-------- y2k
Senate Panel Seeks Y2K Nuke Plant Contingency Plans
Reuters Filed at 5:07 a.m. EDT By Reuters November 14, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-nuclear-utilitie.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A special Senate committee overseeing Year 2000 preparedness released a letter on Friday which asks nuclear regulators to provide better information on reactor safety and contingency plans before the new year.
The letter, provided to Reuters by staff of Utah Republican Sen. Robert Bennett, chairman of the Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem, says the panel was encouraged by statements from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on plant safety, but still had unanswered questions.
``The committee continues to believe that the electrical grid will be stable and that disruptions from Y2K will be minimal, We are concerned, however, about the lack of public confidence in the nuclear industry's efforts and specific post Dec. 31, 1999, operating regimes,'' said the letter, from Bennett to NRC Chairman Greta Joy Dicus.
Y2K refers to the potential problem associated with computers reading the year 2000 as 1900, caused by systems built to read only the last two digits of a given year.
Governments and industry worldwide have worked to correct date sensitive computers to avoid possible malfunctions and system shutdowns when the new year kicks in on Jan. 1, 2000.
The committee letter, which is dated Nov. 1, asked that the NRC answer the following questions by Monday:
+ Provide a list of nuclear power plants and how their mission-critical systems were validated as Y2K-ready.
+ Provide detailed information about voluntary pledges by industry representatives to maintain a 30-45 day supply of emergency diesel generator fuel, and other measures to reduce the risk of plant failure.
+ Give a description of the process by which NRC will make a final determination as to which plants, if any, will be shut down over safety concerns during the year 2000 rollover.
+ List the minimal safety standards that will be acceptable under the proposed suspension of technical regulations.
Earlier this week, the NRC and the nuclear industry announced that all 103 operating U.S. nuclear power plants were fully ready for the Y2K rollover, and pose no safety threat from possible computer glitches.
In July, NRC said all commercial reactors were cleared for safety-related Y2K problems.
A spokesman for the industry trade group, the Nuclear Energy Institute, said nuclear plants were ready for Y2K.
``The plants have been fully remediated (for any safety related problems) for many months,'' the NEI spokesman said.
Anti-nuclear advocates have scoffed at the 100 percent safe pronouncements, noting a General Accounting Office report in October which doubted the independence of Y2K verification programs for nuclear power plants.
``With only seven weeks until the Y2K rollover the nuclear industry has yet to satisfy the Senate's, the GAO's and the public's fundamental concerns regarding potential devastating mishaps which could even lead to multiple meltdowns after New Year's,'' according to the World Atomic Safe Holiday organization in Bolinas, Calif.
Bennett's letter, co-signed by the vice-chairman of the special panel, Connecticut Democrat Sen. Christopher Dodd, said the committee simply wants ``lingering questions'' answered.
---
911 centers in Y2K trouble
by Paula Shaki Trimble, CNN November 12, 1999 8:16 a.m. EST (1316 GMT)
http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9911/12/911.idg/index.html
(IDG) -- Only 50 percent of the nation's 911 centers are prepared to handle the millennium date change, according to the Clinton administration's final Year 2000 report released Wednesday.
Although 99 percent of the federal government's mission-critical computer systems are ready, local and state governments and small businesses are still at risk, said John Koskinen, chairman of the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion.
As of Oct. 1, survey results from more than 2,700 911 call centers operated by local governments revealed that only 50 percent of the centers were Year 2000-compliant. That means as the new year turns, computers in those centers could interpret the year 2000 as 1900 because of systems that rely on a two-digit date field to identify a year.
Because the council's surveys are confidential, Koskinen would not discuss which 911 centers are in trouble.
The problem lies with the centers' automation systems, which automatically dispatch emergency response teams to a particular area, Koskinen said. Most of the systems have manual backups that may cause delays in emergency response, he said.
Most centers expect to complete their work before the end of the year, he said. "Those who are not done are obviously cutting it very close," he said.
Koskinen stressed the need for the government, businesses and individuals to continue testing their systems and developing contingency plans.
"It is inevitable that there will be glitches in those systems even though they were tested and appear to be operating," he said.
Meanwhile, of the more than 6,000 mission-critical systems in the federal government, only 40 remain to be brought to compliance, Koskinen said. Most of those systems are in the Defense Department, which has sufficient backup and contingency plans for those systems, he said.
"We are confident, subject to glitches, that the basic work of the federal government is done," he said.
Koskinen's report is the 11th in a series of updates on the federal government's progress in fixing Year 2000 problems. The Office of Management and Budget released the first quarterly report February 1997.
-------- us nuc weapons plants
Environment Idaho Incinerator Proposal Fires Up Environmental Fears By Cat Lazaroff
Environmental News Service November 11, 1999
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/nov99/1999L-11-11-07.html
BOISE, Idaho, November 11, 1999 (ENS) - Idaho and federal regulators have issued a final draft permit for a proposed radioactive waste incinerator at the Idaho National Environmental and Engineering Laboratory (INEEL) in southeastern Idaho. The incinerator is vehemently opposed by environmental groups, who fear the project could send toxic fumes up to 90 miles downwind into communities and two National Parks.
INEEL, the proposed site for a controversial new radioactive waste incinerator (Photo courtesy INEEL)
The Idaho Division of Environmental Quality and the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said they have "found no indication that measurable adverse effects would occur to people, animals, livestock or crops (among other things) as a result of operation of the proposed treatment facility."
The draft permit for the Advanced Mixed Waste Treatment Facility will be subject to an extended 90 day public comment period. Approval of the permit is the last major hurdle facing the incinerator.
The proposed $1.2 billion project would burn plutonium contaminated waste mixed with other hazardous materials. The facility is required under Idaho's 1995 nuclear waste deal with the federal government, and would be used to process about 65,000 cubic meters of radioactive waste now stored at INEEL. The wastes could then be shipped to the underground Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) in New Mexico for permanent disposal by 2018.
INEEL waste would eventually be shipped to the WIPP permanent storage facility in New Mexico (Photo courtesy WIPP)
Contractor British Nuclear Fuels Limited Inc. says the incinerator would burn off about 22 to 25 percent of the waste to remove certain toxic organic materials, including cancer causing PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), that cannot legally be dumped at WIPP. The remainder would be compacted and packaged for disposal. Mixed wastes from other nuclear weapons sites could also be burned at INEEL.
A coalition of environmental groups has been battling the proposed incinerator since it was first suggested, as a waste disposal project using unspecified technology, in 1994. The project would be located just 90 miles upwind of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and the town of Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
"This facility will provide little if any benefit to people and the environment downstream of INEEL while putting Yellowstone Park, its wildlife, and the people who live and recreate in and around it at risk," said Roger Singer, local chapter director of the Sierra Club. "Contrary to what was analyzed in the Environmental Impact Statement, I know nuclear contamination does not necessarily cease to exist 50 miles away from its source."
Grand Teton National Park lies downwind of the proposed incinerator (Two photos courtesy NPS)
Much of the coalition's concern has revolved around a lack of public input into the project. "The DOE basically decided to OK construction of an incinerator and what all would be incinerated before getting any input from the public," said Pamela Allister, executive director of the Snake River Alliance.
On Tuesday, the coalition, led by prominent attorney Gerry Spence, filed another complaint in federal court in Cheyenne, Wyoming in their continuing lawsuit to halt the incinerator. The amended complaint, filed by Keep Yellowstone Nuclear Free, Environmental Defense Institute, Snake River Alliance and the Sierra Club, argues again that the Department of Energy (DOE) did not adequately inform the public about the project.
The lawsuit argues that the DOE did not publicly disclose crucial information about British Nuclear's safety and environmental record, and approved the project before a disposal design was selected. In addition, the private contract awarded to the company makes British Nuclear responsible for the project's risks and profits, which the lawsuit alleges could encourage corner cutting.
The DOE has ignored "past accidents, mishaps and regulatory lapses, which have plagued its nuclear waste program and which call into question its unsupported assurances about the safety of the incinerator project," the lawsuit states.
The Old Faithful geyser, a major attraction at Yellowstone National Park, some 90 miles downwind of the proposed incinerator
The coalition claims that the DOE knows that cancer risks from the incinerator's exhaust could be as much as 100 times higher than those from non-incineration disposal methods for the toxic waste.
"Nevertheless, it downplays the real risks of cancer and other human health impacts from incineration, failing to disclose the total cumulative effects which the expected release of radioactive and toxic materials will pose for people who live in the downwind region," the amended lawsuit states.
The environmentalists also say the DOE did not perform an independent environmental impact study, but instead relied on information supplied by the contractor. Finally, the public health study performed by DOE does not adequately consider the incinerator's effects on vulnerable populations like the elderly or the very young.
U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson in Cheyenne has refused to block work on the incinerator because actual construction is not scheduled to begin for months, but he has agreed to hear the lawsuit.
An EPA spokesperson told ENS that federal agency and state officials were satisfied that their review of the permit application was "thorough" and considered all worst case scenarios.
Type II storage modules (foreground) at INEEL's Radioactive Waste Management Complex (Photo courtesy INEEL)
Federal and state officials claim that leaving the waste in Idaho and untreated would pose much greater dangers to the environment and public health because of potential leaks in INEEL storage facilities, which are over the Snake River Plain Aquifer. The DOE is legally obligated to remove the waste from Idaho, where is has been stored for decades, by 2018.
"From the beginning we've asked the simple question: Will the pile of waste we end up with be safer than the pile we began with after all the risks of treatment are added in? We don't like going to court, but what we really dislike is not having that fundamental question answered," said Allister.
Regulators promised this week to work with Wyoming officials to address concerns raised in that downwind state. Special workshops to review the draft permit will be held in four Idaho cities next month, and public hearings will be held in late January.
---
Lawmaker: Nuke Info Blocked in Hearing
By Patrick Armijo, Albuquerque Journal Thursday, November 11, 1999
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/11news11-11-99.htm
WASHINGTON -- A House subcommittee was blocked 13 months ago from learning of the suspected theft of nuclear-weapons technology from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the subcommittee chairman said Wednesday. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the Military Procurement Subcommittee, said he could have gotten critical information for an Oct. 6, 1998, hearing from original testimony prepared by Notra Trulock, former head of the Energy Department's Office of Intelligence. Trulock's testimony would have given the subcommittee enough information to block the access of then-Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee to nuclear-weapons secrets, Hunter said. Lee has denied any wrongdoing.
Trulock's original testimony was never delivered to the committee because his Energy Department superior at the time told him to delete any information not pertaining to security concerns with the foreign-visitors program at the national laboratory, Trulock said. Many congressional members have cited concerns about the foreign-visitor program, under which foreign scientists are allowed to work at the national laboratories, sometimes in classified areas. Lee, although born in Taiwan, is an American citizen.
"The real tragedy," Hunter said, "is that while this was taking place -- if they had told the subcommittee about this, if Mr. Trulock's testimony had been allowed to stay in and hadn't been taken out -- then we would have been able to pursue it and at least get the guy who was suspected of doing stuff away from the classified secrets." Lee was fired from the Los Alamos laboratory in March 1999, but he has not been charged with any crime. During the October 1998 hearing, Hunter said he asked Trulock if nuclear-weapons secrets had been stolen from Los Alamos, but Trulock talked about other cases and did not mention the suspected loss of W-88 technology. Trulock said Elizabeth Moler, his superior, had issued a "gag order" that prevented him from discussing the suspected loss of miniaturization secrets of the W-88, America's smallest and most sophisticated nuclear warhead.
Moler said Wednesday that she "categorically" denied ever issuing a gag order preventing Trulock from informing Congress of the suspected W-88 loss. However, she said she had large portions of Trulock's original testimony deleted because it didn't pertain to the foreign-visitors program at the lab. The subcommittee had tried for eight months to get Trulock's original testimony for the October 1998 hearing. The subcommittee received the still-classified original testimony Tuesday, after Hunter had threatened to subpoena Energy Secretary Bill Richardson for the document. Hunter asked Moler on Wednesday why she didn't inform the committee about the W-88 case after Trulock failed to mention it under oral questioning last year.
