1.3 billion annual budget. Los Alamos workers still will receive $47 million in raises as planned, Browne said. But "that comes at a price. It means we will have to tighten our belts across the lab. There is no other way to do it."
The new energy and water bill will take a significant bite out of homegrown research at Los Alamos and Sandia, where lab directors typically could devote 6 percent of their budgets as seed money for basic science. The new bill cuts those funds to 4 percent of a much smaller portion of the labs' budgets, resulting in cuts estimated at about $20 million apiece.
"This is a positive outcome for what Los Alamos was looking at for the coming year," said lab spokesman John Gustafson. "Yes, there are restrictions, and we will have to be very prudent fiscally. But things could have been a lot worse."
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Trustee Chosen to Clean Atlas Tailings
Salt Lake City Tribune - Wednesday, September 29, 1999
http://www.sltrib.com/1999/sep/09291999/utah/32428.htm
A Los Angeles firm has been picked as trustee to oversee capping of 10.5 million tons of uranium tailings on the banks of the Colorado River near Moab.
But Bill Hedden, chairman of the Grand Canyon Trust environmental group pushing to have the tailings moved, worries the money left behind by the bankrupt Atlas Corp. won't be enough to pay for the project, and taxpayers will have to cover the shortfall.
Dames & Moore, based in Los Angeles, was chosen Monday to oversee cleanup of the sprawling tailings pile after Denver-based Atlas, which operated the uranium mill from 1962 to 1984, filed for bankruptcy last fall.
A required cleanup bond left behind by Atlas contains between $7 million and $8 million, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Hedden contends the number is inflated by near-worthless water and land rights, and is actually closer to $5.25 million.
Either way it's not enough. Atlas estimated it would cost $20 million simply to put an earthen cap on the pile. The NRC estimated capping the pile and cleaning up groundwater would cost about $47 million. The state's estimate for groundwater cleanup alone is about $77 million.
Joe Holonich, deputy director of the NRC Division of Waste Management, said it's still unclear where the additional money will come from.
"We don't know," he said. "There is no other source of funds out there other than the Title X funds."
Title X funds are money from the Department of Energy to clean up tailings from mills that sold uranium to government weapons programs. In Atlas' case, 56 percent of the mine's uranium was sold to the government, meaning the DOE will pay for 56 percent of the cleanup. However, since Atlas has filed bankruptcy, there is nobody to pay the additional 44 percent.
"There's no other source of non-DOE payments we can identify at this point," said Holonich.
He said the $5 million will allow Dames & Moore to begin the first step of the cleanup -- draining 500 million gallons of contaminated water from the pile over the next 30 months.
"We're very concerned. We are concerned there wasn't sufficient bonding there when the NRC was working with Atlas prior to the bankruptcy filing and we've raised that issue with the NRC for a number of years," said Dianne Nielson, executive director of the Department of Environmental Quality.
Hedden criticized the NRC for plowing ahead despite the uncertainty.
"Somebody needs to do a mercy-killing on NRC and take this project away from them because they don't have the financial, regulatory or administrative wherewithal to deal with this site in the wake of Atlas' bankruptcy," Hedden said.
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Congress approves $63 million for Paducah cleanup
Akron Beacon-Journal September 28, 1999
http://www.ohio.com/bj/news/ohio/docs/022825.htm
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- Congress has approved more than $63 million for cleaning up radioactive contamination at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant and its sister plant in southern Ohio.
The money was contained in the Energy and Water Appropriations bill, which was sent to President Clinton on Tuesday for his consideration.
The amount for the Paducah plant was essentially what the Clinton administration and Kentucky officials asked for. It represents a considerable increase in spending to address recent public concerns over reports detailing decades of safety and health problems at the complex.
``We know the problem in Paducah will not go away overnight,'' Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who pushed for the spending on behalf of the Department of Energy, said in a statement. ``But this $63 million cleanup appropriation begins to move us towards a solution.''
The money was contained in the $22 billion fiscal 2000 budget for energy and water programs and projects; it passed the House on Monday on a vote of 327-87. The Senate approved the bill Tuesday.
``These are much-needed funds,'' said Anthony Hulen, spokesman for Republican Rep. Ed Whitfield, whose 1st District includes Paducah.
The House action came hours after the House and Senate conference committee on the budget completed work on the spending bill, agreeing to last-minute requests by McConnell for cleanup spending for Paducah.
By custom, lawmakers are discouraged from adding money for new items to a budget bill in conference.
But against the backdrop of two congressional hearings on Paducah's problems this month, the conference committee granted two McConnell requests for additional money. It also added a provision to the bill directing the department to expand medical testing of current and former plant workers.
In recent weeks, Paducah workers have learned that they were exposed to dangerous levels of plutonium but were never warned or given any special protection.
Some plutonium-laced uranium also was handled at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio, but the amounts and exposure levels have not been determined.
The first add-on was $10.7 million for analyzing and containing a variety of radioactive-waste problems at the Paducah site and at its sister plant in southern Ohio. The money is expected to be divided roughly equally.
The second add-on totaled $4 million, to be used to speed up the decontamination of inactive facilities. About half of that sum will go to Paducah.
The new provision essentially directs the Energy Department to do what it has already promised to do: expand medical testing to include current employees as well as former plant workers.
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Japanese unload nuclear shipment
The Age, Australia September 28, 1999
http://www.theage.com.au/daily/990928/news/news28.html
OKUMA, JAPAN Japanese authorities set up tight security to ward off protesters today as a British-flagged ship unloaded the first delivery of recycled plutonium-uranium fuel.
Surrounded by more than 30 Coast Guard ships, the 4648-tonne Pacific Teal docked at the Okuma port of Tokyo Electric Power Company's nuclear plant at 5.45am.
The ship began unloading 210 kilograms of mixed plutonium-uranium oxide (MOX) fuel.
It was the first shipment to Japan of the fuel, which authorities here had sent abroad for reprocessing.
The Pacific Teal spent two months sailing from France with its sister ship, the Pacific Pintail, which left a British port to unload MOX fuel at another Japanese nuclear plant.
As the Pacific Teal entered Okuma port, 240 kilometres north of Tokyo, the Maritime Safety Agency ships warded off about a dozen protesters on board the environmental group Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise ship and three inflatable boats.
The Pacific Teal lightly sprayed the Greenpeace protest vessels with water while the Coast Guards ships ``harassed us with their reckless driving'', Greenpeace's research director, Mr Shaun Burnie, said.
Five Coast Guard helicopters circled above the carrier.
About a dozen private security guards employed by Tokyo Electric lined up in front of the dock's gates, backed by more guards nearby.
A few hours after the docking, 20 people marched outside the nuclear plant to demand Tokyo Electric stop using MOX fuel.
Holding a banner that read ``Stop Plutonium Now'', Mitsuru Fukumoto, a 23-year-old law student from Tokyo, said the plutonium use ``will allow the Japanese Government to arm itself with nuclear weapons in the future''.
Ichiro Sugai, 67, described the shipment as a gross violation of Japan's pledges not to possess, make and bring nuclear weapons into Japan. ``The shipment does not reflect the will of Japanese people at all,'' he said.
After the Pacific Teal completes the MOX unloading today, it will sail with the Pacific Pintail to Takahama, 400 kilometres west of Tokyo, on the Sea of Japan. The 5087-tonne Pacific Pintail is loaded with 225 kilograms of the nuclear fuel for the Kansai Electric Power port there.
Tokyo Electric is expected to start MOX operation as early as February by burning MOX fuel pellets in light-water reactors to generate electricity. AFP
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More nuclear waste shipped out
Two shipments to New Mexico uphold 1995 DOE agreement
Associated Press - September 28, 1999 Spokane Review
http://www.spokane.net/news-story-body.asp?Date=092899&ID=s639884&cat=
Two more shipments of plutonium-contaminated waste will be sent to a New Mexico dump from the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory this week as the federal government continues its show of good faith in the state's 1995 nuclear waste deal.
"These shipments of waste out of Idaho are becoming a more frequent activity," Gov. Dirk Kempthorne's office said on Monday in a statement. "That's what the agreement between the state of Idaho and the Department of Energy spells out."
The third shipment of 28 barrels in two casks was scheduled to leave on the 900-mile trip today to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad and the other shipment of 27 or 28 barrels was scheduled to move on Thursday.
More than two dozen shipments from Los Alamos National Laboratory, Rocky Flats in Colorado and two from INEEL have already been processed at the $2 billion underground facility for waste generated during the Cold War production of atomic weapons.
Under the 1995 agreement, the Energy Department must ship about 15,000 drums of the relatively low-level-but-long-lasting waste out of Idaho by the end of 2002. All 315,000 barrels of waste must be removed by 2019.
Meanwhile, government scientists have proposed two different radiation limits for a high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
But independent scientists question whether either will protect public health.
Public hearings will be held next month by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Environmental Protection Agency on those and other issues surrounding permanent waste storage in Nevada where some in Congress, led by Idaho Republican Sen. Larry Craig, want to temporarily dump radioactive waste as well.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, charged with licensing projects like Yucca Mountain, has proposed an annual limit of 25 millirems of radiation exposure for a person living outside the gates of Yucca Mountain. It offers no limit on the amount of radiation that could escape through groundwater.
The Environmental Protection Agency, the federal organization with the legal authority to set the radiation standards for Yucca Mountain, settled on a limit of 15 millirems and would restrict the amount of radiation in groundwater at 4 millirems.
The nuclear industry opposes the EPA limits, saying that such a strict standard could kill the project.
The Energy Department has conceded that it cannot store 70,000 tons of commercial nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain with essentially no radioactive leakage for at least 10,000 years.
Its draft environmental analysis estimates that radiation will escape from buried containers by both water and air. Dump workers, drivers, transportation inspectors and people living within 50 miles of the site will be exposed but not to dangerous radiation levels, according to the draft.
One critic, nuclear physicist and physician John Gofman, argued that "there is no safe dose of radiation."
Gofman has studied nuclear weapons, nuclear waste and X-rays and how they have affected people for the past 50 years.
"Small doses of radiation over time add up to a lot of cancers," Gofman said.
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Pak. begins work on Shaheen-II
The Hindu, September 27, 1999
By Atul Aneja
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/1999/09/27/stories/03270005.htm
NEW DELHI, SEPT. 26. Stung by the Kargil setback, Pakistan has started working on its 2,400 km range Shaheen-II missile to bridge key gaps in its nuclear arsenal, according to highly placed sources.
Pakistan is making special efforts to overcome a key shortfall in its nuclear deterrent. Islamabad, for instance, is yet to acquire the ``interfacing technology'' which is necessary to mount nuclear warheads on any of its existing missiles, it is reliably learnt. Without this capability, the Pakistani deterrent does not have enough teeth, notwithstanding the fact that it does possess some planes in its stables which can land nuclear bombs.
``It is clear that Pakistan has to overcome a few hiccups before it acquires sufficient and reliable nuclear delivery systems'', an analyst said.
Pakistan is attempting to overcome these deficiencies through the Shaheen-II. The first stage of the two stage missile is around 6.3 metres while the second stage will be 4.4 metres long.
Shaheen-II is being developed by the Pakistan National Development Complex (NDC) under the jurisdiction of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC). The Pakistanis have set a one year target to produce this weapon.
As in the past, Islamabad has approached its strategic partner, China, for assistance. The Academy of China Aerospace Corporation is reportedly helping Islamabad in the development of Shaheen-II. Pakistan envisages assembling four of these weapon from ready made ``kits'' provided by China initially.
In case Shaheen-II project matures as planned, it will render a new dimension to Sino-Pak. cooperation in missiles. China, it is understood, has still not passed on some critical elements of its missile technology to Pakistan. For instance, China has transferred an unspecified number of Chinese origin M-9/ Hatf-III missiles. But it has not shared the crucial missile guidance technology, re-entry heat shield technology and the nuclear weapons interfacing know-how with Islamabad.
Shaheen-II is a two stage solid- propelled missile. This means that the missile, will be easy to handle. Solid fuel can be easily stored. This ensures that larger stockpiles of the weapon be maintained near the launch area. Besides, solid fuelled missile has a faster ``rate of fire'' as the propellant can be quickly packed in the weapon before launch.
Shaheen-II's first stage will boost the missile for a period of around 54 seconds. The second stage will then separate and travel towards the target zone.
Pakistan's focus on the Shaheen-II is part of a concerted effort by Islamabad to acquire nuclear missiles. It has already tested the Ghauri-I and Ghauri-II which are believed to be variants of the North Korean Nodong-1 and Nodong-2. In fact, the solid propelled Ghauri-II and the Shaheen-I with a range of 600 km were tested within days of test firing of the Agni-2 by India last April.
Pakistan also has around 84 Chinese M-11 missiles and the 80 km range Hatf-1 in its stocks. The solid fuelled M-11 missiles which have a range of around 300 km are said to be stored at a sub depot, near the Central Ammunition Depot, Sargodha.
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White House and I.M.F. Give Ecuador the Cold Shoulder
New York Times September 29, 1999
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/092999imf-meeting.html
WASHINGTON -- For five years now the Clinton Administration has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep countries from defaulting on loans to investors around the world, fearing that national bankruptcy can set off political upheaval and international economic chaos.
That is why the White House bailed out Mexico in 1995, and why Washington moved the financial heavens to rescue Thailand and South Korea (successfully) and Indonesia and Russia (not exactly victories for American-style capitalism).
So it was more than a little curious that when tiny Ecuador, hardly a strategic player in the post-cold-war world, finally drove off a financial cliff this week, there was no one extending a net to cushion the fall. Inside the United States Treasury, the central command post in this era of global economic diplomacy, the message was that Ecuador got its just deserts. For months it has been ignoring warnings that it could no longer delay some enormously tough political choices. Instead, it declared it could not -- and would not -- pay many of the investors who had bought the country's Brady bonds.
That was exactly the message the new Treasury Secretary, Lawrence H. Summers, wanted to send to those investors. Since the Asian economic crisis ebbed, Summers has warned over and over again about the dangers of complacency, and said the United States and the International Monetary Fund would not always step in to rescue countries or their lenders. Finally, he proved it.
"Sooner or later, investors are going to discover that the world isn't always going to step in to stop a default," one senior Administration official said. "And if they understand it sooner, it might prevent a bigger crisis."
Much has changed since the last time the world's finance ministers and central bankers clogged Washington with their limousines for the annual meetings of the I.M.F. and World Bank. Back then the world seemed on the precipice of economic disaster. Russia had just devalued its currency, Wall Street was swooning, hedge funds were going under and the Federal Reserve was cutting interest rates to breathe life back into the world economy.
This year, those finance ministers and central bankers, bellying up to the appetizers at receptions all over the city, are congratulating themselves for the wisdom of their world-saving chess moves last year. The Governor of the Bank of France talked this morning about handing out "coups de chapeau" -- tips of the hat -- to Asia and to the I.M.F. and World Bank. Several of his colleagues from other countries talked about last year in the giddy terms of survivors of a plane crash.
All this has Summers worried, and at every opportunity he warns against the dangers of complacency and says the biggest thing the world should fear is "the lack of fear itself." So Ecuador was a chance to create a little fear in the markets.
China Clams Up
As the ministers toasted each other, the Chinese dithered and danced. On Monday, China's negotiator over the country's entry into the World Trade Organization, Shi Guangsheng, arrived in Washington, met with Charlene Barshefsky, the United States trade representative, and offered -- well, absolutely nothing new. Then he flew back to Beijing, in time for the 50th anniversary of the People's Republic.
Ms. Barshefsky and her colleagues in the Administration are clearly mystified. For the last few months they have assumed that China's reluctance to negotiate on the terms of its entry to the group -- a deal nearly completed in April, until President Clinton walked away -- was part of some great tactical plan hatched in Beijing.
The theory was that the Chinese, by waiting, were hoping to translate the American guilt over the bombing of their embassy in Belgrade into easier terms for entering the W.T.O. They wanted Clinton to ask China publicly to come back to the table -- exactly what he did two weeks ago in New Zealand, at a meeting with President Jiang Zemin. The meeting here was supposed to make progress.
It didn't.
Now some in the Administration wonder if Ms. Barshefsky's decision to publish a list of China's concessions in April was what one senior White House official calls "a huge mistake." Clearly it made Prime Minister Zhu Rongji vulnerable to conservative forces who want to kill any effort to allow foreign competitors equal footing in China. The question is whether those conservatives have the upper hand now, and that China is no longer willing to open up.
"Anybody who tells you they understand the Chinese strategy here isn't telling you the truth," one official deeply involved in the negotiations said today. "In fact, we can't figure out whether the Chinese know themselves what they want to do."
Going to Bat for Russia
Neither Congress nor the White House is in any mood these days to give financial aid to the money-laundering Russians, or the corruption-ridden Indonesians, especially after the bloodshed of East Timor. Today the head of the I.M.F., Michel Camdessus, had a pretty clear response: Get over it. Some countries are too big to cut off.
Speaking about Russia at the opening session of the I.M.F. Tuesday, Camdessus said, "it would be the height of irresponsibility to turn our back on this great nation; we will not do that." He urged that all the allegations of misappropriation of funds should be weighed against seven years of "real progress," and added that no one should "ignore the fundamental decision, on which Russia has not wavered, to seek to develop a modern market economy and integrate itself into the international community."
He was somewhat less enthused about the progress of change in Indonesia, but clearly was anticipating that the election of a new president would free up the I.M.F.'s coffers once again. And he talked more about rebuilding East Timor than rebuilding Ecuador.
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Pentagon Will Expand Timor Mission
Associated Press September 29, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-US-East-Timor.html
DARWIN, Australia (AP) -- The Pentagon, deepening its involvement in the East Timor crisis, is dispatching the helicopter carrier USS Belleau Wood to the area and increasing its satellite communications support for the international peacekeepers there, Defense Secretary William Cohen announced today.
No U.S. combat troops will be sent.
At a news conference with Australian Defense Minister John Moore, Cohen said four heavy-lift Marine Corps helicopters will operate from the deck of the Belleau Wood to ferry equipment around East Timor for the peacekeepers. They also may fly to East Timor from Darwin on the north Australian coast, a few hundred miles from East Timor.
``We are very pleased indeed for that expansion'' of the U.S. contribution, Moore said. Australia ``could not want for more'' from the Americans, who are offering capabilities no other country could provide, he said.
The helicopter carrier, with an 820-foot flight deck and crew of about 900 Marines, is loading in Okinawa and will depart Thursday, Cohen spokesman Kenneth Bacon said. The ship is expected to be in the vicinity of East Timor on Oct. 6 and will remain in the area at least until the end of October. Its home port is Sasebo, Japan.
A senior defense official traveling with Cohen, meanwhile, told reporters there are indications that pro-Indonesian militias -- numbering between 2,000 and 4,000 -- may be preparing to launch guerrilla raids on the Australian-led peacekeeping troops in East Timor. The official, who spoke on condition he not be identified, said Cohen would stress in talks with Indonesian officials in Jakarta that its military must not give even tacit support to such attacks.
