-------- international activists
Subject: Support for Vanunu Needed NOW
Reply-To: nukeresister@igc.org
Letters, Emails And Faxes From Around The World Needed Now, Calling For Mordechai Vanunu's Immediate, Unconditional Release From Prison
From the International Campaign to Free Mordechai Vanunu
December 1, 1999 International Prisoners for Peace Day
Please Post And Share With Others
On November 24, Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot published parts of the trial protocols and investigation material in the case of nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, following the release for publication of more than 1,200 pages of material by the Jerusalem District Court. This material has been secret for the past 13 years, since Vanunu was kidnapped and tried in camera. The published articles include details of his kidnapping, testimony of Shin-Beit interrogators, and much more information related to the case. As a result of the publication of this information, public discussion has been raised in Israel about Israel's policy of secrecy on nuclear issues in general , and about the Vanunu case in particular.
Sometime - probably in the next week or two - Vanunu will have a parole board hearing. The exact date is not yet known. He has already served over two-thirds of his 18 year sentence, and so is eligible for parole. Please send letters, faxes and emails as soon as possible to the following officials, asking for his unconditional release from prison.
Prime Minister Ehud Barak 3 Kaplan St. Hakirya, Jerusalem 91007 Fax: + 972 2 566 4838 Email: pm@pmo.gov.il and/or rohm@pmo.gov.il
Yossi Beilin Minister of Justice 29 Salah al-Din Jerusalem 91010 Fax : + 972 2 628 5438 Email: sar@justice.gov.il
Shlomo Ben-Ami Minister of Public Security P.O. Box 18182 Jerusalem Fax: + 972 2 581 1832
Thanks to people with the Israeli campaign to free Vanunu for translating the Yediot Ahronot articles into English. Translated articles can be found at the following website: http://www.nonviolence.org/vanunu
Background information on the Vanunu case can also be found there and at http://www.vanunu.freeserve.co.uk
-------- De-Alert campaign
Alliance says U.S., Russia should take nuclear weapons off alert
By DAVID BRISCOE Nando Media December 9, 1999 9:11 p.m. EST
http://www2.nando.net/noframes/story/0,2107,500140711-500166287-500607553-0,00.html
http://www.nando.net/24hour/adn/nation/story/0,1972,500140711-500166287-500607553-0,00.html
WASHINGTON ( http://www.nandotimes.com) - A new alliance concerned that accidental missile launches could trigger nuclear disaster is trying to persuade the U.S. government to take 5,000 nuclear weapons off "hair-trigger alert" to prompt a similar step by Moscow.
"Many of our citizens believe we already have done this," said Bruce Blair, a nuclear control expert who joined politicians, former military control officers and other antinuclear experts to announce a campaign Thursday to get U.S. nuclear weapons off alert status.
Despite a 1994 pact by President Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin not to aim nuclear missiles at each other's cities, 5,000 warheads on each side "remain loaded for wartime targets that can be activated in seconds," Blair said. A launch order would take only about 2 minutes to execute, he said.
The alliance is taking no position on a proposed national missile defense system, focusing instead on trying to prevent accidental or unauthorized launch from Russia or a U.S. launch facilitated by a dangerously mechanized system.
The campaign, dubbed "Back from the Brink," includes a Web site - www.dealert.org - a video describing a near-launch of Russian missiles in 1995, and grassroots organizing to expose the issue and try to inject it into the 2000 presidential campaign.
Blair, a former Air Force missile control officer and now a defense analyst at Brookings Institution, proposed that President Clinton unilaterally de-alert all U.S. missiles, including those aboard submarines that are on 15-minute notice to fire.
Then, Clinton and Yeltsin could work out a full-scale de-alerting of all nuclear missiles with a verification regime and guarantees from China, Britain and France to follow suit, Blair suggested.
Despite the end of the Cold War and progress in disarmament, "we're still allowing ourselves 15 to 20 minutes to determine whether or not the planet Earth will be extinct," said former Democratic Sen. Dale Bumpers of Arkansas, an alliance leader.
"It's like walking along a cliff performing for your girlfriend and saying, 'Look how close I can get to the edge and not fall off,"' Bumpers said.
The alliance also includes Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and representatives of several antinuclear, peace and human rights groups.
---
Panel Urges Removing Nuclear Arms From Alert
December 10, 1999 By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/99/12/10/news/world/nuclear-alert-ap.html
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,145010087,00.html?
WASHINGTON -- Arms-control experts and members of Congress urged President Clinton and the Pentagon on Thursday to take the American nuclear arsenal off alert, a move that would allow additional time for government leaders to gauge possible nuclear strikes and determine responses.
At a news conference at the National Press Club, Dr. Bruce Blair, a former Air Force missile-control officer who is a military analyst at the Brookings Institute, said the time that leaders had to launch retaliatory missiles should be extended, from minutes to days, or even longer. Calling the issue neglected, Blair said national security was "in considerable jeopardy in continuing to operate nuclear weapons as though the cold war didn't end."
He added that there was a widespread misconception that nuclear weapons in the United States had been taken off alert.
Despite a pact in 1994 by Clinton and President Boris N. Yeltsin of Russia to stop aiming nuclear missiles at each other, nuclear warheads remain attached to missiles, and targets can be activated in seconds. National security advisers have 2 to 30 minutes to respond to a missile attack.
"Today," Blair said, "Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin have only a few minutes, at best, in which to evaluate reports of an apparent incoming missile strike and decide the fate of the world. This is an intolerably short time."
He outlined proposed steps for lowering the alert status. First, all submarines should be placed on a "relaxed state of alert," he said. Clinton and Yeltsin should eliminate and renounce the launching of missiles in case of an incoming attack, Blair said, and all but 500 missiles should be taken off alert. The United States should also encourage other nuclear powers, including Britain, China and France, to remove their nuclear weapons from active status.
The American strategic war plan includes 3,000 targets in Russia, a 20 percent increase since 1995, Blair said. "The United States needs to take a leadership role on this issue," former Senator Dale Bumpers, director of the Center for Defense Information in Washington, said at the news conference. "On that basis, we will have the moral and political basis on which to ask Russia to reciprocate."
In 1991, a coup attempt in Moscow led President George Bush to take the warheads off strategic bombers and thousands of nuclear missiles. President Mikhail S. Gorbachev took similar measures about a week later.
Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, introduced a resolution in Congress in August that calls on the United States and Russia, as well as other countries with nuclear arsenals, to negotiate verifiable methods for ensuring that all nuclear warheads have been removed.
The measure, which has 84 co-sponsors in the House, urges the Defense and State Departments to increase the time needed to launch nuclear missiles and to study the effects that might have on nuclear deterrence and nonproliferation.
"These weapons should not sit like cars at a drag race with revved engines waiting for the start light to turn green," Markey said in a statement. "We need to slow down the decision-making engine to ensure that decision makers have time to be 100 percent certain."
---
The video "Back From the Brink" can now be viewed online with the Windows Media Player at http://www.tmia.com/Brink.asf
Petition signup at DeAlert.org.
