* Gulf War Veterans 'Poisoned By Own Side'
* Invitation to review website about DU.
* Y2K - Preparing For A Nuclear Power Plant Emergency
* Y2K Long Shot: Us-Russian Nuclear War
* Ukraine To Restart Chernobyl Reactor
* Chernobyl expert imprisoned amid cover-up claims
* Espionage Stir Alienating Foreign Scientists in U.S.
* ANA Urges Action: Nuclear Watchdog Groups Want Clinton To Stop "Lip Service"
* Radioactive Household Items? Comment to NRC by DEC 22, 1999!!
* USEC Board Defers Resignation Decision
* Regulation Runaround (Calvert Cliffs)
* Army's Big Gun Must Lose Some Weight
* China Intends To OK Test Ban Treaty
* U.S. Missile Shield Will Set Off a New Arms Race, China Warns
* China Condemns U.S. Missile Plans The Associated Press
* Taiwan Leader May Talk With China
* Taiwan confirms Beijing's intent to deploy missiles
* Taiwan Accuses China of Threat
* Officials Deny Israel Nuke Report
* Israel Eases Secrecy Over Nuclear Whistle-Blower's Trial
* Israel's nuclear secrets revealed
* Nuclear secrets revealed to force truth
* Bush drafting call for Saddam's ouster
* To: NucNews Editor: re uranium and SOA
* Yucca Mountain adviser dies
* Editorial: Costs too high for nuclear waste dump

------------ du

Gulf War Veterans 'Poisoned By Own Side'

November 24, 1999
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/991124/2/bnev.html

New tests show British Gulf war veterans were poisoned by radioactive and toxic dust from shells fired by their own side during the conflict.

Nuclear expert Professor Asaf Durakovic said sick ex-servicemen could have received specialist treatment after being exposed to the depleted Uranium but he believes it is now too late.

Prof Durakovic, clinical professor of radiology and nuclear medicine at America's Georgetown University, told ITV's Trevor McDonald that he is preparing to publish the evidence in a medical journal.

He said that during his own research, seven British veterans had tested positively for DU, a toxic substance which poisons the organs, mainly the liver.

"It is absolutely amazing that we see the levels of DU in the urine of veterans nine years after the war," he said.

"I am not implying that all the symptoms of Gulf War Syndrome are due to DU, but a large part of the sickness of the patients that I have been following is due to the contamination with radioactive isotopes."

Nearly 160 sick veterans from Britain, Canada and the US are to be tested in the new study.

Prof Durakovic, who has published more than 100 books and papers in his specialist field, said the latest tests use sophisticated measuring techniques which have been neglected by the British and American governments. A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence said Government scientists would be keen to see the new evidence.

"We remain open-minded about the possible causes of Gulf War Sickness," he added.

---

Invitation to review website about DU.

http://www.globaldialog.com/~kornkven/ The information is posted under DULink.

Some of the documents posted there include a 1998 Environmental Assessment on the Abrams Tank showing how much radiation is given off a tank with DU armor. This report states the "...Army conservatively treats its soldiers as members of the general public when it comes to exposures to DU. A few months later the DOD releases their DU report on exposures during the Gulf War in which they seem to suggest our exposures did not exceed levels of "occupational workers".

Another is an Environmental Assessment on Jefferson Proving Ground in which they comment on a Dose Assessment model for Deer, and comment that the doses are not enough to harm the deer's reproductivity.

Another item posted is Army Regulation 40-14. This regulation governs the US military concerning exposures to ionizing radiation such as from DU. The interesting part of this regulation is that it was changed in 1995 to specifically exclude soldiers from medical care after exposure to DU if they are deployed into combat zones....such as Kosovo.

On April 15th in a briefing at the Pentagon when OSAGWI released their RAND DU report, they also briefed on training (or serious lack thereof) of soldiers on the hazards of DU. They are "targeting" their training to soldiers in only a few different jobs, which means they learned nothing from the exposures of the Gulf War. The stunning announcements were that they had to form a separate "Tri-Service working group" to try get the commanders to take the training more seriously and implement it. The other was that the Army medical corps still has no training material available on how to treat a soldier wounded or contaminated with DU....this after the GAO recommended the training 6 years ago in June 1993. The comment from the briefer was that "there is a training video on the streets that is available to them."

I found a military web site that lists training of doctors on DU wounds and contamination that were available in 1998, with a video clip of one of the tapes posted at my site. The military does not use these tapes for training their medical personnel.

PS. According to NRC documents that I obtained under FOIA, the DOD is very knowledgeable about the hazards of DU dating back to 1961. Testing of DU munitions, according to this documentation started in 1958. The RAND report essentially said they could find no published reports on the medical effects of DU exposure. I guess they missed the NRC.

Chris Kornkven President National Gulf War Resource Center, Inc. http://www.gulfweb.org/ngwrc/index.htm http://www.globaldialog.com/~kornkven http://www.gulfweb.org

--------- Y2K

Preparing For A Nuclear Power Plant Emergency

25 Nov 1999 01:06:23 -0500 http://www.fema.gov/fema/nucprep.htm

Federal, State and local officials work together to develop site-specific emergency response plans for nuclear power plant accidents. These plans are tested through exercises that include protective actions for schools and nursing homes.

The plans also delineate evacuation routes, reception centers for those seeking radiological monitoring and location of congregate care centers for temporary lodging.

State and local governments, with support from the Federal government and utilities, develop plans that include a plume emergency planning zone with a radius of 10 miles from the plant, and an ingestion planning zone within a radius of 50 miles from the plant.

Residents within the 10-mile emergency planning zone are regularly disseminated emergency information materials (via brochures, the phone book, calendars, utility bills, etc.). These materials contain educational information on radiation, instructions for evacuation and sheltering, special arrangements for the handicapped, contacts for additional information, etc. Residents should be familiar with these emergency information materials.

Radiological emergency plans call for a prompt Alert and Notification system. If needed, this prompt Alert and Notification System will be activated quickly to inform the public of any potential threat from natural or man-made events. This system uses either sirens, tone alert radios, route alerting (the "Paul Revere" method), or a combination to notify the public to tune their radios or television to an Emergency Alert System (EAS) station.

The EAS stations will provide information and emergency instructions for the public to follow. If you are alerted, tune to your local EAS station which includes radio stations, television stations, NOAA weather radio, and the cable TV system. Special plans must be made to assist and care for persons who are medically disabled or handicapped. If you or someone you know lives within ten miles of a nuclear facility, please notify and register with your local emergency management agency. Adequate assistance will be provided during an emergency. In the most serious case, evacuations will be recommended based on particular plant conditions rather than waiting for the situation to deteriorate and an actual release of radionuclides to occur.

Fact Sheet: Nuclear Power Plant Emergency

What is Radiation?

Emergency Classification Levels

Emergency Alerts

Three Ways to Minimize Radiation Exposure

What You Can Do to Stay Informed

Updated: June 23, 1999 Preparing For A Nuclear Power Plant Emergency

Federal, State and local officials work together to develop site-specific emergency response plans for nuclear power plant accidents. These plans are tested through exercises that include protective actions for schools and nursing homes.

The plans also delineate evacuation routes, reception centers for those seeking radiological monitoring and location of congregate care centers for temporary lodging. State and local governments, with support from the Federal government and utilities, develop plans that include a plume emergency planning zone with a radius of 10 miles from the plant, and an ingestion planning zone within a radius of 50 miles from the plant.

Residents within the 10-mile emergency planning zone are regularly disseminated emergency information materials (via brochures, the phone book, calendars, utility bills, etc.). These materials contain educational information on radiation, instructions for evacuation and sheltering, special arrangements for the handicapped, contacts for additional information, etc. Residents should be familiar with these emergency information materials. Radiological emergency plans call for a prompt Alert and Notification system. If needed, this prompt Alert and Notification System will be activated quickly to inform the public of any potential threat from natural or man-made events. This system uses either sirens, tone alert radios, route alerting (the "Paul Revere" method), or a combination to notify the public to tune their radios or television to an Emergency Alert System (EAS) station.

The EAS stations will provide information and emergency instructions for the public to follow. If you are alerted, tune to your local EAS station which includes radio stations, television stations, NOAA weather radio, and the cable TV system.

Special plans must be made to assist and care for persons who are medically disabled or handicapped. If you or someone you know lives within ten miles of a nuclear facility, please notify and register with your local emergency management agency. Adequate assistance will be provided during an emergency.

In the most serious case, evacuations will be recommended based on particular plant conditions rather than waiting for the situation to deteriorate and an actual release of radionuclides to occur.

Fact Sheet: Nuclear Power Plant Emergency What is Radiation?

Emergency Classification Levels

Emergency Alerts

Three Ways to Minimize Radiation Exposure

What You Can Do to Stay Informed

Updated: June 23, 1999

---

Y2K Long Shot: Us-Russian Nuclear War

By John Donnelly, Boston Globe, Sunday, November 21, 1999 Sent by: William Santelmann, for the Metro-Boston Committee to De-Alert Nuclear Weapons dealert99@aol.com

WASHINGTON -- It would be the world's most extreme Y2K computer glitch. As improbable as it may be, the possibility of a mistaken launch of nuclear missiles just as the world celebrates the new millennium has antiatomic activists pushing anew for *disarmament* of all US and Russian nuclear missiles.

US officials say flatly that Y2K computer problems will not cause any accidental launch of a nuclear missile.

But arms control specialists cannot completely rule out a Y2K doomsday scenario, which could start with computer malfunctions in Russia that cause early-warning systems to give erroneous indications of a missile attack.

Then, under this hypothetical scenario, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin could order the activation of the country's "dead hand" system, which ensures nuclear retaliation in case an attack kills the entire Moscow leadership.

Next, the Y2K bug could shut down the communication between Russia's central command and the dead hand computer apparatus, which would proceed to launch missiles on the basis of the false indications of an incoming attack. And that, according to some disarmament activists, could bring nuclear holocaust as Russia sends hundreds of nuclear missiles toward the United States.

Much would have to go wrong for such a cataclysmic event to occur, but such technical and human error is not absolutely out of the question, some arms specialists warn.

Earlier this year, to add another layer of safety to prevent an accidental launch, President Clinton and Yeltsin created a joint Y2K control room at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. There Russian and US officials will sit side-by-side beginning in late December to minimize the chances of a Y2K-triggered false alarm.

But the scenario described above is based on a "Dr. Strangelove"-like system that exists in Russia, notably the dead hand computer program, which remains in the hands of Moscow despite the joint command center in Colorado.

And the scenario comes against a backdrop of rising Russian anger against the United States, the most recent point of conflict occurring last week in Clinton's pointed criticism of the war in Chechnya. Pentagon officials say Russia has embarked on a campaign of nuclear muscle-flexing to show its displeasure, including a recent test of two submarine-launched missiles and Russia's threats to send nuclear bombers to Cuba and Vietnam.