Asked about the potential for militia attacks, Marine Corps Brig. Gen. John G. Castellaw, commander of the U.S. forces supporting the East Timor operation, told reporters he would ``not speculate on that.'' He added that Australian officials had assured him they are well prepared to defend themselves and the rest of the peacekeeping operation.
Speaking at the Royal Australian Air Force headquarters in Darwin, Cohen said there was reason for concern about cross-border militia attacks.
``That's one of the apprehensions we have,'' Cohen said. He said he would stress in meetings Thursday with top Indonesian military and government officials in Jakarta that they must not allow any attacks on the peacekeepers. Cohen is scheduled to meet with Gen. Wiranto, the Indonesian military chief, as well as President B.J. Habibie and Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of Indonesia's founder and the expected next elected president.
Upon his arrival in Jakarta tonight, Cohen said that with the peacekeepers now in East Timor and ``with some stability returning there,'' he sees a chance that order can be restored and relations with Indonesia put back on track.
Bacon said the Belleau Woods' CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters will be needed as the rainy season hits East Timor and makes road transportation more difficult. The United States already is providing Air Force transport planes to move heavy equipment to Darwin, and it has been providing other logistical, communications and intelligence support.
Cohen also said a team of about 130 Army communications specialists from the 11th Signal Group at Fort Huachucha, Ariz., will arrive soon in both Darwin and Dili, the East Timorese capital, to set up a multichannel satellite-based voice and data communications system to link field units in East Timor with command centers there and in Darwin.
These additional forces will bring the total of U.S. troops involved in the East Timor operation to roughly 450. There are not about 275, including nine in East Timor. The rest are in Darwin.
During a three-hour stop in Darwin, Cohen and Moore also greeted a multinational group of forces supporting the East Timor effort, which Cohen called ``Operation Warden,'' including a small number of Americans.
On a shaded patio at Royal Australian Air Force headquarters, Cohen thanked the troops for a cooperative effort that he said shows the strength of American defense ties to this part of the world.
``This is a matter of great importance to stability in the region,'' Cohen said.
The U.N.-sanctioned peace effort also faces an enormous challenge in West Timor -- which also is part of Indonesia -- where tens of thousands of East Timorese fled to escape the violence.
Earlier today Cohen declined to say how the Clinton administration would respond if Australia were to tell Washington it needed U.S. combat troops as part of the peacekeeping mission in East Timor in order to ensure its success.
``That's a hypothetical I can't answer at this point,'' Cohen replied in an Australian TV interview in Cairns, the northeast coastal city where he spent Tuesday night.
Cohen said today that the U.S. military is stretched too thin elsewhere in the world to be able to contribute ground forces in East Timor. He mentioned no specific countries, but U.S. ground troops are performing peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Kosovo while also maintaining a normal peacetime presence elsewhere in Europe as well as South Korea and Japan.
``The United States is very much stretched across the globe trying to make sure we contribute to peace and stability, but we are not the global policeman,'' Cohen said in the TV interview.
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China Fetes Capitalists, but the Air Is Tense
New York Times September 29, 1999
By SETH FAISON
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/092999china-fortune-500.html
SHANGHAI, China -- China is celebrating 50 years of communist rule this week in part by hosting more than 300 of the world's leading capitalists at a conference in this city.
But the Fortune Global Forum is unintentionally highlighting the deeply troubled nature of China's business dealings with the West.
For instance, at the gala opening on Monday night, Time Warner chairman Gerald Levin , personally introduced President Jiang Zemin, a leader he has assiduously courted for nearly 15 years, repeatedly describing him as "my good friend." Time Warner, publisher of Fortune, is sponsoring the conference -- ambitiously entitled "China: The Next 50 Years" -- with the Shanghai municipal government.
But that did not stop China's authorities from banning newsstand sales of a special China edition of Time Warner's flagship magazine, Time, because it included essays by the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, and by the Chinese political exiles Wei Jingsheng and Fang Lizhi.
"It's very disappointing, at what is meant to celebrate China's opening to the outside world, when they still feel the need to censor anything they don't like," said Adi Ignatius, deputy editor of Time Asia, who edited the special edition.
Disappointment, born of misunderstanding, wishful thinking and crossed purposes, plagues other aspects of the relationship. Chinese leaders still seem to believe Western executives should want to help China modernize first, and make money second. Western businessmen, routinely blinded by the attraction of a seemingly limitless market, often suspend common business sense to spend millions before they can even project a potential profit.
Time Warner, like other media conglomerates, would like to enter China's movie and music markets, but has so far been blocked by Chinese officials who are generally mistrustful of foreign media companies. Executives like Levin are typically circumspect in discussing how aggressively they would like to come to China, for fear of alarming the authorities.
Instead, Levin spoke at the conference on Tuesday about how Time Warner can help people in China, arguing that his company should do a service to all humanity by trying to help new talent find a public voice.
"When you go into a market like China, you recognize talented artists and give them an opportunity for expression, that's an important public role," Levin said. "Companies like ours have a role to play in creating world harmony."
In a meeting with Jiang earlier in the day, Levin presented his host with a piece of Americana: a bust of Abraham Lincoln. Receiving the gift, according to an executive who was present, Jiang beamed as his praises were sung by the Time Warner chairman.
Jiang is apparently accustomed to being told by his colleagues how wise and insightful he is, so he may have been expecting something similar from Levin. Instead, the American guest worked up to an unexpected crescendo: praising Jiang as one of the few world leaders who can recite the Gettysburg Address from memory, a parlor trick that Jiang repeats for many American visitors.
Though approval from high officials can go a long way in China, Western businessmen with experience here point out that it is no guarantee for business success, since China is still a relatively poor country where legal guarantees are virtually worthless, corruption is rampant, and many basic services are unreliable.
Human Rights In China, a New York-based group, complained that the Fortune Global Forum had improperly left human rights concerns off the agenda, since an international conference offers a chance to raise issues that ordinary Chinese people can not touch in a public venue.
However, despite the conference's serious-sounding title, it seemed clear that many participants came here not to analyze or proscribe China's needs as much as to explore possible ways to make money.
Sumner Redstone, chairman of Viacom Inc., which owns MTV, seemed to take a relatively direct approach.
"There are 3 billion people in Asia and 2 billion of them are in the MTV generation," Redstone said at a session of the conference. "That's who we're after."
At a news conference later, Redstone, whose company recently announced its intention to acquire CBS, said that international news organizations should avoid being unnecessarily offensive to foreign governments.
"Journalistic integrity must prevail in the final analysis," Redstone said. "But that doesn't mean that journalistic integrity should be exercised in a way that is unnecessarily offensive to the countries in which you operate."
Other visiting executives did not hide their efforts to woo Chinese hosts by saying unabashedly nice things about the communist government.
Maurice Greenberg, chairman of American International Group, the insurance giant, has been courting Chinese leaders for 25 years. Despite this early entry into the local insurance market, his staffers here have little sense of when they might begin to make a profit.
At the conference on Tuesday, Greenberg went out of his way to praise the communist rulers, brushing aside a suggestion that more democracy was needed by arguing that the main job in China is simply feeding the population of 1.3 billion people.
In fact, as several Chinese economists here have pointed out, bumper harvests and overcapacity have created huge food surpluses this year, contributing to sagging farm incomes and the danger of excessive deflation. Polls show, meantime, that the overwhelming concerns of Chinese businessmen are corruption and official mismanagement.
Apart from all the big-name executives, and official wooing, the conference seemed to have another, perhaps unexpected feature. It gave many of the 200 Chinese participants a chance to question their own leaders in a public way that is ordinarily off-limits.
Zeng Peiyan, chairman of the State Development Planning Commission, appeared surprised Tuesday when he faced hard questions from the Chinese businessmen in the audience.
One Chinese executive asked Zeng why his commission could not put a time limit on applications for project approval, as happens in other countries. A manager of a state-run company complained that he was hemmed in by restrictions in China's labor markets. He said it was difficult to hire and fire people because the authorities have been slow to create a promised social security system to help laid-off workers.
Zeng defended his commission's work, but did not answer in detail.
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UN Peace Force Plan Welcomed In Sierra Leone
Reuters September 28, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-leone-u.html
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone (Reuters) - A U.N. plan to deploy 6,000 peacekeeping troops in war-ravaged Sierra Leone received broad support in the West African country Tuesday, though rebel leader Foday Sankoh said he had not agreed to it.
``The government sees the move as a positive step in the right direction,'' said Septimus Kaikai, spokesman for President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.
He said the government was particularly pleased with the planned use of the Nigerian-led ECOMOG regional intervention force already in Sierra Leone as the bulwark of the U.N. mission.
``The West African peacekeepers are people who know the geography as well as the political and environmental situation in Sierra Leone,'' Kaikai told Reuters.
He said he expected the deployment, proposed by Secretary-General Kofi Annan Monday, would be approved quickly by the U.N. Security Council.
Rebel leader Foday Sankoh left Ivory Coast Tuesday on his way home via Liberia, saying the U.N. plan was not part of the peace accord he had signed with Kabbah to end the nine-year civil war.
``This is something we have to negotiate,'' Sankoh told Reuters.
``The U.N. proposal is not in the peace accord,'' he said. ''We never asked the United Nations for a peacekeeping force. We talked about ECOMOG.''
But a senior commander of the ousted military junta, whose followers are allied with Sankoh's Revolutionary United Front (RUF), welcomed the Annan plan.
``We in the AFRC (former junta) wholeheartedly support the recommendation and appeal to the Security Council for a speedy approval,'' Brigadier Bazzy Kamara told Reuters.
Many ordinary Sierra Leoneans interviewed in the capital Freetown said they were in favor of a speedy U.N. deployment.
Annan said in his report that, without security, it would not be possible to carry out a program of disarming and demobilizing some 45,000 ex-combatants, many of them children, and thus remove a threat to the country's stability.
He said the ``robust force,'' to be known as the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMIL), should include six infantry battalions, each about 750 strong.
Specialized support units, including logistics, communications, engineering and air and other transport, would each comprise about 250 troops. A helicopter-borne rapid reaction unit would number about 200, bringing the total number of military personnel to some 6,000, Annan said.
The British envoy in New York expressed strong support for the early deployment of the U.N. peacekeepers.
``The United Kingdom will be in the lead in pushing this resolution through, getting the force agreed and getting the peacekeepers out on the ground to help the peace agreement,'' British U.N. envoy Jeremy Greenstock told reporters.
``The United Kingdom is very much for an early, robust and credible force in Sierra Leone, to back up the work which the U.N. and the West African states have already done,'' Greenstock added. Britain is Sierra Leone's former colonial ruler.
In readiness for disarmament, an ECOMOG statement Tuesday ordered all rebel commanders still in Freetown to return to their units ``to educate their rank and file on the provisions and implementation of the peace accord.''
It said that within one week, the commanders should be able to give cease-fire monitors information on the location and strengths of their units and their weaponry.
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Japan Agrees To Buy U.S. Parts For Spy Satellites
Reuters September 29, 1999 http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-japan-s.html
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan Wednesday formally agreed to buy U.S. parts and components to build its first spy satellites planned for launch in early 2003.
Japan decided to launch the four intelligence satellites following North Korea's surprise test-firing in August 1998 of a ballistic missile over Japanese air space.
Japan's Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura and U.S. ambassador to Japan Thomas Foley signed a document in Tokyo Wednesday to confirm the deal.
Japan plans to spend $1.9 billion to develop and launch four spy satellites by the end of March 2003, but how much of this money would be used to buy parts from the United States is uncertain.
Japanese government sources said Tokyo could end up ''virtually importing whole satellites'' from the United States because it was not currently capable of developing key functions.
Japan also plans to set up a satellite information center by March 2001 to operate the satellites and deal with incoming data.
To alley fears among its Asian neighbors over a possible resurgence of militarism, Japan has said the satellites will be used only to gather information needed for crisis management as well as prevent smuggling and illegal immigration.
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N.Korea Sells $800 Mln In Military Hardware-Yonhap
Reuters September 28, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990928/03/international-korea-missiles
SEOUL (Reuters) - Communist North Korea sold $800 million worth of military hardware, including Scud-B and Scud-C missiles, to Middle East and Southeast Asian countries between 1991 and 1998, state-run Yonhap news agency said Tuesday.
Yonhap quoted a South Korean Defense Ministry report drawn up for review by the National Assembly, as saying North Korea exported weapons worth $50 million during the past three years, making up 7.1 percent of the country's total exports.
The ministry declined to confirm the details and said a copy of the report was not immediately available. Yonhap did not say which countries had bought North Korean missiles.
Yonhap said the isolationist North had reduced missile exports and increased shipments of anti-tank guns and mini-submarines since 1997, due to international pressure concerning the sale of missiles and economic sanctions.
Earlier this month, North Korea promised to suspend test launches of its long-range missiles after the United States agreed to relax long-standing economic sanctions.
Despite the country's dire food shortages and resulting famine, North Korea imported $105 million in military hardware in the past five years, including helicopters, anti-aircraft guns and military trucks, it said.
The weapons were imported from China, Russia and several other countries that were once part of the former Soviet Union, it said.
North Korea also bought 6,000 diving suits from Japan in 1996, the kind that were found on the bodies of North Korean agents that have washed ashore on South Korea's coasts, it said.
North Korea also sent a total of 442 military personnel overseas to regions such as Africa, Southwest Asia and the Middle East, possibly to earn foreign currency, the agency said.
North and South Korea remain technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce rather than a peace agreement.
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WEST BANK: WEAPONS IMPASSE
New York Times September 29, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/world-briefs.html
Refugee camp leaders have banded together to reject the Palestinian Authority's order for all Palestinians to surrender illegal weapons. The authority is required to confiscate unlicensed weapons as part of its latest pact with the Israelis. The resistance is a sign of the problems facing Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, as he tries to fulfill his obligations under the accord. Deborah Sontag (NYT)
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Law-Enforcement Rivalry in U.S. Slowed Inquiry on Russian Funds
New York Times September 29, 1999
By TIMOTHY L. O'BRIEN and LOWELL BERGMAN,
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/092999russia-inquiry.html
NEW YORK -- The investigation of Russian money flowing through the Bank of New York has been snarled by one of the oldest and most bitter rivalries in American law enforcement -- between the Manhattan District Attorney and the F.B.I.'s powerful New York office.
During the last year, law enforcement officials say, investigators for each agency separately discovered that shadowy figures were using an obscure company, the Benex Corporation, to move money out of Russia.
The inquiries began from separate points -- a kidnapping case for the Federal Bureau of Investigation and a suspected money-laundering operation for the New York prosecutors. Each side had information the other lacked that ultimately showed these were two pieces of a single puzzle.
But the information was never pooled, officials said.
In fact, F.B.I. officials are said to have been angered when British investigators, who were conducting their own investigation of Russian organized crime, told a New York prosecutor and a State Department official what they knew about the Federal case.
Since the investigation burst into public view in August, each side has been trying to leave the impression that it was hotly pursuing the case while its counterpart was dragging its feet or chasing down empty leads.
Relations have become so frayed that Federal investigators have let it be known that bureau officials and Federal attorneys even discussed whether they could file obstruction-of-justice charges against counterparts in other agencies whom they perceived as getting in the way.
These disputes -- and the larger question of how they may affect the outcome of the investigation -- are far from resolved. Federal law enforcement officials insist that the New York prosecutors know little of value for their case, while defenders of the District Attorney say the bureau is still missing out on important leads. But several points are clear.
The office of the District Attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, was the first to find the link between Benex and the Bank of New York and has looked closely at the maze of companies that his investigators believe were the conduit for the money.
But, Federal investigators said, the prosecutor never closely examined the bank's role in the affair and did not obtain crucial bank records that disclosed billions of dollars in suspicious transfers from Russia.
The F.B.I. focused on the bank more than a year ago and was the first agency to understand the size of the Benex transactions. But the bureau has been faulted by some Administration officials for failing to tell other agencies, including the Treasury Department and State Department, what it knew about such an important banking case with broad diplomatic implications.
The Rivals: Whose Turf Is It, Contenders Ask
At the heart of the turf war are legendary personalities and longstanding rivalries between two of the country's most aggressive investigators.
In one corner stands Robert Morgenthau, 80, the powerful District Attorney, whose unsuccessful prosecution of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International earlier in this decade left Federal agencies suspect of his crusades against white-collar crime.
In the other corner is Louis J. Freeh, 49, the hard-driving director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Freeh, who began his career as an F.B.I. agent and Federal prosecutor in New York, has ample personal experience in the often-tense relations between Morgenthau's office and the bureau's agents.
The tension has been enhanced by the presence of Mary Jo White, the United States Attorney in Manhattan and a long-time rival of Morgenthau, who is working closely with the bureau.
Morgenthau has long viewed Federal investigators, particularly the F.B.I., as slow-footed and timid in their pursuit of financial criminals. The bureau considers Morgenthau an interloper who is overzealous in his attempts to broaden his jurisdiction.
Nonetheless, Morgenthau's jurisdiction is Manhattan, the financial capital of the world, and that gives him powers greater than a typical local law enforcement official's if a case revolves around white-collar crime.
Freeh has been anxious to broaden the bureau's authority as well. He has expanded its presence overseas in an effort to counter sophisticated international criminal networks that operate in the United States. That expansion has irritated some Foreign Service professionals, complicating matters for the bureau, which is often perceived as arrogant.
The stakes hold more than parochial interest. The Bank of New York affair has already touched off a broad debate about American policy in Russia, the role played by Western institutions in perhaps facilitating corruption there, and how power is wielded in an economically troubled country with stores of nuclear arms. The investigation, and any facts it may uncover, touches on all of those concerns.
The Conduit: So Many Dollars, So Few Accounts
he focus of the battle between Morgenthau and Freeh is Benex, a mysterious money-moving company run by an equally elusive Russian émigré named Peter Berlin.
Between 1996 and August of this year, Benex moved at least $7.5 billion from Russia through just nine accounts at the Bank of New York, according to the bank. The bank has not been charged with wrongdoing and its senior executives are not targets of the Federal investigation, according to law enforcement officials.
Although the F.B.I. has been sifting through reams of bank data for about a year, the exact source of the funds remains unclear.
Investigators say part of the money is from ordinary wire transfers and tax avoidance, much of which is perfectly legal in Russia, while some may be tied to organized crime, corporate embezzlement or political graft. Law enforcement officials say proof of the latter can only be unearthed by Russian authorities.
The pursuit of Benex began in February 1998 when Morgenthau convened a state grand jury and issued subpoenas in response to British investigators who were seeking help in examining possible money laundering through Benex.
It seemed a natural request. The British were looking into the activities of a London law firm, Talbott, Creggy & Company, which had set up offshore shell companies used to move money. Morgenthau was examining the same firm for its role in facilitating a New York-based stock fraud.