"I was not an expert in the case," Moler said.
"I did not have a definitive understanding one way or the other. And to this date I do not have a definitive understanding one way or the other whether there has been a quote 'theft' of nuclear secrets from out of Los Alamos," Moler said.
---
Rocky Mountain News
Stricter cleanup urged for Flats
Consultant warns fire could send soil plutonium airborne By Berny Morson Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer
http://insidedenver.com/news/1112flats.shtml
BROOMFIELD -- Rocky Flats should be cleaned to far more stringent standards than those the federal government is proposing, a consultant who has studied the former nuclear weapons plant said Thursday.
John Till, of Risk Assessment Corp., warned that plutonium left in the soil could become airborne during a brush fire and be inhaled. The current Energy Department cleanup plan, which did not take fires into account, would leave 65 times as much plutonium in the soil as Till recommends.
"Whatever is recommended -- will you go there and live?" Till asked the group of Colorado scientist and city officials who hired him. "Will you move your family there and live? If you won't, there's something wrong."
Broomfield City Councilman Hank Stovall said Till's report is "some vindication" for officials of nearby cities who have questioned the cleanup standards set by the Energy Department.
Stovall co-chairs the panel that hired the North Carolina-based Till, who was paid by an Energy Department grant. Till's report is preliminary. A final version is to be completed after public comment.
Rocky Flats spokesman Jeremy Karpatkin said no one knows how much would be added to the estimated $6.5 billion Rocky Flats cleanup bill to achieve the standards Till proposes.
"The first question is not how much it costs," Karpatkin said "The first questions is, 'Is it a scientifically valid number?' "
He said Till's report will be reviewed by Energy Department officials.
Dave Shelton, vice president of Kaiser-Hill Co., the firm hired to manage the cleanup, said more stringent standards would mean more soil must be shipped to a burial site in Utah.
"We'll implement whatever the decision is," Shelton said.
Till's conclusion is based on the dose of radiation received by someone who might one day live and work on the site -- for example, a rancher or a rancher's child.
But the numbers could be applied to others who may come to the site often, Till said. For example, if the area is turned into a park, a child might eat some soil, he said.
The Energy Department plan is based on the assumption that Rocky Flats will mostly become open space and that people won't spend more than a few hours a week there.
But Stovall said cleanup standards should take into account the possibilities that future generations may want to build homes there.
"If we leave it contaminated, we're being unethical toward future generations," Stovall said.
---
Some Agencies Offering Early-Outs, Buyouts
By Mike Causey, Washington Post Sunday, Nov. 14, 1999; Page C11
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/14/093l-111499-idx.html
What do D.C. government employees, workers at the National Gallery of Art and federal workers at HUD, Energy or the Pentagon have in common?
* They are in agencies that will be offering the chance to take early retirement between now and Sept. 30. Many federal agencies are downsizing or privatizing their operations. Some will be forced to lay off younger, shorter-service workers unless they can tempt relative old-timers to leave.
Early retirement for most feds means having 25 years of federal service, or being at least 50 years old with at least 20 years of service. Normally, the earliest most of those employees could retire on an immediate annuity indexed to inflation is age 55.
* Lucky feds in a smaller number of agencies will have the best of both worlds--the chance to take both early retirement and collect a buyout worth up to $25,000.
In government talk, an early-out is correctly called VERA (voluntary early retirement authority), and buyouts are VSIPs (voluntary separation incentive payments).
Both buyouts and early-outs are management options. That means the federal agency decides who gets either offer. Congress this year extended buyout authority to some agencies and reaffirmed the right of agencies to determine who gets an early-retirement offer. Early outs and buyouts can be agencywide, or they can be limited to specific grades, jobs or localities.
Early outs and buyouts aren't an exclusive benefit for the so-called baby boom generation. Younger feds--especially those without veterans preference protection--have a big stake in buyouts and early-outs, too. Reason: If lots of older workers--who are virtually fireproof because of seniority and veterans preference protection--can be persuaded to leave, agencies are less likely to have layoffs. During a reduction in force, the general rule is last-hired, first-fired. If downsizing agencies can't get older workers to leave voluntarily, the thirty-something crowd is in big trouble.
Over the past six years, more than 130,000 feds took buyouts. When offered early-outs without a buyout, however, few accepted. But when both buyouts and early-outs were offered, the take rate was very high.
Here's the official, updated list of agencies with authority to offer early retirement and/or buyouts. The early-out or buyout authority is agency-wide unless otherwise noted:
Early-Outs
Housing and Urban Development, Defense Department, Veterans Affairs, District of Columbia government, Small Business Administration (except the Office of Inspector General and all disaster area offices), and the Office of Personnel Management. Excluded from early-outs are OPM personnel in its retirement and insurance divisions, as well as various technical and computer support personnel.
Federal Housing Finance Board, Federal Maritime Commission, Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, National Gallery of Art (except for the administrator's office), and NASA personnel at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama.
The Energy Department's assistant secretary for congressional and intergovernmental affairs and assistant secretary for defense programs, Office of Environment, Safety and Health, Office of Scientific and Technical Information, Office of Hearings and Appeals, Western Area Power Administration, the Bonneville Power Administration and operations and field offices in Albuquerque, Chicago, Nevada, Oakland, Oak Ridge, Richland, Savannah, Ohio Fields and Rocky Flats.
Interior's Bureau of Reclamation and the Treasury Department's Office of the Inspector General for Tax Administration.
Buyouts
The Defense, Energy and Agriculture departments, NASA, the IRS, GSA, Treasury's Financial Management Service, Chicago Regional Finance Center and its Office of the Inspector General for Tax Administration, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Architect of the Capitol, Government Printing Office and the Bonneville Power Administration. Dates for the buyout authority vary except for BPA's, which is indefinite.
Buyout, Early-Out Myths
There is a lot of confusion or misinformation around concerning the two options. Here's the deal: The maximum buyout payment is still $25,000. After deductions, that works out to between $16,000 and $18,000 in take-home pay. Buyouts can't be rolled over into an IRA. In most cases, workers who take a buyout and return to government within five years must repay the entire amount--gross, not net.
Agencies decide which workers can be offered buyouts or early-outs. They do not have to offer either to everyone in an agency, or in the same occupation or geographic area. Congress did NOT waive the early retirement penalty. Feds who retire before age 55 will have their annuity reduced 2 percent for each year they are under age 55.
Dental Benefits
Looking for federal health plans that offer the best dental benefits? Welcome to the club. Dental coverage is a top priority for many feds during the open season that runs through Dec. 13. For a look at the best plans, check this space tomorrow.
Mike Causey's e-mail address is causeym@washpost.com.
-------- us weapons
Veteran: Defense spending too high
By DAVID KROTZ, Of The Globe-Gazette
Globe Gazette Sunday, November 14, 1999
http://www.globegazette.com/news/1999/1199/week3/991114_ni4.html
MASON CITY - A retired nuclear submarine captain visited Mason City this week, carrying the message that defense spending is too high.
Iowans for Sensible Priorities sponsored the statewide tour of 26-year Navy veteran James T. Bush. The goal of the tour was to inform the public and encourage defense budget issue debate among the political candidates visiting the state.
"As a nation, we must strike a balance between military security and economic security," Bush said. "America is not striking such a balance today. Congress gives $276 billion to the Pentagon, while $31 billion goes to education, $30 billion to children's health, $7 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency and $5 billion for Head Start.
"The military budget should be based on threat," he said, "and there is no military threat, period. No nation can mount an amphibious force and invade the U.S."
Decreasing the military budget would not make the country more vulnerable, he said, pointing to such expenditures as the new F-22 fighter and a new class of nuclear attack submarines as being excessive.
"We're not preparing for wars we're likely to fight," he said, citing chemical, biological and cyber terrorism as the most likely threats to the nation.
He attributed the large military budget to the "military-industrial-political triangle" that has vested interests to keep the money flowing.
"We're saying there can be a 15 percent shifting to other areas," he said of the defense budget.
---
America's Role (cont'd.) What's Built Up Must Come Down
By Christopher Layne Washington Post, Sunday, November 14, 1999; Page B01
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/14/039l-111499-idx.html
For most of the past 10 years, America's world dominance has been taken for granted. In recent months, however, U.S. preeminence has been attacked by other states--notably Germany, France, Russia, China and India--and American policymakers have new doubts about its permanence. In short, the foundations of America's post-Cold War grand strategy are showing signs of wear and tear.
At the heart of that strategy is America's desire to perpetuate its supreme global role. And why not? What could be better than being the sole superpower in a unipolar world? The answer usually given in Washington is "nothing." In the real world, however, this unilateral dominance--what political scientists call hegemony--is self-defeating. In the first place, hegemony cannot be sustained. Secondly, attempts to do so may ultimately prove more harmful than beneficial to American interests.
Careful students of world politics know that hegemony has never proven to be a winning strategy. History is strewn with the remains of states that have bid for supremacy: the Hapsburg Empire under Charles V and Philip II, France under Louis XIV and Napoleon, Victorian Britain, Germany under Hitler. The reason for their ultimate failure is simple: When one state becomes too powerful, other states become fearful and unite to "balance" against it. That is, they build up their own military power and, if necessary, form alliances to create a strategic counterweight.
Until recently, American policymakers have acted as if the United States somehow is exempt from this pattern. But, if recent events are any indication, this is wishful thinking.
Consider the international response to two recent developments--the U.S. Senate's rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and the increasing likelihood that the United States will abrogate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and deploy a ballistic missile defense system.
Russia, China and France are trying to use the United Nations to compel the United States to adhere to the test ban and to the ABM treaty. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer noted this month that Germany's determination to remain non-nuclear "was always based on our trust . . . that the United States, as the leading nuclear power, would guarantee some sort of order"--and went on to imply that if America abandoned that guarantee, Germany might have to develop nuclear capabilities of its own. Just as alarmingly, Russia has threatened to build its own anti-missile defenses and expand its nuclear arsenal, and in fact on Nov. 3 test-fired a short-range interceptor missile.
Earlier this month, French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine gave voice to fears that something must be done to rein in America. Calling the United States a "hyper-power," he told the French International Relations Institute: "We cannot accept either a politically unipolar world, nor a culturally uniform world, nor the unilateralism of a single hyper-power. And that is why we are fighting for a multipolar, diversified and multilateral world."
If the European Union ever does achieve political and military integration and emerges as an independent strategic player in world politics, the U.S.-led NATO action in Kosovo may come to be viewed as the catalyst that made it happen. That conflict--fought in part to validate NATO's post-Cold War credibility--had the ironic effect of dramatizing the striking disparity between America's military power and Europe's.
Another alliance, one with fewer friendly ties to the United States, has already emerged in the wake of the Kosovo action: China, Russia and India. Seeing Kosovo as a precedent for Washington's self-declared right to intervene in the internal affairs of sovereign states, these three countries have increased their military cooperation--especially with respect to arms transfers and the sharing of military technology--and, like the Europeans, have declared their support for a "multipolar" world.
In Japan, meanwhile, there is growing support for the idea that Tokyo needs to strengthen its military capabilities--and possibly acquire nuclear weapons--to free itself of its strategic subservience to the United States.
These developments have not gone unnoticed in Washington. The depth of American concern was made clear last month in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations by national security adviser Samuel R. Berger. Excerpted in Outlook (Oct. 31), the speech primarily focused on attacking the "new isolationism" that Berger said was emerging in Congress. But he also directed some of his remarks at foreign critics of U.S. power.