But an ongoing worry persists around Russia's deteriorating and incomplete early-missile warning system, underscoring the dangers of having an estimated 5,000 Russian and US nuclear missiles on a hair-trigger -- Y2K or no Y2K.

While the missiles are no longer targeted on cities and nuclear sites, they are loaded with guidance systems that, on the United States side, can be programmed in as little time as 10 seconds, literally a flip of the switch and then two computer keystrokes, analysts said.

"Even if the Y2K risks are low, it's important for people to appreciate the overall risks here," said Bruce Blair, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and a recipient this year of a MacArthur Foundation "genius grant," who has written extensively about possible doomsday nuclear scenarios, including the dead hand possibility.

In the view of Blair and others, Y2K is a unique event, and thus the threat cannot be calculated.

"It is inestimable," Blair said. "Anyone who claims to know the probability of Y2K early-warning failure in Russia is pulling it out of thin air." In recent months, US and Russian officials have tried to assure the public that Y2K poses no risk of a nuclear shoot-out.

Following a federal government report on the Y2K problem earlier this month, the White House said in a statement: "Y2K problems will not cause nuclear weapons to launch themselves. Nuclear weapons launch requires human intervention."

A Pentagon official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the worries of Y2K problems with Russia's nuclear system "have gotten blown way out of proportion. We expect minor glitches in Russia, nothing of great severity." At the Colorado center, American officials will share data from the US global early warning network.

But distrust lingers, even at the joint command center. US officials will not share everything from the early-warning network for fear of giving away secrets to the Russians, and the Russians have rejected US requests to set up another joint Y2K control center in Russia because of their own wariness of giving away intelligence secrets.

Ill feeling has gradually built up between the two nation's militaries since the early euphoria following the breakup of the Soviet Union. It deepened among the Russian military hierarchy in recent months with the expansion of NATO eastward to include three more countries; with NATO's war against Serb forces in Kosovo; and with US intentions to build a national missile defense system that would violate the antiballistic missile treaty.

Five US arms control specialists, some working for the Clinton administration or Congress and some at universities, have said recently that their contacts in Russia have dried up because Russian intelligence agents have told scientists to cease contacts with Americans.

In the last month, the possible Y2K threat has galvanized many antinuclear activists, including Helen M. Caldicott, author Jonathan Schell, and former arms negotiator Paul Nitze, who have called on Clinton in full-page newspaper advertisements to "de-alert" thousands of nuclear missiles. De-alerting literally means taking missiles off high alert, removing the hair trigger by dismantling missile components.

Last summer, Representative Edward J. Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, introduced a resolution calling for immediate de-alerting of nuclear missiles. But US and Russian officials have rejected the idea. US Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said in Moscow recently that de-alerting was "off the table."

The obstacles, according to Pentagon officials and arms control specialists, lie in verification and lack of trust.

"As long as the US and Russia see each as potential adversaries, this is going to be the situation" of missiles on hair-trigger, said Theodore A. Postol, a MIT professor of science, technology, and national security policy. "That will also be the situation if one side sees itself as vulnerable to a damaging strike."

That now would be Russia, because its nuclear forces are "extremely vulnerable to a US strike," Postol said. Many Russian nuclear missiles are either in silos or are collected together in corrugated steel buildings, making them a possible lucrative target in a nuclear war. Many US nuclear missiles, in comparison, are on submarines, which can evade detection.

A US arms control official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said de-alerting would be extremely difficult in practice because of the difficulty of verification. "You have to imagine all sorts of shenanigans there would be over verification," the official said. "Once you mention the word 'verification,' the idea loses some of its attractiveness."

But for some arms control analysts, there seems little reason to keep so many missiles on high alert a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

"What's the threat? Does anyone think there is going to be a bolt-out-of-the-blue attack?" said Joseph Cirincione, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington think tank. "Does anyone believe that the Russians would do this for some reason, that they would try to do a preemptive strike? I think it's just insane at this point."

Blair, the Brookings analyst who has had extensive contacts with Russian counterparts, said while both the United States and Russia find a preemptive strike scenario "bizarre," the issue cannot be totally dismissed because of Russia's rising distrust of the United States.

Asked if the Y2K doomsday scenario, which has been so roundly dismissed by US officials, was cause for losing sleep, Blair did not respond reassuringly. "Why should you sleep at night? Why should you sleep if nobody knows? Maybe you need a sleeping pill," he said. "You can hope and trust that the probability is extremely small. But we certainly don't know that."

--- chernobyl

Ukraine To Restart Chernobyl Reactor

By Marina Sysoyeva, Associated Press, Nov. 25, 1999; 2:19 p.m. EST
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991125/aponline141911_000.htm

KIEV, Ukraine -- Thirteen years after the world's worst nuclear accident, the Chernobyl power plant is reemerging as a focus of environmental fears and a subject of negotiations over aid to cash-strapped Ukraine.

The reopening of the plant's only functioning reactor, scheduled for Friday following five months of repairs, comes after the U.S. State Department recently said Ukraine "appears to be unprepared" to confront the Y2K bug. The department warned of "a risk of potential disruption in all key sectors, especially the energy and electric services."

"We're completely opposed to restarting Chernobyl," said Ben Pearson, an anti-nuclear campaigner in the Amsterdam office of the environmental group Greenpeace. "Chernobyl is probably the most dangerous reactor in the world."

Ukrainian authorities insist the troubled plant, site of the 1986 accident, is safe.

Under a 1995 agreement between Ukraine and the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations, Chernobyl was supposed to be closed once and for all before the year 2000.

But the former Soviet republic says it has not received the money it was promised to complete two new nuclear reactors, and therefore will keep Chernobyl running until an unspecified date next year.

Ukraine argues that it needs the electricity, and can't afford to risk running short during the harsh winter months.

But Pearson said that Ukrainian energy supplies exceed demand, and critics contend that Ukraine has for years been using Chernobyl as leverage to get money from the West.

"In six months' time, Ukraine may decide for political reasons that it wants to keep Chernobyl open," Pearson said.

Ever since the Chernobyl disaster 13 years ago, the Soviet Union and then Ukraine have come under pressure to close the plant.

The devastating explosion and fire at reactor No. 4 spewed radiation over much of Europe. The Ukrainian government has blamed at least 8,000 deaths on the accident, including those killed immediately, workers who died in the massive cleanup operation, and people who subsequently died of cancer and other radiation-related illnesses.

Three of Chernobyl's four reactors are now permanently shut down. The last functioning reactor, No. 3, was turned off July 1 for five months of planned repairs.

The reactor was to be brought back on-line earlier this month, but additional maintenance forced a delay. Oleh Holoskokov, a spokesman for the plant, said tests were underway, and the plant should be back in operation "in the early hours of Friday."

"Every reactor that is prepared for a restart undergoes obligatory Y2K testings," Holoskokov added.

The millennium-bug issue has to do with the tendency of older computers to read only the last two digits in a year. If not converted, they could mistake the year 2000, or "00," for 1900, possibly leading to malfunctions and failures.

U.S. Ambassador Steven Pifer has discussed the issue with Ukrainian leaders, who promised to allow American officials to examine all vital energy facilities, including nuclear plants.

Meanwhile, about 500 workers have begun repairs on the concrete-and-steel sarcophagus that conceals the ruins of Chernobyl's exploded reactor No. 4, Holoskokov said Thursday.

The shelter was hastily built after the 1986 accident to prevent additional radiation leaks, but is riddled with cracks and needs reinforcing. The workers will strengthen the sarcophagus' concrete beams, working through December from both inside and outside the huge structure.

Ukraine continues to operate 14 reactors at five power plants, which supply about 40 percent of the country's energy. While some Ukrainians want to see Chernobyl and other Soviet-designed nuclear plants shut, Ukrainian authorities face much greater pressure from governments and environmental groups in the West.

Ukraine says it still needs - and was promised - $1.2 billion from the West to finish construction of two new reactors at the Khmelnitsky and Rivne nuclear plants in exchange for the lost Chernobyl output.

"We would not be able to survive economically without launching the (new) reactors," President Leonid Kuchma said recently.

"The world could help in solving this problem," Kuchma said. "But the world only wants us to close down Chernobyl and not to complete the reactors."

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which has played a leading role in the discussions on financing, was supposed to make a loan decision in September. But it has taken no action, and other potential lenders are expected to wait for the EBRD before they commit any money.

Western nations are largely financing the sarcophagus repairs.

---

Chernobyl expert imprisoned amid cover-up claims

Amelia Gentleman in Gomel, The Guardian, London Wednesday November 17, 1999
http://www.newsunlimited.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,104248,00.html

A leading medical specialist on the legacy of the Chernobyl nuclear accident is being held in prison in Belarus amid allegations that his arrest was organised to stifle a campaign to expose the ongoing after-effects of the disaster.

Professor Yury Bandashevsky, an internationally renowned expert on the effects of radiation exposure, was arrested at his home in the middle of the night four months ago and charged with bribe-taking.

Colleagues insist that state officials fabricated the charge to silence his criticism of the government's handling of the effects of the disaster's radioactive fallout. If they are right, his arrest is an example of a new desire in the Belarussian leadership to play down the long-term effects of the catastrophe - not least because the country is too poor to effectively combat the problems.

In recent years, Belarus has negotiated a fine line between dismissing the after-effects internally - to reassure an anxious population and to reclaim vast areas of abandoned agricultural land - while stressing the ongoing problems to the west to encourage the flow of aid.

In addition to setting up a medical training school in Gomel, at the heart of the worst-affected region, Mr Bandashevsky also conducted research into the consequences of the catastrophe, and his findings proved dangerously controversial. While Belarussian medical officials admit links between the accident and thyroid cancer and leukaemia, he appeared to have identified firm connections between the presence of radiation and of heart and kidney disease.

Moreover, he was bitterly critical of the way the ministry of health was spending the scant resources available for research: not long before his arrest he sent an open letter to the Belarussian president, Alexander Lukashenko, with details of how the funds had been misspent.

Mr Bandashevsky was arrested under legislation designed to "combat terrorism and other especially violent crimes". For almost a month he was held in isolation and has not been granted bail.

Belarussian lawyers affirm that these are surprisingly harsh measures to take against someone charged with bribe-taking; in any case, no firm evidence has been produced against him.

Scientists from across Europe have been dismayed to learn of Mr Bandashevsky's arrest. Professor Michel Fernex, from the University of Basle, Switzerland, said: "He was one of a few courageous scientists who moved to the contaminated area after the accident. His work was very important."

A few miles outside Gomel looms the shell of a half-constructed hospital, which was intended for Chernobyl's victims. Its concrete frame was abandoned due to lack of funds.

Svetlana Goldade, Gomel's former mayor, said the unfinished project was symbolic of the changing official attitude to the accident.

"Bandashevsky wanted the state to teach people how to live in the shadow of Chernobyl," she said. "Increasingly, the state wants to pretend that shadow does not exist."