A month later, Morgenthau asked the Federal Government for help. But he did not speak with the F.B.I. Instead, he sent a memo to the Customs Service noting that large sums of money with suspect origins were flowing through Benex into accounts at the Bank of New York.
The British and American inquiries focused on a Russian émigré, Roman Amiragov, who was suspected of money laundering, and who may have been a client of Talbott, Creggy. According to law enforcement officials, Amiragov ran a company in Britain and the United States, Portrait Trading, that in early 1998 alone moved $300,000 to $500,000 a week through Benex into the Bank of New York.
Little is known about Amiragov. He and his family broke their lease and abruptly left their Jersey City apartment shortly after the Bank of New York investigation became public in August. Amiragov left the country but returned on Sept. 15. His current whereabouts could not be determined.
Officials say Morgenthau's office did not see the Bank of New York as an important part of its inquiry until very recently. The office did not issue subpoenas to the Bank of New York until shortly before the Federal investigation burst into public view, leading Federal investigators to suggest that Morgenthau's office was poaching.
In June 1998, the F.B.I began following a separate trail toward Benex and the Bank of New York. At the request of the Russian Government, the bureau looked into a kidnapping ransom paid to organized crime figures through a Benex account at the Bank of New York.
Suspicions about Benex deepened when another New York bank, Republic Bank, reported to the Federal Government that it had handled several suspicious transfers of money from Russia involving Benex.
A Federal grand jury was convened to handle the case in September 1998, and the F.B.I. approached the bank to secure its cooperation.
This move was a calculated risk. In return for a chance to monitor the flow of money through the accounts, the bureau assured senior executives that they would not be targets of the investigation, even though the bank's role in the matter was not yet entirely clear.
The Conflict: Confidential Data, Interagency Tussle
ureau officials say their effort is now the biggest money-laundering investigation in history. The dragnet, involving dozens of agents and analysts examining more than 100 banks in more than 40 countries, is described by one Federal law enforcement official as "an octopus."
Word of the F.B.I.'s investigation began to spread.
In October 1998, John Moscow, a prosecutor with the District Attorney's Office, traveled to London to meet with the National Crime Squad. Moscow, also a veteran of the failed B.C.C.I. prosecution -- and also viewed dimly by the bureau, where he is considered a conspiracy theorist -- heard a lot in London about apparent money laundering at the Bank of New York.
Moscow relayed what he had learned to Jonathan Winer, a specialist in international crime at the State Department. Winer, an ally of Morgenthau's office from the B.C.C.I. days, was the first to alert the Administration to the troubling dimensions of the Bank of New York matter, information that Winer believed should have helped inform foreign and economic policy assessments of Russia.
After visiting London himself in March this year, Winer returned with a sheaf of documents and serious qualms stemming from his belief that the bureau had not notified the White House or any national security specialists about the scale of the problem.
So Winer rang a few alarms.
In March he gave copies of his documents to National Security Council officials and then notified the White House, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Justice Department.
The news was not well received at the F.B.I., where investigators discovered to their dismay that Winer was circulating information that the bureau had passed on in confidence to British investigators.
Other Federal agencies found out about the investigation piecemeal. The Treasury Department, which has played the leading role in formulating American economic policy toward Russia, did not learn about the investigation until April 1999, and its knowledge came from the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. Even the Attorney General, Janet Reno, had not received a briefing -- and did not until August, after the investigation was reported in The New York Times.
And then the real fighting began.
Morgenthau's office complained that the F.B.I. never took the Bank of New York matter seriously enough until it was highlighted in the news media. While the British were told that an F.B.I. agent in New York, Steve Chapman, was leading a task force examining the bank's operations, the British felt that Chapman was the only agent involved. According to American investigators familiar with the British viewpoint, London dismissed Chapman's effort as "Task Force Steve."
People close to the F.B.I. retort that the only reason the investigation appeared so thinly staffed is because the British were not aware of its scope.
Moreover, those people say, Morgenthau is a publicity seeker who never devoted serious resources to his own investigation of Benex until it burst into the public spotlight. Those people said that if Morgenthau ever had significant information to share about Benex or the Bank of New York, the bureau would have welcomed it.
A recent series of meetings were convened at the United States Attorney's office in Manhattan that in the eyes of the F.B.I. were meant to seek the cooperation of various law enforcement agencies in the investigation.
The District Attorney's office had a different view: Its investigators said they were told "to get out of the way."
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Yugoslavia Gives NATO $100-Billion Damage Bill
New York Times September 29, 1999
By CHRISTOPHER S. WREN
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/yugoslavia-un.html
UNITED NATIONS -- The NATO bombing campaign last spring caused $100-billion worth of damages in Yugoslavia, the foreign minister in Belgrade said on Tuesday. He demanded that NATO pay the costs.
The minister, Zivadin Jovanovic, who is at the U.N. General Assembly, told reporters: "Yugoslavia claims the right of full compensation of war damages resulting from the NATO aggression, which amount to $100 billion."
The figure runs considerably higher than the $30-50 billion that some European officials have estimated that it would cost to repair the damage in Yugoslavia.
Jovanovic said he had met ministers from more than 50 countries, soliciting support for the contention that Yugoslavia was the victim, not the instigator, of the Kosovo confrontation. Jovanovic said at a news conference that he had encountered support and understanding from many United Nations members. He mentioned solely Russia, which was sympathetic to the Serbian-led government.
NATO began its air strikes on March 24, after the failure of peace negotiations for Kosovo province. Serbian troops and paramilitary units had started to force most Kosovo Albanians, who made up 90 percent of the province, to flee, and stepped up the pressure.
Many were reported killed, and thousands of houses were destroyed. NATO reported that it dropped 23,000 bombs without losing a single pilot in the 78-day operation.
Jovanovic said there had been an effort to remove Serbs from Kosovo after the bombing and after NATO forces and U.N. workers had moved in. He said that 250,000 Serbs had been expelled and that more than 400 Serbian civilians had been killed, 600 injured and 500 kidnapped.
He also said more than 50,000 houses and apartments occupied by Serbs had been destroyed, broken into or occupied illegally. About 200,000 people from Albania and Macedonia, Jovanovic added, have moved into Kosovo illegally and should be expelled.
Yugoslavia is caring for 100,000 refugees and others displaced from Kosovo, and it is hampered by economic sanctions, he said.
His figures are difficult to verify, but they are smaller than the estimated human cost from the expulsion of the Kosovo Albanians, which Jovanovic did not mention. Hundreds of thousands of Albanians were pushed out of Kosovo, aid workers have said, before being allowed to return under NATO protection.
Jovanovic's statements were dismissed by State Department spokesman James Rubin. "The Milosevic regime has no one to blame but itself for the NATO bombing campaign, which they provoked through their ethnic cleansing," Rubin said, referring to President Slobodan Milosevic. "It's time for Yugoslavia to recognize reality. So long as there's an indicted war criminal at the helm, their cries will fall on deaf ears."
Jovanovic also expressed unhappiness with how a Security Council resolution on Kosovo, approved when the war halted June 10, has been carried out. It placed the province under "an international civil presence" and set up a framework for an interim administration that he said was biased against Serbs.
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C.I.A. to Nurture Companies Dealing in High Technology
New York Times September 29, 1999
By JOHN MARKOFF
http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/09/biztech/articles/29cia.html
PALO ALTO, Calif. -- Hoping to insure that the nation's spies have the latest information technology in the rapidly changing Internet age, the Central Intelligence Agency has established a venture capital company to nurture high-tech companies, company executives and former C.I.A. officials said.
The C.I.A. has chosen a veteran Silicon Valley software executive to head the effort, which has an office in Washington with eight employees and will have a second office in Silicon Valley.
With a nod to nostalgia for the mythic gadget-laden spycraft of the James Bond era, the agency has named its new nonprofit venture In-Q-It, in a reference to Major Boothroyd, a.k.a. Q, the master technologist whose basement laboratory develops advanced gadgets for the fictional British super-agent. It will be headed by Gilman Louie, an executive in the Hasbro toy company's online business group.
The decision by the nation's spy agency to turn to Silicon Valley for technology assistance underscores the growing diversity of high-tech companies and the accelerated development of computer technologies. Unlike in the cold war, when the most advanced technologies trickled down from a handful of supercomputer companies, the most powerful technologies are increasingly being developed first by consumer electronics companies that now have vast markets to finance the developments of powerful systems and applications.
In-Q-It is being financed with $28 million appropriated last year by Congress as part of the C.I.A.'s budget, which is classified. The company will seek joint projects and investments in crucial technology areas.
"There is a tremendous information explosion today," said John McMahon, former deputy director of the C.I.A. and an In-Q-It board member. "As a result, the agency was always one step behind. The agency got the idea that maybe what it needed was something that would not only appreciate its needs but be an umbilical cord that was plugged in to the brightest minds in the Valley."
Louie said Tuesday that the purpose of the new company would be to move information technology to the agency more quickly than traditional Government procurement processes allow. The agency, he said, was struggling with many of the same aspects of the Internet that are vexing to other Web surfers, including privacy and security.
"The current model isn't working," Louie said. "The technology world has totally changed, and one day the C.I.A. woke up and realized they needed to go through the same change."
The new company will supply venture capital in some cases, and in others it will hire contractors or partner with entrepreneurs in four areas: integrating Internet technology and applications into the C.I.A.'s work; developing new security and privacy technologies; nurturing data mining technologies to take better advantage of the agency's vast storehouses of records, and modernizing the agency's computer systems.
Louie said that none of In-Q-It's work would be classified and that the organization would not be limited to the four areas he outlined. In contrast to many of its other activities, he said, the agency was taking pains to make the activities of In-Q-It highly visible and public.
That stands in striking contrast to the agency's past approach to high-tech projects.
For many years there have been reports that the United States intelligence community created shell companies when it had a particular high-technology problem to solve.
Indeed, the C.I.A. worked secretly with Howard Hughes during the 1970's when it needed to develop specialized salvage technology to retrieve a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine in the Pacific Ocean.
While In-Q-It will operate on a nonprofit basis, Louie said his intention was to invest in such a way as to make the organization self-sustaining.
Jeffrey H. Smith, the new company's legal counsel and former general counsel to the C.I.A., said, "The Government will have the opportunity to use the intellectual property developed by In-Q-It for Governmental purposes, but In-Q-It will own and have the ability to use the technology it develops for commercial purposes."
Louie said that while this was not the first effort to find innovative ways to move new technologies quickly to the Government's needs, he believed it was the first time a Government agency had adopted a venture financing effort that mimicked a private sector model.
Venture capitalists said Tuesday that the problem the C.I.A. faces is a challenge faced every day by large organizations: attempting to keep up with the nimble pace of the Valley's technology start-up companies.
A number of large multinational companies have in recent years set up investment funds in the valley in an effort to tap into the entrepreneurial spirit of the region.
"There are a number of models on which the jury is still out," said James Breyer, managing partner of Accel Partners, a venture firm in Palo Alto, Calif.
Companies like Lucent Technologies and the AT&T Corporation have become venture investors in the valley in recent years, he noted, and SRI Research International had less success in trying to spin out its research projects with an internal venture arm.
"The most important aspect is to have an outstanding outside management effort overseeing the process," he said. "It appears in this effort the C.I.A. has chosen well."
Previous Government efforts at financing technology have been highly focused efforts to promote the development of specific technologies either needed to keep the nation competitive or to meet national security needs.
For example, during the 1970's through 90's various military research agencies like the Defense Advanced Research Projects agency and the Office of Naval Research financed academic and corporate projects not as investments but as contract research.
In the early 1990's, the Government financed the Sematech computer consortium in an effort to maintain an independent semiconductor equipment industry in the United States, which was being threatened by Japanese and European competitors.
Louie, 39, said Tuesday that he would work on both coasts and was now looking for an office in Silicon Valley. He said he had become involved in the new company after meeting a headhunter from Heidrick & Struggles at a mock-aerial dogfighting contest this year.
Louie is a lifelong computer gaming aficionado who a year ago sold his computer gaming company, Microprose, to Hasbro. He has been a widely known figure in the Silicon Valley software world since creating his first computer gaming company while he was a student at San Francisco State University in the early 1980's.
Among the new company's board members are John Seeley Brown, director the Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center; Lee Ault, director of Equifax Alex Brown; Stephen Friedman of Goldman Sachs; Norm Augustine, chairman of Lockheed Martin, and William Perry, former Secretary of Defense.
Related Articles
Private Spy in Space to Rival Military's (April 27, 1999)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/042799sci-spy-satellites.html
A High-Tech Threat With a Low-Tech Track Record (April 4, 1999)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/review/040499kosovo-hitech-review.html
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Weapons of Excess
New York Times September 29, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/letters/lbush.html
To the Editor:
Your Sept. 22 news article "Senate Leader Presses Navy on a Ship It Does Not Want" highlights how members of Congress waste billions of dollars creating a handful of jobs in their home states. However, the Pentagon plans to waste even more money on weapons systems we don't need but Congress is afraid to cut.
The F-22 fighter jet is only the beginning. The Pentagon plans to buy a number of weapons designed to counter Soviet arms that will never be built. Instead of spending $70 billion on F-22's, $64 billion on attack submarines and $35 billion a year to maintain our nuclear warheads, Congress should invest in programs like education and health care. To do otherwise is an insult to the military personnel who gave so much to insure that we never needed these weapons.
JAMES T. BUSH Arlington, Va., Sept. 22, 1999
The writer is a retired Navy captain.
Related Articles
The Fine Print: Senate Leader Presses Navy on a Ship It Does Not Want (Sept. 22, 1999)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/092299congress-budget.html
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U.N. War Crimes Prosecutor Sets Out Kosovo Strategy
Reuters September 29, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-kosovo-.html
THE HAGUE (Reuters) - New U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla del Ponte set out her strategy on Kosovo Wednesday, narrowing her investigative focus to Yugoslavia's leaders and the perpetrators of only the most heinous crimes.
The local justice system in Kosovo, under the aegis of the United Nations, would try cases that fell outside the scope of the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia as she defined it, Del Ponte said in a statement of prosecution policy.
For example, nine Serbs arrested in Kosovo over the weekend by French, Dutch and German troops would not be brought to The Hague, prosecution spokesman Paul Risley explained, although the tribunal would assist any local investigation.
``The primary focus...must be the investigation and prosecution of the five leaders of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia who have already been indicted,'' wrote Del Ponte, a former Swiss attorney general.
Prosecutors have publicly indicted Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic and four associates, including Serbian President Milan Milutinovic, for alleged crimes in Kosovo.
Concluding that investigation and extending charges, possibly to include genocide, was a top priority. Beyond that, investigators would focus their energies on other power brokers.
``Investigative resources must...be applied...to high-level civilian, police and military leaders,'' wrote Del Ponte, who took over from Canadian judge Louise Arbour on September 15.
The tribunal, set up in 1993 when the Bosnia conflict was at its height, has insufficient resources to pursue all those accused of recent atrocities against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.
Thousands of bodies have been exhumed from over 150 mass graves in the province, according to U.N. officials, and over 500 potential burial sites have been reported so far.
Although the tribunal could not hope to prosecute every low-level war criminal active in Kosovo, it would take a close interest in particularly heinous or notorious crimes, including crimes of sexual violence, Risley told reporters.
Landmark judgements by the U.N. court relating to Bosnia have already established rape and sexual assault as war crimes.
In the two weeks since Del Ponte took office, she has met officials from the United States, Britain, France and Germany and the commander of SFOR peacekeepers in Bosnia, General Montgomery Miggs.
Thursday, she will speak with the director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Louis Freeh. The FBI has offered the tribunal valuable insight into events in Kosovo.
``They will discuss the recently completed work of the FBI forensic team in Kosovo and ongoing cooperation between the FBI and the tribunal,'' Risley said.
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Russia's Dirty War, Again
Washington Post, September 29, 1999
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/29/045l-092999-idx.html
AMERICANS CAN start with a little understanding for the Russians in sending warplanes to bomb out guerrillas in Russia's Chechnya. Not only can Moscow claim cause to fight to assert territorial integrity and national authority in the troubled Islamic Caucasus region. Moscow is also claiming to be responding to suspected Chechen bombings of apartments in Moscow and elsewhere; these attacks took hundreds of lives. Moreover, at first glance it appears that Russia is doing no more in Chechnya than NATO did not long ago in Kosovo: fighting to pursue a valid national policy, to hit infrastructure targets (oil, communications) and to keep casualties among the airmen to a politically tolerable minimum.
But things are not so simple in the renewal of a regional war in which Chechen guerrillas humiliated the Russian army and won Chechnya effective independence in 1994-96. There is no single authoritative figure -- no Slobodan Milosevic -- to pull the switch on canny guerrillas dispersed in mountain terrain. Further, there are serious questions about whether the dozens of daily airstrikes will do their intended job and, if they do not, whether the Russian ground forces now being moved up will do theirs. Victory over the guerrillas apparently has become not just a military goal but an obsession among a Russian command still smarting from earlier defeat.
It can do no good for the United States or NATO to see Russia once again humiliated. That result can only aggravate Russia's darker nationalist currents and distract it from more progressive tasks. The West needs a competent, forward-looking Russia, not one caught in the coils of a dirty ethnic war. In this light it is particularly disturbing to find the Yeltsin government disdaining talks with the Chechen government, which has its own reason to restore local order. There is no good solution to this conflict, but some solutions are better than others, and Moscow does not yet appear to be heading toward them.
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Yeltsin Foes Urge End to Campaign in Chechnya
New York Times September 29, 1999
By CELESTINE BOHLEN
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/092999russia-chechnya.html
MOSCOW -- As the toll continued to mount in Chechnya after six days of Russian bombing, several leading Russian opposition politicians broke ranks on Tuesday and called for an end to the campaign.
Chechen reports say that 384 people have been killed and more than 1,000 injured in the punitive raids and that tens of thousands of Chechens have fled their mountainous province in panic.
"For the time being, that is enough," said Aleksei Arbatov, a ranking member of the liberal Yabloko Party, which has until now supported the Russian air war against Chechen-led attacks in neighboring Dagestan. "I think we should make a pause in the bombing, or else it might become counterproductive."
The Russian military says it is attacking economic and military targets controlled by Islamic militants who have set up training bases in Chechnya, a region that has drifted out of Russian control since secessionists defeated federal forces in a bloody war that ended in 1996.
Led by Chechen warlords, Islamic militants attacked villages in Dagestan in August. The Chechens also have been accused by Russian authorities of being the masterminds behind a terrorist campaign in Russia that has killed almost 300 people in a series of apartment-house bombings.
Although an alarmed and outraged public has given broad support to the Russian military response, some politicians contend that even a war against terrorism cannot justify civilian casualties.
"Terrorism is a great crime that demands certain measures," said Sergei Kovolev, a longtime human rights campaigner and a member of Parliament. "It may require killing terrorists. But there is no justification for generals' saying that because there are terrorist bases among civilians, civilians have to be killed."