Berger acknowledged that the United States is seen in Europe, Russia and China as "a hectoring hegemon," a country that is "unilateralist and too powerful." He did not deny or criticize the United States' dominant role. What he tried to do instead was argue that the United States is a benign hegemon. The United States acts not to promote its own selfish interests but rather "for the greater good," he said, and others benefit tangibly from America's global leadership. He said America's ideals and values legitimize its preeminence and enable it to lead on the basis of its moral authority rather than its military might. "Our authority," Berger declared, "is built on very different qualities than our power: on the attractiveness of our values, on the force of our example, on the credibility of our commitments, and on our willingness to work with and stand by others."
It would be a mistake to think that other nations take these hubristic protestations at face value. Much of the world does not share Washington's belief that America is its model. Far from regarding America's attempt to export its ideology as altruistic, they see it as a way of rationalizing U.S. geopolitical preeminence. American pretensions of idealism are not novel, but what is new--and frightening to other nations--is the combination of a proselytizing ideology and overwhelming material power.
Whether one looks at Europe, China or Russia, the handwriting is on the wall: America's superpower strategy is triggering a geopolitical backlash that will run counter to its interests. The ill-considered policy of NATO expansion has heightened Russia's sense of strategic insecurity, and underscored for Moscow the dangers of American power. America's position on Taiwan, and its human rights policies, are regarded by Beijing as unwarranted intrusions in China's domestic affairs. America's assertive policy of "enlarging" the community of free market democracies is regarded by others not as benevolent idealism, but rather as the use of ideology to mask its will to power.
It is time to open a new debate--to get past the superpower model and delineate a more productive U.S. role. The issue is not whether the United States should act unilaterally, or act cooperatively with others. All states act in their own interests. The salient point is how to define America's interests. Some suggestions:
* Washington should encourage, and accept, Europe's emergence as an equal--independent--actor in world politics.
* The United States should stop trying to force its values and institutions on the rest of the world. In some cases, such as Russia, the American model is inappropriate and has done more harm than good. In other cases, notably China, Washington's attempt to compel ideological conformity has made an already tense relationship worse.
* Finally, the United States should not be so quick to intervene overseas, instead allowing other states and institutions to assume primary responsibility for the security of regions where America's security interests are not at risk. This is not isolationism; it is a classically realist strategy.
Some will argue that a non-hegemonic strategy will lead to increased instability. Perhaps. But, because of its nuclear deterrent and geography, the United States is the most secure great power in history. Moreover, one must face reality: The sole superpower interlude of the past decade is not sustainable. Attempting to prolong the "unipolar moment" will not work. Paradoxically, a more circumspect America will be more secure in the future than one assertively seeking to maintain its primacy.
Christopher Layne is a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California's Center for International Studies and a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in Global Security.
---
Albright calls for U.S. consensus on arms control
Express India Monday, November 15, 1999
http://www.expressindia.com/news/31901199.htm
WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Madeleine urged U.S. politicians in remarks published Sunday to end their differences over the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), saying the world's remaining superpower had to be united on how to deal with nuclear threats, reports Reuters.
In a commentary in the Nov 22 edition of Time which goes on sale Monday, Albright said the Senate vote last month rejecting the treaty had drawn universal shock from U.S. allies and friends.
She said approval of the pact would mean a joint effort by the United States and others in halting the development of more advanced nuclear arms which could fall into ``the wrong hands.''
``Unfortunately... the administration and congress have not yet agreed on a common post-cold war strategy for responding to these dangers,'' Albright said. ``But the world's leading nation cannot remain divided on how to respond to the world's gravest threats.''
She also referred to U.S. efforts to develop anti-missile missiles, known as the National Missile Defense (NMD) system, which Washington could decide as early as next summer to deploy despite the fact that they would violate the 1972 Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.
Albright noted the ABM treaty would need to be amended, a step firmly rejected by Russia. ``Unfortunately, our consideration of NMD has aroused serious concerns not only in Russia but also in Western Europe, China and elsewhere,'' she said.
``I have repeatedly had to rebut fears expressed by my counterparts that the U.S. is intent on going it alone... These fears were fuelled by the vote on CTBT and especially by the view some senators expressed that efforts at nonproliferation are useless and naive.''
Albright acknowledged serious concerns among some senators about how to verify compliance with a test ban and to preserve a safe and reliable nuclear deterrent.
``It is plainly smart to anticipate that some countries will try to cheat on their obligations,'' she wrote. ``It is not smart to conclude -- as some do -- that if we can't guarantee perfect compliance with the rules we establish, we are better off not establishing rules at all.''
Albright said she hoped the Senate vote would serve as a ''wake-up call'' which spurred ``responsible leaders from both parties to come together and ensure the U.S.'s continued leadership in building a safer, stabler, freer world.''
---
Albright calls for U.S. consensus on arms control
Express India Monday, November 15, 1999
WASHINGTON: Secretary of State Madeleine urged U.S. politicians in remarks published Sunday to end their differences over the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), saying the world's remaining superpower had to be united on how to deal with nuclear threats, reports Reuters.
In a commentary in the Nov 22 edition of Time which goes on sale Monday, Albright said the Senate vote last month rejecting the treaty had drawn universal shock from U.S. allies and friends.
She said approval of the pact would mean a joint effort by the United States and others in halting the development of more advanced nuclear arms which could fall into ``the wrong hands.''
``Unfortunately... the administration and congress have not yet agreed on a common post-cold war strategy for responding to these dangers,'' Albright said. ``But the world's leading nation cannot remain divided on how to respond to the world's gravest threats.''
She also referred to U.S. efforts to develop anti-missile missiles, known as the National Missile Defense (NMD) system, which Washington could decide as early as next summer to deploy despite the fact that they would violate the 1972 Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.
Albright noted the ABM treaty would need to be amended, a step firmly rejected by Russia. ``Unfortunately, our consideration of NMD has aroused serious concerns not only in Russia but also in Western Europe, China and elsewhere,'' she said.
``I have repeatedly had to rebut fears expressed by my counterparts that the U.S. is intent on going it alone... These fears were fuelled by the vote on CTBT and especially by the view some senators expressed that efforts at nonproliferation are useless and naive.''
Albright acknowledged serious concerns among some senators about how to verify compliance with a test ban and to preserve a safe and reliable nuclear deterrent.
``It is plainly smart to anticipate that some countries will try to cheat on their obligations,'' she wrote. ``It is not smart to conclude -- as some do -- that if we can't guarantee perfect compliance with the rules we establish, we are better off not establishing rules at all.''
Albright said she hoped the Senate vote would serve as a ''wake-up call'' which spurred ``responsible leaders from both parties to come together and ensure the U.S.'s continued leadership in building a safer, stabler, freer world.''
---
Explosives Topple Towers Once Used To Summon Fleet
Demolition Makes Way for Preserve
By Todd Shields Washington Post Staff Writer, November 14, 1999; Page C03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/14/101l-111499-idx.html
With a sharp blast from 67 explosive charges, three former Navy radio towers the height of 30-story buildings buckled, toppled ever so slowly and crashed to the ground yesterday across the Severn River from Annapolis.
The simultaneous felling of the 300-foot towers marked the beginning in earnest of a $4.2 million project to clear an array of massive antennas and towers from Greenbury Point and turn the 231-acre peninsula into a nature preserve open to the public.
The point has been home to radio spires since World War I, when they beamed messages to Europe. Until recently, the peninsula held 19 antennas and towers, a thicket that long has been a navigational landmark for Chesapeake Bay sailors. All but three of the towers will be removed in coming weeks.
"It's history in the breaking," said John Schorpp, 58, the field's antenna mechanic since 1983. He is not sure whether he will have a job once the demolition is done.
"What you can't win you learn to let go," Schorpp said with a catch in his voice. "It's called progress."
During the Cold War, Greenbury Point was a key communications hub for the nation's nuclear submarine fleet. Its antennas sent low-frequency radio waves capable of penetrating the ocean, allowing vessels to communicate without surfacing.
In recent years, with tight defense budgets and advances in satellite communications, the antenna field's steel and copper technology became outmoded. It was put out of service in 1996.
About three dozen people turned out to watch the destruction of Towers 65, 66 and 67 yesterday. Several observers recalled the antenna field's historic role.
Frank Gentges, 57, of Great Falls, served in the 1960s and 1970s with the Naval Electronic Systems Command, which handled submarine communications from offices in Crystal City. He recalled the urgency the military felt to keep communications flowing.
"We're in the middle of the Cold War. These people . . . they're spending long hours, for instance to upgrade the Goliath antenna"--a 1,200-foot structure at Greenbury Point that will remain in place for a few more weeks.
Contractors had dismantled three 80-foot towers last week. By early next month, weather permitting, they expect to have brought most of the remaining structures down.
The three to be left are known as the Eiffel towers for their resemblance to the Paris landmark. They will remain for at least a year while state and local officials decide whether to adopt them, perhaps for use by police and emergency communications systems. If the governments decline, the Eiffel towers, too, will likely be dismantled.
The Eiffel towers were granted their reprieve after heated community meetings, said state Del. Richard D'Amato (D-Anne Arundel), who wrote federal legislation mandating the tower removal before he retired from a career as a U.S. Senate staffer.
The bill was meant to head off any possibility that the land could be developed, whether to add nine holes to the adjacent Naval Academy Golf Course or after sale to a private developer, D'Amato said.
As word of the plan spread, a vigorous community debate unfolded, D'Amato said. Some residents argued for clearing the point of towers to improve the view, but others said some towers should be preserved for historic and cultural reasons.
Jim Rosenthal, 48, who lives within several hundred yards of the towers, counts himself among the preservationists. "They're sort of the last artifact of that sort of Cold War radio communications," Rosenthal said.
D'Amato called the outcome "win-win" with some chance for tower preservation, the Navy relieved of expensive tower maintenance and the public gaining access to a plot abounding in wildlife, including deer, foxes, herons and ospreys.
"This is a tremendous parcel," D'Amato said.
The blast minutes after 8 a.m. brought laughter and applause from some of the watching naval personnel, radio buffs and golf course greenskeepers.
Workers used slightly more than four pounds of an explosive called RDX, which is far more powerful than dynamite, said Mark Loizeaux, an executive with Controlled Demolition Inc., the Baltimore County company felling the towers.
Next to go, with a tentative demolition date of Saturday: Tower 126, an 800-foot beauty that stands--its bulk balanced upon a single point and held in place by guy wires--on the golf course.
---
Panel reportedly critical of antimissile program's progress
CNN November 14, 1999 Web posted at: 9:21 AM EST (1421 GMT)
http://www.cnn.com/US/9911/14/antimissile.report.ap/index.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- An independent panel says the Pentagon's development of an antimissile system continues to be hampered by inadequate testing, shortages of spare parts and management mistakes, The Washington Post reported.
The 40-page report, forwarded to Congress by the Defense Department last week, said that research and development delays have compressed the program's schedule against politically imposed deadline. It recommended that if further delays occur, President Clinton should postpone a scheduled decision next summer whether to build the system, the newspaper said in Sunday editions.
The project, a scaled-back version of the "Star Wars" program advocated in the 1980s by President Reagan, would erect a shield against ballistic missile attacks on U.S. territory at a multibillion-dollar cost.
The panel's criticisms and cautions resembled those that it noted in a report in early 1998.
Since then, the Pentagon has extended the projected deployment date from 2003 to 2005, scheduled additional testing and hired the Boeing Co. to coordinate development efforts.
However, the report said the program remains at a "high risk" of failure, the Post said, and it faulted government and contractor officials for displaying "a legacy of over-optimism."
The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, the Pentagon agency that coordinates antimissile defense programs, concurred with the panel's recommendations for further testing, more hardware and tighter oversight. But it said nothing about the call for Clinton to delay a construction decision should further delays occur, the Post said.
The 12-member panel is headed by retired Gen. Larry Welch, a former Air Force chief of staff.