Sample letter you can "forward" to your contacts by email:
Like most people, I haven't worried much about nuclear war since the fall of the Soviet Union. I was shocked to learn, however, that even though the cold war is over, there are still thousands of nuclear weapons on hair trigger alert -- aimed at us. It turns out that the cold war strategy of mutual assured destruction is still in place, and worse, with the collapse of Russian military strength, Russia relies even more on a strategy called "launch on warning." They give themselves just 15 minutes to decide whether to launch a massive retaliation on signs of attack.
Add to that the risks of systems failure due to Y2K or simply due to crumbling command and control infrastructure in Russia, and you have the potential for a horrifying mistake.
I don't even like thinking about this stuff -- it gives me nightmares -- but we have to do something. I have signed a petition that asks our leaders to immediately begin a process of de-alerting U.S. nuclear weapons and negotiating reciprocal de-alerting in Russia. The time is ripe: Representative Markey has introduced a de-alerting resolution that already has 84 cosponsors. The President can start this process tomorrow given the political will and popular support. I urge you to sign the petition as well. Go to:
http://www.dealert.org
Here is a link to a Scientific American article that explores the issue: http://www.sciam.com/1197issue/1197vonhippel.html.
P.S. This is no joke. In 1995 Russia mistakenly identified a weather rocket as a US nuclear warhead aimed at Russia. President Yeltsin's black suitcase was activated. Eight minutes later the rocket fell into the sea. That story had a happy ending. We can't risk the future of the world on our good luck holding.
-------- y2k
Pakistan Has Millennium Bug Woes
By KATHY GANNON Associated Press Writer DECEMBER 09, 13:20 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=TECHNOLOGY&STORYID=APIS717V5P80
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - In Pakistan it is not so much a question of whether anything will go wrong at the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31 - it's how much will go wrong.
With the millennium bug nipping at their heels, the people whose job it is to prepare key services, like air traffic control, power supply and hospitals, are worried.
The Y2K glitch, the result of computer programming that expressed years with two digits, means that uncorrected computers could interpret ``2000'' as ``1900'' and crash or garble data.
In Pakistan, the correction process is way behind schedule.
Lack of money has dogged Pakistan's efforts to upgrade its computers, said national Y2K coordinator Ijaz Khawaja. The Oct. 12 military coup, which overthrew an elected government, has added to Pakistan's woes.
In a worst-case scenario, airports could shut down, hospitals could be left struggling to get their patients on manually operated life-support systems and Karachi, the country's largest city, could be left completely in the dark.
All that is unlikely to happen, said Khawaja. But with time running out, systems untested and key equipment only partially inventoried, no one knows for sure.
With few exceptions, the technical staff in most Pakistani hospitals are underqualified and the doctors who use the equipment have little technical know-how, said Khawaja.
A lot of hospital equipment was purchased from eastern European countries and hospitals have long since lost the technical manuals, he said.
Khawaja has advised hospitals not to use equipment they are unsure about.
In the country's most populous Punjab province, where 60 percent of Pakistan's 140 million people live, doctors are doing more than that. They have canceled all but emergency surgery from Dec. 30 until Jan. 1.
Khawaja says aviation is his gravest concern.
The Civil Aviation Authority has missed every Y2K compliance deadline so far, but said Thursday that by mid-December its critical radar systems will be compliant and ready for testing. That leaves just two weeks to test, considered far too little time by most experts.
Khawaja said the defense industry in this fledgling nuclear weapons state claims to be Y2K compliant but has not provided any documentation.
Another worry for Khawaja is the southern port city of Karachi, which he says is having problems with embedded chips in one of its big electric plants.
But at the Karachi Electric Company they say they have made alternate arrangements for getting power to the city's 14 million people, including tapping into the national power grid and buying power from private companies.
For the Dec. 31 rollover, Khawaja is trying to organize a millennium monitoring desk with links to all major industries and utilities. Many other countries already have such Y2K command centers in place.
``I'll be here at my desk at midnight,'' he said. ``I've asked everyone that could be affected to have people working and ready to report any trouble.''
-------
New Year's at Nuclear Site
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS New York Times December 10, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/99/12/10/news/world/russia-nuke-ap.html
MOSCOW -- The chief of Russia's nuclear forces invited reporters Thursday to join him at his main command center on New Year's Eve to see that "our missiles won't blast off."
The chief of strategic missile forces, Col. Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev emphasized that his troops were ready for any millennium-related computer problems, which have prompted concerns about malfunctions among nuclear weapons.
Russia has been slower to address Year 2000 computer problems than many other countries because of the government's money crunch.
Yakovlev said at a news conference today that the computer problems would not affect nuclear weapons or the command system, the news agency Itar-Tass reported.
Georgi Rykovanov, the head of Russia's leading nuclear weapons production center in Snezhinzk, in the Ural Mountains, said the facility was ready.
"We have carried out all the necessary works in advance and checked the systems," he said.
---
Russian Nuke Chief: Ready for Y2K
ASSOCIATED PRESS Las Vegas Sun December 09, 1999
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-eur/1999/dec/09/120900030.html
http://www.newsday.com/ap/rnmpin1q.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-Y2K-Missile.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- The chief of Russia's nuclear forces on Thursday invited reporters to join him at his main command center on New Year's Eve to see that "our missiles won't blast off."
Strategic Missile Forces chief Col.-Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev emphasized that his troops were ready for the any problems with the millennium bug, which has prompted concerns about malfunctions among nuclear weapons.
Russia has been slower to address the so-called Y2K millennium bug than many other countries because of the government's money crunch. The bug threatens to hit computers that use only two digits for the year, causing them misread 2000 as 1900 and to shut down or produce erroneous information.
Yakovlev said at a news conference Thursday that the Y2K problem wouldn't affect nuclear weapons or the command system, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
Georgy Rykovanov, the head of Russia's leading nuclear weapons production center in Snezhinzk, in the Ural Mountains, said the facility was ready for the Y2K bug.
"We have carried out all the necessary works in advance and checked the systems," he said, according to ITAR-Tass.
However, troubleshooters will be on duty in the first few days of January to monitor and fix any glitches if the need arises, he said.
---
Cold War foes team for Y2K cooperation
CNET December 7, 1999, 5:10 p.m. PT By Reuters Special to CNET News.com
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1009-200-1485144.html?tag=st
MOSCOW--Few people doubt Russia has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world, but many need convincing the missiles will stay put when midnight rings in the new millennium on Dec. 31.
The United States and Russia, despite relations being at a post-Cold War low, are eager to oblige as they prepare for the so-called Y2K millennium bug, which may cause some computers to confuse 2000 for 1900 and malfunction or crash.
"Doomsday is not going to happen," Sergei Rogov, director of the USA/Canada think tank in Moscow, told Reuters. "But my television set might go off."
That succinctly sums up Russia's conundrum. The world's largest country and second largest nuclear power is less dependent on computers than many others, particularly in defense, but is less prepared for Y2K because it woke up to the problem late and has little cash to spend on it.