There are also lingering doubts about whether the government has hard evidence that would link the terrorist attacks here to Chechen militants.
"One always wants to respond to force with force," Konstantin Titov, the liberal governor of the Samara region, was quoted by Reuters. "But is it proven or not that the terrorist acts were the work of Chechen terrorists? So far, it has not been shown."
Reporting on Tuesday to President Boris Yeltsin, Internal Affairs Minister Vladimir Rushaylo said that a nationwide anti-terror operation had led to 101 arrests. He gave no details. Rushaylo said the police had seized 520 tons of explosives, preventing 16 potential explosions.
For the first time Tuesday, an international aid organization responded to an appeal from regional authorities to help shelter and feed an estimated 65,000 Chechen refugees who have been streaming across the border into Ingushetia, another neighboring Russian province. Responding to an official request from the Ingushetia government, the Moscow office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees agreed to send an aid shipment.
Top Russian officials issued assurances that the federal government could deal with the refugee crisis on its own.
"The situation is under control," the minister in charge of emergencies, Sergei Shoigu, said Tuesday on a one-day visit to the region. "It hasn't gone as far as to warrant talking about a humanitarian catastrophe."
In a telephone interview from the Chechen capital, Grozny, a top Chechen official said that the Chechen leader, Aslan Maskhadov, was ready to reopen a dialogue with Moscow, but that his appeals to Moscow and to foreign intermediaries had been met with silence.
"From the first day of the bombing, carried out under the pretext of attacking terrorists, villages and settlements have been hit by air strikes," said Deputy Prime Minister Kazbek Makhashev. "Dozens of villages were practically wiped off the face of the earth. While they are cynically talking about high-precision bombs, they have been hitting civilian objects. In one district, the bombs hit a school, and eight people were killed.
''We have more than once showed readiness for political dialogue. But now we have nothing else to do but prepare for our defense."
The Chechen government has denied responsibility for the Islamic militants but has resisted Moscow's pressure to condemn their activities. Instead, Chechen officials have attributed the violence in the northern Caucasus to Russian politicians.
"Russia is using Chechnya as a testing range for its own domestic political struggles," Makhashev said. "It is more profitable for Russia to destroy Chechnya than to restore its economy."
In an interview published this week, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who entered office days after the first strike into Dagestan in August, said that Russia had no choice but to attack Chechen territory.
"Today, we are victims of an aggression by international terrorism," Putin said. "The whole world knows that terrorists must be destroyed at their bases."
In six days of bombing, Russian planes have struck a broad swath of targets, including oil refineries, telecommunications centers, a television station and the Grozny airport. But Chechens who have been able to call Moscow say the strikes had strayed off target, killing innocent people.
Devastated by the 1994-96 war, Chechnya has been further ruined by lawlessness and a wave of kidnappings that have put the region virtually out of bounds for foreign reporters and international aid groups.
Since the bombing began last week, Russian television stations have shown film of burning factories and damage at the Grozny airport, but no pictures of the civilian casualties reported by Chechen authorities.
Kovolev, who recently returned from a trip to Dagestan, said at a news conference Tuesday that a "rigid information war" was being waged on the Russia news media.
"There is a clear vacuum in our information," he said. "The situation demands human rights monitoring. But no opportunity for that is being provided."
Some analysts fear that the Russian military, which has reportedly massed 50,000 troops along the Chechen border, may begin a ground operation into Chechnya, pitching Russia back into another all-out war.
"Up to now, what has been done is logical, but it is enough," said Arbatov, whose party has spoken out against a ground invasion. "But if we continue this punishment on and on, then the deterrent effect will go down, and instead it may provoke new acts of terrorism."
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For the Record
Washington Post Wednesday, September 29, 1999
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/29/039l-092999-idx.html
From remarks yesterday by Chairman Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:
I have heard it argued that any weapons inspections in Iraq are better than no inspections. I do not subscribe to such a view for one obvious reason: Meaningful inspections must be intrusive, thorough and open-ended--in other words, not different from the inspections conducted by UNSCOM. If anyone concludes, therefore, that I regard any new inspection regime accepted by Saddam Hussein as a charade, the conclusion will be valid--for that is precisely my apprehension.
Worse yet, in exchange for whatever inspection regime Saddam and his allies will agree to, the United Nations will ease sanctions on Iraq. Our friends at the Department of State obviously believe that easing sanctions on Iraq will undercut the argument that it is sanctions that are starving the Iraqi people.
Which, it seems to me, is bureaucratic nonsense. It is Saddam who is starving the people of Iraq. Food and medicine are rotting in Iraqi warehouses while little children suffer and die. In Northern Iraq, where the United Nations distributes food, child mortality rates are below pre-war levels. In the center and South (where Saddam is in charge) mortality rates are twice what they were before the war.
Meanwhile, Forbes magazine recently rated Saddam Hussein as one of the richest men in the world, with $6 billion in personal wealth.
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20,000 Troops Later
Washington Post Wednesday, September 29, 1999
By Porter Goss
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/29/049l-092999-idx.html
In 1994, the Clinton administration sent 20,000 U.S. combat troops to Haiti to return President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power. Now, five years and several billion dollars later, the administration has announced the end of its policy of permanently stationing troops on this small island.
This is the right decision -- however belated -- for our troops and, in the end, it is right for Haiti. But what have we actually accomplished there? The sad truth is that things in Haiti are in many ways worse now than they were before the U.S. intervention. Arguably, that country has receded from the high-water mark of democracy witnessed in the 1990 elections.
In January of this year, Haitian President Rene Preval effectively dissolved parliament and began ruling by decree. The economy continues to decline. Haiti has never recovered from the embargo imposed by the Clinton administration in an effort to punish the Cedras regime, which had toppled Aristide. Crime is on the rise. Drive-by shootings and other dramatic politically motivated murders and attacks are numerous. Parliamentary elections in November were expected to provide a road-map to resolve the steady flow of crises, but now they have been canceled and it is at best a hope that they will be held next spring.
In 1990 I observed the elections in which Aristide was chosen as president. While there were irregularities, there is no question the elections were largely free, open and fair. These elections stand out in my mind because the Haitian people made an earnest and sincere statement of hope in both the ballot box and in democracy. During subsequent trips to Haiti, I have encountered a far different attitude toward elections and democracy. When I asked one woman recently why she wasn't going to the polls she replied, "why bother -- democracy has not put food on my table."
From the military's perspective, as testified to by the appropriate, responsible officers in the Department of Defense, our permanent combat troops should be brought out of Haiti. There are several good reasons why:
Haiti is not a combat situation. Our troops are digging ditches, building roads, dispensing medicine and carrying out other noncombat tasks that would better be performed by other organizations.
We have been asked to leave by the host country.
Our troops are a target. The majority of our soldiers are guarding other soldiers who are carrying out humanitarian tasks.
Symbolically, U.S. troops appear to be propping up an increasingly corrupt totalitarian government of elitists.
Most of the responsibility for the pathetic state of affairs in Haiti rests on the shoulders of the Haitian leaders who have put the pursuit and preservation of power above the needs of their own people. But the current administration bears a heavy burden here as well. As Haiti has slid back toward a totalitarian government, the White House has looked the other way. If the administration cannot put its Haiti policy back on track, the very least it can do is provide the American people with a full accounting of what happened to their investment.
The writer is a Republican representative from Florida.
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Iran Frees 276 Iraqi POWs
The Associated Press, September 29, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Iran-Iraq.html
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Iran freed 276 Iraqi prisoners of war on Wednesday, Iran's official news agency reported.
The prisoners were captured during Iran's 1980-88 war with Iraq, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported. They were released to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Iran's late revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, said the agency, which was monitored in Dubai.
The move comes as the two countries continue to disagree about how many of the other's prisoners each is holding.
On Tuesday, a spokesman for Iran's POW commission said Iran has freed 55,000 Iraqis since the war's end and that 972 remain in custody. He said 2,806 Iranians are still held in Iraqi prisons.
But Iraq says it has no more Iranian prisoners. It maintains that Iran holds 16,000 Iraqi POWs.
The two countries have yet to settle issues related to border demarcation and reparations. A U.N.-brokered cease-fire ended the fighting, but a peace treaty was never signed.
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Clinton Reaches Out to Iran for Information on '96 Bombing
Washington Post Wednesday, September 29, 1999
By John Lancaster and Roberto Suro
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/29/073l-092999-idx.html
President Clinton last month sent a secret letter to Iranian President Mohammed Khatemi in which he held out the prospect of better relations between the two countries if Iran helps U.S. investigators find the culprits behind the 1996 bombing of a U.S. military facility in Saudi Arabia, administration officials said.
Because the United States and Iran have no diplomatic ties, the letter was carried to Paris by a senior White House official and given to an emissary from the tiny Persian Gulf sultanate of Oman, who passed it to Tehran.
U.S. investigators have long suspected that Iran was linked to the June 25, 1996, truck bombing of the Khobar Towers military housing complex in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, which killed 19 U.S. servicemen and wounded more than 500 other people. At the same time, the Clinton administration is eager to explore the possibilities for dialogue with Khatemi, a moderate cleric who was elected in May 1997--nearly a year after the bombing took place--and has called for better relations with the West.
The request from Clinton was based in part on intelligence reports linking the bombing to three Saudi men who have taken refuge in Iran, a senior official said. The three men are thought to be affiliated with a Shiite Muslim extremist group known as Saudi Hezbollah. Shiite Muslims constitute a minority in Saudi Arabia, which is predominantly Sunni Muslim, and many Shiites feel at least a spiritual kinship with the Shiite clerics who rule Iran.
What direct role, if any, the three Saudis played in the bombing has yet to be determined, administration officials said, but it is assumed they could help jump start the long-dormant FBI investigation of the Khobar attack.
Clinton's request to Khatemi for help on the investigation was first reported Sept. 10 by Kuwait's al-Watan newspaper. At the time, State Department spokesman James P. Rubin confirmed that Clinton had indeed passed a message to Khatemi, but he declined to say how the letter was transmitted or provide any details of its contents. USA Today yesterday cited current and former U.S. officials as confirming Clinton's request for Iranian help in the Khobar investigation.
David Leavy, a spokesman for the National Security Council, declined to discuss details of the letter or to say whether it had produced an official Iranian response.
An administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the letter "should not be seen as a larger diplomatic initiative of warming relations" between Iran and the United States. On the other hand, the official said, the letter did couch the request for cooperation in the context of "the overall relationship."
Clinton's letter--his first direct message to the Iranian government--also repeated language from his previous public statements to the effect that Iran and the United States are "great civilizations" that should have a natural affinity for one another.
A senior administration official characterized the message as part of an effort to suggest various steps that Khatemi could take that would result in improved relations. "We show him several doors he can go through, and any movement in any of those directions is something we can take as a positive sign," the official said.
Administration officials believe that most Iranians have tired of the virulent anti-Western views that have characterized Iran's foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution that deposed the American-backed shah. They have called on Iran to begin a government-to-government dialogue aimed at addressing, among other things, Iran's support for Islamic fundamentalist groups opposed to the American-sponsored Middle East peace process.
Khatemi, however, is under intense pressure from religious hard-liners and has yet to respond to Washington's offer. U.S. officials fear that anything they say in support of the Iranian president will be used by the conservatives to undermine his authority in advance of crucial parliamentary elections in February.
"At least until the . . . elections, relations with the United States are going to be held hostage to the internal struggle," a U.S. official said, adding that if Khatemi's supporters do well at the polls, he may "feel more confident to engage in a dialogue."
U.S. diplomats have occasionally met with their Iranian counterparts at multinational forums affiliated with the United Nations. But the two governments have yet to conduct any direct talks. Low-level diplomatic business is conducted through the Swiss Embassy in Tehran. Clinton's request for help was transmitted to the Omani official in Paris by Bruce Reidel, the senior Middle East specialist on the president's National Security Council.
Suspicion fell on Saudi Shiite extremists almost immediately after the Khobar bombing. But the FBI quickly ran into roadblocks when Saudi authorities refused to let U.S. investigators interrogate witnesses and potential suspects; FBI agents had to make do with the accounts of interrogations conducted by Saudi authorities.
The only break in the case came in 1997 when Canadian officials turned over Hani Abdel Rahim Sayegh, a Saudi dissident who fled to Canada seeking asylum. Sayegh initially claimed to have information pointing directly to the involvement of Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the Khobar bombing, but he later reneged on a plea agreement with the Justice Department. He is now in deportation proceedings.
In 1998, the FBI cut back on the number of agents assigned to the investigation after concluding that it had all but run out of leads.
After more than a year of U.S. diplomatic protests, the Saudis relented last spring and allowed U.S. investigators to witness interrogations of people held in relation to the Khobar bombings. These sessions produced further indications of an Iranian role in the terrorist attack but no concrete evidence.
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The CIA as Venture Capitalist
Washington Post Wednesday, September 29, 1999; Page A29
By David Ignatius
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/29/051l-092999-idx.html
If it were a Hollywood movie, the pitch would be: Mission Impossible meets Silicon Valley. But it's real life, and it's one of the oddest -- and most innovative -- things the Central Intelligence Agency has done in years.
The CIA has decided to create its own venture capital firm, called "In-Q-It," to help the agency connect better with the Internet revolution. The fear at Langley is that in a world of start-ups and instant millionaires, the CIA isn't getting technology's best and brightest anymore. So the spymasters have opted to create their own start-up, with plans for an office on Sand Hill Road in Palo Alto, where the leading venture capitalists hang out, and a $150 million kitty.
The idea is for In-Q-It to fund promising technologies that can help the CIA keep pace with the information explosion. It will be small, with a staff of 20 to 25 people, and will operate much like a normal venture fund -- partnering with other companies and funds. In theory, its activities will be entirely unclassified. And though it will be a nonprofit organization, the goal is to invest wisely enough that after five years, it will be self-financing.
As examples of the kinds of problems In-Q-It will work on, agency officials cite the need for smarter CIA search engines, better ways to visualize data, and better security for CIA web surfers. But the broader goal is to link an agency that can't give stock options with the cleverest minds in the tech world.
The CIA plans to make a formal announcement of In-Q-It in a few weeks, but they've already chosen a board of directors -- including such tech luminaries as John Seely Brown of Xerox PARC, Jeong Kim of Lucent, Alex Mandl of Teligent and Norm Augustine of Lockheed Martin. And the board just hired the first CEO, an energetic 39-year-old named Gilman Louie.
Louie's background gives a sense of what an unusual operation this is likely to be. A fourth-generation Chinese American (and son of a World War II veteran of the Army Air Corps), he made his name creating video games, including the Falcon air-combat simulator, beloved by computer buffs around the world. He's a genuine Silicon Valley entrepreneur, who started his first company in his mother's garage in San Francisco when he was 22 and hangs out with other wealthy geeks. His favorite recent movie is "The Matrix," natch, which he has seen four times.
Louie appears to know relatively little about the CIA and its venerable traditions -- which is probably a plus. He decided to take the job (at what's likely to be a huge pay cut) because it was a way "of doing something for my country."
"I was amazed the the agency was willing to do this," says Louie. "It's very 'out of the box.' "
Out of the box, it is. CIA officials explain that In-Q-It evolved out of growing frustration that the agency was losing its once-vaunted technical edge, which helped create the U-2 spy plane, overhead satellite reconnaissance and dozens of other collection technologies.
The idea for the venture-capital fund was hatched in conversations between the new CIA director, George Tenet, and a former investment banker named A. B. "Buzzy" Krongard, who joined the agency in February 1998 as counselor to the director. Krongard had been CEO of Alex Brown, the investment bank that helped launch Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, AOL and dozens of other high-tech IPOs.
Tenet floated the venture-fund idea to his CIA colleagues in May 1998, referring to it simply as "The Enterprise." The project was turned over to a group that included an energetic young woman named Sue Gordon, a former Duke basketball player who was working in the agency's science and technology directorate. She began making the rounds in Silicon Valley to flesh out the idea and drum up support. Gordon also helped come up with the name: "In" for intelligence; "It" for information technology, and "Q" in the middle because it was the code name for James Bond's technology wizard, and it just sounded cool.
Within six months, Gordon and her colleagues had created a framework for the new organization -- a rate of speed that's typical for a Valley start-up, but almost unheard of in government. Her message to skeptical CIA colleagues was: "In order to move forward, you're going to have to let go" -- again, a sentiment rarely heard in government.
The In-Q-It team members know they'll face resistance from techies, for whom suspicion of the intelligence world is almost a cultural requisite. Indeed, Louie himself was lobbying the government a few years ago to abandon its efforts to control export of encryption software.
What the intelligence community didn't understand back then, says Louie, is that technology is moving too fast now for anyone to try to control it. Nowadays, a 16-year-old can download encryption software from the Net that's so sophisticated it will confound codebreakers at the National Security Agency.
"The cat is already out of the bag," says Louie. The government's biggest job is just to keep up with the pace of change.
The best thing about In-Q-It, to me, is that it's risky. The CIA and the rest of the government need to catch the entrepreneurial, risk-taking spirit that's driving the Silicon Valley technology revolution.
The CIA's new venture fund may fall flat, but so what. Washington has been a zero-defect culture for too long. If we want a CIA that performs better, we'll need to take more risks -- and give our government the freedom to fail.
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Report: Germany uncovers 3 CIA agents
USA Today, September 29, 1999 (World)
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm
MUNICH, Germany - Public television reported Tuesday that three CIA spies had been uncovered in Munich and forced to leave the country. The German government promised Washington it would keep the affair quiet, even agreeing not to officially expel the three, but allowing them to be ordered home by the U.S. government, ZDF public television said in a news release about its report, which is to air Wednesday night. The U.S. Embassy in Berlin and domestic intelligence officials in Munich refused to comment. In Washington, CIA officials could not be reached. ZDF did not say what the three were allegedly working on in Germany. This was the second time that a CIA agent had been uncovered and expelled from postwar Germany, the report said.
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Gilman, Gejdenson oppose proposal for Kashmir envoy
Express India September 29, 1999,
http://www.expressindia.com/news/27212599.htm
WASHINGTON: Chairman of the U.S. house international relations committee Benjamin Gilman and a ranking Democrat Sam Gejdenson have opposed the proposal to appoint a special envoy for Kashmir even as more than 60 U.S. lawmakers urged president Bill Clinton to go ahead with the move. In letter to Clinton, Gilman and Gejdenson said any move to mediate between India and Pakistan on Kashmir issue could fracture the peace process in the region, reports PTI.
Instead of appointing the special envoy, Islamabad should be firmly asked to refrain from sending infiltrators into India, they demanded. More than 60 U.S. lawmakers have pressed president Bill Clinton to appoint a special envoy to mediate the dispute between India and Pakistan over Lashmir.
Stating that the south Asian region was ''most dangerous nuclear flash point in the world today,'' the lawmakers told Clinton that Washington should take a leadership role in solving Kashmir issue peacefully. Gilman and Gejdenson said the appointment of a special envoy on Kashmir ''would be a severe setback to the cause of regional security in south Asia.''