---
Panel warns of antimissile delays
By BRADLEY GRAHAM Washington Post News Service, November 14, 1999
http://www.bergen.com/morenews/miss14199911145.htm
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon's effort to develop an anti-missile system to defend the United States remains plagued by inadequate testing, spare parts shortages, and management lapses, according to an independent panel appointed by the Defense Department.
In a stinging 40-page report, the panel warned that recent delays in testing and development have "compressed" the program's schedule against politically imposed deadlines. If further delays arise, the panel advised, then President Clinton's scheduled decision next summer on whether to start building the system should be postponed.
The critical assessment follows a report by the same outside group in early 1998 that registered some of the same concerns and cautioned against a "rush to failure" in the nation's renewed multibillion-dollar drive to erect a limited shield against ballistic missile attack, a legacy of President Ronald Reagan's much grander "Star Wars" vision.
While the Pentagon has taken steps since last year to extend the earliest deployment date from 2003 to 2005, schedule additional tests, and hire the Boeing Co. to coordinate development, panel members said the program remains at "high risk" of failure.
The report faulted government and contract officials for exhibiting "a legacy of over-optimism" about their ability to invent a reliable interceptor that can soar into the sky and ram incoming enemy warheads. Although written before the first successful intercept test last month of the latest prototype "kill vehicle," the report noted that the Pentagon's history of chasing missiles in space is littered with many more misses than hits using earlier prototypes.
In a program that ranks as the Pentagon's most challenging development effort -- fraught as it is with technological hurdles, political controversy, and fierce international opposition from Russia and China -- the panel also found troublesome management gaps.
"Instead of unusual clarity, there is unusual fragmentation and confusion about authority and responsibility," states the report, which Pentagon officials quietly sent to Congress last week after taking more than two months to review it.
The negative critique comes in the face of strong Republican support for a national antimissile system and begrudging acknowledgment this year by the Clinton administration and congressional Democrats that a limited system -- to protect against a few missiles at any one time -- may be needed sooner rather than later to guard against a growing threat from such "rogue nations" as North Korea and Iran.
GOP proponents were quick to draw what encouragement they could from the panel's blunt assessment. Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., who pushed a bill enacted this year mandating deployment of an antimissile system as soon as "technologically possible," issued a statement saying that while the panel had rated the program's inherent risks high, they did not appear "unacceptably" high.
He said any defense program subjected to such close scrutiny "will face some criticism." He also argued that the risks were outweighed by the urgency of getting a system in place to defend against potential attack from nations such as North Korea, whose test of a three-stage Taepo Dong I missile in August 1998 caught the U.S. intelligence community by surprise.
"We don't have the luxury of time," Cochran said. "Because of the threat, we have no choice but to accept a high-risk program."
But critics of the antimissile program saw in the panel's findings fresh cause to urge a go-slow approach.
"In our view, delaying the program until there's more certainty of success is a reasonable course," said Steve Young, deputy director of the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, a nonprofit group of 17 arms control organizations. "This is something you don't want to get wrong, because the consequences, if it fails, can be disastrous."
At the Pentagon, the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, which coordinates the government's various antimissile programs, issued a two-page statement concurring with most of the panel's recommendations for additional tests, more hardware, and tighter oversight. But it was silent on the prospect of delaying the president's review if new delays arise.
Under the system envisioned by the Pentagon, the launch of an enemy missile would first be detected by space-based military satellites, then tracked by ground-based early warning and X-band radars. Interceptor missiles based in Alaska would be fired to home in on the incoming warhead and collide at supersonic speeds in what the Pentagon calls a "hit to kill."
---
JFK's role as war hero, commander in chief part of new
Tampa Bay Tribune 11/11/99 -- 7:09 PM
http://www.tampabayonline.net/news/flor1024.htm
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) - Former torpedo boat instructor Admiral John Harllee hoped in 1942 that one of his top pupils, John F. Kennedy, would become a fellow Navy instructor.
But the skilled sailor and Harvard graduate had other plans as World War II raged, Harllee said Thursday at the Florida International Museum, where ``John F. Kennedy: The Exhibition'' opens Friday.
``He didn't want to be an instructor, he wanted to get into combat right away,'' he said. ``I admire a guy who is willing to get up on a front line.''
Harllee, 85, who later served in the office of then-U.S. Rep. Kennedy for a year, said JFK's status as a veteran earned him the respect of current and former service members.
``A lot of political leaders were not willing to risk their lives for their country,'' he said.
A section of the exhibition dedicated to JFK's military service illustrates that young Lt. Kennedy's enthusiasm for war was tempered Aug. 2, 1943, when his torpedo boat was rammed by a Japanese destroyer and split in half.
Two of Kennedy's crew members were killed in the attack that took place as the boat patrolled an area in the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific.
Kennedy lead nine other members of the PT-109 crew to safety and earned the Navy and Marine Corps medals for heroism.
Kennedy suffered a back injury that caused him pain the rest of his life and led him to often use a rocking chair.
The chair, which is displayed alone at the exhibit, still bears the imprint of Kennedy's back brace.
His actions caught the public's imagination after journalist Robert Donovan wrote a best-selling book called ``PT-109.''
``Any war is stupid, and while it has a sickening fascination for some of us, myself included, it's stupid and tragic when you think of what goes on in these Solomon Islands,'' Kennedy wrote to a friend while recovering.
The typed letter with handwritten notes is on display at the museum.
Kennedy's military training and war experience helped make him an exceptional president, said Deirdre Henderson, a research assistant to Kennedy in 1959 and 1960 when he was a senator.
Henderson, who edited a book of Kennedy's diaries, said JFK's war experience played a role in his commitment to the country's military strength during the Cold War.
``He did what the U.S. had to do to be strong,'' she said.
Kennedy also understand the need for peace and to recognize the importance of signing the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in October 1963, Henderson said.
The first disarmament agreement of the nuclear age ended nuclear atmospheric testing.
Exhibition memorabilia from the life of the 35th president are not limited to his stature as war hero and commander in chief.
``JFK: The Exhibition'' has nearly 6,000 artifacts in 20 themed gallery spaces that lead visitors through major events of Kennedy's life, including his marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy and rise to political power.
The displays are in chronological order and climax with Kennedy's assassination during his 1963 trip to Dallas and the ensuing funeral. The flags that flew on Kennedy's car in the Dallas motorcade, the president's christening ring and the watch worn during his inauguration are all displayed.
``The exhibit tries to narrate the story of Kennedy's life, museum president Joe Cronin said.
``This is a president that inspired a great deal of optimism, especially in young people.''
---
Reality Before Legacy By Jim Hoagland
Washington Post Sunday, November 14, 1999; Page B07
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/14/056l-111499-idx.html
Friends of Bill Clinton can and do say this for him: He is always there when he needs you.
Whether seeking a campaign contribution, praise and sympathy for the hard road he has traveled or a boost for his place in history, Clinton is unmatched in the political art of identifying your ability to contribute to his destiny.
Lust for foreign policy legacy chafes in Clinton's heart as his final year in power approaches. He traveled to Oslo this month to engineer an end to 2000 years of Arab-Israeli enmity for his presidential sunset. He will stop off in Kosovo on this month's European trip to stand as liberator of the Balkans. In Italy he will propound a Third Way political philosophy for the ages.
The sunset syndrome makes the final year of any presidency a most dangerous year in foreign affairs. Lame-duck presidents and their aides tend to conceptualize the world as they want it remembered under their dominion rather than as it is. Their personal investments in history summon up trips, speeches and policy adjustments infected with shared illusions rather than unpleasant reality.
This danger is compounded by the arrival of the next presidential race. U.S. politics do not end at the water's edge in the electronic era: The rest of the world listens in real time to the candidates' promises and threats. Last week China's sudden and aggressive bristling over Republicans and Democrats debating a national missile shield underlined global interconnectedness in politics.
That reaction on missile defense also demonstrated that China represents the greatest danger of illusion overwhelming reality in this particular sunset. There has been a significant change in Beijing over the past 18 months that has gone largely unreflected in a U.S. policy that still aims at creating a lasting image of Clinton's engagement with Beijing having changed the world for the better.
Things are much worse: China's generals and hard-line politicians have dropped the pretense of working toward strategic partnership with the United States. They now openly show their determination to become a strategic rival--and a perceived nuclear threat--to Americans in the shortest possible time.
This dramatic change follows a series of setbacks that have made Beijing's rulers feel encircled and less secure. These include India's nuclear tests last year, the May 7 U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and Taiwan's increased public candor about maintaining control over its national destiny.
On the surface President Jiang Zemin continues to pursue two policy tracks: He lets economic reformers expand commercial engagement with the West on terms favorable to China, while the military undertakes a rapid buildup of its forces to counter both U.S. hegemony in East Asia and Taiwan's assertiveness.
The hard-line military track has overtaken the economic track in priority and in setting the tone of Beijing-Washington relations--for China.
U.S. analysts in Washington and a Third World statesman who recently visited China have told me the same thing in the past few weeks: They are struck by the openness with which Chinese politicians and generals now write and speak on Beijing's willingness to use military power against the United States if or when necessary.
A Russian analyst says that Moscow is full of Chinese arms purchasers combing the crumbling Russian defense industry for solid fuel for intercontinental missiles and anything else they can buy. Recent disclosures of a Chinese deal with Israel and Russia for a sophisticated long-range airborne radar system lend credibility to these reports.
So does the determined effort of the Chinese military to reverse-engineer any and all bits of Western technology that it can acquire. The Chinese informed Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering on his fence-mending trip to Beijing last summer that one of the five bombs the U.S. Air Force dropped on their embassy had not exploded and was in their possession.
They turned a deaf ear to Pickering's offer of U.S. help to recover the bomb. Western analysts suspect it had already been packed off to Beijing to be picked apart and rebuilt, as was at least one unexploded U.S. cruise missile fired into Afghanistan last year.
The crucial agenda between China and the United States now is not about human rights or commercial engagement. It is about strategic rivalry. China did not respond to the U.S. proposal to reengage in a formal dialogue on nonproliferation carried to Beijing two weeks ago by Pickering, and turned down a similar approach by French diplomats.
The Clintonian response is to continue to center ties on commercial negotiations, good wishes and meaningless palaver designed to enhance the sunset's aura. Proposed visits to Beijing by Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, senior U.S. military officials and at least one Cabinet official to smooth things over one last time are almost certain to do more harm than good. The Chinese understand Clinton's needs and the way to exploit them all too well.
U.S.-Chinese relations are in flux and on a downward path. This need not be fatal to a mutually respectful relationship that minimizes the chances of conflict, which should be the U.S. goal. But achieving that goal requires Clinton to put reality before legacy, national interests before vanity. This is when history needs him, not vice versa.
---
Cohen's Top Feat May Be Monetary, Not Military
By ELIZABETH BECKER New York Times November 14, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/99/11/14/news/washpol/defense-cohen-budget.html
WASHINGTON -- Of all the offensives he has mounted as secretary of defense, William S. Cohen, a Republican, might be remembered less for the military operations than for persuading a reluctant Democratic president to sign this year's $17 billion spending increase for the Pentagon.
Within that one measure, the members of the armed services received their largest pay increase since 1981, and the Defense Department got its biggest budget increase since the end of the cold war.
The budget ends the so-called peace dividend, or nearly 10 years of shrinking armed forces and military budgets after the collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. And the budget finances the possible deployment of a national missile defense system that has thrown into question decades of arms control treaties.
As the only Republican member of the cabinet, Cohen was tapped to become the administration's voice on tough national security policies before the Republican-controlled Congress. Instead, Cohen, a former senator from Maine, may have accomplished the opposite and sold a Republican agenda -- including the military increase -- to President Clinton, who already had a reputation for stealing Republican ideas.
When Cohen asked Congress to support Clinton's military spending bill, the only complaint was that it was not big enough. Republicans added $5 billion, increasing the military pay raise and finding money for projects in some of their home districts, so that the military budget for the year totals $268 billion.
With some reluctance the president signed the bill, making the United States military the biggest beneficiary of the federal budget surplus.