-------- us nuc weapons facilities

Espionage Stir Alienating Foreign Scientists in U.S.
Critics of Distrust Fear

Thursday, November 25, 1999; Page G01 Washington Post
Brain Drain By Vernon Loeb Washington Post Staff Writer

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPcap/1999-11/25/018r-112599-idx.html

PHILADELPHIA-Were it not for the uproar over Chinese nuclear espionage, Feng Gai might still be working at Los Alamos National Laboratory, burnishing his reputation as a budding star in the field of laser spectroscopy.

Feng's work is not secret and has nothing to do with nuclear weapons; he studies the unfolding of human proteins, research critical to understanding Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. But after the U.S. Department of Energy fired Chinese American physicist Wen Ho Lee in March for security violations, Feng was ordered to stay home from work for several days while Los Alamos put in place new screening procedures for foreigners.

Feeling "angry and hopeless," Feng says, he decided to say goodbye to the hysteria. This summer he packed up his family and moved to the University of Pennsylvania, which promised to build a $400,000 laboratory for its promising new professor of chemistry.

"I never cared about politics, back in China or here," said Feng, 36, sitting on a crate containing a new $80,000 laser. "I just want to do good research."

Penn's gain is not just a loss for Los Alamos, which does an increasing amount of unclassified research with commercial applications. If allegations of Chinese spying are poisoning the atmosphere for foreign scientists in this country--as some Chinese American groups contend--the United States may be a big loser as well.

Foreign students, of whom the largest contingent are from China, now receive more than half the PhDs in engineering granted by U.S. universities and are becoming increasingly dominant in physics, chemistry, mathematics and computer sciences.

More than two-thirds of those foreign PhD recipients say they want to stay and work in the United States, continuing a 50-year process through which many of the world's top scientists have become naturalized U.S. citizens. Five Nobel prizes in physics and one in chemistry have gone to Chinese Americans.

At an Oct. 5 hearing sponsored by the Congressional Asian Pacific Caucus on the Chinese espionage scandal's adverse impact on Asian Americans, Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.) said that at least a third of all the engineers in Silicon Valley are Asian Americans.

"If you subtracted that," Eshoo said, "the valley would collapse."

Charles Sie, a retired vice president at Xerox Corp., said in a recent letter to President Clinton that approximately 150,000 Chinese American scientists and engineers now work in the United States, including more than 15,000 in the defense industry.

But many foreign-born scientists have felt uncomfortable in defense facilities since the Wen Ho Lee case, and Feng is just one of several who have left Los Alamos "because of the uncertainty associated with the environment for foreign nationals," according to a report by the Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellows.

The report noted that all five top candidates for the lab's most prestigious postdoctoral positions were foreigners, and added: "Of these five, three (including the top two) rejected the offers."

When a prototype missile defense system intercepted a dummy enemy missile 140 miles in space during a critical test flight on Oct. 2, Ted Wong couldn't help feeling a surge of pride.

"I started the whole business," said Wong, an engineer who guided Hughes Aircraft Co.'s missile systems group (now part of Raytheon Corp.) into early research on the Reagan administration's proposed missile shield, known as the Strategic Defense Initiative or "Star Wars," in the mid-1980s.

Other Chinese Americans who have made major contributions to U.S. defense programs include:

* Andrew Chi, a physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center who developed the atomic clock at the heart of the Pentagon's Global Positioning System, a satellite network vital to guiding bombs and navigating ships.

* H.K. Cheng, a professor at the University of Southern California whose work in hypersonic flow physics helped to enable the reentry of intercontinental ballistic missiles and spacecraft into the atmosphere.

* Chih-Ming Ho, a scientist at the University of California at Los Angeles who showed how tiny micro-electromechanical systems, or MEMS, could replace traditional wing flaps and make U.S. fighter jets faster, more agile and harder to detect.

Despite this record of accomplishment, Chinese American leaders say, scientists of Chinese ancestry have felt under suspicion ever since a congressional committee chaired by Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) issued a report in May charging that China has stolen the designs of America's most sophisticated nuclear warheads.

"The good reputation of Chinese American scientists, which took many generations of hard work to build, has been tarnished. Their loyalty and their contributions to this country have been challenged and questioned," said Cheuk-Yin Wong, a Chinese American physicist at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory who is also chairman of the 400-member Overseas Chinese Physics Association.

"We've done so much to contribute scientifically, but our contributions aren't being recognized," added Xerox's Sie. "You can't help but think there is some kind of racism in this. It's a combination of geopolitics and racism."

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has gone out of his way to fight such allegations, assuring large gatherings of scientists that he will not tolerate any form of racism and that no one should be considered suspect on the basis of ethnicity alone.

A former head of the FBI's Chinese counterintelligence efforts, Paul D. Moore, bluntly told the Congressional Asian Pacific Caucus this month that "racial profiling" does occur in counterintelligence investigations. But he blamed China, charging that its intelligence service routinely targets Chinese citizens studying or working in the United States as well as Chinese Americans who travel to technical conferences abroad.

As long as Chinese agents remain "interested obsessively in people of Chinese American ancestry to the exclusion of people from other groups," he said, it is inevitable that the FBI also will focus disproportionately on Chinese American scientists.

"So you are profiling Chinese Americans?" asked Rep. Robert T. Matsui (D-Calif.).

"What's the option?" Moore replied.

Congress has already spoken on the issue, mandating polygraph testing for U.S. nuclear weapons scientists and tighter restrictions on Chinese and other foreigners who visit or work at the labs.

The danger of going overboard, however, is illustrated by the case of Tsien Hsue-shen, a brilliant Chinese immigrant who worked on top-secret U.S. defense projects during World War II, only to be hounded out of the United States as a suspected communist in 1955--after he had elected to become a U.S. citizen.

Tsien, a pioneer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., went back to the only other land he knew--and soon earned a place as the "father of Chinese rocketry."

"It is the story of one of the most monumental blunders the United States committed during its shameful era of McCarthyism, in which the government's zeal for Communist witchhunting destroyed the careers of some of the best scientists in the country," Iris Chang wrote in her 1996 biography of Tsien, "Thread of the Silkworm."

For more than a decade, however, the flow of scientists has been almost entirely one-way, an enormous brain drain from China to the United States.

"It's been a good thing for us--and a concern of [China's]," said Houston T. Hawkins, director of nonproliferation and international security programs at Los Alamos. "How would we like to have the top 10 percent of all graduates from U.S. technical institutions go to Libya?"

Feng Gai's background is typical. He came to the United States in 1989 to attend graduate school in physical chemistry at Iowa State University. After working for three years as a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard, he turned down a teaching position in Singapore to become a prestigious Director's Postdoctoral Fellow at Los Alamos in 1997. He has been a legal alien resident since 1994 and plans to apply for U.S. citizenship.

Hai-Lung Dai, chairman of Penn's chemistry department and a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Taiwan, said Feng's appointment shows how dependent on foreign scientists America has become. Penn reviewed a field of more than 70 U.S. and foreign scientists, but all four finalists were foreigners.

Top officials at Los Alamos also realized their dependence on foreign scientists when they advertised this year for a postdoctoral fellow to do unclassified research in nuclear materials and had 24 applicants--none of whom were American.

Indeed, the United States now leads the world in commercial and defense technology, according to Stanford University physicist Michael M. May, precisely because it has had the most open scientific system for the past 50 years--welcoming refugees, immigrants and foreign-born citizens into its universities, corporations and defense research facilities.

"It's a great system for all," said May, a naturalized U.S. citizen who immigrated from French Indochina in 1940 and rose to be director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, one of the nation's three principal nuclear weapons labs. "But we derive the greatest benefit from it."

-------- us nuc facilities

ANA URGES ACTION: NUCLEAR WATCHDOG GROUPS WANT CLINTON TO STOP "LIP SERVICE"

Portsmouth Daily Times -- Thursday, November 25, 1999 by Terri Fowler http://www.egroups.com/group/du-list/

Washington, D.C. -- A national alliance of organizations dedicated to addressing issues of nuclear weapons production and contamination cleanup has sent a letter urging President Bill Clinton to enact swift, concrete measures to ensure worker safety and provide compensation for former workers of Department of Energy nuclear energy sites.

The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability consists of 31 local, regional and national community groups representing communities who live in the shadows of nuclear weapons plants and radioactive waste landfills.

In the letter, the ANA calls the Clinton Administration's response to the contamination and public health problems revealed by recent DOE reports "grossly inadequate and disappointing."

"It [the ANA letter] responded to the lip-service, band-aid that we have seen from the Administration in response to the very serious contamination problems at places such as Paducah (Ky.) and Piketon," explained Bob Schaeffer, ANA public education director. "They've had some public meetings, started some investigations and they've given us a very weak bill that does nothing for Piketon and very little for Paducah."

Last week the White House unveiled legislation that would provide compensation for current and former workers unknowingly exposed to beryllium and plutonium-laced uranium at DOE gaseous diffusion plants in Paducah and Oak Ridge, Tenn.

However, the measure failed to provide similar aid to employees of Piketon -- a step that has drawn sharp criticism from community groups and national leaders alike.

"We have seen no real attempt to develop a comprehensive plan for problems that are widespread across the nuclear weapons complex, which affect plant workers and neighbors," Schaeffer insisted. "These workers and communities sacrificed for the country during the Cold War. Talk is cheap. Now's the time for action."

The ANA included in its letter an outline for a comprehensive action plan. The plan includes making all health and safety documents available to the public, ensuring full access to all records dealing with radiation and toxic releases in and around DOE sites, enacting stronger safety regulations for nuclear energy production and providing taxpayer-funded health screenings, monitoring and treatment for all current or former workers of DOE sites.

In addition, the ANA wants health and safety inspections at the nation's uranium enrichment and weapons facilities performed by agencies other than DOE. Under most circumstances, DOE sites are self-regulated, according to the ANA.

Vina Colley, president of Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety and Security, insisted workers at the Piketon plant continue to be exposed to plutonium and other radioactive elements.

"Any workers compensation plan should include all employees from every site," Colley stated. "A great injustice will occur if a total and complete plan isn't established. Rep. Ted Strickland (D - Lucasville) has introduced a bill that would extend the proposed compensation plan to include southern Ohio workers. This bill should be fully supported by our lawmakers."

Strickland's expanded bill would include Piketon employees in the federal compensation plan, if they meet the same requirements for eligibility as those in Paducah and Oak Ridge.

Colley also said the current workers' health screening program is "grossly underfunded and includes no chemical or radiation testing. "This issue needs to be addressed if the true condition of the workers' health is to be determined, for both former and current employees," she concluded.

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Radioactive Household Items? Comment to NRC by DEC 22, 1999!!

Tell the NRC what you think about Radioactive Household Items and Atomic "Recycling" into the marketplace, regular landfills and our lives!

THE PROBLEM: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is scheming with the nuclear industry and its allies at other federal agencies, like the EPA and Dept. of Energy (DOE) to "RECYCLE" RADIOACTIVE WASTE INTO HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTS! This saves the nuclear power industry and DOE weapons contractors money by allowing them to "sell" radioactive waste to be used in our homes, schools, cars, workplaces, and more. Although the government already allows atomic waste into commerce on a case-by-case basis, the NRC is now legalizing routine release of massive amounts of radioactive metal, concrete, plastic, soil, and other material from commercial nuclear power and weapons sites, directly and via commercial processors, into daily-use items.