They said since constructive dialogue between New Delhi and Islamabad had been identified by the Clinton administration as the best chance for the successful resolution of the Kashmir dispute, bilateral negotations and meaningful dialogue between the two should be encouraged.
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Strong Action Urged for Kashmir
The Associated Press Tuesday, Sept. 28, 1999
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19990928/aponline185644_000.htm
WASHINGTON -- President Clinton was urged by dozens of lawmakers Tuesday to press Indian and Pakistani officials for a resolution over the disputed state of Kashmir.
A letter signed by 15 senators and more than three dozen U.S. representatives also urged the president to appoint a special envoy to help facilitate peace talks between the nations and negotiate a settlement.
Kashmir is "the most dangerous nuclear flashpoint in the world today," said Rep. David Bonior, D-Mich., and Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., in an accompanying letter to Clinton.
The two lawmakers released both letters during a news conference in which Burton sat next to a frequent political foe, Lanny Davis, a former special counsel for the White House.
Davis, now a spokesman for a Pakistani American organization, often clashed with Burton when the lawmaker, who chairs the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, investigated charges of fund-raising violations by Clinton's 1996 re-election campaign.
"We may not see eye to eye on everything, but we certainly see eye to eye, along with Congressman Bonoir, about the issue of repression in Kashmir, and other parts of India as well," Burton said.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Monday that Clinton plans to visit India and Pakistan after the Indians elect and install a new government, probably next month. No specific date has been set, but administration officials say Clinton is likely to visit early next year.
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Burton, Bonior, Other Members of Congress Urge President Clinton to Mediate Peace in Kashmir;
New Citizens Group Formed to Promote Human Rights And Political Freedom in South Asia
PRNewswire September 28
Company Press Release
SOURCE: House Democratic Whip David Bonior's Office
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/990928/dc_bonior__1.html
WASHINGTON,In a letter released today, 15 Senators and 46 U.S. Representatives urged President Clinton to intensify diplomatic efforts to resolve the dispute over Kashmir, ``the most dangerous nuclear flashpoint in the world today.''
``The United States should help break the stalemate over Kashmir to reduce the chance of nuclear war in the Asian subcontinent,'' the Senators and Representatives wrote to the President. ``Therefore, we urge you to: 1) consider appointment of a Special Envoy who could recommend to you ways of ascertaining the wishes of the Kashmiri people and reaching a just and lasting settlement of the Kashmir issue; and 2) propose strengthening the UN Military Observers Group to monitor the situation along the Line of Control.''
House Democratic Whip David Bonior (D-MI) and Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN) a made the letter public and gave remarks in a news conference scheduled for 3:30 p.m. at the Cannon House Office Building today.
``It is time that this Administration begins to pay more attention to the plight of the people in Kashmir,'' said Congressman Burton. ``In fact, I believe the people of Kashmir should be given the right to determine their own fate through a fair and open plebiscite.''
``This is a national security issue,'' said Congressman Bonior. It is a humanitarian issue. It is something we can no longer ignore, because Kashmir has become a flashpoint whose potential consequences are very, very grave.``
``Today represents the beginning of a major grassroots initiative by Pakistani Americans and their friends and supporters for peace and justice in south Asia,'' said Dr. Nasim Ashraf, president of Americans for Peace and Justice in South Asia, a newly formed nonprofit public advocacy group which aims to inform and educate the American public and policy makers about the threat to world peace and long-term American interests in the region. ``Americans of Kashmiri and Pakistani origin are intensifying our efforts to promote a peaceful settlement of the dangerous dispute over Kashmir. We are delivering petitions to the President and Congress signed by approximately 10,000 American citizens urging U.S. mediation for a just and peaceful solution in Kashmir.''
India's unlawful and repressive military occupation of Kashmir has more than 600,000 troops in a territory with a civilian population of only 8 million and an area only the size of Virginia and North Carolina combined. This occupation and repression of human rights began 50 years ago and has resulted in more than 50,000 persons being killed and thousands of women being raped by the Indian military forces. America has a moral responsibility to lead the international community in bringing an end to the human rights violations and denial of political freedom of the people of Kashmir.``
Among the 17 Senators signing the letter were Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms (R-NC), Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), Senate Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs Chairman Sam Brownback (R-KS), and Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-NJ). The 45 House signers include Reps. John Edward Porter (R-IL), Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL), James Rogan (R-CA), Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), and David Wu (D-OR, Dana Rohrabacher (R- CA) and John Conyers (D-MI).
The following organizations participated in organizing today's effort:
* Association of Pakistani Physicians of North America (APPNA); President, Dr. Shabbir Safdar * Pakistani American Congress; President, Dr. Riaz Ahmed * Pakistani-American Physicians Public Affairs Committee (PAK-PAC); President, Dr. Arif Muslim * Friends of Pakistan (FOP); Chairman, Dr. Naveed Iqbal * Council of Pakistan American Affairs (COPPA); President, Mr. Attiazaz Din * Pakistani Association of North Americans (Michigan); President, Mr. Faiz Khan * Pakistani Association of Greater Houston; President, Mr. Masroor Javed Khan * Kashmiri-American Council; Executive Director, Dr. Ghulam Nabi Fai * Pakistan Link; President, Mr. Faiz Rehman
The following is the text of the letter sent to President Clinton on Kashmir from members of U.S. Senate and House of Representatives:
We commend your timely intervention to help defuse the immediate crisis in Kashmir. Particularly important is your commitment to take a personal interest in encouraging the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan to resume and intensify their dialogue, begun in Lahore in February, to resolve all issues between them, particularly Kashmir.
Kashmir is the most dangerous nuclear flashpoint in the world today. As President Richard Nixon noted 25 years ago, ``nuclear powers have never fought each other, but the clash between Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India over disputed Kashmir territory could erupt into the world's first war between nuclear powers.'' To avert this possibility, the dispute over Kashmir's unresolved status must be settled promptly and peacefully.
The United States should help break the stalemate over Kashmir to reduce the chance of nuclear war in the Asian subcontinent. Therefore, we urge you to: 1) consider the appointment of a Special Envoy who could recommend to you ways of ascertaining the wishes of the Kashmiri people and reaching a just and lasting settlement of the Kashmir issue; and 2) propose strengthening the UN Military Observers Group to monitor the situation along the Line of Control.
We await your prompt response and stand ready to support these diplomatic initiatives.
The letter was signed by:
Dan Burton (R-IN) David Bonior (D-MI) Tom Campbell (R-CA) Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) Ralph Hall (D-TX) Dale Kildee (D-MI) Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) John Olver (D-MA) John Edward Porter (R-IL) Lynn Rivers (D-MI) Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) Bart Stupak (D-MI) Michael Capuano (D-MA) John Dingell (D-MI) Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-MI) Carrie Meeks (D-FL) Major Owens (D-NY) Jack Quinn (R-NY) Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX) Bernard Sanders (I-VT) Edolphus Towns (D-NY) James Barcia (D-MI) John Conyers (D-MI) John Doolittle (R-CA) Johnny Isakson (R-GA) Peter King (R-NY) Jim Moran (D-VA) Donald Payne (D-NJ) George Radanovich (R-CA) Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) Tom Sawyer (D-OH) David Wu (D-OR) Thomas Barrett (D-WI) Pat Danner (D-MO) Jim Gibbons (R-NV) Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-IL) Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) James Oberstar (D-MN) Richard Pombo (R-CA) Nick Rahall (D-WV) James Rogan (R-CA) Nick Smith (R-MI) Albert Wynn (D-MD) Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) Peter DeFazio (D-OR)
The following Senators signed a letter with the identical text as the House of Representatives' letter:
Tim Johnson (D-SD) Jesse Helms (R-NC), Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sam Brownback (R-KS) Robert Torricelli (D-NJ) Tim Hutchinson (R-AR) Tom Harkin (D-IA) Byron Dorgan (D-ND) Paul Coverdell (R-GA) Harry Reid (D-NV) John Edwards (D-NC) John Chafee (R-RI) Mary Landrieu (D-LA) Kent Conrad (D-ND) Mike Crapo (R-ID) Blanche Lambert Lincoln (D-AR)
SOURCE: House Democratic Whip David Bonior's Office
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Congress Denies Energy Dept. Funds
Associated Press Tuesday, Sept. 28, 1999
By H. Josef Hebert
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19990928/aponline183743_000.htm
WASHINGTON -- Congress denied the Energy Department money it says is needed to monitor and detect hackers trying to penetrate computer systems at nuclear weapons laboratories and other sensitive facilities.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson complained Tuesday that the $35 million he had requested was essential to implement his broad security reforms announced earlier this year in response to the uproar over alleged Chinese theft of nuclear secrets.
Without the money, "it will be impossible to provide real time cyber-intrusion detection and protection" at the labs or other Energy Department sites, Richardson, who was en route to Russia, said in a statement issued by his office.
But Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said the spending bill, which the Senate approved Tuesday by a 96-3 vote, has $109 million for nuclear safeguards and security and "that's plenty of money" once the department's nuclear weapons programs are streamlined and put under a new agency.
Congress in a separate bill, soon to be signed by President Clinton, directed creation of a semiautonomous nuclear weapons administration within the Energy Department.
Richardson also complained that the bill failed to include nearly $6 million aimed at addressing another controversial issue facing his department - allegations that thousands of workers at a government uranium plant in Kentucky were exposed to illness from radiation exposure.
He had sought $21.8 million for accelerated cleanup, restoration and health monitoring at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Kentucky as well as at two other plants in Ohio and Tennessee.
But Congress came up with only $16 million. The nearly $6 million earmarked for health monitoring and an investigation into the history of worker exposure at the plants was not included, said department officials.
The $21.3 billion spending bill for energy and water projects was approved earlier by the House 327-87 and is expected to be signed by Clinton despite Richardson's reservations.
A provision that had prompted a veto threat - blocking the Army Corps of Engineers from proceeding with more restrictive wetlands rules - was removed from the bill.
In response to the controversy over Chinese espionage and charges of lax security at weapons laboratories, the bill doubles the budget for counterintelligence programs to $39 million.
But Richardson said that by not providing the money for increased computer security, it "withheld important tools needed to implement security reform" at the labs and other department weapons facilities.
He said the bill also did not provide enough money to enforce new safeguards in the foreign scientists visitor programs at the labs and for programs he initiated to centralize security under a new "security czar" at DOE headquarters.
Domenici said there wasn't enough money to provide funds for those programs and that some of the money might not be needed under the reorganization.
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Senate Keen on Espionage, Not Waco
Associated Press Tuesday, Sept. 28, 1999
By Laurie Kellman
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19990928/aponline183431_000.htm
WASHINGTON -- The senator leading an inquiry into the Justice Department's handling of high-profile cases said Tuesday he will focus more on the investigation into Chinese espionage than on the renewed furor over the fiery end of the Waco standoff.
"There's nothing we can do about Waco except correct procedures for the future," Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said in an interview. "Espionage, I think, is the number one priority. ... That's an issue of America at risk."
New revelations last month about the government's use of force during the 1993 Texas standoff with the Branch Davidians sparked calls from congressional Republicans for renewed investigations of the Justice Department. Republicans fired off subpoenas and demanded that Attorney General Janet Reno resign.
In light of the outcry over Waco, Senate Republicans chose Specter to lead a task force investigation of several Justice Department activities that have raised the GOP's ire.
Specter is making clear early on that he's more interested in using the panel's resources to examine the FBI's investigation into how U.S. nuclear secrets were leaked to China than in Waco. He also plans to look into how Justice prosecutors deal with political fund-raising abuse.
His approach won a vote of confidence Tuesday from a fellow Republican senator who also is serving on the task force and has been vocal about Waco.
"Waco's history, regardless of what we find out," Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa said. "In the case of the Chinese espionage and campaign contributions, there are still things you can do about it."
The public furor over the 1993 siege was reignited this summer when it was disclosed belatedly that the FBI fired potentially incendiary tear gas canisters at the Branch Davidian compound on the day the siege ended in a spectacular fire. The FBI and Justice Department denied for years the use of such canisters despite the existence of reports that hinted at it.
Republicans demanded to know whether the disclosure was part of a cover-up that cast doubt on the government claim that sect members, and not the federal agents, set the fire the day 80 Branch Davidians died.
Reno was forced to appoint former Sen. John Danforth, R-Mo., to open an independent investigation. House Government Reform Committee Chairman Dan Burton of Indiana fired off a round of subpoenas, and Specter sent his investigators to Texas to preserve evidence.
Senate Majority Leader Lott urged Reno to resign and added that the revelations gave him reason to doubt the conclusion that the Davidians started the fire.
Neither Specter nor Burton would comment on whether they have discovered evidence that would pin blame for the fire somewhere other than on the Davidians.
The two agreed that shortcomings in the government's expanded probe into the alleged Chinese theft of secrets concerning a sophisticated nuclear warhead is a more important problem. The FBI focused for almost four years on Wen Ho Lee, a scientist at the Los Alamos national weapons laboratory, who was fired in March but never charged with a crime.
"That's a life or death matter," Specter said. "The Judiciary Committee should have been doing oversight on that for a long time."
Houston lawyer Jim Brannon, one of the Davidian attorneys pressing a wrongful-death suit against the government, said he hopes that Burton and Danforth probe Waco more deeply.
"We don't have to have three or four investigations, as long as we have one thorough one," Brannon said. "I suppose the chances are that we can do that without Senator Specter."
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"Toward A New Nuclear Policy: Reducing the Threat to American Lives"
Senator Bob Kerrey (D-NE)
Prepared Text -- Speech to the Council on Foreign Relations November 17, 1998
http://www.nuclearabolition.research.umich.edu/kerrey1.html
Good afternoon. At the beginning of this talk let me say I am grateful for this opportunity to speak to you today and hope that at the conclusion of my remarks you will feel some gratitude as well. Either for my coming or my departure. It is an honor for me to be introduced by Warren Rudman, with whom I had the great honor of serving. Two other former colleagues, Jim Exon and Sam Nunn, have been instrumental in helping me learn more about, and keeping America safe from, nuclear dangers. They have my thanks as well. Special thanks are also in order for other members of the Council on Foreign Relations, especially my friend Skip Stein, who helped organize this lunch. Michael Krepon of the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington has been generous with both his time and his creativity on the topic I will address today, as has Bruce Blair of the Brookings Institution and many others.
The most important business of the Federal government must be to keep the people of the United States of America safe. The President and Congress have the responsibility of assessing the threats to our country and designing an appropriate response to minimize them.
At the dawn of our Republic the thirty- nine men who drafted our Constitution defined this objective as "providing for the common defense." They envisioned this purpose as little more than defending our territory against outside invaders. Over time, as our nation has grown, this mission has grown. We have learned from bitter experience that our interests extend beyond our borders. We have learned that diplomacy backed by a credible military force can prevent wars from happening. We have learned that good intelligence can help us build and direct that force so that threats are accurately assessed.
In these times, devastatingly hovering over mankind are three weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, chemical and biological. They have the dynamics of plunging the world suddenly in an unimaginable war aimed more at civilians than military casualties.
A commission created by my colleague, Arlen Specter, is engaged in an in-depth study of this threefold threat. It is headed by chairman John Deutch and its report is expected shortly. I hope we have learned the importance and value of a credible military force -- but I do not assume it.
The history of this century should keep us vigilant against the tendency to want to disarm. We disarmed and came home after the Great War, the war to end all wars. We responded to the military actions of Japan and Germany with words which were not enough to prevent 50 million people from dying in the Second World War. Little remembered is this fact: After the second world war we slashed our defense budgets again. We withdrew our forces from Europe and Asia. And though it is an open question as to what might have happened to Eastern Europe had a credible military force faced the Soviet Union or a credible force been close to the Korean peninsula, there can be no doubt it would have had a deterrent impact on the decisions made by Soviet and North Korean leaders. They did not believe we would respond and so they acted.
Today the United States of America is the most important arbiter of world peace. The measure of our success can be seen around the world. More people are living in free and democratic nations than ever before. The cold war is over. Today, when the word "Russia" is spoken, we think of economic problems and not espionage or proxy wars or nuclear weapons. The global economy -- frustrating, confusing and challenging -- is making us more interdependent and reducing the old territorial and military tensions between nation-states. But please observe: It is the threat of conventional force deployment which produced the Dayton Accords and the agreement in Kosovo and, hopefully, Iraq's compliance with United Nations Resolutions.
Still, threats remain. Not only do they remain, but the nature of the threat has changed radically from what it was as recently as 10 years ago. Because of that, there is a clear and present need for constant re-examination of policies to ensure we are not using yesterday's strategy and/or force structure on today's and tomorrow's threats. Never before has thinking outside the old box that confined our plans been so important.
That is my purpose here today: To step outside of the old way of meeting the one threat with the potential of killing every single American: nuclear weapons. I begin by describing that threat. Consider this scenario, which could unfold by sundown today:
A peaceful scientific rocket is launched off the coast of Norway. To the east, in Russia, radar operators mistake the launch for a nuclear attack by the West. A deadly process -- nearly on auto-pilot -- is triggered. Within minutes President Yeltsin has been alerted of the attack. For the first time in history, the Russian nuclear briefcase is activated. With thousands of nuclear warheads on hair-trigger alert around the world, commanders tell Yeltsin he has just minutes -- three minutes, five at most -- to decide whether to launch a retaliatory strike against American cities. Like a raft on a raging river, Yeltsin is being carried away by events. Literally minutes before a retaliatory strike is ordered, military commanders realize the rocket is peaceful. They had been given advance warning of the scientific launch. They had simply failed to pass it on to the duty officers who evaluate warning indicators.
In the chaos, though, it is too late: After a breakdown in discipline or communication within Russia's underpaid and poorly equipped command structure, one SS-25 missile with a 550-kiloton warhead has been launched at Chicago. The missile rockets north over the top of the world, across the arctic pole, and inside an hour detonates over Chicago within -- even on a bad day -- a few hundred yards of its intended target.
The surrounding air is instantaneously heated to 10 million degrees Celsius. The fireball shoots outward at a rate of a few hundred kilometers per second. A mushroom cloud dozens of miles across and high rips up from the explosion. Everything within miles of the detonation site is vaporized. In the immediate blast zone nearly everyone is killed. The radius of destruction reaches out for miles. Even in the farthest reaches of the blast zone, structures are severely damaged, thousands are dead, half are injured and most survivors have suffered second and third degree burns.
If that sounds like a fantasy cooked up in a Hollywood studio, consider this: According to public reports, every event I have just described to you, right up until the actual launch of one missile, occurred on January 25, 1995, with the Soviet Union three years in the grave.
This scenario will probably not happen, but it most assuredly could. It is at least as plausible as any number of other threats that absorb the attention and rhetoric of our policy makers. And as important as it is to mount a good defense against terrorism, narcotics traffickers, or political instability in the Middle East or Balkans, they are pale worries in comparison to the number of Americans who would die if just one of Russia's nuclear weapons were to be launched at the United States. Chinese weapons get more attention today, but it is Russia's, not China's, that are accurate and capable of being launched across an ocean and hitting a hard target.