For Cohen, the increase was essential. "If you don't have an adequate budget, you don't get the increases, you don't keep the people, and you don't have a military," Cohen said in an interview in his office in the Pentagon's executive wing, with its wall of windows facing the Potomac River. "Things tend to deteriorate. We were in that process of things going down, and now we've brought it back up.
What Cohen called deterioration stemmed from the defense priorities of NATO nations, priorities he now challenges. After the fall of the Berlin Wall 10 years ago this week ended the Communist threat in Europe, the countries in the Atlantic alliance scaled back their military spending in favor of social and economic programs. Now Cohen is openly pushing the European allies to follow the United States with major increases in their military budgets once again.
He has some allies. Lord Robertson, the new secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, said in a visit here that one of his top goals was to convince the European allies that they would have to expand military spending to field modern forces.
"We've got to get to the point where we could do another Kosovo," Lord Robertson said.
On the other side of the ledger, Cohen failed to persuade Congress to support the administration's more contentious policies. Last month, Republican opposition led to the defeat of the nuclear test ban treaty.
But Cohen refuses to take responsibility for that failure.
"Don't put that on me," said Cohen, who was called back from an Asian trip to do last-minute lobbying.
Earlier this year, he failed to overcome the Congressional propensity to hold onto local jobs and contracts and could not deliver the votes to close military bases the Pentagon said were no longer necessary. Closing of the bases could have saved the Defense Department billions of dollars in coming years.
Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who is running for President, defended Cohen, an ally and friend, saying that the defense secretary should not be blamed for losing those battles supported by Clinton. At the same time, McCain said, the defense secretary himself did not deserve credit for the spending increases, which the senator said the Republicans would have passed anyway.
But Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who once worked for Cohen, said she gave him credit for persuading the president to sign the big budget increase instead of provoking a fight with the Republican-controlled Congress over military spending.
"I'm sure he got the president to sign," Senator Collins said, echoing the perception among Republicans in Congress that Cohen overcame the president's economic advisers, who had urged a smaller increase for the Pentagon.
But to some, this budget victory signifies that Cohen has failed to live up to his reputation as an independent thinker, first earned as a young congressman who broke party ranks to vote with Democrats to release the tapes of President Richard M. Nixon in the Watergate investigation.
He has avoided fights with the entrenched Pentagon bureaucracy. His travels are intended to hold together this country's longtime relationships, whether in the Middle East or Asia. And his backing of a national missile defense system to protect Americans from a limited attack by an emerging nuclear power or an accidental missile launching by a major one is the endorsement of a plan that has been on the Republican agenda for years. The plan is a scaled-down version of the "Star Wars" program of the 1980's.
"We're closer to the old cold war Pentagon than we were three years ago," said John Pike, director of programs at the Federation of American Scientists, a private group here.
Keeping in Step With the President
Unlike Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, with her backing of forceful military responses to halt extreme human rights violations abroad, Cohen has kept a low profile in debates over the contentious matters of war and peace.
Perhaps as a result, the air campaign over Kovoso has become known as Madeleine's war, which is fine with Cohen -- so long as he and the Defense Department get credit for winning that conflict.
"If it's her war, then it's the department's peace," he said.
Samuel F. Berger, the president's national security adviser and the other member of the triumvirate that makes security policy, described Cohen as modest.
"He is one of the few people who underestimates his own accomplishments," Berger said.
At the Pentagon, Cohen is called reserved, cautious and, at times, distant. When he arrived, Cohen kept on nearly all of the political appointments who were there, adding only three aides. He also followed the basic military plan left by his predecessor, William J. Perry.
"I wanted to continue what he had started," Cohen said.
He kept in step with Clinton by initiating programs to protect against the threat of biological, chemical and nuclear terrorist attacks.
Apart from the two military operations fought under his watch, in Iraq and Serbia, Cohen made his biggest waves with his budget increase and the first financing to deploy a national missile defense system. The first installment of the defensive missile system, which is prohibited under the Antiballistic Missile Treaty signed with Moscow in 1972, would be built in Alaska as a shield to protect all 50 states against attacks by rogue states, in particular North Korea.
Cohen and his aides say they believe the Russians will agree to modify that treaty -- even though the Russians have said they will not. Instead, Moscow is asking the United Nations to help keep the treaty in tact and stop the United States from deploying a missile defense system.
The ABM treaty remains the cornerstone of most subsequent arms reduction agreements.
Growing Into Role of Military Chief
Shortly after Cohen appointed Gen. Henry H. Shelton chairman of the joint chiefs of staff two years ago, the general presented the secretary with a book to set the tone for their relationship. The book was "Dereliction of Duty; Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam," by H. R. McMaster (Harper Collins, 1997).
"It's what I never wanted to happen between us, the chairman and the secretary lying and going behind each other's backs," General Shelton said he told Cohen.
If anything, Cohen, who has never served in the armed forces, has become the ideal spokesman for the military, General Shelton said. "I trust him implicity to represent the armed forces point of view," the general said.
Cohen did so forcefully this year by persuading President Clinton to approve the Defense Department budget. Early in 1998, the chiefs put together their budget proposal, calling it "Houston -- We Have A Problem." In it, they set out a dire view of the effect of almost 10 years of shrinking military budgets, saying the cuts had imperiled the armed forces' ability to be ready for combat.
"Before we only had anecdotal evidence," General Shelton said. "This time we had the data we needed. We went up and got the secretary's support and he acknowledged we needed to do something, that we were not taking care of the troops."
In September, Cohen organized a symposium at the National Defense University, bringing together the joint chiefs and top overseas commanders to help him present the case for the huge budget increase to a special guest: Clinton.
Two events had helped pave the way for Clinton to accept the proposal. By early summer the Congressional Budget Office had reported that the budget surplus would run $43 billion to $63 billion. And just days earlier the Starr Report about Clinton's relationship with Monica S. Lewinsky had been released, raising questions about his ability to survive as president.
All of a sudden there was money for an increase in military spending, and it made sense politically. The president and then the president's aides agreed to the raise.
"That's an extraordinary achievement in a budget that was otherwise static," said Berger, the national security adviser, who supported increasing the military budget.
As it turned out, Cohen found almost no opposition to the plan in Congress, which held relatively few hearings on the whole $268 billion spending bill.
Democrats and Republicans said it was reassuring to see their old colleague, Cohen, sitting across the table with the country's top military leaders, making the arguments for the Clinton administration.
"He's got such a mastery of detail that he can show his case in a strong way," said Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, the ranking minority member of the Armed Services Committee. "Particularly with the end of the cold war, it's kind of counterintuitive that the defense budget should be increased."
---
Air Force test launches Minuteman 3 missile
Florida Today Nov. 14, 1999
http://www.flatoday.com/space/today/111499d.htm
VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AP) - The Air Force announced a successful booster test of a Minuteman 3 missile, firing the device far out into the Pacific early Saturday.
The missile, which used solid rocket fuel, lifted off at 3:19 a.m. EST with three dummy warheads aboard. It reached its target at the Kwajalein Missile Range about 30 minutes later, Lt. John J. Murphy said.
The range is located in the western Marshall Islands, about 4,200 miles from Vandenberg.
The launch is part of a test to extend the life of the missile's booster system, the Air Force said.
Vandenberg's 576th Flight Test Squadron oversaw maintenance of the missile, which came from the 564th Missile Squadron at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana.
---
Reuters
Updated 12:55 PM ET November 14, 1999
Problems Plague U.S. Missile Defense, Panel Says
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/991114/12/news-arms-usa
By Charles Aldinger
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Pentagon report has warned that the drive to develop a U.S. missile defense remains plagued by problems ahead of next year's presidential decision on whether to begin building a system, defense officials said Sunday.
The report by independent experts, sent to Congress on Friday, said inadequate testing, parts shortages and management confusion were hampering a costly program to shoot down long-range enemy missiles, the officials told Reuters.
The defense officials, who asked not to be identified, confirmed a Washington Post report that the panel headed by retired Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Larry Welch accused government and industry of "a legacy of over-optimism" on development of such a system.
Russia, China and even U.S. allies in Europe have expressed major concern about a limited U.S. "Star Wars" missile defense, but political pressure from Congress is mounting as President Clinton approaches a decision expected in July on whether to begin building the system.
Panel members, including retired military leaders and industry officials, said the program remained at high risk" of failure despite Pentagon steps to extend the earliest deployment date by two years to 2005, schedule more tests and hire Boeing Co. to oversee development, the Post said.
Defense officials confirmed Sunday that the panel warned that if better progress was not made in the coming months -- including in tests early next year -- Clinton might have to delay his decision.
"The report does not say that technology to hit warheads can't be eventually developed. It does say -- as we already know -- that the hurdles are high and that time is short under the present schedule," one Pentagon official told Reuters.
The officials noted that the report had been under study by the Pentagon since late summer and was made before a recent test in which the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) was able to shoot down a test missile over the Pacific Ocean.
But that test was only the first in a series that will have to prove successful before the Pentagon can determine the reliability of a so-called "hit-to-kill" rocket, which must unfailingly collide with warheads travelling thousands of miles an hour while integrating with sophisticated tracking radars.
The Republican-controlled Congress is pressing the Clinton administration to develop a less-ambitious version of former President Ronald Reagan's proposed "Star Wars" national missile defense, prompting concern by Russia about what it would mean for Moscow's missiles.
The United States wants Moscow to agree to changes in the 1972 anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty to pave the way for initial U.S. deployment, but Russia has refused.
Some U.S. allies in Europe have recently expressed concern that if Washington deploys a successful AMB defense based initially in Alaska, it would isolate a safe United States and leave allies unprotected.
Defense officials who spoke to Reuters confirmed what the Washington Post reported in its Sunday edition -- the 40-page experts' report is stinging in its criticism. The Post, which obtained a copy of the report, said the panel found troubling management gaps. Instead of unusual clarity, there is unusual fragmentation and confusion about authority and responsibility," the report said.
It faulted Boeing for being too focused on the overall integration of the ABM system at the expense of overseeing development of the "kill vehicle" made by Raytheon Co., the Post said.
The report, the newspaper added, also characterized the kill vehicle program as being "hardware poor," citing a lack of parts for both testing and backup.
Related Stories Panel Faults U.S. Antimissile Program-Report (Nov 14 1:58 am ET)
---
Panel Faults Antimissile Program on Many Fronts 'High Risk' of Failure Remains, Experts Report By Bradley Graham Washington Post Staff Writer
Washington Post Sunday, November 14, 1999; Page A01 / Los Angeles Times
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/14/141l-111499-idx.html
http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/19991114/t000103772.html
The Pentagon's effort to develop an antimissile system to defend the United States remains plagued by inadequate testing, spare parts shortages and management lapses, according to an independent panel appointed by the Defense Department.
In a stinging 40-page report, the panel warned that recent delays in testing and development have "compressed" the program's schedule against politically imposed deadlines. If further delays arise, the panel advised, plans for President Clinton to decide by next summer whether to start building the system should be postponed.
The critical assessment followed a report by the same outside group in early 1998 registering some of the same concerns and cautioning against a "rush to failure" in the nation's renewed multibillion-dollar drive to erect a limited shield against ballistic missile attacks, a legacy of President Ronald Reagan's much grander "Star Wars" vision. While the Pentagon has taken steps since last year to extend the earliest deployment date from 2003 to 2005, schedule additional tests and hire the Boeing Co. to coordinate development efforts, panel members said the program remains at "high risk" of failure.
The report faulted government and contract officials for exhibiting "a legacy of over-optimism" about their ability to develop a reliable interceptor that can soar into the sky and ram incoming enemy warheads. Although written before the first successful intercept test last month of the latest "kill vehicle" prototype, the report noted that the Pentagon's history of chasing missiles in space is littered with many more misses than hits.