THE PROCESS: COMMENT to NRC by DECEMBER 22, 1999.

To make a new rule legalizing radioactive waste "recycling" or "clearance" into the marketplace, the NRC is required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to consider all potential impacts and options. The NRC Commissioners have clearly directed the staff (6/30/98 Staff Requirements Memo) to "promulgate a[0]regulation[0] that allows quantities of materials to be released." The "scoping" process required by the NEPA expires on December 22, 1999. This is the time when the public has the chance to tell the NRC what should be considered in the rulemaking. NIRS and Public Citizen have requested a minimum 8-month extension for public comment.

It is extremely important that the NRC hear from the public during this time. Let NRC know how you feel about any level of radioactive "release," "clearance" and "recycling." Demand that the NRC prohibit radioactive releases and recapture the nuclear waste already let out. It is your chance to inform the NRC about the amount of radiation you and your family and progeny are willing to take so that the nuclear waste generators can save money. (For more information: 64 Federal Register 35090 June 30, 1999-the issues paper which NRC staff developed to "discuss" the various ways to dump nuclear waste into commerce.)

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

->COMMENT TODAY-or ASAP before Dec 22 for yourself and your organizations.

(You can use our sample below, which was presented on behalf of over a dozen national and international organizations to NRC on Nov. 1, 1999.) CC: US Reps and Senators.

->Get resolutions or letters from groups or local government entities to submit to NRC. Again cc your Congressperson and Senators and state and local officials.

-> Request an extension on the comment period for "scoping" this rulemaking so organizations and governments have time to learn and respond and have legal standing.

WHERE/HOW TO COMMENT:

Mail your comments by December 22, 1999 to NRC Chairman Richard Meserve/U.S. NRC/Washington, DC 20555 Attention: Rulemaking and Adjudications Staff

or Email the comments to avc@nrc.gov

or Submit electronically through the NRC's website: http://ruleforum.llnl.gov/cgi-bin/uploader/SM_RSC_public

In order to submit comments through the website, you must save your comments in your files and remember the file name. Go to the NRC website. Fill out all of the fields they request. Hit the BROWSE button on the NRC website and find your file. Attach it.

SAMPLE STATEMENT:

Dear Chairman Meserve:

I am writing to call on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to isolate radioactive wastes and materials and anything they contaminate, no matter what level. The radioactive legacy of atomic energy and weapons production should be isolated from the public and the environment. The NRC should also extend the comment period on releasing radioactive waste into commerce to at least September 2000. This issue is too important to act hastily upon and it should be fully debated by the public. The public has spoken repeatedly before on this issue and needs time to be informed that subject is open again or still.

NO MORE RADIOACTIVE RELEASES

We still do not want nuclear power and weapons wastes "released," "cleared," deregulated, exempted, generally licensed, designated "de minimis," "unimportant," "trivial" or BRC-below regulatory concern, or by any other creative, direct or deceptive means, allowed out of nuclear facilities and into the marketplace or the environment, at any level.

TRACK AND RECAPTURE ALREADY-RELEASED RADIOACTIVE WASTES

The current methods of releasing radioactive wastes from commercial licensees and weapons facilities must immediately cease. No future radioactive releases should be permitted and a full accounting and recapture of that which has already been released should commence. PREVENT AVOIDABLE RADIATION EXPOSURES and RISKS Using radioactive wastes in consumer products poses unnecessary, avoidable, involuntary, uninformed risks. The consumers, the producers, the raw materials industries don't want these radioactive wastes or risks.

COMPUTER MODELS NOT ACCURATE, RELIABLE, VERIFIABLE It is not credible to believe computer models can calculate and accurately predict any or ALL of the doses to the public and the environment from all of the potential radioactivity that could be released over time. Projections of "acceptable" or "reasonable" risks from some amount of contamination being released are meaningless and provide no assurance. Monitoring for the specific types and forms of radioactivity that could get out can be very expensive and tricky to perform. Hot spots can sneak through. We can't trust the nuclear generators to monitor their own releases.

EXPENSIVE TO MONITOR; IMPOSSIBLE TO VERIFY OR ENFORCE RELEASES No matter what level the NRC sets for allowable radiation risk, dose or concentration, it will be difficult to impossible to measure, verify and enforce. Who is liable if the "legal" standards NRC intends to set are violated? For decades the public has clearly opposed releasing radioactive materials into commerce. We continue to do so.

EXISTING RADIATION DOESN'T JUSTIFY DELIBERATE ADDITIONS Naturally occurring background radiation cannot be avoided (except in some instances for example, reducing radon in homes) but its presence in no way justifies additional, unnecessary, involuntary radiation exposures, even if those exposures might be equal to or less than background. Nor does it justify shifting the economic liability from the generators of radioactive wastes and materials to the economic and health liability of the recycling industries, the public and the environment.

SUPPORT METAL INDUSTRIES' "ZERO TOLERANCE" OF CONTAMINATION We fully support the complete opposition and "zero tolerance" policies of the metal and recycling industries, the management and the unions. We appreciate their efforts, not only in opposition to legalization of radioactive releases, but in their investment in detection equipment and literally holding the line against the radioactive threat to the public.

They should not have to be our de-facto protectors. The NRC, DOE and EPA must act to prevent the dissemination of radioactive wastes into recycled materials and general commerce. The problems that have been experienced by the steel recycling industry with "generally-licensed sealed sources" getting into their facilities and costing tens of millions of dollars to clean up should serve as a warning not to let any other radioactive wastes and materials out of regulatory control.

US AGENCIES MUST PREVENT FUTURE AND RECAPTURE PAST RELEASES, PUSH INTERNATIONAL PROHIBITION

The fact that radioactive waste is already getting out should not be used to justify legal levels allowing more out. The NRC, EPA and DOE should prevent future and correct past releases. The fact that other countries are releasing radioactive materials into the marketplace is no excuse for us to legalize it. The United States should take the lead in preventing contamination of the international marketplace. We protect ourselves best by not facilitating international radioactive commerce.

The fact that it is difficult and expensive to monitor and detect radiation does not justify its release. It is all the more reason to prevent any wastes getting out, so we don't have to check routinely for contamination. The nuclear industry and regulators should be aware of what materials at reactor and weapons sites are wastes and which have been contaminated. Those materials must be isolated, not released, at any level.

NRC HAS CLEARLY DECIDED TO RELEASE-THIS MUST BE REVERSED The mindset of the NRC appears convinced that it should legalize radioactive wastes being "recycled" into the marketplace. The NRC has stated in its Staff Requirements Memo that the standard must allow "releases" to take place and that all radioactive materials will be eligible for "clearance." This means that the NRC is not seriously examining all of the options available, such as non-release, even though the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires all options to be considered.

NRC CONTRACTOR (SAIC) HAS CLEAR CONFLICT OF INTEREST Furthermore, the NRC is relying on a private contractor called Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to prepare the technical basis for the proposed regulation. This is a blatant conflict of interest. The NRC has not publicly disclosed the relevant economic interests of SAIC. The NRC has not notified the public that SAIC has simultaneously been working with or for other corporations with substantial economic interests in the Commission's determinations in this rulemaking. In particular, since mid-1996, SAIC has been the teaming partner of British Nuclear Fuels, Ltd. (BNFL) under a quarter billion DOE contract for recycling unprecedented amounts of contaminated radioactive metallic waste from the Oak Ridge TN uranium enrichment buildings. This situation calls into question the legality of the entire NRC process.

EXTEND COMMENT PERIOD

Since NRC is attempting to cover its requirements under NEPA to establish this radioactive "release" rule, the public comment period should be extended to allow the public the opportunity to hear about and comment on the proposal.

In conclusion, we call on the NRC to serve the interests of the public instead of the nuclear industry and

#1 prohibit the release of radioactive materials into commerce, landfills and incinerators

#2 identify, track and recapture the radioactive waste that has already been released from nuclear power and weapons facilities by federal and state regulators

#3 give the public at least 8 more months to comment.

Sincerely,

For more info look at the NIRS and Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy
Project websites: http://www.nirs.org and http://www.citizen.org/cmep/
Contacts: NIRS 202-328-0002 ext. 2 or Public Citizen 202-546-4996.

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USEC Board Defers Resignation Decision

By Martha M. Hamilton, Washington Post, November 25, 1999; Page E02
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/25/196l-112599-idx.html

USEC Inc.'s board of directors met yesterday but stopped short of resigning as the federal government's executive agent in a nuclear nonproliferation deal with Russia.

The board of the Bethesda-based uranium-processing company--which the federal government sold to shareholders in 1998--has told the Clinton administration and members of Congress that it may resign by Wednesday unless it gets assurances of federal financial assistance. But yesterday the board deferred a final decision until next week.

After conferring by telephone, "the board has taken the matter under advisement and will make the appropriate decision by Dec. 1," the company said in a statement issued after the meeting.

The issue arose as a result of USEC's attempts to lobby Congress and the administration for as much as $200 million in federal aid, blaming its financial difficulties in large part on its role as agent of an agreement between the United States and Russia designed to help rid the world of nuclear weapons.

Under an accord created in 1993, USEC pays Russia for converting highly enriched uranium from dismantled Soviet nuclear warheads into low-enriched uranium, which is then used as fuel in nuclear power plants.

USEC has been arguing that it loses money because the price it pays Russia for processing what was formerly weapons-grade uranium is higher than its own cost of processing. But the Clinton administration and Congress haven't stepped up with any financial aid.

On the contrary, as of last week the administration was negotiating with potential USEC competitors to take over the job, and both the administration and lawmakers from both parties were considering whether to rewrite legislation that protects USEC from a takeover until mid-2001.

---

Regulation Runaround

Washington Post, November 25, 1999; Page A42
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/25/129l-112599-idx.html

The appeals court ruling further delaying the relicensing of the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant will result in no safety improvements, yet it may cost us a lot in both dollars and pollution [Metro, Nov. 13].

When anti-nuclear power groups barrage the regulatory system to delay projects and force increased costs, their actions generally do not improve public safety. The time and effort spent dealing with their (usually frivolous) claims keep regulators from focusing on real issues.

Calvert Cliffs has operated safely for years and will continue to be closely inspected throughout its extended life. While we wait for the courts to make decisions -- or for the anti-nuclear groups to exhaust their delaying tactics -- we can lose the use of our nuclear plants. The result would be burning more fossil fuels with the attendant air pollution and global-warming gas emissions.

We need to regain some sense of balance about responding to every regulatory opponent's demands and not allow already-examined issues to be revisited ad nauseam.

MARVIN L. ROUSH
Takoma Park MD

-------- us other

C.I.A. Counters Critics of Its Cold War Work

New York Times, November 25, 1999 By JAMES RISEN
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/world/cia-soviets.html

COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- After enduring a decade of second-guessing over whether it failed to detect communism's impending demise, the C.I.A. is still a bit defensive about its performance in the waning years of the Cold War.