Western governments predict the lights may go out in Russia, but are surprisingly more upbeat about the safety of Russia's vast nuclear arsenal--kept in prowling submarines, on land in silos or on mobile launchers and aboard long-range aircraft.
That confidence stems largely from a Russian and U.S. decision to sit together at a Colorado command center over the New Year to monitor the effect of Y2K on nuclear forces and prevent either from thinking the other has launched a strike.
Russia has 2,000 nuclear-tipped missiles on permanent alert, compared with 2,440 in the United States.
Eighteen Russian defense specialists will fly to Colorado and start their joint watch with U.S. colleagues on Dec. 27, working shifts around the clock for three weeks at Peterson Air Force Base, headquarters of the U.S. Space Command.
"This sharing will reduce the chance that a turn-of-the-millennium computer error will create an end-of-the-year security incident,'' defense secretary William Cohen said recently.
It is a measure of the significance both sides attach to the problem, and to calming public nerves, that the Y2K watch is going ahead despite diplomatic tensions which, ironically, include U.S. plans to deploy an antimissile shield.
Earlier this year, the Russians temporarily called a halt to cooperation because of Moscow's anger over the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. But things got back on track.
With less than a month to go, the Russians are close to completing their pre-Colorado training and the center is ready. The aim is to spot any unannounced missile launches, not just from the two main nuclear powers.
Back in Russia, defense officials sound optimistic about their own equipment and safeguards.
"Security systems, systems that control armaments including nuclear weapons, use sophisticated technology that will not be affected by computer malfunctions," Yuri Bogun, spokesman for the Pacific Fleet, told Reuters. "The Y2K problem will not affect the fleet."
Deputy prime minister Ilya Klebanov, the man in charge of Russia's defense industry, expects nothing more than minor glitches in the civilian arena, despite a lack of money and gloomier predictions abroad.
The military has less than $4 million to fix Y2K problems. Even some individual companies in the West are spending more than that. The Pentagon alone is shelling out $3.8 billion.
"As always, there is not enough financing," Klebanov said. "#91;But] I can boldly declare that nothing anywhere near as terrible will happen as we are presently being frightened with."
Power failures could hit the defense sector but missile bases have their own generators. "There may be much larger problems in the energy system, but the strategic forces, because they are ready to fight a nuclear war, can operate for some time using their own energy supply," Rogov said.
Although not linked to the nuclear arsenal, Russia's atomic power stations, especially those like the Soviet-era Chernobyl plant in Ukraine, worry many in the West. Western governments see the risk of a Y2K nuclear accident in the East as minimal, but greater than in the West.
The prospect of a failed early warning system or inadvertent missile launch galvanized Moscow and Washington to cooperate in a way that would have been unthinkable before.
Joshua Handler, a nuclear researcher at Princeton University, said Washington was particularly anxious to have Russians sitting in Colorado so there was no misunderstanding about U.S. Trident submarine movements if Russia's early warning system fails.
"The U.S. worries that the Russians may not be able to see what the U.S. is up to and so may make a mistake," he said.
Rogov said there had been near-misses in the past. "It is impossible to deny Y2K is a problem, and of course one should take into account a long record of technical mistakes both in the United States and the [former] Soviet Union and Russia in evaluating data," he said, referring to times when the sides came close to retaliating to false alerts.
"Right now, as far as the Strategic Rocket Forces and other components of the Russian strategic triad are concerned, this problem has been admitted by the military and they have in the last several months focused on some of the technical issues."
One of those problems was the discovery that all but one of seven Cold War-era "hotline" links between Washington and Moscow needed fixing because of Y2K. Specialists from both sides have been working to update equipment.
If, despite all the tests and planning, Russia's military chiefs have any last-minute doubts about their missiles they may opt for a drastic, if somewhat prosaic, tactic.
"As far as I can tell, people in the Rocket Forces or the General Staff, if they feel their systems are in any way vulnerable to...Y2K, they will just turn them off for a day or two or a week,'' said nuclear expert Pavel Podvig.
Yet intriguingly, the reverse could also turn out to be true, Handler said, even though the Russians say their nuclear arms systems rely on computers with no Y2K-sensitive date stamp.
"In terms of missiles, the main problem is that they will not work--not that they will somehow inadvertently shoot off," Handler said. "I would say the same for the other weapons and stored warheads as well. Come Jan. 1, 2000, the Russians may find themselves with some or a large portion of their nuclear force non-operational."
Related news stories
• Russia, U.S. to wait out Y2K together October 18, 1999
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1009-200-918616.html?tag=st.ne.1009-200-1485144.
• Ukraine says Y2K not another Chernobyl November 26, 1999
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1009-200-1462983.html?tag=st.ne.1009-200-1485144.
• Y2K concerns shadow former Soviet nuclear plants September 29, 1999
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1009-200-265867.html?tag=st.ne.1009-200-1485144.
• Desperate countdown to ready Cold War remnants for Y2K September 28,
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1009-200-352300.html?tag=st.ne.1009-200-1485144.http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1009-200-352300.html?tag=st.ne.1009-200-1485144.
• A frantic race to ensure global safety at the millennium switch October 1, 1999
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1009-200-429448.html?tag=st.ne.1009-200-1485144.http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1009-200-429448.html?tag=st.ne.1009-200-1485144.
-------- biological weapons
Terrorists will face a united force
Daily Telegraph Friday 10 December 1999 ISSUE 1659 By Tim Butcher
http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000140326706927&rtmo=aTB65K6J&atmo=aTB65K6J&pg=/et/99/12/10/narmy10.html
BRITAIN'S most potent weapon against international terrorism went muddily into action on Salisbury Plain yesterday as the new Joint Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Regiment prepared for operations.
The new regiment, unique because of its melding of RAF and Army personnel, comprises the Royal Tank Regiment and the Royal Air Force. It will lead Britain's fight against dictators or criminals willing to use chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
The job had previously fallen to the Territorial Army but the threat has become so serious in recent years that the Government decided to set up a permanent regiment. With more than £240 million being invested over the next three years in measures to counter the so-called "asymmetric threat" from such weapons, the Joint NBC Regiment will take the lead in protecting British military units serving overseas and providing a detection and identification capability at home in the event of a terrorist incident.
Senior police officers and Home Office officials have been carefully briefed about the regiment's new capability at Britain's NBC Headquarters at Winterbourne Gunner in Wiltshire. Created out of the Government's Strategic Defence Review, the regiment will begin operations on Jan 1 with 300 personnel, although there are plans to increase its size with the arrival of new biological weapons sampling kit within three years.
One of the prototype biological weapons sampling rigs is already deployed to Kuwait where it monitors the air and environment used by RAF personnel deployed on United Nations operations over southern Iraq.
Exercise Brave Guardian posed different problems for the remainder of the regiment on Salisbury Plain yesterday as they honed drills and operational procedures in the freezing mud of Wiltshire. Lt Col David Eccles, commanding officer of the Joint NBC Regiment, said: "What we have here is a capability that puts us in the same rank as the United States and Germany in terms of being able to deal with the NBC threat."