In a program that ranks as the Pentagon's most challenging development effort--fraught as it is with technological hurdles, political controversy and fierce opposition from Russia and China--the panel also found troublesome management gaps.
"Instead of unusual clarity, there is unusual fragmentation and confusion about authority and responsibility," said the report, which Pentagon officials quietly sent to Congress last week after taking more than two months to review it.
The critique comes in the face of strong Republican support for a national antimissile system and begrudging acknowledgment this year by the Clinton administration and congressional Democrats that a limited system--to protect against a few missiles at any one time--may be needed sooner rather than later to guard against the growing threat from such "rogue nations" as North Korea and Iran.
GOP proponents were quick to draw what encouragement they could from the panel's blunt assessment. Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.)--who pushed the bill enacted earlier this year requiring the deployment of an antimissile system as soon as "technologically possible"--issued a statement saying that, while the panel has rated the program's inherent risks as high, they did not appear "unacceptably" high.
He said any defense program subjected to such close scrutiny "will face some criticism." He also argued that the risks were outweighed by the urgency of getting a system in place to defend against potential attacks from nations such as North Korea, whose test of a three-stage Taepo Dong I missile in August 1998 caught the U.S. intelligence community by surprise.
"We don't have the luxury of time," Cochran said. "Because of the threat, we have no choice but to accept a high-risk program."
But critics of the antimissile program saw in the panel's findings fresh cause to urge a go-slow approach.
"In our view, delaying the program until there's more certainty of success is a reasonable course," said Steve Young, deputy director of the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, a nonprofit group of 17 arms control organizations. "This is something you don't want to get wrong, because the consequences, if it fails, can be disastrous."
At the Pentagon, the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, which coordinates the government's various antimissile programs, issued a two-page statement concurring with most of the panel's recommendations for additional tests, more hardware and tighter oversight. But it was silent on the proposal to postpone the president's review if new delays arise.
In addition to determining whether the system can work, senior administration officials have said several other factors will influence their recommendation whether to proceed. These factors include the projected costs of fielding the system, intelligence assessments of enemy threats and Russia's willingness to negotiate changes in the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
Under the system envisioned by the Pentagon, the launch of an enemy missile would first be detected by space-based military satellites, then tracked by ground-based early warning and X-band radars. Interceptor missiles based in Alaska would be fired to home in on the incoming warhead and collide with it at supersonic speeds in what the Pentagon calls a "hit to kill."
But this approach to missile defense remains fraught with technical problems. While a prototype did score a successful intercept last month over the central Pacific, no tests yet have attempted to integrate the entire system: interceptors, radars and controlling computer networks. Only two such tests are scheduled between now and the moment next summer when Clinton is slated to decide whether to begin building the system at an estimated cost of more than $10 billion for the first phase alone. Actual operational versions of the interceptor and booster, as opposed to prototypes and surrogates, are not due for several years.
Consequently, instead of confronting Clinton with a "deployment readiness" decision next summer, the panel suggested that the review be converted into a "development feasibility" assessment, effectively buying time.
The 12-member panel is the most experienced collection of civilian and retired military officers to have studied the antimissile effort, defense officials said. Headed by Larry Welch, a retired four-star general and former Air Force chief of staff, the panel includes specialists who earlier oversaw the development of missile, aeronautical and naval programs while working either at the Pentagon or for major defense contractors.
Given the tough technical challenges, intense political pressures and tight time constraints on the program, the panel commended the Pentagon and Boeing for having "formulated a sensible, phased, incremental approach to the development and deployment decision--while managing the risk."
But the panel also noted some management weaknesses. It said government program managers lacked clear authority, and it faulted Boeing for being too focused on the overall integration of the system at the expense of overseeing the development of the kill vehicle and other components. It urged Boeing to audit the ground testing of the kill vehicle more closely.
It characterized the kill vehicle program as "hardware poor," citing a lack of parts for both testing and backup. This hardware shortage, the panel said, had impeded development work and contributed to flight test delays.
For example, when the "inertial measurement unit" (IMU), which helps guide the kill vehicle, was found to be defective before last month's test, there were no spares. So the Raytheon Co., the kill vehicle maker, had to take an IMU from another kill vehicle designated to fly in a later test.
"Because the manufacturer has discontinued making IMUs, a new one cannot be substituted," the report said. "Rather, Raytheon must wait for repairs to be made," which could cause a flight test delay next spring. "This risk is directly attributable to inadequate developmental and spare hardware."
As important as flight tests are to the program, much of the data for assessing the system's feasibility by next summer will come from computer simulation and ground testing. Yet the panel found that these efforts had inadequate resources and were behind schedule.
"The plan to mitigate the risks associated with these delays did not provide much confidence to the panel," the report said.
The panel urged expanded simulation and ground testing. It also called for flight tests against more varied targets. And it recommended additional hardware to support testing, including a second launcher for the main test site in the Marshall Islands. Pentagon officials said a second launch silo is under construction.
Another "major concern," the panel said, is whether the kill vehicle will be able withstand the shock loads of the booster being designed to carry it into space. The expected loads would be more than an order of magnitude greater than those on the surrogate booster now being used in tests. Only in 2003 is the new booster due to be mated with the kill vehicle for the first time in a flight test.
-------- us nuc power
Revving the Energy Engine Means Rising U.S. Emissions
Environment News Service November 9, 1999
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/nov99/1999L-11-09-01.html
WASHINGTON, DC, November 9, 1999 (ENS) - Growth in energy demand in the United States will lead to increasing greenhouse gas emissions through 2020, according to government forecasts released today.
The U.S. already emits more greenhouse gases than any other nation, with China rated second. Heat-trapping emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and four other gases produced by combustion of fossil fuels are blamed for global warming.
Atmospheric emissions of carbon will increase 33 percent during the next decade over 1990 levels, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicated in its "Annual Energy Outlook 2000." The EIA is the statistical agency of the U.S. Department of Energy.
By 2020, the U.S. will be emitting 634 million more tonnes of carbon each year than it released in 1990, the agency said.
Alabama Power's Martin Hydroelectric Generating Plant located on the Tallapoosa River near Tallassee, Florida has a generating capacity of 154,200 KW with no fossil fuel emissions. (Photo courtesy Alabama Power)
These latest figures mean that the United States will fail to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases by seven percent over 1990 levels in the period 2008 to 2012 - a target assigned by the Kyoto Protocol. This agreement, an addition to the UN climate change treaty, has been signed, but not ratified by the U.S. The 1997 international treaty would oblige 39 industrialized countries including the United States to limit their emissions of six gases linked to global warming.
The U.S. Senate has refused to ratify the agreement until the emissions of developing nations are controlled. No other industrialized nations covered by the Protocol have ratified the agreement either. International climate negotiations that concluded last week in Bonn, resolved to work towards ratification in the year 2002. Still, many of the 39 nations, particularly in the European Union, are already working towards achieving their Kyoto Protocol limits.
In the United States, the EIA predicted that, "Through 2020, growing energy demand is mostly satisfied by fossil fuels, as nuclear electricity generation declines and the use of renewable energy sources grows slowly." The projections do not factor in any new policies or programs to reduce emissions.
16 miles northeast of downtown Las Vegas, Nevada, the Garnet Valley cogeneration plant uses cleaner-burning natural gas to make two products: electricity for the Nevada Power Company, and thermal energy for a Georgia-Pacific Corporation gypsum wallboard plant. (Photo courtesy Nevada Cogeneration Associates)
The growth in carbon dioxide emissions did slow down in 1998, but continuing growth in energy demand will cause U.S. emissions to peak in 2020 at a level that will be 47 percent higher than in 1990, the agency predicted.
World oil prices are expected to moderate in the long term, with prices reaching $22 a barrel in 2020 compared with $12 in 1998 (in constant dollars). Improvements in oil production technology will help to moderate prices as global demand grows.
The EIA's Outlook 2000 says that U.S. imports of oil will continue to increase as a result of declining domestic production and rising demand, reaching 64 percent of consumption in 2020. The 1998 level was 52 percent.
The average retail price for electricity will drop from 6.7 cents per kilowatt-hour in 1998 to 5.8 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2020 due to increasing competition in the power industry and declining coal prices.
Davis Bessie nuclear power plant Unit 1 is located 21 mile east-southeast of Toledo, Ohio. Nuclear plants emit no greenhouse gases (Photo courtesy Nuclear Regulatory Commission)
Coal is the primary fuel for electricity generation in the U.S., but its share will decline slightly by 2020 as a result of the shift to generation from the comubstion of natural gas. The wellhead price for natural gas will increase at an average annual rate of 1.7 percent until 2020, the EIA forecasts.
Nuclear generation is predicted to decline 37 percent by 2020, as some existing plants retire. But the number of retirements is lower than in earlier projections due to a reevaluation of the capital costs to build replacement fossil-fuel capacity.
Reference case projections from the Annual Energy Outlook 2000 and an overview of the results can be accessed online at: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/earlyrelease/index.html.
The full report, including projections with differing assumptions on the price of oil, the rate of economic growth, and the introduction of new technologies, will be released on December 17, 1999, along with regional projections. A report on the major assumptions underlying the projections will be released by January 7, 2000.
Copies are available through EIA's National Energy Information Center, Forrestal Building, Washington, DC 20585. Tel: 202-586-8800.
---
BGE Vows to Push for Relicensing
Washington Post Sunday, November 14, 1999; Page C03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/14/092l-111499-idx.html
METRO IN BRIEF - MARYLAND
Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. will continue to seek a license renewal for its Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant despite an adverse federal appeals court ruling, a spokesman for the utility said yesterday.
On Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had unfairly ignored opponents of the renewal as it reviewed BGE's application for relicensing.
"This does not change our commitment to renewing the license for Calvert Cliffs," said BGE spokesman Karl Neddenien. "The many reasons that were true two days ago remain true. . . . It's a reliable, economical and environmentally friendly source of electricity, and it just makes sense to continue using this valuable resource."
BGE's licenses for its twin reactors in Calvert County, about 60 miles from the White House, expire in 2014 and 2016. It is the first nuclear plant in the United States to seek a 20-year renewal.
---
U.S. Appellate Judge Joins War Crimes Panel
By Bill Miller Washington Post Staff Writer, November 14, 1999; Page C01
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/14/103l-111499-idx.html
She is one of Washington's most distinguished judges, writing more than 825 opinions in the 20 years since she became the first woman to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Now Patricia M. Wald is moving to a new arena as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal, where she will try people accused of committing war crimes in the former Yugoslavia.
"It was something I cared about, something I wanted to do," said Wald, who formally becomes one of 14 judges on the U.N. war crimes court this week. "The timing was right. I've had 20 years here. I felt it was important."
The tribunal, headquartered in The Hague, was established by the U.N. Security Council in 1993 to investigate charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and other offenses committed during recent wars in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. Eight people have been convicted so far, and 32 others are in custody and awaiting trial. Dozens of others have been indicted publicly but not arrested, including Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.
Wald, 71, succeeds Gabrielle Kirk McDonald as the U.S. representative on the court. She has a longstanding interest in international law and has made numerous visits to Eastern Europe in recent years in programs sponsored by the American Bar Association, the State Department and the U.S. Information Agency.
The two-year assignment, made by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the State Department's urging, is the latest step in a remarkable career that has included turns as a juvenile justice advocate, a public-interest lawyer, an assistant attorney general and an appeals court judge. President Clinton tried to recruit Wald as his first attorney general in 1993, but she quickly took herself out of the running, saying she wanted to remain a judge.
"She's fast and she's very smart. Everyone with whom she has worked would say that about her," said Harry T. Edwards, chief judge of the D.C. Circuit. "This is the kind of person who is such a star. She could have been standoffish, and played the Washington 'I am a star' role. Instead, she was always approachable and always cared that we got the work done."
Edwards said he waged a titanic struggle recently to persuade Wald to attend a small dinner in her honor. Wald's reaction was "typical of her time on the court--she never has been a person to seek acclaim," he said.