But when the desire to set the historical record straight led the agency to co-sponsor a conference on the subject with the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University last weekend, the agency tried hard to produce a celebration of an intelligence victory. It even declassified 24 intelligence reports from the years 1988 to 1991 as proof that its assessments were more accurate than the critics have said.

Still, the conference could not ignore the harsh truth that some criticism of the C.I.A.'s Cold War reporting was well founded. In fact, its forecasts in the late '70s and early '80s were sometimes far off.

Although the C.I.A. began to detect signs of stagnation in the late '70s, it continued for years to overstate significantly the size and growth rate of the Soviet economy. The agency also badly understated the burden that military spending was placing on the Soviet economy and refused for years to accept evidence that Soviet production of nuclear missiles was not growing as rapidly as Washington had expected.

In 1985, for example, an outside panel of economists found that although the agency believed that the Soviet economy was about half the size of the U.S. economy, the gross domestic product was no more than 30 percent of the U.S. output.

Charles Wolf, an economist at the RAND Corp. who was on the panel, recalled that the agency's estimates of the Soviet Union's annual economic growth were also significantly overstated, while its estimates of the economic burden of military spending were too low.

Douglas MacEachin, who headed the office of Soviet analysis in the '80s, acknowledged that the agency had moved too slowly to adjust its projections of military and strategic forces to reflect the worsening economic conditions. The projections of large increases in producing ballistic missiles, MacEachin said, were consistently too high until the late '80s.

Robert Gates, a former director of Central Intelligence, agreed, saying, "During the mid-'80s, our projections of Soviet strategic forces were clearly too high."

In part, the overly hawkish forecasts of the missile buildup in the early '80s represented a bureaucratic response to intense pressure from the Reagan administration, which had called the Soviet Union an "evil empire."

Yet the estimates also stemmed from a natural inclination among experts to expect the Soviets to continue to act as they had in the past. The Soviets built up their strategic forces more quickly than the C.I.A. had anticipated in the late '60s and early '70s, and the agency expected that rapid pace to continue.

The C.I.A. did report accurately the growing signs of an economic slowdown in the late '70s and early '80s. But such reports were not welcome at the White House, said former intelligence officials who were at the conference. Some current and former intelligence officials recalled how the Reagan administration was furious with one report suggesting that Soviet military spending had turned flat in the early '80s.

"They saw it as challenging the central thrust of their policy, a big U.S. defense buildup," recalled one former intelligence official who insisted on anonymity.

By the late '80s, the C.I.A. did accurately portray the growing instability in the Soviet Union, and it did so earlier and more clearly than the critics have suggested, a review of the newly declassified intelligence reports shows.

In December 1988, a national intelligence estimate, "Gorbachev's Economic Problems: The Challenges Ahead," said that Soviet President Mikhail "Gorbachev's efforts at reviving the Soviet economy will produce no substantial improvement over the next five years, although his efforts to raise consumer welfare could achieve some modest results. Soviet attempts to raise technology levels will not narrow the gap with the West in most sectors during the remainder of this century."

In September 1989, two months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, an intelligence assessment by the office of Soviet analysis at the C.I.A. predicted: "The unrest that has punctuated Gorbachev's rule is not a transient phenomenon. Conditions are likely to lead in the foreseeable future to continuing crises and instability on an even larger scale in the form of mass demonstrations, strikes, violence and, perhaps, even the localized emergence of parallel centers of power."

In April 1991, months before the unsuccessful coup against Gorbachev in August, an agency paper, "The Soviet Cauldron," warned that "explosive events have become increasingly possible."

On the espionage front, the record was also mixed until the final years of the Cold War. The fears of the agency's longtime counterintelligence chief, James Jesus Angleton, who believed that every Soviet defector was a double agent, paralyzed operations until the 70's, when the agency finally began to recruit important agents in the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries

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Army's Big Gun Must Lose Some Weight
Crusader Tests Vision of Leaner, More Agile Force

By Bradley Graham Washington Post, November 25, 1999; Page G01
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/25/109l-112599-idx.html

After taking much of the 1990s to develop a new cannon, the Army has come up with a mammoth artillery piece that shoots farther, faster and more accurately than any big gun in the world.

It even has a space-age compartment dubbed "the cockpit," crammed with video displays and other computerized gadgetry that allow a three-member crew to load, fire and reload without ever handling any artillery shells or fuel. Called the Crusader, it's the ultimate in howitzer high-tech--and the Army was planning to spend $22 billion to produce 1,138 of these behemoths.

There's just one hitch: The self-propelled cannon and its fully loaded resupply vehicle have a combined weight of 110 tons, too much to lift even on the military's largest transport plane, the C-5B, without waiving flight rules.

For an Army newly bent on becoming leaner and more agile so it can cope with post-Cold War missions, the Crusader suddenly looks out of place. Gen. Eric Shinseki, the new chief of staff, has made production of the weapon conditional on shedding some of its tonnage.

Shinseki's treatment of the Crusader is being watched closely as a measure of the Army's commitment to real change. Although he announced plans last month to begin revamping the Army's divisional structure--disposing of heavy units in favor of lighter, more quickly deployable ones--the four-star general lacks the money to carry out such reforms without trimming or eliminating some prized weapons programs.

But the choice is complicated. The Army's artillery force, which has trudged through four decades using one updated version or another of the M109 howitzer introduced in 1963, argues that a new cannon is long overdue--and essential if artillery units are to keep up on the battlefield with more modern, faster-moving Abrams tanks and Bradley armored vehicles.

They contend that the Crusader's revolutionary firing capabilities more than compensate for its weight. And not incidentally, proponents note, the Crusader requires only about two-thirds as many people to operate as the M109--a manpower savings all the more important in an Army confronting recruiting and retention shortages.

Further, some in Congress have strong parochial interests in preserving the program--especially lawmakers from Oklahoma, site of the gun's final assembly plant and home of the Army's artillery school at Fort Sill. Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), who sits on the Armed Services Committee, and Rep. J.C. Watts Jr. (R-Okla.), chairman of the House Republican Conference, have pressed the Army to spare the Crusader.

The Crusader's origins stretch back a decade, when Army planners conceived of a new family of mechanized weapons, including an advanced field artillery system, that would be built on a common chassis. By 1994, when the Crusader was formally launched, it had evolved into a unique system, designed from the ground up solely as an artillery piece.

And it was an ambitious project, aiming to score more than a few technological firsts for U.S. field artillery. Among them: a fully-automated subsystem for loading ammunition, and a cooling subsystem for keeping the rapid-fire cannon barrel from overheating.

Another innovation--an attempted switch to liquid fuel--proved too challenging and costly and was dropped in 1996 in favor of more traditional solid propellant bags. Even so, the General Accounting Office warned in a report two years ago that the Crusader program was trying to accomplish too much in too short a time. The GAO urged the Army to slow development and consider making further improvements in its top-of-the-line M109A6 Paladin or purchasing a European howitzer such as the German PzH 2000.

But the Army forged ahead and even boosted the number of Crusaders it planned to buy. Recently, the program has run into problems writing the 1.8 million lines of computer code required by the complex gun. Such difficulties have delayed development at least 18 months, with delivery now projected for 2007.

"Some folks at the Pentagon have claimed we're just as sophisticated as the F-22," said the program manager for the Crusader, Col. Charles Cartright, referring to the Air Force's new jet fighter without a trace of irony, though the plane has suffered delays, cost overruns and a bruising battle this year in Congress.

Even some artillery enthusiasts now regard the Army's decision to buy a giant, brand-new gun as overreaching. Tom Davis, a retired Army artillery officer who works for Northrop Grumman Corp.'s analysis center in Arlington, said he once supported the Crusader but has since concluded that the Army would be better off trying to mate existing howitzers with newer, precision-guided shells.

"If you could get a lightweight howitzer that could shoot these precision munitions," Davis said, "then you wouldn't have to bring as many bullets to the fight, and you'd get a double savings." Davis, who fought during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, recalled lugging 4,000 shells around the desert with his artillery unit.

Reluctant to cancel the Crusader, Shinseki has asked United Defense LP, the prime contractor, to reduce the weight of the cannon and its resupply vehicle by a total of about 20 tons.

"We've definitely said that at 110 tons, we're not happy with what that presents us as a deployment platform," Shinseki told a group of defense writers earlier this month. "I've registered our description of the future requirements, and it's up to them now to decide whether or not they can help meet them."

The Crusader's managers sound confident they can make the weapon lighter.

"There are a number of things within the art of the possible to bring the weight of Crusader down," said Dave Napoliello, director of Washington operations for United Defense.

He said the options under consideration include installing a smaller engine, which also might permit shortening the vehicle; cutting back on the number of ammunition rounds carried by the howitzer and resupply vehicle; and resorting to kits of armor that can be bolted on when needed rather than built into the cannon. Army authorities also are looking at making do with about half the planned number of Crusaders.

Other weapons under development--less costly and lower profile than Crusader--appear headed for elimination ahead of the controversial howitzer. These could include several short-range missiles, an airborne mapping system and a command vehicle, according to defense officials.

But such savings hardly will be enough to fund Shinseki's long-range plans for a slimmer fighting force. The Army chief said that even if he cut all the Army's modernization programs, including Crusader and the Comanche armed reconnaissance helicopter, he still would be short the many billions of dollars needed to transform combat divisions.

-------- china

China Intends To OK Test Ban Treaty

New York Times November 25, 1999 Filed at 10:17 a.m. EST By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-China-US-Arms-Control.html

BEIJING (AP) -- China still intends to ratify the global treaty banning nuclear tests, despite the U.S. Senate's rejection of the pact, China's top arms control official was quoted Thursday as saying.

Sha Zukang said the treaty had no hope of ever coming into effect without American approval, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

``It's the typical practice of the U.S. -- sign the treaty first and then have reservations on key decisions,'' said Sha, head of the Foreign Ministry's arms control department.

``Superpower though it may be, the U.S. is not supposed to possess super rights. All nations are equal,'' Sha said.

But while expressing China's disappointment with the Senate decision, Sha said China's determination to get the treaty ratified ``remains unmoved.''

He said the decision on whether and when to ratify the treaty rested with the National People's Congress, the legislature that generally rubber-stamps decisions made by the ruling Communist Party.

Sha said China would not carry out any nuclear tests before ratifying the treaty, and would ``honor all obligations under it after its ratification.''

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U.S. Missile Shield Will Set Off a New Arms Race, China Warns

New York Times November 25, 1999 By ERIK ECKHOLM
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/112599china-us-missiles.html

BEIJING -- China's chief of arms control issued a new warning Wednesday that U.S. plans for a national missile defense system, even if intended to stop attacks from countries like North Korea and Iraq, would set off a global arms race and cause more countries to develop nuclear weapons.