In the background his men, helped by women drivers from the Royal Logistic Corps, scrubbed down one of the Fuchs vehicles in the decontamination park. The Fuchs, built in Germany and sufficiently good to be bought by the US army, will be used to test for nuclear and chemical contamination. The drivers and crew can sit in their own protected environment while external equipment measures the atmosphere and passes the result to an on-board computer.
For the purpose of the exercise nothing more harmful than muscle-cream was used to simulate a chemical weapon. The vehicles are then cleaned by the regiment's decontamination unit using detergent and water and the waste water is collected and buried in pits.
A third section of the regiment drives the vehicles used for the detection of biological weapons which require different technology to the threat from nuclear and chemical weapons. This is still evolving as a science and experts at Porton Down are preparing a new Integrated Biological Detection System for 2002.
For the Royal Tank Regiment soldiers, who are used to driving tanks, the new role of NBC experts was initially a disappointment although it did have the advantage of bringing the unit back from Paderborn in Germany.
Their new base is at RAF Honington where things are done slightly differently from the Army. RAF personnel are allowed to drink, in moderation, in their accommodation and this new rule has been heartily embraced by the soldiers as they rub shoulders with the airmen and airwomen.
Defending against the threat from biological and chemical weapons - Ministry of Defence
http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000140326706927&rtmo=qup9etu9&atmo=lllllPlx&P4_from_link=99/12/10/narmy10.html&pg=/Offsite/http://www.mod.uk/policy/cbw/index.html
Nuclear, biological, chemical warfare defense systems - Ministry of Defence
http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000140326706927&rtmo=qup9etu9&atmo=lllllPlx&P4_from_link=99/12/10/narmy10.html&pg=/Offsite/http://www.army.mod.uk/army/equip/nuclear/main.htm
Chemical Warfare Agents - Chemical Weapons Convention
http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000140326706927&rtmo=qup9etu9&atmo=lllllPlx&P4_from_link=99/12/10/narmy10.html&pg=/Offsite/http://www.opcw.nl/chemhaz/cwagents.htm
The Chemical Weapons Convention
http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000140326706927&rtmo=qup9etu9&atmo=lllllPlx&P4_from_link=99/12/10/narmy10.html&pg=/Offsite/http://www.opcw.nl/ptshome.htm
The International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism
http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000140326706927&rtmo=qup9etu9&atmo=lllllPlx&P4_from_link=99/12/10/narmy10.html&pg=/Offsite/http://www.ict.org.il/
The Home Office
http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000140326706927&rtmo=qup9etu9&atmo=lllllPlx&P4_from_link=99/12/10/narmy10.html&pg=/Offsite/http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/
Terrorist group profiles - Dudley Knox Library, Naval Postgraduate School
http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000140326706927&rtmo=qup9etu9&atmo=lllllPlx&P4_from_link=99/12/10/narmy10.html&pg=/Offsite/http://web.nps.navy.mil/%7Elibrary/tgp/tgpndx.htm
3 December 1999: New anti-terror laws widen targets
http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000140326706927&rtmo=qup9etu9&atmo=lllllPlx&pg=/et/99/12/3/nstraw03.html
18 November 1999: [International] Russia denies preparing for chemical war on Chechens
http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000140326706927&rtmo=qup9etu9&atmo=lllllPlx&pg=/et/99/11/18/wche218.html
15 November 1999: Anti-terror laws brought forward
http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000140326706927&rtmo=qup9etu9&atmo=lllllPlx&pg=/et/99/11/15/nuls215.html
28 October 1999: Porton Down RAF volunteer 'died in nerve gas trials'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000140326706927&rtmo=qup9etu9&atmo=lllllPlx&pg=/et/99/10/28/ngas28.html
---
U.S. Told to Spend More to Neutralize Soviet Germ Scientists
New York Times December 10, 1999 By JUDITH MILLER
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/121099russia-scientists.html
Issue in Depth Russia's Turmoil http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/russia-crisis-index.html
The Clinton administration has made "impressive strides" in preventing former Soviet scientists from working for rogue states and terrorists seeking unconventional weapons, but it should spend much more to achieve that aim, a Washington research group said Thursday.
"Given the consequences of the chemical and biological brain drain," says a report issued by the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, "sound argument can be made for at least doubling the amount of money going annually into collaborative research grants for biological weaponeers, and at a minimum tripling the grant funds for chemical weapons scientists."
The Pentagon alone has allocated $3.172 billion since 1992 to help the former Soviet states secure and dismantle their weapons of mass destruction and keep their scientists peacefully employed. But Amy E. Smithson, a chemical and germ warfare expert who wrote the report, argues that much of this money has been skewed toward the nuclear sector and too little of it toward keeping germ and chemical scientists gainfully employed.
Since 1994, the administration has invested about $250 million in the four programs aimed at engaging former Soviet weapons scientists in collaborative research. Of that amount, Dr. Smithson says, only $7.5 million has gone toward supporting chemists, and only $19.5 million for support of former biological weapons scientists.
As a result, she writes, the major American grant program got money in 1998 to only 1,000 of the 7,000 biological scientists with expertise in deadly germs. And of those who received grants and stipends, the average support was "inadequate to keep 10,500 key chemical and biological weapons experts above the poverty line."
Noting that the cost of a six-year effort to vaccinate American forces against anthrax, a Soviet germ weapon, is $130 million, the report says "it is more cost-effective to stop proliferation at the source."
Dr. Smithson says the exhaustive review process of prospective grants results in substantial delays in getting money to scientists in desperate need.
"Scientists who need to feed their families will find it difficult to withstand the prosperity that proliferators offer if the proposal approval process drags on for more than two years," notes the report, which is scheduled to be published today.
Moreover, the four different pots of money to contain the problem "invite complication" and competition among the agencies.
The report also criticizes the Russian government for keeping "hold-over apparatchiks" intent on blocking scientific cooperation in positions of power.
Pressure from such hard-line elements has kept four key biological labs run by the military and a network of anti-plague institutes closed to outside scrutiny, the report says. In turn, that fosters suspicion about whether Russia is still conducting illegal germ and chemical weapons research and development.
"Unlike these cold warriors, the overwhelming majority of the scientists want out of the weapons business," she concludes, based on visits to former Soviet unconventional weapons institutes and interviews with administration officials.
Dr. Smithson, whose views particularly on chemical weapons are well respected by conservative and liberal defense analysts in Washington, disagrees with those who argue that cutting money for Russian science will force Moscow to open its military institutes and become more open about its past weapons programs.
Offering incentives, she says, is more likely to entice military scientists who are trying to find their way in Russia's turbulent economy and half-hearted political reform.
On balance, she gives high marks to the concept of stopping the spread of dangerous nuclear, chemical and biological expertise by engaging the very scientists who built the unconventional weapons that were once aimed at America.
"In order to milk a rattlesnake," she writes, quoting an American official involved in the programs, "one has to grab it by the head."
-------- iran
Iranian anti-stealth
Washington Times 12/10/99
http://www.washtimes.com/national/ring-19991210.htm
Iran is shopping in Eastern Europe for Czech-made electronic warfare systems known as Tamara, according to Pentagon officials. The systems are supposed to be able to track U.S. radar-evading stealth aircraft - the Pentagon's most important weapons and the future of most U.S. weapons systems, whether aircraft, missiles, ships or vehicles.