The topic of this speech is reducing nuclear dangers. By the end of it, I intend to leave you with three ideas:
First, the several thousand nuclear warheads on Russian soil are the gravest, most imminent threat to the security of the United States.
Second, our old policies of arms control and deterrence no longer work and may be increasing the danger, both by making nuclear threats worse and by diverting money and resources away from the conventional forces that are the key to our safety in the post-Cold War world.
Third, we are confronted by both an urgent danger and an urgent opportunity. The danger is obvious; the opportunity is not. The opportunity is a window of time during which we can significantly reduce the danger nuclear weapons pose to American lives. But this window is closing. We must act now, and we must act boldly.
I call this nuclear threat to your attention with such an urgent tone because I fear that Americans, amidst our well-earned joy in the victory of freedom in the Cold War, have been lulled into a false sense of security about it. What America needs from its leaders today is not a lullaby, but a wake-up call. I am not here to tell you to cast off old suspicions, but to replace them with new ones, suspicions in many ways graver than the old ones and less curable by the incentives for rational behavior on which our strategy of deterrence has historically relied. We need a new nuclear policy to confront new nuclear dangers.
What are these new nuclear dangers?
I see four scenarios in which nuclear weapons threaten American lives. First is an authorized launch, which is to say a deliberate attack by Russia on the United States. Even in the unlikely event of a throwback totalitarian regime in Russia, there is little reason to fear such an attack. Second is the acquisition of weapons in the Russian arsenal by rogue groups or individuals, whether they be terrorist states or their clients or simply a disgruntled Russian soldier. Third is an accidental launch, like the one I just described, based on technological error or miscalculation. Fourth is another country acquiring nuclear weapons, either through proliferation or their own nuclear program.
Today we must deal with nuclear threats differently. The policy of Mutual Assured Destruction, or deterrence, protected us from the old threat -- deliberate attack. But it does not protect us from these new ones. In fact, I will argue, it makes them worse.
The underlying assumption of deterrence is rational behavior on the other side. None of these potential new nuclear powers -- whether they be terrorist groups or rogue states or desperate individuals -- can be counted on to respond rationally to the threat of retaliation.
In addition, leaving nuclear missiles on hair-trigger alert is a recipe for miscalculation caused by events controlling leaders rather than leaders controlling events. In the case I mentioned to you earlier, President Yeltsin had a matter of minutes to react. The combination of hair-trigger alert, deadly weapons and the potential for human or technological error is a combustible mixture with lethal consequences.
The threats either of proliferation or the seizure of nuclear materials by criminals inside Russia are real. Russia's economy is failing, creating an economic incentive to proliferate. The physical and human infrastructures responsible for safeguarding her nuclear arsenal are in dangerous disrepair.
You do not need the warnings of a senator responsible for oversight of our highly secret intelligence community to know this threat exists. According to the Los Angeles Times, last month a 19-year-old Russian sailor killed eight crewmen on his nuclear submarine near Murmansk, seized control of the sub and held it for 20 hours. Said one former Russian Navy captain: "It is really scary that one day the use of nuclear arms may depend on the sentiments of someone who is feeling blue, who has gotten out of bed on the wrong side and does not feel like living. The probability of this today is higher than ever before."
Mutual Assured Destruction is no deterrent to such problems, and the massive, redundant arsenals this policy has produced may be making them worse. Our maintenance of a nuclear arsenal larger than we need provokes Russia to maintain one larger than she can control. In the wake of these kinds of threats, from proliferation to loose weapons, keeping massive nuclear arsenals far in excess of what we need is an accident waiting to happen. Every weapon we maintain that we do not need to defend ourselves provokes the Russians to maintain another to match it. This is a simple mathematical proposition: If what we most fear is a mistake, rather than a deliberate attack, the probability of that threat grows with every weapon in the arsenal of either side. In this environment, every nuclear weapon in those arsenals is like another round loaded into the chamber in what is a literal and deadly game of Russian roulette.
Nor can the United States ignore the power of our example in influencing others' behavior. Our heavy reliance on these weapons ... despite the vastly diminished threat they were created to deter ... has helped make nuclear arms the Rolex wristwatch of international relations: a costly purchase whose real purpose is not the service it provides, but the prestige it confers. It was status, not just security, that the one billion citizens of India sought in electing a government that had made clear its intention to make their nation a nuclear power. It is nationalism, not just national security, that has hog-tied START TWO in the Russian Duma.
And, finally, the passing of Cold War threats has given rise to new ones, ranging from ethnic or regional conflict to international terrorism. The $25 billion we reportedly spend every year to maintain our nuclear arsenal is diverting resources from those real and imminent threats to fight an old one. If America is to be engaged in the world today, it will be with the threat or use of conventional, not nuclear, force. Maintaining massive nuclear forces while trimming the conventional forces that are the real tool of American leadership is an act of retrenchment at a time when the world desperately needs our engagement.
By alerting you to these dangers, I do not mean to disparage the extraordinary Russian experiment with democracy. Russia's progress, economic and political, must be measured in decades, not years. The courageous pro democracy leaders there are navigating a complex obstacle course of domestic politics, international diplomacy and, most important, the friction between new ideas and the old.
Indeed, I underscore our friendship with Russia to suggest that history presents no better time than right now to reduce nuclear danger. But that opportunity comes with this warning: At the dawn of the millennium, history travels in high gear at high speed. The rapid pace of change within Russia and around the world will not shift into neutral while we debate whether to seize this opportunity. I expect our friendship with Russia to endure. I expect their experiment with democracy to succeed. But the road to that destination will take us around a few curves, into a few potholes and over a few speed bumps. We know what our relationship with Russia is like today. We can predict, but cannot know, what it will be in a year, or two, or five, or 10. We do not know whether the circumstances for reducing nuclear dangers will be as favorable then as they are now, and therefore it is incumbent on us to act boldly and to act swiftly. History will judge us harshly if we ignore this opportunity when it is open to us.
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, process has taken us in The right direction. It has marked a steady series of steps back from the brink of nuclear conflagration. But even after START ONE is fully implemented and six thousand warheads are left, the walk back to that brink would be a short trip. More important, I fear the pace of change in Russia could overtake us and the opportunity before us could close before the START process has time to run its lengthy course. This process takes so long because its safeguards were erected under a cloud of fear of a first strike by a Cold War enemy. The result is a cumbersome treaty, more than 250 pages long, that makes the journey back from the brink long, laborious and expensive.
Today our open friendship with Russia and the technology of intelligence allow us to move more swiftly. We need a new nuclear policy that protects us >from new nuclear dangers, and we need a new framework for enacting it that moves at the pace of world change and can seize this opportunity before it is gone.
To that end I am proposing the following:
First, the President of the United States should work with Congress to remove legislative restraints on reducing deployed strategic U.S. forces below the START ONE level of 6,000 warheads. This deployed arsenal no longer serves our national security interests, and it is provoking Russia to maintain an arsenal that undermines our national security interests.
Simultaneous with this request, the president should agree with Republican leadership to build a defined, rigorously tested strategic missile defense. He should make clear to Russia's leaders we would build it for accidental and rogue nation threats.
The president should couple this request with a request for such funds as necessary to make certain Russia knows that Nunn-Lugar will be fully funded to go to START THREE levels.
Second, acting in his capacity as Commander in Chief and in an act of international leadership, the President should immediately order the reduction of American nuclear forces to no more than the proposed START THREE levels. The two thousand to twenty-five-hundred nuclear warheads that would remain are more than enough -- many, many times over -- to destroy any nation, anywhere, anytime, that threatens us. And the diversity of our triad -- nuclear weapons on air, land and sea -- protects us against the risk of a first strike destroying our capacity to retaliate. If we can reduce farther without endangering our security, we should.
Third, because the complete and verifiable dismantling of those weapons will take time, the President should immediately stand down weapons in excess of START THREE levels from their hair-trigger alert. Warheads should be physically separated from delivery vehicles. Our national security will not be endangered by leaders having two days, rather than two minutes, to make life-and-death decisions about nuclear war. While this proposal would apply only to warheads in excess of START THREE levels, we should seriously explore the possibility of the United States and Russia standing down all forces from hair-trigger alert.
Fourth, this reciprocal reduction to START THREE levels should be only a way station, not an end point. We should continue to supplement the START process with a series of mutual, transparent and reciprocal steps between the United States and Russia to reduce nuclear arsenals and alert levels. We should be willing to go as low as Russia wants to go, as low as we can verify they are going, and as low as we can go without risking our security either from Russia or other nuclear powers.
To enable this process of mutual, transparent steps, we should greatly expand funding for the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program. We should spend whatever is necessary to help Russia dismantle and secure her nuclear arsenal. Nunn-Lugar is one of the great acts of post-Cold War statesmanship, and it defies understanding that we are engaged in a year-to-year battle to fund it. If we can spend $25 billion a year on a nuclear policy that is making people less safe, surely we can spend a fraction of that on an investment that is making us more safe.
There is precedent for action like I have described. On September 27, 1991, with the Soviet Union still intact and before the Soviet parliament ratified START ONE, President Bush went on national television to announce he was ordering the elimination of thousands of tactical nuclear weapons, deactivating 450 ICBMs, standing down our bomber fleet, and ordering a stop to Pentagon development of a short-range ballistic missile. President Gorbachev reciprocated nine days later. Likewise President Clinton showed courageous leadership by first unilaterally rescinding our nuclear testing, and, second, by providing the leadership that culminated in the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty at the United Nations. I will urge the Republican Senate leadership to bring that treaty up for Senate approval as soon as possible.
Today it is clear Russia not only wants to follow our lead, but must. Russia's own defense minister recently said, publicly, that Russia is thinking of its long-term nuclear arsenal in terms of hundreds, not thousands. Our action would give Russia the confidence to do what the unbearable cost of maintaining nuclear arsenals already dictates that she must do.
The approach I have outlined would have the following benefits.
First, a bold gesture of friendship and leadership that does not threaten our security would give Russia the confidence to significantly reduce her own nuclear arsenal, strengthen the position of our pro-democracy friends there and send a signal to the world that nuclear weapons are a sign of peril, not prestige, in the post-Cold War era.
Second, by reducing the number of nuclear weapons around the world, we would reduce the new nuclear dangers of accidental launch, proliferation or acquisition by rogue groups or individuals.
Third, by de-alerting weapons in excess of what we need to defend ourselves -- and perhaps the rest of the world's arsenals -- we would reduce the new nuclear danger of total war being dictated by a time-line that prevents rational deliberation.
Fourth, our reduction of our own stockpile would free money and resources to confront other, newer, threats, from regional war to ethnic conflict to international terrorism. We would, quite simply, be getting more safety for less money. This last point is crucial. The $25 billion a year it is estimated we spend maintaining our nuclear arsenal adds far less value to the safety of Americans today than $25 billion spent on our Army, Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps and the intelligence gathering that support these and other pillars of our national security infrastructure.
No President can take such bold action without domestic support. Our ability to forge a new nuclear policy for the post-Cold War era hinges on our ability to thaw the Cold War between those on opposite sides of the ideological divide in our own country. We must realize that we share a common goal: reducing nuclear dangers. I am eager to build partnerships that seize on that common ground while reducing ideological differences. If, for example, some of my Republican colleagues will support me in seeking steep cuts in nuclear arsenals, I am open to working with them on the deployment of a defined, rigorously tested missile defense. Whether it be through this or other means, those with a common goal -- reducing nuclear dangers -- must find common ground. If we elevate imagination over ideology, we can do it.
Imagination seems like a good note on which to end this speech. I opened by telling you we need a new nuclear policy to confront new nuclear dangers. I close by telling you that to do it, we need something that isn't new at all. The same courage, creativity and leadership that won the Cold War are exactly the ingredients we need to keep our people safe in its aftermath. It is clear to me that our nuclear arsenal and the policies which controlled these weapons of mass destruction helped keep our safety and the world's peace for 40 years. It is equally clear that we need a new policy - one which will seize an opportunity to make the world safer still. Thank you.
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Russian Builders Unveil Naval Ships
The Associated Press Tuesday, Sept. 28, 1999
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19990928/aponline173159_000.htm
http://biz.yahoo.com/apf/990928/russia_new_1.html
MOSCOW -- Catering to foreign customers, Russian shipbuilders are offering a stealth-technology patrol ship and a new missile boat, a news agency reported Tuesday.
The St.Petersburg-based Central Maritime Design Office said it would start building the new Skorpion patrol ship next year using stealth technology that will help it elude radar.
The Skorpion has a displacement of 470 tons and is equipped with four containers of anti-ship Yakhont missiles, two Kashtan-1 missiles as well as artillery pieces, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
The Skorpion has a top speed of 40 knots and a range of 2,000 nautical miles, the report said.
Another St. Petersburg-based design company, Almaz, has developed an export version of the Molnia speedboat and plans to test-fire supersonic Moskit anti-ship missiles from it next month. The 550-ton ship is armed with four Moskit missiles.
In addition to the pilot Molnia boat now undergoing tests at the Black Sea base of Feodosia, a shipyard based in the Volga River city of Rybinsk has made four others which already have potential buyers, ITAR-Tass said without elaboration.
Like the rest of the impoverished military, the Russian Navy has little money for new weapons, and shipbuilders have increasingly been looking to export contracts in order to survive.
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U.S. Says Y2K Could Harm Eastern European Nuke Safety
Reuters September 28
By Jim Wolf
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19990928/ts/yk_nuclear_4.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Year 2000-related glitches could undercut safety at some of the 68 Soviet-designed nuclear power plants in nine former Soviet bloc countries, a senior U.S. Energy Department official told Congress Tuesday.
Energy Department experts ``expect the primary safety systems to continue to function properly to shut down the plants safely, if needed, during a Y2K event,'' Deputy Assistant Energy Secretary Ken Baker said in prepared testimony.
``However, there are Y2K issues with other systems important to safety and normal plant operations that, if left uncorrected, could compromise nuclear safety,'' he told the Senate Special Committee on the Y2K problem.
The Y2K glitch stems from the use of two digits to represent years, like 99 for 1999. Unless fixed, computers may read 00 as 1900 instead of 2000. That could trip critical systems, including power grids, and lead nuclear plants to shut down if they lose ``off-site'' backup power.
Baker said the 1986 disaster at Ukraine's Chernobyl No. 4 reactor, which spewed radiation over large parts of Europe, ''revealed many flaws in the Soviet approach to nuclear power.''
``These reactors, including one that still operates at the Chernobyl site, suffer from deficiencies in training, safety procedures, design and equipment,'' he said.
If not corrected, these conditions pose a ``continued risk of a reactor accident'' in Ukraine, Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary and Bulgaria, Baker said.
``The current year 2000 concerns are only a portion of our continuing concerns,'' added Baker, principal deputy assistant secretary in the department's Office of Non-Proliferation and National Security.
VITAL NATIONAL SECURITY INTEREST
If another major nuclear accident occurred, the United States and the international community would be forced to deal with the political, economic and environmental destabilization, Baker said.
As a result, the U.S. government has deemed enhancing the safety of Soviet-era nuclear reactors and improving safety infrastructure in countries that operate them ``a vital national security interest,'' he testified.
Energy Department officials have held many meetings with their counterparts in the former Soviet bloc and toured several power plants to evaluate their readiness.
Even without factoring in Y2K, ``risk experts calculate that the frequency of a core meltdown accident at a (Soviet-designed) RBMK reactor is approximately 100 times higher than at a typical U.S. nuclear power plant,'' Baker said.
Unlike U.S. plants, RBMK reactors, the computers of which are ``known to suffer from both hardware and software Y2K vulnerabilities, do not have structures to contain radiation, ''making the consequences of a core meltdown even more severe,'' he said.
He said radiation-monitoring and security-access systems at these plants also were known to have ``Y2K vulnerabilities'' along with ancillary systems that calculate the state of the reactor core.
Also Y2K vulnerable were the software that calculates power distribution in the core and the system that keeps tabs on nuclear fuel burned, Baker said.
``There is concern that, if not fixed, these problems could result in the simultaneous shutdown of several nuclear plants, causing disruption of power supplies in the middle of winter, he said.
Noting that Ukrainian nuclear power plants produced 47 percent of the nation's electricity in 1997, Baker cited the possibility that authorities might keep plants running even if monitoring systems crashed, ``which would then create a safety problem.''
``Host-country experts are more concerned that Y2K would cause the nuclear power plants to shut down, which would in turn cause the disruption of electric supplies,'' he said.
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Hungary denies U.S. fears of Y2K N-plant flaws
Reuters September 28
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/990928/z3.html
BUDAPEST,Hungary's Soviet-designed Paks nuclear plant is fully Year 2000 compliant, the plant's general manager said on Tuesday, rejecting a report by a U.S. Energy Department official to the Congress.
``When these plants were designed the Soviet technology was not that advanced to build computerized plants,'' Sandor Nagy told Reuters over the phone.
``We only have one computer system that controls safety in one of our reactors, and that was installed this year by Siemens .''
He added that 99 percent of all other computer systems -- which are not linked to the reactors themselves -- are also Year 2000 compliant.
``Even our check-in system is Y2K compliant,'' Nagy said.
Paks has four Soviet-built WWER pressurized water reactors which became operational between 1982 and 1985. Its last failure was in August 1997 when one of the reactors stopped after one of 37 cooling rods did not fully enter the reactor core.
The accident, categorised as the second lowest grade on the seven-grade international scale of nuclear accidents, was caused by a washer that stuck in an external mechanism moving the rods.
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Medicare Y2K Readiness Questioned
Associated Press Tuesday, Sept. 28, 1999
By Jim Abrams
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19990928/aponline112604_000.htm
WASHINGTON -- A Russia already on the economic edge could be heading for more woes on New Year's Day when Y2K-related problems are likely to cause power and telecommunications failures, U.S. officials said at a Senate hearing today.
Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., an expert on Russian defense operations, also told the special Senate panel on the Y2K problem that while the chances of an accidental Russian missile launch are almost non-existent, computer problems could further compound deterioration of Russia's incoming missile early warning system. Y2K could also impede Russia's efforts to secure its nuclear stockpile from intrusions and other potential threats, he said.
"We are advising U.S. citizens who will be in Russia over the millennial transition to be prepared for possible disruptions, especially in key sectors like electricity, heat and telecommunications," said John R. Beyrle, a State Department expert on the New Independent States.
Closer to home, lawmakers and health care experts don't know whether the hospitals, doctors and nursing homes that provide services to the 39 million Americans under Medicare benefits have come to grips with the year 2000 computer problem.
"We remain deeply concerned that many providers still do not appear to be doing all that they must to prepare for the year 2000," Gary Christoph, chief information officer of the Health Care Financing Administration, which oversees Medicare, said at a House hearing Monday.