The existing Anti-ballistic Missile Treaty, which the United States proposes altering to allow limited defenses, has long been a cornerstone of nuclear stability, Sha Zukang, director of arms control and disarmament in China's foreign ministry, said Wednesday in an article in the official newspaper China Daily.

"Amending it in search of national missile defense will tip the global balance, trigger a new arms race and jeopardize world and regional stability," Sha wrote.

Russia, the main nuclear rival of the United States, has also been vociferous in opposing missile defenses.

China has objected to proposed theater missile defenses, local systems intended to protect American allies in Asia from missile attacks. China worries that such high-technology defenses would be offered to Taiwan, encouraging it to declare formal independence and cementing military ties between Taiwan and the United States.

Though the debate is already heated, theater defenses that could stop a blitz of short-range missiles are still in the unproved research stage.

But in Wednesday's article and recent speeches, Chinese officials have also vehemently challenged the progressing American plans for a national defense system, perhaps designed to stop a handful of incoming missiles.

A prime reason for Chinese concern, weapons experts say, is that even a limited system would undercut China's own nuclear strategy, forcing it to spend far more than it wants to build extra rockets and bombs.

Unlike the United States and Russia, each of which fielded thousands of nuclear weapons in a race for slim advantages, China has deployed small numbers of weapons intended simply to give adversaries second thoughts about attacking it.

Right now, Western analysts say, China may have no more than two dozen long-range missiles, capable of reaching parts of the United States with single warheads. China's theory is that if a prospective attacker believes that even one or two of China's missiles can get through to destroy a city, then a nuclear attack will be deterred.

The Chinese know that their current aging missiles are vulnerable to a sudden attack on the ground and plan to replace them with more powerful missiles that are mobile and therefore far more difficult to take aim at.

Western officials do not know how many such missiles the Chinese plan to field. But even limited U.S. defenses could reduce China's confidence that it could mount an effective counterattack in case of war. So China may feel that it needs a relatively larger force, perhaps including missiles that carry multiple warheads, to maintain its stature as a nuclear power.

Sha, in Wednesday's article and other speeches, does not mention such hard-nosed strategic concerns, only alluding darkly to a hastened arms race. In the article Wednesday, he also said an American missile defense would "undermine the conditions necessary for nuclear disarmament."

And without the promise of superpower arms reductions, he said, "who can guarantee that other non-nuclear states will not go nuclear?"

---

China Condemns U.S. Missile Plans The Associated Press

Associated Press Thursday, Nov. 25, 1999; 5:11 a.m. EST
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991125/aponline051100_000.htm

BEIJING -- Japan does not face a military threat from North Korea or any other nation and should not be included in a U.S. anti-missile defense system, a senior Chinese official was quoted as saying today.

Sha Zukang, director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told the state-run Xinhua News Agency that any perceived threat by North Korea "is just a pretext."

North Korea rattled the region by firing a missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean last year. The North recently shelved its plan to test-fire a more powerful missile after talks with the United States in October. Experts say the new missile could reach Hawaii and Alaska.

The White House, with the support of Congress, is developing a limited national missile defense, or NMD, that could be deployed as early as 2005. It is also researching a theater missile defense system, or TMD, with Japan.

China opposes both systems, saying they could spark a costly and dangerous arms race. It fears TMD technology could be passed to Taiwan, allowing the island to defend itself against Chinese missiles. Although the two sides have been ruled separately for decades, Beijing views Taiwan as a province that must be reunited with the mainland, by force if necessary.

Asked if TMD would spark an arms race between China and Japan, Sha said China would take "necessary measures" to defend its national security and territorial integrity, Xinhua reported. But he also insisted China would not engage in any arms race, the report said.

China claims its nuclear weapons are for defense only and has pledged never to use them first. It strongly opposes a U.S. effort to amend the Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems treaty to allow for the development of a missile defense.

Washington wants to revise the 1972 ABM Treaty in order to build a defense system to protect against missiles from small rogue states.

Development of a missile defense system will "only poison the atmosphere, undermine the conditions necessary for nuclear disarmament and breed a potential danger of an arms race," Sha wrote in an article published Wednesday in the government-controlled China Daily

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Taiwan Leader May Talk With China

By Annie Huang Associated Press Writer, Thursday, Nov. 25, 1999
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991125/aponline132812_000.htm

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- With pressure building to expand economic ties with China, Taiwan's president said Thursday his government would negotiate removing more trade barriers if Beijing showed "goodwill" after the two sides joined the World Trade Organization.

President Lee Teng-hui's comments to business leaders were the first he has made about how WTO membership could affect the trade relationship between the two rivals, who split 50 years ago and still do not have direct air and shipping links.

In recent weeks, candidates challenging Lee's Nationalist Party in the March presidential election have been proposing that Taiwan ease restrictions on trade with the mainland. Taiwanese businesses have also complained they are missing out on big profits because of the government's China policy.

On Thursday, Lee defended his "no haste, be patient" stance, which puts strict limits on how much Taiwanese can invest in the mainland. Taiwan has long worried that it could fall under Beijing's control if it becomes too economically dependent on China.

But Lee said that when Taiwan and China join the WTO, expected within the next year, the two sides could start new trade talks.

"If there was sufficient goodwill from communist China, and if they made a concrete response, then we would be willing within the framework of the World Trade Organization to revise our mainland policies," he said.

As WTO members, China and Taiwan should deal with each other as equals, Lee said, repeating one of his key demands for talks between the two sides.

China and Taiwan separated amid civil war in 1949, and Beijing considers Taiwan to be a province under its rule. China has repeatedly rejected Lee's demand that Taipei be treated as an equal at the bargaining table, not as a local government that must obey the central government in Beijing.

Lee was vague about whether Taiwan would invoke a WTO exclusionary clause, which allows a member to deny trade favors to a nation if it would compromise national security.

But Taiwanese Premier Vincent Siew told reporters that Taiwan would be willing to discuss trade issues with China if they show "goodwill." He said this would include discussing direct air and shipping links.

Wu Hui-lin, a researcher at the private Chunghwa Institute for Economic Research, said such talks between the two sides are inevitable if they become WTO members.

"After it joins the WTO, Taiwan cannot unilaterally shut the door and must discuss with China about shipping links," Wu said.

Addressing Taiwan's defense concerns, Lee accused China of threatening Taiwan by deploying about 100 new ballistic missiles across from the island. He said such military buildups encourage some Taiwanese to support formal independence for the island.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi was vague Thursday when asked about recent reports that China is building up its missiles facing Taiwan.

"Every country with a strong national defense will make military adjustments on a daily basis. I'm not very clear about the specific situation, but to do news reports on this is done with ulterior motives," Sun said.

---

Taiwan confirms Beijing's intent to deploy missiles

By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES 11/25/99
http://www.washtimes.com/internatl/internatl1.html

Taiwan's defense minister confirmed yesterday that China is preparing to deploy a brigade of its newest short-range missiles to be targeted against the island.

Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright and a Chinese government spokesman, however, were silent on the growing missile threat.

Taiwanese Defense Minister Tang Fei told reporters in Taipei that his government is aware of the new missile deployment site several hundred miles from Taiwan.

"The information we gathered is close to the reports," Mr. Tang said in commenting on the missile base expansion that was first reported in Tuesday's editions of The Washington Times.

"The missiles are apparently aimed at us," he said. "We are keeping a close eye on the development."

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman would not talk about the buildup.

"We only have one simple comment concerning this report, and that is it is full of ulterior motives and not worth commenting on," a Chinese official told Agence France-Presse in Beijing.

Asked in Washington about The Times report, Mrs. Albright dismissed what she called "alleged leaks of intelligence information."

Clinton administration officials told The Times earlier this week that China is expanding a missile base located some 275 miles across the Taiwan Strait, where a brigade of up to 100 advanced M-11 missiles will be fielded.

U.S. intelligence agencies gathered satellite spy photographs of construction at the base near the town of Yangang in mid-October.

The missiles to be deployed were identified as CSS-7 Mod 2s that are mobile systems with a range of up to 300 miles -- enough to hit targets throughout Taiwan. The missiles can be equipped with either conventional warheads or small nuclear warheads -- warheads similar to the W-88 nuclear warheads deployed on advanced U.S. missiles and the warhead that is the focus of Chinese nuclear espionage.

"We continue to monitor the situation closely," Mrs. Albright said, noting that the administration has "made clear to the Chinese government, our concerns regarding Chinese missile developments and their influence on the situation in the Taiwan Strait."

"We have, over and over again, made clear our strong interest in maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait," she said. "And for this reason, we have approved defensive arms sales to Taiwan" according to U.S. laws.

Mr. Tang said the missile base expansion shows the need for Taiwan to develop missile-defense systems.

"What we badly need now is to build a low-altitude anti-missile system," Mr. Tang said.

The defense minister's remarks echo recent statements by Adm. Dennis Blair, commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command. Adm. Blair said in an interview earlier this month that the United States is justified in providing Taiwan with theater missile defenses because China is deploying between 500 and 600 missiles near Taiwan.

Mr. Tang spoke as a senior Taiwanese military delegation was in Washington for talks with Clinton administration officials about arms sales to Taiwan. Taipei is said to be seeking guided missile destroyers, anti-missile systems and submarines.

China threatened Taiwan in March 1996 by firing several M-9 short-range missiles north and south of Taiwan in an attempt to intimidate the island before elections.

Taiwan then deployed a version of the U.S. Patriot anti-aircraft system around Taipei and is working on more advanced defenses to protect the entire island. It is also seeking technology and weapons from the United States for its missile defenses.

Mr. Tang announced in August the development of a national missile-defense program that he said will take 10 years to build and cost up to $9.4 billion. An initial anti-missile shield for use against low-altitude missiles could be in place by 2005.

China is opposing U.S. regional missile defense plans because of the effect it would have on the growing offensive missile capability.

State Department spokesman James P. Rubin said on Tuesday that the United States is considering sales of missile defenses to Taiwan but that no decision has been made.

Pentagon officials have said White House and State Department policy-makers have turned down Taiwan's earlier requests for advanced weaponry because of fears it will upset Beijing.

Taiwan has air-defense missiles that are designed to shoot down aircraft and have some capability against short-range missiles.

The United States is developing several advanced missile defenses that will be much more effective in countering short-range missile attacks. The systems under development include the Army's Theater High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, and the Navy's Theater Wide System based on Aegis battle management-equipped ships.

This article is based in part on wire service reports

---

Taiwan Accuses China of Threat

Nov. 25, 1999; 5:59 a.m. EST By Annie Huang Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991125/aponline055902_000.htm

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Taiwan's outspoken leader today accused China of threatening the island with missiles in one of his most extensive speeches in months against Taiwan's longtime rival.

President Lee Teng-hui also said Taiwan would be willing to negotiate removing more trade barriers with China after the two sides join the World Trade Organization, which could happen within the next year.

The speech to business leaders came as some political observers expect Lee to try to make China a bigger issue ahead of Taiwan's presidential election in March.