Officials tell us the Iranians have been working the illegal arms market in Eastern Europe to find a supplier for the systems, which are manufactured by the Czech Republic's Tesla-Pardubice Co.
The CIA uncovered a similar effort by Iraq in 1997, when Bulgarian arms dealers were working secretly with Iraqi weapons buyers to obtain some of the systems for Iraq's air defense network. White House officials appealed directly to Prague's highest officials to block the attempted sale.
The Tamara is supposed to use unique passive sensing systems that can pick up emissions from such aircraft as the F-117 fighter-bomber and the B-2 bomber. Its range, however, is said to be very limited.
Bill Gertz can be reached at 202/636-3274 or by e-mail at gertz@twtmail.com. Rowan Scarborough can be reached at 202/636-3208 or by e-mail at scarbo@twtmail.com.
-------- iraq
U.S. Is Trying to Put Teeth in Inspections of Iraq Arms
Associated Press December 11, 1999 By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/99/12/11/news/world/un-iraq.html
UNITED NATIONS -- As disagreements between the United States and Russia continue to delay action on a new arms inspection plan for Iraq, independent disarmament experts are divided over how important it is to try to put in place an airtight monitoring system if the cost is security council unity against President Saddam Hussein.
The council Friday put off a vote on the inspection plan until Monday at the request of China, which, like Russia, has reservations. But council members did extend the "oil for food" program in Iraq for six months.
"This is really a case where the best is the enemy of the good," said Spurgeon M. Keeny, Jr., president of the Arms Control Association, a Washington research organization that publishes Arms Control Today. "Obviously the best would be to get rid of the Iraqi regime and find every last piece of equipment that accumulated before the gulf war or since, but we can't get international support for that."
Keeny, a former deputy director of the United States Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, advises the United States to be flexible where possible to gain consensus, then "claim victory and get on with perfecting the continued inspection regime."
He spoke in an interview Friday as American and British diplomats spent another day trying to narrow differences with Russia, China and, on some points, France, in order to avoid a Russian veto of the resolution creating a new weapons monitoring commission for Iraq, where there have been no international inspections for a year.
A Russian veto would kill the plan, leaving in place economic sanctions on Iraq that may become increasingly unenforceable. A Russian abstention would advertise council divisions, a boon to Iraq.
The Russians argue that if -- a big if -- Iraq is judged to be cooperating with a new inspection and monitoring system to be installed by the proposed United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency within a given period of time or has met a predetermined list of tasks, then sanctions should be suspended while further inspection work goes on.
The United States wants the arms inspectors to list tasks to be accomplished after, not before, they begin work on the ground. In the past, these demands on the Iraqis have included providing documents, allowing interviews with Iraqi officials or opening of new sites to inspectors.
The Russians and French complain that the wording in the resolution, introduced formally Friday by the British, is not clear enough about what the Iraqis are expected to do and is therefore an invitation for Americans to move the finish line at will.
The American representative, Peter Burleigh, disagreed, saying that three paragraphs in the resolutions make it "very clear what needs to be done." He called the draft now being considered "an artful and constructive way of dealing with some difference of opinion in the council."
But attempts to juggle wording to prevent a Russian veto worry David Albright, president of the independent Institute for Science and International Security in Washington and a former nuclear inspector in Iraq. He notes as an example that an earlier provision suggesting that experts could be drawn from Unscom, the previous inspection commission, has been stripped from the final draft.
"Taking out that language is certainly a warning," Albright said.
"There are enough questions in the resolution that the next steps are going to be critically important in determining the effectiveness of the inspection regime," he said. "Who will be the head of the commission? Will Unmovic (the inspection team) have sufficient experience to conduct inspections? Will their decisions be constantly second-guessed by security council members, who will have authority to approve or disapprove the inspectors' work plans?"
Richard Butler, the former executive chairman of the inspection team, said that the resolution seems to give the new commission far less independence than he had. "Its head will be supervised by what can only be called a political board," he said.
The College of Commissioners intended to oversee the commission will have the right to review all its policy decisions.
"The mandate seems right, but the instrument through which it is to be achieved has been made far less independent," he said.
The creation of a unique disarmament commission as a tool of policy was an interesting experiment, said Ruth Wedgwood, a law professor at Yale. ""When Unscom was founded it was a brilliantly new form of multidimensional verification," she said. "But the experiment is somewhat spoiled already because any future target of an Unscom inspection could take heart from Iraq's success in breaking up the security council alliance."
Related Articles
Iraq Threatens France Over U.N. Arms Inspection Vote (Dec. 6, 1999)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/120699iraq-un.html
5 Powers at U.N. Still Split on Iraq Arms Inspection (Nov. 27, 1999)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/112799iraq-arms.html
Tempers Flare in U.N. Council Over Stalemate on Iraq Issue (Nov. 20, 1999)
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/121199iraq-un.html
---
As U.N. Nears Action on Iraq, Inspections Remain Unsettled
New York Times December 10, 1999 By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/121099iraq-un.html
UNITED NATIONS -- Two Security Council resolutions that pave the way toward a new relationship between the United Nations and Iraq are headed for a decision this week, diplomats said Thursday.
Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the British representative, said, "We are now on the run to a final vote."
A proposal to extend the oil-for-food program is expected to pass on Friday without much debate. Under that program, the Iraqis are allowed to sell $5.26 billion worth of oil every six months to pay for urgent civilian needs. That vote is expected to lead the Iraqis to resume oil exports, which they suspended three weeks ago to protest stopgap extensions.
More difficult will be the adoption of a plan creating a new arms inspection system for Iraq, which could lead to a suspension of the crippling embargo on Saddam Hussein's government next year. The embargo was imposed after Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990. This vote is tentatively planned for Saturday, but governments are still discussing key provisions.
After the Persian Gulf War ended in 1991, the sanctions were linked to Iraqi promises to destroy all prohibited weapons. The sanctions have remained in place because inspectors could not certify that Iraq was free of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and certain missile systems, or was not trying to re-create them from hidden material or illegal imports.
At issue now between the United States and Russia is how and when to determine that Iraq is in compliance.
The current draft of the resolution gives the new U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and its executive chairman, to be appointed by the secretary-general, the responsibility for setting the tasks Iraq must accomplish and for judging progress.
The United States, Britain and a majority of other council members interpret that as demanding a high level of compliance with both the new commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency, which will be responsible for watching Iraq's nuclear programs.
Russia prefers a demonstration of cooperation with inspectors as a new system is installed in Iraq but not a requirement to meet all disarmament tasks before sanctions could be suspended.
Russia also wants a suspension of sanctions -- to be reviewed every 120 days under the newest draft -- to take place by the end of next year, a fixed date. The U.S. says sanctions should be suspended only after Iraq has met the tasks assigned by the new inspection team.
Thomas Pickering, the U.S. undersecretary of state, was in New York again Thursday for talks with the Russian envoy, Sergey Lavrov, but diplomats would not say what they discussed.