The D.C. Circuit has enormous influence because of the unique blend of cases it gets, largely because of its location in Washington. The court is called upon to resolve disputes over federal regulations that affect everyday life, ruling on issues involving civil rights, the environment, utilities, communications, health care and other weighty subjects. That's in addition to hearing the usual mix of appeals of criminal and civil cases and handling issues that arise from various independent counsel investigations. Just Friday, the court ruled, in an opinion written by Wald, that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission unfairly ignored opponents of the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant as it rushed to renew the facility's license.
Many scholars consider the court the second most powerful in the nation after the U.S. Supreme Court. Indeed, three of Wald's former colleagues are on the Supreme Court: Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
A Connecticut native and graduate of Yale Law School, Wald came to Washington in 1952 and joined the law firm of Arnold & Porter. Her husband, Robert, also is a lawyer. Patricia Wald took nearly a decade off to raise her five children then began working in the 1960s on issues such as bail reform, juvenile justice and mental health. After joining the staff of Neighborhood Legal Services, she began appearing regularly in courts at a time when women weren't readily accepted by men who had dominated the field.
In the late 1960s, when Wald once identified herself in federal court as "Patricia Wald," she was admonished by the judge, who said that wasn't her "real name." The judge asked Wald if she was married and demanded she restate her name as "Mrs. Robert Wald."
"Fortunately, I feel safe in saying that couldn't happen any more, which goes to show we have made some progress," Wald said. Not only did the judge demean Wald that day, he also dismissed her case concerning the treatment of a mental patient at St. Elizabeths Hospital. Wald later recast the matter as part of a class-action lawsuit and won an even bigger decision.
Wald wouldn't identify the judge, saying only that he's deceased.
She later worked for the Center for Law and Social Policy and the Mental Health Law Project before joining the Justice Department in 1977 as assistant attorney general for legislative affairs. President Jimmy Carter named her to the appeals court in 1979. Seven years later, she became the first woman to serve a regular term as chief judge of a federal appellate court.
Senior U.S. District Judge Aubrey E. Robinson Jr., who was chief judge of that court at the time, recalled he and Wald worked together on issues concerning the management of the courthouse building. Wald also initiated a study to determine if gender bias entered into the courts and found reforms were needed in the treatment of female lawyers.
Wald, chief judge until 1991, said she has seen the appellate court shift from a decidedly liberal tilt in her early years to a sharply conservative bent in the mid-1980s to being closer to the middle these days. Of the court's 11 judges, five were appointed by Democratic presidents and six by Republicans. Wald's departure gives the court a 6-to-4 split, although judges do not always vote along party lines. No replacement has been named.
On a court traditionally loaded with strong personalities and ideologies, Wald said she attempted to remain focused on her work over the years, even during a period when arguments among judges became quite contentious. Of the current court, she said: "We're not in any high state of battle. . . . Sometimes people feel very intensely about substantive matters, but there are no personal vendettas. That has not always been true in the past."
Because cases are randomly assigned to three-judge panels, they can wind up before jurists who have widely divergent views. Some of her best writing came in cases in which she wrote dissents, Wald said. Dissenting opinions, she explained, can persuade judges in other circuits, who are not bound by D.C. Circuit opinions, and can generate interest by the Supreme Court.
One of those instances involved a D.C. law that banned demonstrations within 500 feet of embassies. In 1986, a majority on the appellate court, led by then-Judge Robert H. Bork, upheld the law's ban on signs and the limits it placed on numbers of demonstrators. In her 48-page dissent, Wald said that Bork was "too willing . . . to sacrifice First Amendment freedoms" and argued the law was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court agreed with her.
Wald's departure leaves the D.C. Circuit with only one Carter appointee: the current chief judge, Edwards, who joined the court in 1980.
Paying tribute to Wald at the recent dinner, Edwards told his colleagues: "She is a brilliant lawyer and jurist, she is lightning fast in her work, she has an incredible memory. She misses no nuance in an argument; she is an extraordinary and tenacious advocate of a position once she has analyzed competing arguments. She is fair-minded, and she is gracious on the bench."
Edwards said Wald caught lawyers off guard during oral arguments by summing up issues in a gracious but challenging manner. In a legendary episode, an attorney once "passed out cold" in front of Wald as she addressed him, Edwards said, adding, "The deputy marshal thought that Judge Wald had killed the attorney with her polite questions."
On the tribunal, Wald likely will sit on one of three panels that tries cases. Each panel has three judges. The tribunal's remaining five judges are assigned to hear appeals. It is the first tribunal to prosecute war crimes since the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II. A similar tribunal has been formed to prosecute those responsible for the massacre in Rwanda in 1994.
Wald said her experience on the appellate bench should smooth matters in the transition because in both courts judges must be impartial, look at all sides fairly, ensure they have legal authority and find legitimate ways to compromise. Still, she acknowledged, the work ahead is daunting.
"I've been trying to read as much as I can," Wald said. "It's a new set of laws, a new set of procedures, a new set of colleagues and a new country."
-------- us other
Loud and Clear The most secret of secret agencies operates under outdated laws.
By James Bamford, Washington Post Sunday, November 14, 1999; Page B01
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/14/040l-111499-idx.html
On the Yorkshire moors in northern England, dozens of enormous white globes sit like a moon base, each one hiding a dish-shaped antenna aimed at a satellite. Acres of buildings house advanced computers and receiving equipment, while tall fences and roving guards keep the curious at a distance. Known as Menwith Hill station, it is one of the most secret pieces of real estate on Earth. It is also becoming one of the most controversial.
For decades, Menwith Hill has been the key link in a worldwide eavesdropping network operated by America's super-secret National Security Agency (NSA), the agency responsible, among other things, for electronic surveillance and code breaking. It is the NSA's largest listening post anywhere in the world. During the Cold War, the station played a major role in the West's ability to monitor the diplomatic, military and commercial communication behind the Iron Curtain. But rather than shrinking in the decade since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Menwith Hill has grown.
People in Europe and the United States are beginning to ask why. Has the NSA turned from eavesdropping on the communists to eavesdropping on businesses and private citizens in Europe and the United States? The concerns have arisen because of the existence of a sophisticated network linking the NSA and the spy agencies of several other nations. The NSA will not confirm the existence of the project, code-named Echelon.
The allegations are serious. A report by the European Parliament has gone so far as to say "within Europe all e-mail, telephone and fax communications are routinely intercepted" by the NSA. As one of the few outsiders who have followed the agency for years, I think the concerns are overblown--so far. Based on everything I know about the agency, and countless conversations with current and former NSA personnel, I am certain that the NSA is not overstepping its mandate. But that doesn't mean it won't.
My real concern is that the technologies it is developing behind closed doors, and the methods that have given rise to such fears, have given the agency the ability to extend its eavesdropping network almost without limits. And as the NSA speeds ahead in its development of satellites and computers powerful enough to sift through mountains of intercepted data, the federal laws (now a quarter-century old) that regulate the agency are still at the starting gate. The communications revolution--and all the new electronic devices susceptible to monitoring--came long after the primary legislation governing the NSA.
The controversy comes at an interesting time. Throughout much of the intelligence community, the cloak of secrecy is being pulled back. The CIA recently sponsored a well-publicized reunion of former American spies in Berlin and is planning a public symposium on intelligence during the Cold War later this month in Texas. Even the National Reconnaissance Office, once so secret that even its name was classified, now offers millions of pages of documents and decades of spy satellite imagery to anyone with the time and interest to review them.
The NSA is the exception. As more and more questions are being raised about its activities, the agency is pulling its cloak even tighter. It is obsessively secretive. Last spring, for the first time, it denied a routine request for internal procedural information from a congressional intelligence committee.
Headquartered at Fort Meade, halfway between Washington and Baltimore, the NSA is by far America's largest spy agency. It has about 38,000 military and civilian employees around the world; the CIA, roughly 17,000. The agency's mandate is to monitor communications and break codes overseas; it also has a limited domestic role, with targets such as foreign embassies. It can monitor American citizens suspected of espionage with a warrant from a special court. It is potentially the most intrusive spy agency. Where scores of books have been written about the CIA, the only book exclusively on the NSA is the one I wrote in 1982.
Echelon, which links the NSA to its counterparts in the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand, amounts to a global listening network. With it, those agencies are able to sift through great quantities of communications intercepted by satellites and ground stations around the world, using computers that search for specific names, words or phrases.
Whether the NSA will go too far with Echelon is not an idle question. In the mid-1970s, the Senate and House Select Committees on Intelligence were created in part as a result of NSA violations. For decades, the NSA had secretly and illegally gained access to millions of private telegrams and telephone calls in the United States. The agency acted as though the laws that applied to the rest of government did not apply to it.
Based on the findings of a commission appointed by President Ford, the Justice Department launched an unusually secret criminal investigation of the agency, known only to a handful of people. Senior NSA officials were read Miranda warnings and interrogated. It was the first time the Justice Department had ever treated an entire federal agency as a suspect in a criminal investigation. Eventually, despite finding numerous grounds on which to go forward with prosecution, Justice attorneys recommended against it. "There is the specter," said their report, which the government still considers classified, "in the event of prosecution, that there is likely to be much 'buck-passing' from subordinate to superior, agency to agency, agency to board or committee, board or committee to the President, and from the living to the dead."
As a result of the investigations, Congress in 1978 passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which stated in black and white what the NSA could and could not do. To overcome the NSA's insistence that its activities were too secret to be discussed before judges, Congress created a special federal court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, to hear requests for warrants for national security eavesdropping. In case the court ever turned down an NSA request, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Appeals Court was created. It has never heard a case.
In the more than two decades since the FISA was passed, the law has remained largely static, while cell phones, e-mail, faxes and the Internet have come to dominate how we communicate. The point hasn't been lost on the NSA. Last month, Air Force Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden, director of the NSA, gave a speech inside the agency. I was one of the few outsiders invited to attend. Hayden warned of the "new challenges" in "information technology" that the agency now faces. "The scale of change is alarmingly rapid," he said, noting that "the world now contains 40 million cell phones, 14 million fax machines, 180 million computers, and the Internet doubles every 90 days."
That's not all Hayden acknowledged. He had just returned from England, he said, where he had met with colleagues at Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Britain's equivalent of the NSA. He added that they had renewed a long-standing commitment to work together. No director had ever spoken publicly of that close partnership. "We must go back to our roots with GCHQ," Hayden said.
The cooperation between the Echelon countries is worrying. For decades, these organizations have worked closely together, monitoring communications and sharing the information gathered. Now, through Echelon, they are pooling their resources and targets, maximizing the collection and analysis of intercepted information. Officials from many of the European Union countries fear that the NSA may be stealing their companies' economic secrets and passing them on to American competitors. "We're hoping we can use our position to alert other parliaments and people throughout the European Union as to what's going on," Glyn Ford, a member of the European Parliament, told the BBC. "Hopefully that will lead to a situation where some proper controls are instituted and that these things are done under controlled conditions."
The issue has also caught the attention of the House and Senate intelligence committees, and the NSA's response has been anything but reassuring. As part of its normal oversight responsibilities, the House Select Committee on Intelligence last spring requested from the NSA a number of legal documents that outline the agency's procedures for its eavesdropping operations. The agency, in essence, told the committee to take a hike. It refused to release any of the documents based on a unique claim of "government attorney-client privilege." Despite repeated requests by the intelligence committee, the NSA insisted that those documents "are free from scrutiny by Congress." Eventually, after months of negotiation, the NSA complied.
It is highly unlikely that Echelon is monitoring everyone everywhere, as critics claim. It would be impossible for the NSA to capture all communications. It has had personnel cutbacks in the past five years as its national security targets have increased in number: North Korean missile development, nuclear testing in India and Pakistan, the movement of suspected terrorists and so on. Listening in on European business to help American corporations would be a very low priority, and passing secret intercepts to companies would quickly be discovered.