Lee's Nationalist Party, which has ruled the island for more than five decades, is considered by many voters to be the most experienced in dealing with China.

A new focus on relations with Beijing might give the party's candidate, Vice President Lien Chan, a desperately needed boost in the polls. Most surveys show him lagging far behind in second or third place.

Referring to recent reports that China plans to deploy 100 new ballistic missiles across from Taiwan, Lee said that such military buildups encourage some Taiwanese to support formal independence.

A spokesman at China's Ministry of Defense, who gave his name only as Mr. Wang, refused to comment today on the missile reports.

China says it would only use its military against Taiwan if the island appeared ready to scrap all possibility of reunifying peacefully with the mainland. But Taiwanese Defense Minister Tang Fei said today that the Communist regime in Beijing might invade the island to divert attention from a domestic crisis.

China and Taiwan separated amid civil war in 1949, and Beijing has repeatedly threatened to use force to reunify the two sides.

Taiwan's policy is to return to the mainland once it becomes more democratic and economically developed. But many Taiwanese favor breaking away and becoming an independent nation.

"We understand that raising tensions between the sides would create disorder in China and bring no advantage to either side or to any country in the region," Lee said.

Taiwan has come under pressure to end its ban on shipping and air links with the mainland if both sides join the WTO, which sets world trade rules.

"If there was sufficient goodwill from communist China, and if they made a concrete response, then we would be willing within the framework of the World Trade Organization to revise our mainland policies," he said.

Lee said that as WTO members, China and Taiwan should deal with each other as equals. This has been a key demand for Lee, who has insisted the two sides have "special state-to-state relations."

However, China has rejected Lee's demand for equality. It considers Taiwan to be a province that should obey the central government in Beijing.

Lee defended his "no haste, be patient" China policy, which puts strict limits on how much Taiwanese can invest in the mainland. Taiwan has long worried that it could fall under Beijing's control if it becomes too economically dependent on China.

Opponents have long criticized Lee for being anti-China and creating obstacles for stronger political and economic ties between the two sides. Recently, presidential candidates have complained that Lee's government has been too slow to increase economic links with China.

But Lee credited himself for opening China to 30,000 Taiwanese companies since the late 1980s, when he lifted many restrictions on investment in China.

-------- israel

Officials Deny Israel Nuke Report

Thursday, Nov. 25, 1999; 5:25 a.m. EST Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991125/aponline052531_000.htm

JERUSALEM -- Prison officials today denied a newspaper report that jailed nuclear whistle-blower Mordechai Vanunu slipped bomb-making formulas to Palestinian security prisoners during walks in the prison yard.

Vanunu, who is serving an 18-year treason sentence for exposing Israel's nuclear arms program, only comes in contact with criminals and not with security prisoners at Ashkelon Prison, said Orit Messer-Harel, a spokeswoman for the Israel Prisons Authority.

Vanunu, a former technician at the nuclear power plant in the Negev Desert town of Dimona, spilled Israel's nuclear secrets to The Sunday Times of London in 1986. He was kidnapped by Israeli agents and tried in Israel behind closed doors.

The Yediot Ahronot daily ran a front-page story today saying Vanunu had slipped notes with formulas for making conventional bombs to prisoners from the Islamic militant group Hamas.

However, prison official said they had no knowledge of such an incident. Yediot noted that such formulas are easily available on the Internet.

On Wednesday, the state attorney published a 1,200-page partial transcript of the Vanunu trial. Much of the material had been published overseas.

However, the publication further undermined Israel's policy of nuclear ambiguity. For example, a chemical engineer testified at the Vanunu trial that the Sunday Times account was accurate.

Israel has never admitted having nuclear weapons. However, former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who helped set up the Dimona nuclear reactor in the 1960s, has come close, saying Israel needed a strong deterrent to prod Arab countries into peace talks.

Vanunu's attorney, Avigdor Feldman, said he would have preferred a full transcript, but noted that even the partial publication gave his client a chance to explain his motives.

Vanunu, who has been kept out of public view since his arrest, told the court he wanted Israel to admit it had nuclear weapons and bring them under international supervision.

---

Israel Eases Secrecy Over Nuclear Whistle-Blower's Trial

By DEBORAH SONTAG New York Times November 25, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/112599israel-nuke.html

Related Articles

Israel Clings to Its 'Nuclear Ambiguity' (June 21, 1998)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/062198israel-nuclear.html

Week in Review: Shhh! That's a (Not Very) Secret. (Jan. 14, 1996)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/011496israel-nuke.html

JERUSALEM -- The Israeli government Wednesday allowed a newspaper to publish censored excerpts from the classified transcript of a treason trial of 12 years ago. They provided the first glimpse ever into the courtroom where Mordechai Vanunu was convicted for blowing the whistle on Israel's secret nuclear program.

The excerpts, published by the newspaper Yediot Ahronot, contained no earth-shattering revelations about an infamous case with a spy novel plot. But their release signaled the government's increasing awareness that it can no longer maintain absolute silence on whether it has nuclear weapons.

The state attorney, avoiding a court challenge, pre-emptively released more than 1,200 pages of censored testimony to the newspaper, which had been fighting to obtain the documents.

"Things have changed since the trial and it was decided by defense officials that anything that will not harm the security of the country will now be published," said Devora Hen, a lawyer for the state attorney.

Officially, Israel refuses to confirm or deny reports on its nuclear weapons program, maintaining a long-held policy of what it calls "deliberate ambiguity" about its offensive capacity.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, citing what it said was a classified United States Department of Energy study, said this fall that Israel has the sixth-largest nuclear arsenal in the world.

"I think that there is an evolving understanding that a long-term policy of complete secrecy is untenable and creates whistle-blowers like Vanunu," said Avner Cohen, an Israeli scholar whose book, "Israel and the Bomb," was published last year in New York. "There is stuff that really should be classified, but not the fact of the nuclear policy itself."

Though Cohen's study was initially banned in Israel, it was recently approved for publication in Hebrew in Israel, another sign of a relaxation of the government's strict secrecy.

Yediot Ahronot devoted almost 10 pages of its newspaper Wednesday to the case, and it dominated the airwaves.

The documents showed that Vanunu, a former nuclear technician, testified in his closed-door trial that he had exposed Israel's nuclear warchest in an effort to force the government to acknowledge its existence and accept international supervision of the program.

"I wanted to confirm what everyone knows," he said about the information he sold to the Sunday Times of London in 1986. "I wanted to put the matter under proper supervision."

Vanunu further testified that as a result of his revelations, Shimon Peres, who was prime minister at the time the article was published, could not "keep lying to Reagan and telling him that we do not have nuclear weapons."

In the fall of 1986, the Sunday Times published Vanunu's claim that Israel had stockpiled roughly 100 nuclear weapons. Vanunu, a Moroccan-born Jew who grew up in a religious home, had worked at the Dimona nuclear reactor for nine years before emigrating to Australia and converting to Christianity. The newspaper paid him to fly to London and collaborate on the story about Israel's nuclear capacity.

"It was clear to me that Vanunu was in danger," Peter Hunam, an English journalist for the Sunday Times, testified, according to the transcripts.

"I wanted him to move to another hotel, but I realized he was exceedingly nervous and was talking about leaving London or the country."

After his interviews with the newspaper, but before the story was published, Vanunu was lured from London to Rome by a blond female Mossad agent called "Cindy." There he was kidnapped and flown to Israel to stand trial as a spy and a traitor.

"I didn't know if they were going to shoot me or kill me," he said about his abduction during the trial.

The documents show that the prosecution believed that it had the authority to sentence Vanunu to death but refrained from requesting this. In 1988, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison, where he has served 13 years, mostly in solitary confinement. Only recently has the government allowed even a photograph of him in jail to be published.

Peres, who is credited with organizing Israel's nuclear program as a young aide to David Ben-Gurion, Wednesday denounced the release of the transcripts for bringing to the surface a subject that is best left suppressed.

"The public knows that there are certain things it does not want to know," he said in an interview with Israeli television.

Earlier in the day, on Israel radio, Peres said, "The whole Vanunu affair makes my blood boil. One day a man gets up in the morning and he decides what is good for the country. Does he carry the responsibility?"

During the trial, Yediot Ahronot reported, Peres said that he believed that the revelations in the Sunday Times had injured Israel, increasing "beyond what is desirable, suspicions and reservations about Israel."

Vanunu's detailed allegations about the scope and sophistication of Israel's nuclear weapons program have never been challenged by Israeli officials or by knowledgeable Israeli civilian defense experts. Independent assessments by international arms-monitoring organizations have also concluded that Israel's nuclear stockpile is exceeded only by those of the United States, Russia, China, France and the United Kingdom.

Cohen said the Israelis have long maintained that Vanunu's revelations accelerated Arab nuclear projects. "I do not believe this," he said, "even though in my opinion Vanunu had a serious effect on the Arab press and attention to the subject."

"It was not Mordechai Vanunu who caused the Iraqi nuclear program to move fast," Cohen continued. "It was an Iraqi decision following Israel's bombing of its nuclear reactor in 1981."

In 1981, Moshe Dayan, then the defense minister, said publicly that Israel had no active "atomic bombs" but had the capacity to assemble weapons for attack in short order.

---

Israel's nuclear secrets revealed

Agence France Press, Times of India Thursday 25 November 1999 http://www.timesofindia.com/251199/25worl29.htm

JERUSALEM: The open secret of Israel's nuclear arsenal became a little more open on Wednesday with the publication of excerpts from the closed door trial of "traitor" Mordechai Vanunu.

The publication in the daily Yediot Aharonoth of extracts from Vanunu's 1986 trial was immediately slammed by former prime minister Shimon Peres, considered the father of Israel's atomic programme.

Evidence from the trial of Vanunu, 44, who was sentenced to 18 years in jail after being kidnapped by Israeli agents in Rome following his revelations to the London Sunday Times, was published in the wake of a high court decision.

State attorneys agreed in June to the lifting of some details of the Vanunu case following consultation with security officials, but the court rejected a petition by Vanunu demanding that all material from his case be made public, court officials said at the time. A total of 1,200 pages of transcript were released, Yediot said.

Speaking on Radio Today, an official of the state prosecutions office, Dvora Hen, said, "After consulting the security services we authorised the publication of extracts which do not harm the security of the state.

According to the extracts published, Vanunu told the court: "I wanted to confirm what everyone knew, I didn't want Israel to go on denying that it had nuclear weapons, and Shimon Peres to go on lying to (then US President) Ronald Reagan, saying that we didn't have a nuclear arsenal." (AFP)

---

Nuclear secrets revealed to force truth

USA Today 11/25/99 Updated 10:16 AM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm

JERUSALEM - In his closed-door treason trial, a former nuclear technician told judges he exposed Israel's nuclear arms program to force the government to tell the truth and bring the bombs under supervision, according to court records released for the first time Wednesday. Mordechai Vanunu has been kept away from the public since his 1986 arrest by Israeli security forces. The partial transcript of his trial, published in the Yediot Ahronot daily, provided the most detailed glimpse yet of the case. Vanunu was sentenced to 18 years in prison after telling what he knew about Israel's nuclear weapons to The Sunday Times newspaper, which printed its story on Oct. 6, 1986, saying that Israel had stockpiled roughly 100 nuclear weapons.