---
Split U.N. Council Readies New Policy Toward Iraq
Reuters Updated 10:29 AM ET December 11, 1999 By Evelyn Leopold
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/r/991211/10/news-iraq-un
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council prepared to take a critical vote that could lead to a suspension of sanctions against Iraq after a six-month extension of the "oil-for-food" humanitarian program in Baghdad was approved.
British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock, the current council president, said he had scheduled a Monday vote on a resolution that would set up a new arms control commission aimed at returning weapons inspectors to Baghdad after a year's hiatus.
If Iraq cooperates with a new arms commission, the sanctions could be suspended in a complicated and controversial process expected to take at least a year.
The decision to consider the comprehensive resolution, under negotiation for eight months, came after all 15 council members voted Friday for a 180-day extension to the oil-for-food program.
This move allows Iraq to sell $5.26 billion in oil over six months to buy food, medicine and other vital goods for its people.
Iraq stopped exporting oil on Nov. 24 after the council narrowly approved stopgap resolutions extending the oil deal for two weeks and then for one week. Baghdad said it would resume oil sales -- probably on Dec. 15 or 16 -- if the program was renewed for six months.
The United States last month insisted on the short extensions to pressure council members into adopting the broader, comprehensive resolution that would make some of the oil-for-food provisions obsolete.
DELIBERATE AMBIGUITY
Passage of the resolution Monday is not certain despite compromises on all sides.
Some key areas, such as precisely what would trigger the suspension, are left purposely ambiguous in an effort to get support from all 15 council members.
But diplomats are unsure how Russia, China and France -- more sympathetic to Iraq -- will vote. Moscow and Beijing are not expected to support the resolution but might abstain rather than use their veto power to kill it.
France is expected to vote in favor or abstain, diplomats said.
Greenstock was optimistic.
"I am confident that this is a good text, which should get support from a maximum number of members of the council and will be carried," he said Friday.
The sanctions were imposed on Iraq after President Saddam Hussein's government invaded Kuwait in August 1990, leading to the 1991 Gulf War. After the war, any lifting of the sanctions was linked to the scrapping of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, a procedure that has taken nearly 10 years.
Arms inspectors left Iraq a year ago, shortly before U.S.-British bombing raids against Baghdad for its alleged failure to cooperate with the U.N. disarmament commission.
Friday, Russia proposed amendments, supported by China and Malaysia, to the full council that would have required Iraq to cooperate, but not fully cooperate, with the inspectors, diplomats said.
The aim was to prevent the United States and Britain from imposing arms requirements that Iraq could not meet and thus keeping the sanctions in place indefinitely.
Russia also wanted the sanctions to be suspended by next December regardless of Iraq's cooperation, a proposal Greenstock said would allow Iraq to "sit and wait."
Moscow's Ambassador Sergei Lavrov said the resolution was too ambiguous.
"We don't think it is clear-cut, and we believe it is not as it should be," he told reporters.
U.S. representative Peter Burleigh said he anticipated talks throughout the weekend on the resolution among Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine.
France, which had earlier approved the text, said the resolution would have little impact if all council members did not support it.
Its Ambassador Alain Dejammet said it was necessary to have clarity in the resolution and make sure Russia was supporting the document or Iraq would never cooperate.
Iraq has lobbied vigorously against the resolution, threatening France with a break in diplomatic and economic ties and attempting to persuade Moscow to use its veto. Baghdad wants nothing less than a clear path to the lifting of the sanctions, which have ruined its economy.
---
Rhetoric and Reality on Iraq
New York Times December 10, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/99/12/10/editorial/10fri1.html
More than eight years after American-led military forces triumphed in the Persian Gulf war, Saddam Hussein still rules Iraq and continues to cheat on the surrender terms that require him to eliminate all biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and missiles capable of delivering them. His galling defiance and America's frustrations in dealing with him have again made Iraq an issue in a United States presidential campaign.
Gov. George W. Bush of Texas talks about contingencies in which he would use American military power to "take out" Iraq's illegal weapons. On the Democratic side, Vice President Al Gore argues, with the benefit of hindsight, that Governor Bush's father erred in 1991 by not marching to Baghdad and toppling the Iraqi dictator in the war's closing days.
Such martial talk about a reviled foreign despot makes for satisfying campaign oratory. But as Presidents Bush and Clinton learned, containing Iraq's weapons and ambitions has never been simply a military task. It has required long and often tortured diplomacy involving a coalition of disparate countries that broadly agree on the need to contain Mr. Hussein but not on every element of strategy.
Perhaps as early as this weekend the United Nations Security Council will be voting on a new compromise resolution that could bring international arms inspectors back to Iraq after a costly yearlong absence. Of the council's 15 members, 11 now support the main elements of the resolution. Russia is the chief remaining holdout.
The resolution would establish a new inspection commission with powers to draw up a list of essential disarmament conditions Iraq must fulfill to win limited relief from sanctions. If Baghdad meets the conditions, including a resumption of unhampered inspections, the council would consider a temporary suspension of sanctions. Iraq's export revenues would pass through an internationally supervised account, and its imports would be vetted to prevent the purchase of weapons or weapons ingredients.
France accepts all elements of this formula, but regrettably has not committed itself to vote for the resolution. Russia, however, seeks to dilute the list of disarmament conditions and require Iraq only to admit the inspectors and leave them alone for a few months instead of achieving specific disarmament benchmarks. That is unacceptable. The Clinton administration, which made sensible and significant adjustments in its Iraq policies to broaden U.N. support, should not agree to dilute the resolution in the ways Russia proposes.
Intrusive arms inspections inside Iraq are the most effective approach yet discovered for detecting and thwarting illegal Iraqi weapons programs. Getting U.N. approval for a new inspection program is less dramatic and stirring than the war cries of the politicians. But it is far more useful.
-------- puerto rico
Vieques counterattack
Washington Times 12/10/99
http://www.washtimes.com/national/ring-19991210.htm
President Clinton's decision last week to block the carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower battle group from training on Vieques Island has prompted Republicans to consider playing hardball with Puerto Rico.
Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Rosello, a political ally of Vice President Al Gore, adamantly refused to approve even limited naval exercises. Instead of overriding the opposition, Mr. Clinton caved. Military sources said he feared the spectacle of U.S. marshals forcibly removing squatter protesters on Vieques and its effects on U.S. Hispanic voters.
Republican congressional staffers view Mr. Clinton's action as Vieques' death knell. Although more talks will be attempted with Puerto Rican officials, the sources see little chance the U.S. territory will allow the next scheduled battle group to train there in 2000.
The intransigence has staffers plotting a counterattack.
One option is a Senate floor vote on a bill from Sen. James M. Inhofe, Oklahoma Republican, that would order the Pentagon to close Roosevelt Roads naval station and other bases on Puerto Rico.
"We close down Puerto Rico," said a congressional staffer. "We think the Inhofe bill will be voted on. Basically what we have whispered in the Pentagon's ear is they're not going to listen until we do something."