"The outlook is alarming," said Rep. Stephen Horn, R-Calif., chairman of the House Government Reform subcommittee monitoring the Y2K computer issue. As of last week, he said, less than 2 percent of the 230,000 hospitals, nursing homes, doctors and other health care providers who submit claims to Medicare had tested their computer systems with Medicare contractors.
Christoph said HCFA has completed its efforts to assure that all its internal computer systems are Y2K-compliant and there will be no interruptions in services from its end.
Fred Brown, chairman of the board of trustees of the American Hospital Association, also said hospitals had spent $8 billion to upgrade their computers and will be ready for the new year.
But the concern is that thousands of physicians, nursing homes and small inner-city and rural hospitals either have not addressed the problem or haven't tested their systems to make sure they will work on Jan. 1.
Until tests are carried out, said Joel Willemssen of the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, "the ability of these entities to process Medicare claims in a future date environment is unknown."
The Senate panel that follows Y2K developments came to a similar conclusion in a report last week on Y2K status 100 days before the new millennium. It said that while HCFA and most large hospitals are doing well, there was real concern that doctors and smaller health care centers weren't making adequate preparations.
Many older computers read only the last two digits in a year, raising the possibility that they will be unable to differentiate 2000 from 1900. That could cause malfunctions and breakdowns.
Christoph said all Medicare managed care organizations are required to certify that their systems will perform into the new millennium, but reviews of the contingency plans for national chains indicate that while 50 percent are reasonable or in need of minor improvements, the other 50 percent need major improvements.
The nearly 7 million in Medicare HMO programs require preauthorization for specialty care, said Joseph R. Baker of the Medicare Rights Center. Computer breakdowns could mean that these people can't get the care they need, "with potentially devastating consequences."
Dr. Whitney Addington, president of the American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine, said doctors have a high level of Y2K awareness and many have taken corrective measures. But few have tested their systems, he said, and this could lead to a "last minute 'debugging' demand that could overwhelm available resources."
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Y2K Will Add to Russia's Woes
Associated Press Tuesday, Sept. 28, 1999
By Jim Abrams
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19990928/aponline151420_000.htm
WASHINGTON -- Past fears of an errant Russian missile launch can probably be put to rest, but Y2K problems still threaten serious disruptions to the U.S.-Russia crisis hotlines, a Pentagon official said Tuesday.
Assistant Defense Secretary Edward Warner, testifying before the special Senate panel on Y2K, said Y2K-related software problems could affect full operation of six of the seven direct communications links between the two countries.
"While the schedule is tight," he said, "we are confident that the fixes will be installed and tested by December," before the world confronts the Y2K problem on Jan. 1.
In general, experts testified that while Russia is not so dependent on computers as other countries, the Y2K problem will deal another blow to the already reeling Russian economy.
Russia is likely to experience power and telecommunications disruptions that affect its financial, industrial and government sectors, said John Beyrle, a State Department adviser on Russia. But he added, "At this time, we do not foresee severe, long-term disruptions."
The Y2K problem is the worry among some scientists that with the arrival of the new year, computers designed to read only the last two digits of the year - and not altered before Jan. 1, 2000 - will mistake 2000 for 1900 and malfunction or break down.
The conclusion that the Y2K situation in Russia was serious but not as desperate as once thought was shared by other witnesses.
Warner said the two militaries have worked together closely and agree that the likelihood is "extremely remote" that Y2K computer failures will involve nuclear weapons, support command and control or early-warning systems.
Ken Baker of the Energy Department said department experts "believe that there is not a significantly increased risk of a nuclear accident at Soviet-designed nuclear power plants due to a Y2K event."
Many nations lag well behind the United States in removing Y2K glitches from their computers. Russia, in economic and political turmoil, is regarded as one of the countries most vulnerable to serious repercussions. One report last March predicted that Russian utilities would operate at 40 percent capacity and hospitals would deal with nothing but emergencies for two months.
With fewer than 100 days left before the new year, experts acknowledged some improvements but also pointed to serious problems. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., a leading authority on Russia, said there is almost no chance of an accidental missile launch. But Y2K could further deteriorate Russia's weakened missile early-warning system and expose its nuclear stockpile to security breaches, Lugar said.
Energy's Baker said that while nuclear power plants are relatively safe, radiation monitoring, security access and fuel management systems are vulnerable to Y2K problems. Outages of power supplies from outside the plants could also cause unplanned shutdowns, he said.
Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who heads the Y2K panel with Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, also noted that nuclear reactors can withstand a loss of power for only 90 to 120 minutes before they begin to experience core damage.
The United States and Russia announced this month they are setting up a Center for Year 2000 Strategic Stability at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo. The two sides will be able to share missile launch detection information, ensuring against computer-generated misreadings of launches.
The Pentagon's Warner said the Russians also have requested $15.5 million in Y2K-related equipment such as emergency generators, fire trucks and warhead-handling vehicles. The Defense Department considers the requests reasonable, he said.
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Conference on Small Islands Opens
Associated Press Tuesday, Sept. 28, 1999
By Nicole Winfield
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19990928/aponline063212_000.htm
UNITED NATIONS -- Small islands from the Caribbean to the Pacific are demanding richer nations make good on commitments to help protect them from disasters, both natural and manmade, while also promoting ecologically-friendly development.
Leaders from island nations and the donor community are meeting in New York to assess progress since a 1994 summit in Barbados that resulted in pledges to help island nations combat threats as varied as hurricanes, trade disputes and toxic waste shipments.
Speeches by regional leaders, heading into a second day today, have struck a common theme: The small nations have done admirable work with their limited resources to enact the plans from the Barbados summit. The richer nations, meanwhile, haven't done nearly enough and have even cut back on development assistance.
"We have been disappointed that there have been attempts to back away from the financial commitments," said Hiroshi Yamamura, interior minister for the Marshall Islands, speaking at the special session of the General Assembly.
Norway pledged $580,000 to the United Nations on Monday to help coordinate the U.N. response to the problems of small islands. The money will go toward hiring a special policy adviser.
Norway's state secretary for international development and human rights, Leiv Lunde, who announced the grant, cited the threat of global warming to small islands, whose lands are being submerged as ice caps melt and sea levels rise.
"Small island developing states are practically non-contributors to climate gas emissions and sea-level rise," Lunde told the General Assembly. "Yet they are likely to suffer the most as a result of climate change."
In addition to the environment, the small islands are concerned that trade liberalization will further hurt their economies by restricting their export capabilities.
Another issue topping the agenda was the shipment of nuclear and other toxic waste through island waters.
Fearing accidents, small islands maintain the right to deny any transshipment of such waste through their waters. But in negotiating a final declaration to be adopted today, the island leaders ran into opposition from larger powers such as Japan and France, which want freer rein in shipping.
Caribbean leaders have been most adamant that nuclear and other toxic waste not pass through their waters, fearing even a single accident could threaten the sea that provides their livelihoods through tourism and fishing.
"We put up and live with all kinds of natural disasters," said the deputy prime minister of Barbados, Billie Miller. "We do not in the Caribbean Sea need manmade disasters added to it."
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DOE Loses $35 Million for Cyber Security
Washington Post Writers Wednesday, September 29, 1999
By Walter Pincus and Vernon Loeb
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/29/062l-092999-idx.html
The Senate yesterday passed an energy appropriations bill that omits $35 million requested by Energy Secretary Bill Richardson for increased computer security. The money was eliminated despite months of heated debate over suspected Chinese espionage, during which leading Republicans accused the Clinton administration of foot-dragging on security.
Richardson, traveling overseas, issued a statement charging that Congress was withholding "important tools needed to implement security reform" that Congress itself had demanded.
Without the $35 million, Richardson said, "it will be impossible to provide real-time cyber intrusion detection and protection for 70 Energy Department sites."
The money was eliminated by a House-Senate conference reconciling differences between the initial versions of the bill passed by the two chambers. A member of the conference committee, who requested anonymity, said the $35 million was eliminated because lawmakers "want to see management reform" before they approve a huge funding increase.
The committee member noted that Richardson is developing a $450 million cyber security proposal for fiscal 2001. It would include money to replace all personal computers used in classified programs with machines that do not have floppy disk drives, and thus cannot easily be downloaded.
Congress's action leaves the department with the $2 million it originally sought for computer security before suspected Chinese espionage came to dominate political debate in Washington last spring.
Cyber security, in particular, became a major concern after it was discovered that the government's prime espionage suspect at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Chinese American physicist Wen Ho Lee, had downloaded classified information to his unclassified computer. Lee, who denies passing secrets to China, was fired but has not been charged with any crime.
Meanwhile, the Energy Department's director of counterintelligence, Edward J. Curran, acknowledged yesterday that he recommended his brother, a retired police detective, for a $70-an-hour temporary job reviewing counterintelligence operations at the department's three nuclear weapons laboratories.
But he said the department's inspector general determined that his recommendation did not violate federal conflict-of-interest statutes. "I recommended my brother, yes, but he does not work directly for me," Curran said.
Michael Curran, a veteran of 27 years as a detective for the Waterfront Commission of New York Harbor, has participated in a two-week counterintelligence inspection at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and is now part of a nine-member team reviewing security at the Los Alamos lab in New Mexico.
All told, he will work about six weeks this fall, Edward Curran said, and will participate in additional counterintelligence inspections at Energy Department facilities next year.
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U.S.-Russia 'Hot Lines' on Y2K Fix List
Reuters Wednesday, September 29, 1999
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-09/29/081l-092999-idx.html
The United States and Russia have found potential Year 2000 glitches in all but one of seven Cold War-era "hot lines" and are rushing to correct them, a top Pentagon official told Congress yesterday.
Assistant Defense Secretary Edward Warner, with colleagues from the Energy and State departments, outlined a U.S. drive to help Russia cope with Y2K-related disruptions. In testimony to the Senate Special Committee on Y2K, Warner said the Clinton administration is giving Moscow Y2K-compliant software and computers to correct "program deficiencies in outage reporting, monitoring and channel reroute operations."
Citing safety concerns about the 68 Soviet-designed nuclear power reactors in Russia and eight other former Soviet Bloc states, Ken Baker, deputy assistant energy secretary, said: "The worst enemy is time right now."
He said DOE experts are working bilaterally and with groups, such as the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, to fix Y2K vulnerabilities in Russian and Eastern European nuclear reactors.
The Y2K glitch stems from the use of two digits to represent years. Unless fixed, computers may read 00 as 1900 instead of 2000. This could trip critical systems, including power grids, and cause nuclear plants to shut down if they lose "off-site" backup power.
The U.S. government has deemed enhancing the safety of Soviet-era nuclear reactors "a vital national security interest," Baker testified.
State Department officer John Beyrle said Russia, pinched for cash, may experience Y2K-related problems for "months" into 2000.
Committee Chairman Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) and Vice Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) urged the administration to waste no time in crafting responses to Russia's possible post-Y2K travails.
To avoid misunderstandings during the date change, the United States and Russia agreed to set up a joint Center for Y2K Strategic Stability at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs.
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EDITORIAL: The Bush defense speech
Washington Times September 29, 1999
http://www.washtimes.com/opinion/ed1.html
In his speech last week on national defense and foreign policy, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, left no doubt where he stood on what is arguably the most important issue that the White House's next occupant will face early next century.
"At the earliest possible date," Mr. Bush clearly declared, "my administration will deploy anti-ballistic missile systems, both theater and national, to guard against attack and blackmail." Just to make certain his determination was understood, Mr. Bush said he would act unilaterally if Russia failed to accept amendments to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty that would permit deployment of ABM systems. "If Russia refuses the changes we propose, we will give prompt notice, under the provisions of the [ABM] treaty, that we can no longer be a party to it," he promised. Demonstrating that his priorities as U.S. commander in chief would be in order, Mr. Bush refreshingly added, "I will have a solemn obligation to protect the American people and our allies, not to protect arms control agreements signed almost 30 years ago."
Unlike columnist Pat Buchanan, who is threatening to bolt the Republican Party in pursuit of the Reform Party's presidential nomination, Mr. Bush also proved that he understood America's role during "a century of struggle." Referring to "young Americans in uniform" whose character was "tested in death marches and jungle fire-fights and desert battles," Mr. Bush acknowledged a great debt to those who "left long rows of crosses and Stars of David, fighting for people they did not know and a future they would not see." What they accomplished, Mr. Bush rightly observed, was worth the supreme price they paid: "In the end, they won an epic struggle to save liberty itself." And unlike mush-minded liberals who preached the reprehensible doctrine of "moral equivalence" as the foundation of the Cold War, Mr. Bush reminded his audience at The Citadel that the United States arrived at "this era of American preeminence" by achieving victory over "an Evil Empire." The "challenge" facing America's next leader will be "to turn these years of influence into decades of peace."
"Building a durable peace will require strong alliances, expanding trade and confident diplomacy," Mr. Bush argued, adding that it will also require "tough realism in our dealings with China and Russia." Such realism has clearly been lacking during the Clinton-Gore administration, which blocked attempts by the FBI to obtain court approval to electronically monitor a suspected Chinese spy at a nuclear weapons laboratory and ignored growing evidence that billions of dollars of aid to Russia was being siphoned by the Russian Mafia. The durable peace would also "require firmness with regimes like North Korea and Iraq," not, presumably, the pattern of unilateral concessions established with the former and the propensity to bomb vacant military buildings to punish the latter.
Above all, Mr. Bush recognizes that "the foundation of our peace [must be] a strong, capable and modern military." Unfortunately, as commander in chief he would inherit a military that the Clinton-Gore administration has shortchanged to such an extent that defense spending, measured as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), is now at its lowest level since 1940, the year before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. At 3 percent of GDP, defense spending is now less than half the level allocated a mere 12 years ago and less than a third of the level during the Kennedy administration. Yet, even as inflation-adjusted defense spending has plunged by nearly one-third, the Clinton-Gore administration has dramatically increased deployments. The inevitable results have included a sharp decline in morale, a huge backlog in the procurement of needed weapons, a significant deterioration in readiness and an escalation of retirements among the military services' most skilled soldiers and sailors.
To the the military, which the Clinton-Gore administration has absurdly used to pursue its gender-equity agenda, Mr. Bush said, "We intend to change your structure, but we will respect your culture.
He implored Congress to join him in "creating a new strategic vision for our military -- a set of goals that will take precedence over the narrow interests of states and regions." And he promised to "confront the Congress when it uses the defense budget as a source of pork or patronage." To do that, of course, he need not wait until he is elected. To demonstrate his determination to remove "pork and patronage" from national-security decisions, Mr. Bush ought to publicly pressure Congress to pursue additional base-closing rounds, something Republicans have been avoiding like the plague. And he ought to demand that Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott stop pressuring the U.S. Navy to accept a $1.5 billion ship built in Mr. Lott's home state of Mississippi that the Navy has not requested. To fund his laudably ambitious ABM systems and to rebuild the nation's defenses, Mr. Bush will need to eliminate the billions and billions of dollars in "pork and patronage" that permeate the defense budget.
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Turkish Premier Is Empty-Handed After Meeting With Clinton
New York Times September 29, 1999
By JANE PERLEZ
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/turkey-us.html
WASHINGTON -- After a meeting between Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit and President Clinton, the administration announced Tuesday that it would send its new special envoy to Cyprus into the region to try and start talks between the two sides on the divided island.
The dispatch of Alfred Moses, a former U.S. ambassador to Romania and now the envoy to Cyprus, appeared to be the most concrete action to emerge from the White House encounter Tuesday.
A specific aid package that had been planned by the United States to help Turkey rebuild after its earthquake was watered down so much that in the end Turkey decided not to accept what was offered, administration officials said.
The administration hoped to capitalize on the improved relations between rival Greece and Turkey since both had experienced recent earthquakes and then sent assistance to each other.
With the human help bridging diplomatic differences, the administration wanted to use the new warmth to start a renewal of talks between Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
After the White House meeting, senior administration officials stressed that Ecevit had not agreed with the administration's request -- backed by the European Union -- for United Nations-sponsored negotiations between the two sides on Cyprus.
Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denkash has steadfastly refused to participate in talks.
Using careful language, an administration official said that the Turkish leader "supported the idea of sending Al Moses to the region to explore ways of moving toward a negotiated settlement."
The U.S. delegate to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, who was also a special envoy to Cyprus, made similar but unsuccessful trips last year.
Cyprus has been divided since Turkish troops invaded in 1974 in response to a Greek-inspired coup in Nicosia. A breakaway Turkish-Cypriot state in the north is recognized by Turkey only, which keeps about 30,000 troops there.
The administration did not appear to see a breakthrough on Cyprus soon. An administration official said that "this was a very opportune moment," but added that "we're realistic people."
On the question of aid for reconstruction, Turkish officials had said they hoped the United States cold provide guarantees for about $5 billion in loans.
But the administration, after talking with Congress, offered backing for about $1 billion in loans. In recent days, Turkish officials have expressed their disappointment and decided not to push for the aid, fearing that new loans might tax the country's credit ratings.
Tuesday, an administration official said the earthquake damage was less dramatic than first thought, and that with help from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the guarantees from Washington were not needed.
The failure to come through with guarantees for Turkey -- in contrast to the $750 million in grants and credits from the European Union -- was the result of several factors, said Alan Makovsky, an analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies.
"I fault the administration not for lack of good will but for lack of getting their act together in time" for the prime minister's visit, Makovsky said.
"It's lack of leadership with the Congress and the parsimonious approach that Congress has taken to foreign affairs."
Since Ecevit, a senior left-of-center politician, became prime minister earlier this year, Turkey has improved its human rights record.
Clinton administration officials have praised the government for this but have suggested there is room for further improvement.
Akin Birdal, former president of the Human Rights Association, was released from prison Saturday.
And earlier this month one of Turkey's best-known prisoners, the pro-Kurdish sociologist Ismail Besikci, was released from prison. He was warned that he would be sent back to prison if he again violates laws against publishing subversive opinions.
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Better Ties Seen for Greek-Turkey
The Associated Press, September 29, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-US-Turkey.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Clinton believes Turkey and Greece may be able to build on the mutual help the longtime rivals offered each other following the devastating earthquakes they both suffered in recent weeks.
``This meeting is occurring in an atmosphere of hope,'' the president said Tuesday at the start of his session with Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit.
The 7.4-magnitude quake in Turkey on Aug. 17 killed more than 15,600 people and left 600,000 homeless. It caused $6.5 billion in damage, according to World Bank estimates. A smaller earthquake north of Athens this month killed 139 Greeks and caused serious damage.
Clinton said the United States has been seeking a resumption of U.N.-sponsored talks between Athens and Ankara over Cyprus.
``We hope that somehow we can find a way to get there,'' he said.
Ecevit was prime minister when Turkey sent troops to Cyprus in 1974. Its troops have occupied Cyprus' northern part since then.
After his White House meeting, Ecevit said Clinton told him there could be no return to the status quo on Cyprus to the pre-1974 period. Ecevit called this a ``very intelligent observation.''