-------- iran

Bush drafting call for Saddam's ouster

By Ann McFeatters, Post-Gazette National Bureau
Washington Post Wednesday, November 24, 1999
http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/19991124bushiraq2.asp

WASHINGTON -- Texas Gov. George W. Bush is preparing a speech that will say it is time to get Saddam Hussein out of power in Iraq, an implicit admission that his father, former President George Bush was wrong, according to a key adviser.

Richard Perle, who was assistant secretary of defense for international security policy from 1981 to 1987 under former President Ronald Reagan, is advising Bush on foreign policy. He said this week that Bush thinks President Clinton's policy in Iraq is badly flawed because Saddam continues to dominate the Persian Gulf region.

Former President Bush has said the most frequently asked question he gets is why he let Saddam's forces escape back to Baghdad in the 1991 war and why U.S. forces didn't capture Saddam as a war criminal.

The former president answers that the U.S. public had no stomach for the lives that would have been lost, that it was no sure thing that Saddam could have been captured and that he expected that foes of Saddam by now would have united to bring him down.

Perle says, "It was easy to underestimate Saddam Hussein's staying power. Brent Scowcroft [Bush's national security adviser], Colin Powell, [then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff], Dick Cheney [then defense secretary] and I were all wrong."

He said Bush wants to give a speech that will say "it's time to finish the job. It's time for Saddam Hussein to go." He also will say it is understandable that his father's administration underestimated the Iraqi leader's ability to stay powerful, Perle said.

Bush hasn't decided on a time-frame for the speech, Perle said, but will insist that money should be funneled to Saddam's enemies in Iraq.

Iraq a few days ago closed off its oil imports, immediately jacking up the worldwide price by $1 a barrel, in protest of a United Nations decision not to approve a six-month extension of the oil-for-food program. Instead, the United Nations authorized only a two-week extension of the program, which permits Iraq to sell only enough oil to provide food and medicine for its people.

Months ago, the Iraqi dictator refused to permit U.N. arms inspectors to continue their search in Iraq for factories making weapons of mass destruction. Because of that, U.N. economic sanctions continue against Iraq. Whether the United States knows what is happening inside Iraq is in dispute.

In September, the State Department released a report on Iraq that, spokesman James Rubin said, "shows conclusively that Saddam Hussein continues to violently repress his own people; continues to neglect the needs of his own people by obstructing the oil-for-food program while his regime exports food and diverts resources for resorts and palaces for family members and close supporters; and, thirdly, that he maintains his goal of rebuilding his weapons of mass destruction so that he can threaten his neighbors."

The report contains declassified photographs of what the United States says is the Iraqi army's destruction of the Shi'a village of Al-Masha, near Basra, and of the Kirkuk Citadel in an effort to eradicate movements against Saddam. The report also shows the new resort city of Saddamiat al Tharthar, which Saddam built and which Rubin described as a "sprawling lakeside vacation resort that features stadiums, an amusement park, special hospitals for the elite and several hundred homes for government officials."

Because Saddam is said to sleep in a different bed every night to avoid assassination, the United States estimates that he has spent $2 billion building 48 palaces.

Rubin said Iraq has failed to distribute about 50 percent of available medicine to sick Iraqis and about 60 percent of the supplies for clean water and agriculture.

But the United States has been unsuccessful so far in persuading Russia, France and China to go along with stiffer sanctions , renew disarmament inspections in Iraq or implement measures intended to get food and medicine directly to the Iraqi people.

Assistant Secretary of State Martin Indyk said at a State Department briefing that if the United States gets direct evidence of "a reconstitution of weapons of mass destruction" or deployment of such weapons, "we will use force to take care of that problem definitively." Indyk said Saddam is weaker and more isolated at home and abroad.

--------- india/pakistan

Pakistan Warns of India Nukes

New York Times Filed at 2:28 p.m. EST November 25, 1999, Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Pakistan-India-Nuclear.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan wants a minimal nuclear deterrent, but warned Thursday that India's ambition to develop a ``massive'' nuclear arsenal guarantees that there will be more nuclear weapons in volatile South Asia.

Abdul Sattar, foreign minister in the new military government, addressed a day-long seminar on nuclear policy, saying that what Pakistan needs to maintain as a ``minimum'' deterrence will be decided by the actions of neighboring India.

Sattar accused India of seeking to develop a ``massive arsenal of nuclear weapons and delivery systems.''

``Pakistan will have to maintain, preserve and upgrade its capability'' in keeping with India's buildup, Sattar said. But he said Pakistan won't try to match India weapon for weapon.

Sattar also said Pakistan won't sign the global test ban treaty unless there is a consensus among Pakistanis, most of whom appear to oppose it.

Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh said Thursday in Tokyo that India's nuclear arms program is not targeted at any particular country, and is meant solely to enhance the country's strategic autonomy.

India in the past has said it will use nuclear weapons only to retaliate against a first strike. India hasn't quantified the kind of nuclear arsenal it wants to possess and talks in vague terms.

A draft nuclear doctrine by India's National Security Advisory Board says the size, components, deployment and employment of nuclear forces would be decided in light of the strategic environment, economic imperatives and the needs of national security.

Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi reportedly told Singh on Wednesday that Tokyo will continue to halt aid until India signs the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

But Singh said India's decision on whether to sign the treaty will not be influenced by the question of financial aid from Japan. The decision, he said, ``will be made by India by Indians in Delhi.''

South Asia's uneasy neighbors conducted tit-for-tat underground nuclear explosions last year and declared themselves nuclear powers. India and Pakistan have fought three wars since British rule of the Asian subcontinent ended in 1947 and Kashmir was divided between the two countries.

The flashpoint of two previous wars, Kashmir again last summer threatened to be the scene of a fourth -- possibly nuclear -- conflagration.

What occurred was a mini-war on the disputed Kashmir border. For the first time in 30 years, India used its fighter jets and its most sophisticated ground artillery to try to dislodge Pakistan-backed intruders that had occupied several Indian military posts across the border dividing Kashmir.

Pakistan eventually agreed to order the militants to withdraw, while insisting that the invading troops were Kashmiri ``freedom fighters'' seeking to unite Kashmir under the Pakistani flag. India said the intruders were Pakistani soldiers disguised as militants.

Speaking to reporters in Lucknow, India, on Thursday, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee ruled out peace talks with Pakistan's military regime unless earlier accords are taken into consideration.

``Making new agreements and forgetting old ones makes little sense,'' Vajpayee said, referring to two agreements, one in 1972 in the Indian city of Shimla and the other last year in the Pakistani city of Lahore.

At Thursday's nuclear conference, Pakistan's former foreign minister, Agha Shahi, said India was using the summer battle in Kashmir to improve relations with the United States at Pakistan's expense.

He also said the danger of an accidental nuclear war in South Asia has increased because the political actions of one state are often misunderstood or misread by the other.

--------

To: NucNews Editor:

From: "+" upthesun@cshore.com November 1999

Re: NucNews 99/11/19 Briefs Q - What happens to uranium when it disintegrates.

As it disintegrates, during that process, doesn't it break down into radioactive "daughters" as does plutonium and other forms of radiation? What are they? What is their life span? Do the "daughters" break down into others before it all ends up as lead? This phenomenon is not generally known or understood by the people, yet it is important. M.

Re: NucNews 99/11/18 Briefs -

>WASHINGTON -- The Army school that taught generations of Latin American soldiers to fight leftist insurgencies during the Cold War -- and along the way trained officers who went on to commit human-rights abuses -- is changing its name and its mission in hopes of improving its reputation. "

It's an odd way to describe the School of the Americas' mission. Father Bourgeois and others closely involved with the struggle to shut down the SOA feel that the name change is a dodge in response to the thousands of protestors and the long years of exposes. They have seen the mission of the SOA to be one of overthrowing popular and indigenous movements in Latin America who desire democracy and self rule. The U.S. and its School of the Americas have been seen as supporting violent dictatorships who support foreign corporations which exploit native workers and their nation's natural resources, destroying rainforests and polluting the environment. The SOA has published a manual teaching military personnel how to overthrow elected governments, and teaches skills in torture, terrorism and other illegal practices. If the struggle of Latin-American people for their rights is "Leftist", then so be it. M.

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

Yucca Mountain adviser dies

November 24, 1999 By RHONDA COSTA-LANDERS
http://www.tahoe.com/appeal/stories.11.24.99/news/a3halroger24Nov2545.html

Hal Rogers, a soft-spoken man who kept Northern Nevada readers informed on Yucca Mountain nuclear waste-site issues, died Monday afternoon after a long illness.

Rogers, 74, was born in Geneva, N.Y., and began working for General Electric while living in Schenectady. He began his career as a technical writer for GE then became general manager of the technical division. From there he would move into the nuclear division and licensing of nuclear power plants.

His career of 34 years with GE moved him from New York to San Jose, Calif., in 1960, he retired in 1985 in Santa Cruz.

"He was asked to be an adviser on Yucca Mountain because of nuclear experience," said his wife, Doris. "He knew it was the only way the country would survive after depletion of its natural resources."

Rogers was asked to be part of the study committee. He was the Northern Nevada co-chairman.

"What irritated Pop most was the people who became politically and emotionally involved in the nuclear waste issue," said a son, Al. "He knew it was a necessity to have a place to store this stuff and he would always produce the facts.

"He even went on television and radio in debates with people who were against the storage, transportation and use of nuclear power. It was his sole intention to keep people informed, with the facts.

"A lot of times politicians have a way of spinning the information or others would put out false information and he'd get real emotional over that," Al said.

He was a frequent contributor to the Nevada Appeal's "Mailbox" section in an on-going effort to separate the scientific arguments over Yucca Mountain from the political rhetoric.

---

Editorial: Costs too high for nuclear waste dump

November 23, 1999 Las Vegas Sun
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/1999/nov/23/509391127.html

Congress has ignored the repeated scientific objections to burying high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Maybe now it will at least consider abandoning this ill-conceived project -- if only because of the astronomical costs. As the Sun's Mary Manning reported Friday, even if the U.S. Department of Energy determines Yucca Mountain is scientifically viable, the agency believes that its preferred design to build a repository could add as much as $1.25 billion to its costs, which would bring it close to a total of $38 billion.

The DOE is worried that Congress may walk away from the project because it has become too expensive, a prospect Nevadans naturally would welcome. When confronted previously with evidence pointing out what a disaster Yucca Mountain would be, Congress' response has been to cut corners, attempting to make a square peg fit into a round hole. What Congress should do is halt the DOE's suitability study of Yucca Mountain. A better approach -- both scientifically and fiscally -- would be to investigate other options of disposing nuclear waste, including the highly promising area of transmutation that recently was touted by eminent scientists.

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