Roosevelt Roads' primary function is to support operations on Vieques.
A second option is to withhold Puerto Rico's yearly defense research and development grants, a program for states that lack large research institutions.
"You could do some things if you're willing to send some signals," the staffer said. "But this administration isn't willing to do so."
The Navy says Vieques' ability to accommodate integrated land, air and sea exercises provides each battle group with unmatched realistic training before deploying to the Mediterranean and Persian Gulf. The Eisenhower's air wing will thus be in a less combat-ready state, the service says.
---
Vieques Offer Bought Time, But Not A Solution
By MICHAEL REMEZ The Hartford Courant December 08, 1999
WASHINGTON - The Clinton administration's proposed compromise on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques may have bought time, but it didn't buy peace.
Now, with growing opposition to the Clinton plan from both sides of the debate, resolution of the crisis over use of the island as a Navy training ground seems as elusive as ever.
So far this week, protesters, most from Vieques, have blocked the entrance to Camp Garcia, the main access to the training area, and have gotten into two angry confrontations with federal marshals. The fugitive leader of a violent Puerto Rican independence group, Los Macheteros, Tuesday threatened to join the fight against the Navy presence.
Puerto Rico's political leaders - including longtime allies of the president - have ripped into Clinton's plan to allow curtailed military maneuvers on the island for five more years.
On the other side of the issue, congressional Republicans have denounced Clinton for requiring the use of inert or dummy ordnance instead of allowing continued use of live-weapons training, which the Navy considers crucial.
Last Friday, Clinton avoided an immediate confrontation - and bought about four months of time - by agreeing to reroute the Navy's Eisenhower battle group that was scheduled to train on the island this month. The next battle group would need to train on Vieques in March.
But the protests are increasing, and the situation seems to be getting more volatile. Those camped on the Navy bombing range as human shields have vowed to stay as long as needed.
``If the goal was to let us claim victory for stopping the Eisenhower, and then let things cool down, that's not going to happen,'' said Flavio Cumpiano, a Washington lawyer who represents the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques.
This week, the administration seems uncertain what course to take to get talks back on track and defuse increased tensions. The Navy has sent an admiral to Puerto Rico to meet with leaders on implementing the plan, though the plan already has been rejected by those same leaders.
The adminstration plan calls for the Navy to phase out training on Vieques in five years, but it also allows the Navy to negotiate with the people of Vieques, not only to use the range longer than that, but also - if they agree - to resume the use of live weapons.
That's exactly the opposite of what the Puerto Ricans wanted, a plan guaranteeing when the Navy would pack up and move out completely.
James L. Dietz, a professor at California State University at Fullerton who has written extensively about Puerto Rico, said he doesn't expect the politicians - including Gov. Pedro Rossello - to back down.
``In this case, it's a no-lose situation'' for supporters of closing the range, Dietz said, ``because the sentiment is so strong.''
Dietz said the closing of the bombing range eventually seems almost certain. The issue is how fast and under what conditions.
How that will be negotiated, though, still seems unclear. Clinton and his secretary of defense, William S. Cohen, both said Friday that the decision would be made in consultation with the people of Vieques. So far, no mechanism has been put in place to do that.
``The process continues,'' said Jim Fallin, a spokesman for the National Security Council, an arm of the White House. ``A proposal has been put forward and it will definitely serve as a reference point for future dialogue as we continue to search for a middle ground.''
Cumpiano speculated that Friday's announcement was the latest act in a long-running drama in which the key players already know the intended ending. He suggested that Rossello and Clinton are buying time to sell a compromise plan that would further reduce the Navy training to three years with additional guarantees of a Navy exit.
Juan M. Garcia Passalacqua, a prominent Puerto Rican political analyst, said Clinton had put the burden of finding a solution on Cohen, a former Republican senator and prominent member of the Armed Services Committee.
And that left Cohen with limited options: get the Puerto Ricans to agree to a compromise, arrest the protesters on the bombing range or put off a decision again in the spring. The latter effectively could keep the issue unsettled until after the 2000 elections.
Republicans have accused Clinton of putting political considerations ahead of national security in his deliberations on the range. Vice President Al Gore and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton have voiced support for ending the bombing. Hillary Clinton is expected to run for the U.S. Senate in New York, where Puerto Ricans form a powerful voting bloc.
Right now, Garcia Passalacqua said, the president can say he offered something significant to both the Puerto Ricans and the Navy. He gave the Navy a chance to continue using the range. And for the Puerto Ricans, he bettered earlier proposals, reducing the number of days the Navy could use the range, calling for use of only dummy weapons and providing financial incentives to go along with the deal.
But the prospects for violence seem to be mounting. Tuesday, Filiberto Ojeda Rios, leader of Los Macheteros, came out of hiding to say he supports the people of Vieques in their fight.
Ojeda refused to say what the group might do. But it has been blamed for a series of attacks on civilian and U.S. military targets in Puerto Rico, including a 1979 shooting at a Navy bus that killed two people and wounded nine others. Ojeda was sentenced in absentia to 55 years in prison for the 1983 robbery of $7.1 million from a Wells Fargo depot in West Hartford.
---
URGENT ACTION ON VIEQUES!
Sent by the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques <viequeslibre@viequeslibre.org>
(December 9, 1999)
Vieques Libre - http://www.viequeslibre.org
1) Organize events in your community, and attend and support other events, to repudiate President Clinton's decision on Vieques and demand that he order the Navy out of Vieques now. President Clinton's December 3rd decision is more of an open-ended proposal that may be changed some time next year after "negotiations". The goal is not to negotiate and reduce Clinton's insulting and unjust decision to a less demeaning one.
The goal is to intensify the struggle and get Clinton to order the US Navy out of Vieques and not allow one more bomb to be dropped in Vieques. The demand of not one more bullet, not one more bomb in Vieques IS NOT NEGOTIABLE.
2) Support the people of Vieques by travelling to the island, helping out at the campsites in the so-called restricted areas or the one in front of Camp Garcia, participating in the demonstrations and vigils, etc. In short, contribute to the construction of "un pueblo", a town or village, in the campsite areas. If Clinton follows through with his plan to authorize bombing to resume next year, they will have to destroy a town or village in order to do so. If you are unable to go to Vieques, you can send much-need financial contributions to the campsites or to organizations like the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, Box 1424, Vieques, PR 00765; e-mail: bieke@coqui.net Fax: (787) 741-8651.
3) Telephone and write (fax) the following White House officials and express your repudiation of the President's decision and your demands that he order the US Navy out of Vieques and not allow one more bomb to be dropped in Vieques. Please ask your colleagues in elected office, in the leadership of political parties, churches, community organizations, etc., to do the same.
John Podesta - White House Chief of Staff
Phone: (202) 456-6797 Fax: (202) 456-1907
María Echaveste - White House Deputy Chief of Staff
Phone: (202) 456-6594 Fax: (202) 456-6703
Jeffrey Farrow - Co-Chair, "White House Interagency Working Group on Puerto Rico"
Phone: (202) 456-5179 Fax: (202) 482-2337
4) Implement whatever initiative you believe might strengthen the cause. Inform others through phone, fax, e-mail and through www.viequeslibre.org. The people of Vieques are more united than ever. Let's show with our words and deeds that we are also more united than ever with Vieques.