During the preceding 10 years before the 1974, there had been ``genocidal attacks'' on Turkish Cypriots by Greek Cypriots, Ecevit told a gathering sponsored by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
He said fruitful negotiations can begin only when ``the reality is accepted that an independent state exists on the northern part of the island.''
On other subjects, Ecevit:
-- Complained that all U.S. support for the Turkish military has stopped and that U.S. interest rates for Turkish repayment of loans for arms acquisitions have reached 10.8 percent. He said that figure was too high. He also wondered why Americans account for only 5 percent of Turkey's tourist trade.
-- Expressed confidence that the European Union will one day ``knock on Turkey's door'' and invite Ankara to become a member.
-- Said Iranian President Mohammad Khatami is much more ``liberal-minded than many others in political religious circles in Iran. I don't know whether he will be able to exert his influence as much as he would like.''
-- Said the problems in Turkish prisons stem from militants with access to weapons. Prisons were ``almost arsenals for terrorist activities.'' As for torture, he said a new law has been approved increasing sanctions for prison guards who engage in such practices.
-- Expressed hope that territorial disputes with Greece can be resolved through negotiations. This is preferable, he said, to taking the case to the International Court of Justice, as Greece has proposed. He said that to achieve an improvement in the overall political climate in the Aegean, ``the psychological atmosphere'' must first be improved.
-- Said Arab countries should realize that improvements in Turkey's relations with Israel is not an act hostile to them.
-- Declared that Turkey is prepared to establish normal ties with longtime rival Armenia once that country returns captured territory to Azerbaijan.
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Turkey accepts offer for Cyprus envoy
THE WASHINGTON TIMES September 29, 1999
By Toni Marshall
http://www.washtimes.com/internatl/internatl1.html
Turkey's Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit raised hopes yesterday for an eventual settlement of the dispute between Greece and Turkey over the ethnically divided Mediterranean island of Cyprus.
The prime minister, in his first visit to the United States since Turkey and Greece found a wellspring of sympathy for each other in the wake of earthquake disasters in both places, accepted President Clinton's offer to dispatch a special envoy to the region.
Mr. Clinton seized the moment of the Turkish leader's visit to the White House to offer a helping hand.
Administration officials who participated in the session said Mr. Ecevit responded by welcoming Clinton's suggestion that his special envoy, Al Moses, head to Turkey as early as next week.
One official said Mr. Clinton stressed that both parties needed "to come to the tables with no preconditions."
He praised the emerging climate of cordiality and respect between historic enemies.
The president is expected to travel to Turkey and Greece in November.
"This meeting is occurring in an atmosphere of hope, in a positive atmosphere," Mr. Clinton said, just prior to his meeting with the Turkish leader. "It recognizes not only our longtime strategic partnership with Turkey but recent developments and this prime minister's leadership, and I appreciate it very much."
Mr. Clinton said the two leaders had much to discuss, including the progress in dealing with the aftermath of the earthquake, the improving relationships between Turkey and Greece and the European Union, questions involving Cyprus, and human rights.
The two leaders were to discuss U.S. support for an east-to-west oil pipeline from Azerbaijan through Turkey, which the United States favors.
Turkish troops invaded Northern Cyprus in 1974 after a coup on the island by a militant group favoring Cypriot union with Greece toppled a neutralist cleric leader. Cyprus remains divided today.
"What we've been working for all along is the resumption of U.N.-sponsored talks [on Cyprus] without preconditions, and we hope that somehow we can find a way to get there," Mr. Clinton said.
Turkey has been lobbying for integration into the European Union, but the Western economic clique has rebuffed Turkey's applications, citing the government for its rampant human rights violations.
President Clinton said yesterday that Turkey was making progress, and the "actions that have been taken to improve relations with Greece have helped."
He continued: "There's been a change in attitude in some of the European capitals about Turkey's integration . . . I think some of the actions on human rights have helped. And I think more movement in those directions will eventually get to the result that Turkey wants."
White House spokesman Joe Lockhart told reporters earlier that the president "will recognize the encouraging signs of joint cooperation between Greece and Turkey over the two devastating earthquakes," and will hope for more cooperation between the two countries.
A catastrophic earthquake killed roughly 15,000 people in Turkey in August. Greece was rocked by an earthquake in September. The two countries have offered each other condolences and aid.
Greece has said it would support European Union aid for Turkey.
Mr. Ecevit is expected to ask Washington to secure $5 billion worth of housing construction bonds, and for an easing of a textile quota, which limits Turkish imports.
Textiles and ready-to-wear items make up 10 percent of Turkey's gross national product, and textile exports constituted nearly half of the $2.2 billion in Turkish exports to the United States last year.
Mr. Ecevit told reporters, while en route to Washington on Sunday, that his country has suffered direct losses of about $30 billion to $35 billion because of sanctions against neighboring Iraq.
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Ocalan Warns Turkey To Answer Peace Gesture
Reuters September 28, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990928/13/international-turkey-kurds
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) - Condemned guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan warned Tuesday that the Kurdish rebellion in southeast Turkey could spiral out of control if Turkish authorities failed to respond to peace moves.
Turkey's army responded by saying the peace gestures were symbolic and Ocalan's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels remained a threat and had to surrender or be "neutralized."
Ocalan, who last week called on a group of PKK fighters to surrender to Turkey with their weapons, issued a statement saying Turkey should not spurn the gesture.
"In the event that the irresponsible policies of Turkish society and the state continue, there may be developments which no one will be able to control," he said in the statement faxed to Reuters by his lawyers.
It was the latest in a series of statements Ocalan has issued from his island prison cell, including an order for his rebels to end their armed struggle and withdraw from Turkey.
ARMY DISMISSES OFFER
But the army, the arbiter of power in Turkey, said the PKK maintained a presence in Iraq, Iran and Syria, and that even if IT pulled out of Turkey the rebels still constituted a threat.
"The Turkish armed forces are determined to continue their fight until every terrorist has been neutralized," the General Staff said in a statement carried by the Anatolian news agency.
"The only way out for the terrorists is surrender and seek the shelter of great Turkish justice."
Ocalan has been sentenced to death for leading a 15-year armed struggle for Kurdish self-rule in which some 30,000 rebels, soldiers and civilians have died, most of them Kurds.
While awaiting a ruling on his appeal, Ocalan has portrayed himself as the only man able to negotiate an end to the war.
"In order that new tension is not created, everyone should acknowledge our peace efforts and a suitable legal and political framework (boosting Kurdish rights) should be set up," he said.
A senior Kurdish commander said Monday that a PKK unit would surrender in the next few days. They are expected to come from bases in the Kurdish enclave of northern Iraq.
The army dismissed this as a "symbolic gesture" and said as long as any rebels remained armed, they would be a threat.
LIMITED AMNESTY
A new amnesty law grants reprieve only to guerrillas who have not taken part in armed attacks.
The PKK says it is carrying out Ocalan's orders to abandon the armed struggle and retreat from Turkey, but clashes have broken out in the mountains of southeast Turkey and in north Iraq, where some Turkish troops have set up bases.
The European-based Kurdish DEM news agency reported 15 Turkish troops had died in fighting in the Haftanin region of northern Iraq along with six guerrillas. An official source in Turkey also reported clashes but did not mention casualties.
Turkey restricts media access to the remote region, making independent confirmation of reports difficult. North Iraq has been outside Baghdad's control since the 1991 Gulf War.
The emergency rule governor's office in the southeastern regional capital Diyarbakir said four rebels had been killed close to the borders with Iraq and Iran and another in the town of Sirnak. There was no mention of military casualties.
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Turkey Grumbles, Gets Clinton's Sympathy
Reuters September 28, 1999
By Jonathan Wright
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/990928/20/international-turkey-usa
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit put a long list of grievances to the United States Tuesday and said President Clinton was sympathetic on textile quotas and on Turkish losses from years of U.N. sanctions against Iraq.
Clinton, speaking before the White House talks began, hailed a new "atmosphere of hope" for Turkey and noted the trend toward warmer Turkish-Greek relations.
Ecevit said in a speech later that the talks went very well. "They took place in a very friendly atmosphere and it opened new vistas of cooperation for us," he added.
But the Turkish prime minister also had little substantial to show in the way of U.S. help for the Turkish economy -- the main objective of a visit which Turks are watching closely.
And the gap remained wide on the arrangements for resuming talks between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots on a settlement for the divided Mediterranean island.
The Group of Eight big industrial countries wants the negotiations to resume in the autumn without preconditions but Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash insists on recognition at the negotiating table as a head of state.
A U.S. official said: "We believe that we should move forward to talks under U.N. auspices with no preconditions and that is the point that the president made to the prime minister in the discussions. I think what we've seen today is clearly an openness on the part of the prime minister to discuss in detailed ways that we could move forward toward that."
Clinton's newly appointed special envoy on Cyprus, Al Moses, will go to the region next week, he added.
But Ecevit, who ordered Turkish troops to invade Cyprus in 1974 after a coup in Nicosia backed by colonels in Athens, firmly backed Denktash's position, saying the existence of two states on the island was undeniable.
"The reality must be accepted that there are two separate independent states on Cyprus," he told an audience of diplomats, reporters and analysts.
He quoted Clinton as saying no solution in Cyprus could restore the pre-invasion status quo. "This was a very encouraging and understanding remark, an historic pronouncement," he added, without elaboration.
Ecevit's government had hoped the Washington visit would bring some relief for the Turkish economy, which has suffered from the sanctions against Iraq, the financial crisis in Russia and finally the devastating earthquake of August.
But it had already given up hope of obtaining a U.S. government guarantee for housing bonds for reconstruction or the cancellation of some of Turkey's military debt.
Ecevit said he brought up the military debt, the losses from the Iraqi sanctions, which deprived Turkey of a major market, and negotiations on a larger textile quota.
He said the interest rate on the military debt had risen to 10.8 percent from 3 percent. "We have mentioned our dissatisfactions with this situation in our talks here and I hope that they have been well received," he added.
On Iraq he said: "We have paid a very heavy price and I got the impression that President Clinton admits that this is not fair so I hope that our relations with Iraq should be to some degree eased so that our economic losses be compensated."
Ecevit was more hopeful about the textile quotas, which the United States agreed to renegotiate to help Turkey overcome the economic effects of the earthquake.
"We asked his (Clinton's) contribution to a decision to increase the quotas ... and I believe I got the impression that President Clinton will give the green light for a considerable increase."
U.S. officials who declined to be identified said Clinton was receptive to Ecevit's views on textiles and some flexibility could be found within the current quotas.
Textiles account for 10 percent of Turkey's gross national product, and textile exports made up 45 percent of the $2.2 billion in Turkish exports to the United States last year.
Clinton administration officials said U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky was expected to sign a trade and investment framework that could help Turkey's economy.
Turkey and the United States did agree that Turkey could be a candidate to join the European Union, that the EU should not exclude Turkey from defense arrangements and that an oil pipeline from the Caspian should run through Turkey.
Ecevit is scheduled to meet Wednesday with International Monetary Fund Director Michel Camdessus in hopes of reaching a stand-by agreement to help the Turkish economy.
U.S. officials said that given the strong reforms put in place by the Turkish government and the sound budget proposed for fiscal year 2000, "we certainly look forward to being very supportive of a strong stand-by agreement".
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US Wants Iraq To Export More Oil
Associated Press Tuesday, Sept. 28, 1999
By Nicole Winfield
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19990928/aponline201034_000.htm
UNITED NATIONS -- The United States has begun drafting a plan to let Iraq export oil beyond its U.N.-mandated limit without suspending the oil embargo, U.N. and U.S. officials said Tuesday.
The move came as Iraqi Oil Minister Amer Mohammed Rashid vowed Baghdad would continue to export oil regardless of whether the Security Council approved it.
"We'll continue to produce and export as much as we can within our capabilities, independent of any other measure," the minister said at a news conference in Baghdad upon the arrival of his Russian counterpart, Viktor Kaluzhny.
The U.S. plan would let Iraq keep exporting oil even after it reaches the $5.26 billion ceiling authorized under the U.N. oil-for-food program, which allows Baghdad to sell limited amounts of oil over six months to buy food and medicine.
Iraq is expected to reach that limit by the second week in October, nearly a month before the current six-month phase ends Nov. 20.
Without Security Council authorization to exceed the ceiling, Baghdad wouldn't have the legal right to continue exports.
The U.S. plan, which would require a council resolution, would allow Iraq to keep exporting oil beyond the $5.26 billion limit to make up for export shortfalls from previous six-month periods.
Because of low oil prices and production limits, Iraq fell $3.5 billion short of the ceiling over the course of two six-month periods last year.
At current prices and production levels, Iraq can be expected to generate about $7 billion in oil by Nov. 20, still short of the $8.76 billion that would be allowed if the U.S. plan is approved.
A second proposal under consideration would have the Security Council estimate how much Iraq could earn through exports by the Nov. 20 expiration of the current phase and adjust the revenue ceiling up to that number, diplomats said.
The United States and Britain - Iraq's toughest critics on the council - were reluctant to lift the export cap altogether before the council reaches agreement on an overall resolution on returning U.N. weapons inspectors to Iraq while improving the humanitarian situation for Iraqis.
Iraq's 22 million people have lived under sanctions imposed after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Under U.N. resolutions, sanctions cannot be lifted until Iraq is declared to be free of its biological, chemical and nuclear weapons. Iraq says it has fully complied and deserves to have sanctions lifted immediately.
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Iraq, Russia meets on cooperation
UPI September 29, 1999
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/u/990929/10/international-russia
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 29 (UPI) Iraqi and Russian officials have begun three days of talks in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, to discuss boosting economic, trade and technical cooperation.
The official Iraqi News Agency said today that the two sides, headed by Iraq's petroleum minister and the Russian energy minister, are focusing discussions on "putting a new framework for trade, economic and technical cooperation between the two friendly countries in a way that contributes in expanding fields of cooperation among them in the future."
Officials said the Iraqi and 75-member Russian team, which arrived in Baghdad by road on Tuesday, will mainly focus their talks on boosting cooperation in the oil and gas sectors.
Iraq's Petroleum Minister Amer Mohammad Rasheed said on Tuesday upon receiving the Russian delegation that the two countries would discuss activating joint ventures in oil and gas, saying such cooperation "is a reality that reflects the desire of both countries" for cooperation.
Officials said the joint Iraqi-Russian committee would also work on removing obstacles that have hindered the launching of the joint ventures agreed upon in 1997.
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Iraqi arsenal undiminished, inspector says
USA Today 9/28/99
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nwstue03.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - Iraq's ability to wage war with prohibited weapons is "undiminished and possibly greater" than when U.N. weapons inspections were halted almost a year ago, the former head of the inspection team said Tuesday.
Ambassador Richard Butler also said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has benefited from what appears to be diminishing international resolve in ensuring Iraqi compliance with U.N. Security Council demands that all weapons of mass destruction in Iraq be eliminated.
In contrast to global weariness with the issue, Butler said, Saddam continues to have a "profound addiction" for such armaments, dating from 1988 when he used chemical weapons against an Iraqi Kurd community suspected of disloyalty.
Butler, who testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, became known for his tenacious pursuit of Iraq's weapons stocks declared illegal by the U.N. Security Council when the Persian Gulf War ended almost nine years ago.
Butler and his inspection team conducted searches until last December when Iraq barred their return.
Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, R-N.C., heaped praised on the Australian diplomat and said he shared Butler's pessimism. He said a majority of the five permanent members of the Security Council - referring to Russia, China and France - are not willing to enforce the weapons ban even though the 1991 resolution making them illegal is unambiguous.
These three countries "don't care about the council's credibility, but if the United States does not stand up and be counted, Saddam will have tweaked the noses of weak-kneed diplomats once more," Helms said.
"This administration will have to admit that Saddam Hussein is determined to acquire weapons of mass destruction at any price," he said. "So if the United States is serious about ensuring stability in that region by disarming Iraq, Saddam is going to have to be ousted first."
Butler's agency lapsed this past summer, and efforts to come up with a replacement have been unsuccessful.
A Russian resolution would essentially accept the Iraqi claim that it has disarmed and remove sanctions in exchange for Iraqi acceptance of an ongoing monitoring system.
Another resolution, introduced by Britain and the Netherlands and backed by the United States, would suspend sanctions for renewable periods of six months provided Iraq complied with inspections by a successor U.N. monitoring agency.
Butler credited Saddam with "a brilliant propaganda campaign" in convincing many governments that the U.N. economic sanctions against Iraq are causing widespread suffering among the Iraqi people. Rejecting that argument, Butler contended Saddam is the reason the sanctions remain in place.
Helms agreed, saying, "Food and medicine are rotting in Iraqi warehouses undistributed while little children suffer and die."
To ease the humanitarian plight of the Iraqi people, the Security Council has allowed Iraq to resume oil sales on a limited basis so long as the proceeds are used to meet the basic needs of the Iraqi people. But reports of suffering continue.
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Turkish Troops Enter Iraq To Chase Kurds
ReutersSeptember 29, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-turkey-.html
TUNCELI, Turkey (Reuters) - Thousands of Turkish troops, backed by air power, have crossed into northern Iraq to hunt down Turkish Kurd rebels hiding out in the mountains there, a senior military official told Reuters Wednesday.
He said some 5,000 troops crossed the rugged border at three separate points Monday to reinforce soldiers already there and attacked positions held by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) forces loyal to condemned rebel chief Abdullah Ocalan.
The rebels have bases in a remote northern Iraqi enclave, outside Baghdad's control since the 1991 Gulf War, and are thought to be gathering there following an order from Ocalan to abandon their armed struggle and pull out of Turkey.
The source gave no details of any casualties, though the German-based Kurdish DEM news agency said 15 Turkish soldiers and six PKK guerrillas had been killed in fighting in the northern Iraqi Haftanin region. The respected Cumhuriyet newspaper said Turkish jets had bombed rebel bases there.
The clashes came a day after Ocalan, on death row in a Turkish jail, warned that the 15-year conflict that has killed more than 30,000 could spin out of control if Turkey did not take his overtures for peace seriously.
Turkey's army has flatly refused to let up on its military assault against the PKK, saying operations will continue until ''every terrorist has been neutralized.'' Ocalan's PKK set out to fight for Kurdish self-rule, but now only wants cultural rights.
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Turkish army pursues Kurds into Iraq
USA Today September 29, 1999 (World)
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm
ISTANBUL, Turkey - The Turkish army vowed on Tuesday to crush Kurdish rebels amid reports that government soldiers stormed into northern Iraq to battle guerrillas who have retreated from Turkey. Even as convicted Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan called for peace, the Cumhuriyet newspaper said Tuesday that 5,000 troops backed by helicopter gunships pushed into northern Iraq Monday to attack rebels bases. Kurdish militants have declared a cease-fire and have ordered their fighters to pull out of southeastern Turkey, a move the army has dismissed as a tactical retreat before winter. Ocalan urged Turkey to respond positively to the offer to surrender.