Still, the NSA's stonewalling of Congress should serve as a warning bell. Under Section 502 of the National Security Act of 1947, as amended, the heads of all U.S. spy agencies are obligated to furnish "any information or material concerning intelligence activities . . . which is requested by either of the intelligence committees in order to carry out its authorized responsibilities." Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), the House committee's chairman and a former CIA officer, has long argued for a stronger intelligence community, and even he seemed stunned by the NSA's arrogance. The NSA's behavior, he said, "would seriously hobble the legislative oversight process contemplated by the Constitution."
Rather than disappear further from view, the agency should publicly address these concerns, and the intelligence committees should hold hearings to update the laws governing the NSA and to close what now amount to loopholes. For example, the 1978 FISA prohibits the NSA from using its "electronic surveillance" technology to target American citizens. But that still leaves open the possibility that Britain's GCHQ or another foreign agency could target Americans and turn the data over to the NSA. Another problem is that the FISA appears not to apply to the NSA's monitoring of the Internet. While covering such things as "wire" and "radio" communications, there is no mention of "electronic communications," which is the legal term for communicating over the Internet as defined by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986. Worse, FISA applies only "under circumstances in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy."
In the recent film, "Enemy of the State," the NSA was portrayed as an out-of-control agency listening in on unwitting citizens. As the nation begins a new century, congressional hearings to redefine the agency's boundaries are the best way to prevent life from imitating art.
James Bamford, author of "The Puzzle Palace: A Report on America's Most Secret Agency" (Viking Penguin), is working on a new book about the NSA.
---
Why the Berlin Wall Came Down
New York Times November 14, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/99/11/14/letters/l14wal.html
To the Editor:
The Berlin Wall ultimately collapsed because of the corrupt foundation on which it rested (editorial, Nov. 10). That foundation, Communism, upheld the falsehoods that each individual has a moral duty to sacrifice his life to "society" and its representative, the state; that material production arises only from man's physical labor, not his mind, and that property ownership is theft.
From this came enslavement, poverty and mass slaughter.
But the Soviet Union received moral sanctions from Western intellectuals who championed its philosophy, from Roosevelt's surrender of Eastern Europe to Stalin and from the freer nations that traded with it, and failed to confront it when it invaded neighboring countries.
Without that support, not only would the Berlin Wall have collapsed much sooner; it would not have been built.
JOSEPH KELLARD Oceanside, N.Y., Nov. 11, 1999
To the Editor:
Your Nov. 10 editorial "Mr. Gorbachev's Role" correctly gives most of the credit for the demise of the Soviet Union to the former Soviet leader. To those who would give credit for these events to Ronald Reagan, this question must be posed: If the former Soviet leaders Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko were alive today (and holding office), would the Soviet Union still be intact? I believe the answer is yes. Only with a radical change in Soviet leadership could the breakup of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Iron Curtain have taken place.
GARY GALO Potsdam, N.Y., Nov. 11, 1999
To the Editor:
Your Nov. 10 editorial praising Mikhail Gorbachev for his role in ending the cold war seems to justify his political demise. I hope that we will come to realize the tragedy of that demise.
Russia and the rest of us would be much better off today if Mr. Gorbachev remained in charge, maintaining economic and institutional stability while continuing to bring about democratic freedoms. Instead, Russia is now virtually in shambles, with its economy largely in the hands of criminals, so many of its people suffering hardships and a nuclear arsenal and expertise precariously up for grabs to the highest bidder.
ALBERT ADATO Valhalla, N.Y., Nov. 11, 1999
--------
Clinton Visit Cements US-Turkey Tie
New York Times / Associated Press November 14, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Turkey-Americas-Ally.html
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) -- Almost every day, U.S. warplanes loaded with bombs and missiles shoot down a runway amid the cotton fields of southern Turkey and head off to patrol the skies above northern Iraq.
It's a stark example of the key role that this country plays in Washington's Middle East policy, standing as a stable outpost in an unstable region.
President Clinton left Washington on Sunday for a state visit in Turkey that is expected to further cement relations. He also will participate in a European summit in Istanbul, Turkey's biggest city, then visit Greece, Italy, Bulgaria and Kosovo before returning home Nov. 23.
In Turkey, Clinton is expected to visit an area where U.S. Marines set up tents to house people made homeless after a massive August earthquake devastated western Turkey. It is not clear if he will also survey the nearby area where a Friday quake has left almost 400 people dead.
Clinton's trip was to have begun with a three-day visit to Greece, but that stop was rescheduled because of security concerns in Greece's capital, Athens. Greece now will be wedged between Turkey and Italy, and Clinton's stay there will be cut to about a day.
Turkey has been keen to host the summit of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe -- which Clinton will attend in Istanbul on Thursday and Friday.
The government, which has been campaigning for membership in the European Union for years, sees the summit as a chance to showcase its development as a democratic and Western state.
It is also anxious to highlight its close ties with the United States.
``These are the closest relations that the U.S. and Turkey have had for decades, perhaps forever,'' said Alan Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Those relations do have kinks. Clinton is expected to gently prod his hosts to crack down on police and army abuses of human rights, grant increased minority rights to ethnic Kurds and reach a settlement with Greeks on the divided island of Cyprus.
``The United States will continue to press Turkey ... and at times that is going to rub Turkish nerves a bit raw,'' Makovsky said.
By speaking to Turkey's parliament Tuesday, however, Clinton also will be lending his support to democracy in Turkey, where the military strongly influences governments.
``Turkey is lagging behind in democratic standards and I think the United States would like to see Turkey upgrade its democracy,'' said Ilnur Cevik, editor in chief of the Turkish Daily News.
``This will be done in a friendly manner,'' he said. ``It will not be done as a big brother imposing his will on a little brother.''
Clinton, the first U.S. president to visit Turkey since 1991, opens his stay by visiting the huge, stone mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the military officer who established the secular Turkish republic and set it on its pro-Western course.
The visit to the shrine, which dominates an entire hillside of the capital, is virtually required of all foreign dignitaries. But for Clinton, it will also be an affirmation of U.S. support for Turkey as an overwhelmingly Muslim country that has cast its future with the West.
U.S. policy makers see a strong, secular and democratic Turkey as a counterweight to the neighboring clerical regime in Iran and as an example for Muslim states of the former Soviet Union.
For its part, Turkey sees the United States as a reliable ally that has focused on Turkey's strategic importance and not on the country's harsh crackdown on its restive Kurdish minority, which is the focus of many European states.
``The Americans tend to see relationships more in terms of interests than the Europeans,'' said Ilter Turan of Istanbul's Bilgi University. ``It is easier to do business with them.''
Nowhere is the U.S. focus on Turkey's strategic role more clear than in Incirlik, a sprawling air base in southern Turkey.
During the Cold War, the base housed NATO fighters that patrolled the southern borders of the Soviet Union.
Now, U.S. F-15 and F-16 fighters take off from Incirlik and head for northern Iraq, where they carry out frequent bombing raids on Iraqi anti-aircraft guns that challenge allied aircraft.
Americans seem to be genuinely popular on the streets of Turkey. Turks frequently boast about being members of the NATO alliance and many strongly believe the United States played a key role in Turkey's February abduction of Kurdish guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan from Kenya.
Turks also appreciate Washington's role in pressing European states toward considering Turkey's application for membership in the European Union, an application that was at first brushed aside amid criticisms of Turkey's human rights record and its disputes with member Greece.
-------- korea
U.S. worried that South Korea may be developing more missiles
Officials discover evidence of secret weapons program
JAMES RISEN New York Times Published: Sunday, November 14, 1999
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/seven-days/1/news/docs/007833.htm
WASHINGTON
U.S. intelligence analysts have discovered evidence that South Korea is trying to develop longer-range ballistic missiles while keeping some of the program's key aims secret from Washington, American officials say.
U.S. spy satellites detected fresh evidence of the program's extent last year, and American concerns intensified further after a missile test this year, the officials said. The United States, South Korea's closest ally, has been tracking its missile research carefully for years.
President Clinton and his top aides discussed their latest concerns with top South Korean officials this summer. The situation has injected an element of uncertainty into relations at a time when both allies are warily watching military developments in North Korea, which itself has ambitions to build long-range missiles. The Clinton administration has been pressing North Korea to restrain its missile programs.
The spy satellite photos revealed last year that South Korea had built a rocket motor test station without notifying the United States, according to Pentagon analysts who reviewed the intelligence. The station, which includes a large concrete or tempered steel cradle in which rocket motors are locked for firing tests, appeared to have been built secretly as part of a larger South Korean ballistic missile program, the officials said.
In April, South Korea conducted a short flight test of a new missile that appeared to violate its agreements with the United States, American officials said.
For Clinton administration officials already deeply worried about North Korea's missile and nuclear programs, South Korea's apparent efforts to develop a strategic capability of its own have raised the prospect of a regional arms race at a time when North Korea's stability is increasingly in doubt.
South Korea's missile ambitions prompted Clinton to discuss the issue personally with President Kim Dae-jung of South Korea in July, American officials said, and Defense Secretary William Cohen also raised the issue during a trip to South Korea later that month.
Administration officials refused to comment directly on the evidence uncovered by the American spy satellites last year, but one acknowledged that parts of the South Korean ballistic missile program have been hidden from the United States.
``We are interested in greater transparency in their missile development,'' the official said. ``We don't want this issue to become a point of friction in our bilateral relationship.''
The officials stressed, however, that no single piece of intelligence had suddenly prompted the administration's efforts to limit South Korea's missile program. Washington has known about South Korea's efforts to develop ballistic missiles for years, they said, and the administration has been working to contain the program.
A South Korean government official, however, denied that Seoul has sought to shield parts of its ballistic missile program. ``I believe we have kept transparency in the missile field with the United States,'' said Yoon Joe-shim, an official in the South Korean Embassy in Washington.
While no agreement between the United States and South Korea has been reached, the Clinton administration has signaled to South Korea that it is willing to accept limited improvements on the range of South Korea's ballistic missiles, American officials said.
---
S. Korean missile plan alleged Secret:
Ally trying to covertly develop longer-range weapon,
U.S. officials say.
BY JAMES RISEN New York Times
Jose Mercury News, Published Sunday, November 14, 1999, in the San
http://www7.mercurycenter.com/premium/world/docs/korea14.htm
WASHINGTON -- U.S. intelligence analysts have discovered evidence that South Korea is trying to develop longer-range ballistic missiles while keeping some of the program's key aims secret from Washington, American officials say.
U.S. spy satellites detected fresh evidence of the program's extent last year, and American concerns intensified further after a missile test this year, the officials said. The United States, South Korea's closest ally, has been tracking its missile research carefully for years.
Arms race feared
For Clinton administration officials already deeply worried about North Korea's missile and nuclear programs, South Korea's apparent efforts to develop a strategic capability of its own have raised the prospect of a regional arms race at a time when North Korea's stability is increasingly in doubt.
President Clinton and his top aides discussed their latest concerns with top South Korean officials this summer. The situation has injected an element of uncertainty into relations at a time when both allies are warily watching military developments in North Korea, which itself has ambitions to build long-range missiles. The Clinton administration has been pressing North Korea to restrain its missile programs.
The spy satellite photos revealed last year that South Korea had built a rocket motor test station without notifying the United States, according to Pentagon analysts who reviewed the intelligence. The station, which includes a large concrete or tempered steel cradle in which rocket motors are locked for firing tests, appeared to have been built secretly as part of a larger South Korean ballistic missile program, the officials said.
In April, South Korea conducted a short flight test of a new missile that appeared to violate its agreements with the United States, U.S. officials said.
South Korea's missile ambitions prompted Clinton to discuss the issue personally with President Kim Dae Jung of South Korea in July, U.S. officials said, and Defense Secretary William Cohen also raised the issue during a trip to South Korea later that month.
Administration officials refused to c