¡Paz para Vieques!
-------- russia
Russia Deploys 10 Nuclear Missiles
New York Times December 10, 1999 Filed at 1:40 p.m. EST By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-Missiles.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- The Russian military deployed 10 new Topol-M nuclear missiles Friday, the second time in two years that it has put a contingent of the missiles on full combat readiness.
The Topol-M, which carries a single nuclear warhead, was designed to be the backbone of Russia's strategic forces. Many of the country's older nuclear weapons have outlived their service life or must be dismantled under international arms reduction agreements.
The new missiles were put on duty in the Saratov region, about 450 miles southeast of Moscow, the location of the first 10 missiles deployed last year, the ITAR-Tass news agency said.
The latest deployment came a day after Russian President Boris Yeltsin, on a visit to China, blasted President Clinton for criticizing Russia's military campaign in breakaway Chechnya. Yeltsin reminded Clinton that ``Russia is a great power that possesses a nuclear arsenal.''
Russia's Strategic Missile Forces chief, Col.-Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev, said Yeltsin had been well aware of the Topol-M deployment when he made his remarks, the Interfax news agency said.
The Topol-M is relatively small and can be transported on a mobile launch pad, making it hard to locate and take out in the first strike of a nuclear confrontation.
Meanwhile, Yakovlev also said that American plans to try to develop an effective anti-ballistic missile defense system would virtually mean ``a return to the arms race,'' ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
The United States wants to amend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to build missile defenses that would defend the country from possible missile attacks by rogue states such as North Korea.
Washington says an anti-missile system would not be able to counter the kind of massive nuclear attack Russia is capable of launching. But the Russians argue that a U.S. retreat from the ABM treaty would trigger an arms race.
---
Yeltsin rattles nuclear sabre
Tells Clinton to keep U.S. nose out of Chechnya
Toronto Star December 10, 1999 By Olivia Ward Toronto Star European Bureau
http://www.thestar.com/thestar/back_issues/ED19991210/news/991210NEW16_FO-YELTSIN10.html
MOSCOW - Reviving chilling memories of the Cold War, President Boris Yeltsin yesterday issued an indirect nuclear threat to the United States, warning it to keep its nose out of the conflict in Chechnya.
U.S. President Bill Clinton yesterday ``permitted himself to put pressure on Russia,'' Yeltsin said while on an official visit to China. ``It seems he has for a minute, for a second, for half a minute, forgotten that Russia has a full arsenal of nuclear weapons. He has forgotten about that.
``I want to tell Clinton not to forget . . . what world he lives in, and that he doesn't have the right to dictate to people how to live,'' he said ahead of talks with Li Peng, China's most conservative and anti-Western leader.
Yeltsin's trip to China was meant to show the increasingly frail leader as robust and decisive. It was also an attempt to create support and solidarity for Russia in its struggle to make a comeback as a superpower, and to subdue its most troublesome province, Chechnya.
But the threat of a Cold War alliance between the two giant countries is less worrying than the erratic behaviour of Yeltsin, who has made startling comments while on past foreign visits.
Now, with Russia embroiled in a vicious civil war in Chechnya, as well as fierce political battles for control of the presidency as Yeltsin's term ends, the uncertainty about the country's stability is growing.
During the signing of a treaty with Belarus in the Kremlin earlier this week, Yeltsin appeared disoriented, and lost his place while giving a speech.
His appearance on arrival in Beijing yesterday was described as ``unsteady,'' and he gripped the arms of his aides for support.
Yeltsin's Beijing outburst was played down by Clinton, who said in Washington yesterday, ``I don't agree with what's going on (in Chechnya) and I think I have an obligation to say so.''
In Chechnya yesterday, Russian forces hoisted their flag over the key town of Urus-Martan after weeks of heavy fighting, and moved to consolidate their hold on the approaches to the Chechen capital, about 19 kilometres northeast of the town.
The Russian military said it has encircled Grozny, and while it doesn't plan to storm the heavily defended city, it has told civilians to leave by tomorrow to avoid massive air and artillery strikes.
Russia has been under heavy criticism from the West, and especially the U.S., for its massive assault on Chechnya, a bombardment Moscow has sworn to continue until it wins a clear victory over what it calls terrorism and lawlessness.
Clinton stopped short of agreeing with the European Union's suggestion that International Monetary Fund and World Bank loans should be delayed to pressure Russia into ending the war.
But the latest round of hostilities comes at a time when relations between Russia and the West have slid badly, with tit-for-tat spy expulsions as well as angry exchanges over Chechnya.
The chill set in last March after NATO went to war against Russia's Slavic ally Yugoslavia for its assault on ethnic Albanians in the Serbian province of Kosovo.
Russia later joined Serbia in condemning NATO's failure to protect ethnic Serbs who have been attacked by returning Kosovar Albanians.
In recent weeks, Russia and the U.S. crossed swords over spying allegations.
U.S. security officials arrested a Russian embassy worker in Washington Wednesday, claiming he planted a listening device in a conference room.
Last week, U.S. diplomat Cheri Leberknight was made a persona non grata after allegedly trying to glean secret military documents from a Russian citizen.
But Yeltsin's speech in China highlights deeper problems than an exchange of diplomatic insults.
With the Russian leader clearly faltering at the end of his final term of office, and a fierce battle for the spoils of wealth and power underway, no one in Russia is sure exactly who is in charge of the country, and where its policies are ultimately heading.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is still an unknown quantity, in spite of his widespread public popularity for launching what many Russians see as a just war on terrorism.
He has been accused by Yeltsin's enemies of being a mere puppet of the billionaire ``oligarchs'' who control much of the country's wealth, and its largest media.
But there is no certainty that is true - or whether Putin plans to dictate his will to the oligarchs. As a new government leader, without a network of powerful functionaries in the Kremlin, he is still in the early stages of consolidating his grip on power.
Yeltsin's surprise announcement that Putin would be his ``heir'' is nothing new for the unpredictable president, who has hired and fired several high-profile top officials who expected to inherit his job.
As Yeltsin's grip on daily affairs of state has slackened, Putin has given increasing power to the military and security services helping to conduct the war on Chechnya.
The generals have begun to flex their muscles in ways that would have been unthinkable even a year ago, warning of dire consequences if their actions in Chechnya are curbed.
The police, meanwhile, have been allowed much wider leeway in arresting, questioning and detaining suspected ``bandits'' throughout Russia.
Soviet-style residency laws restricting freedom of movement have been more toughly enforced.
``The generals are much more resolute than they used to be and they enjoy more power and authority,'' says Yevgeny Volk of the Heritage Foundation, a non-governmental think-tank.
``Militarist mentality is strong now, and public support for the crackdown strengthens the security forces.''
The Russian military is also stepping aggressively into the international policy arena. In an article this week in a military newspaper, Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev said that it was time Russia developed new weapons capable of neutralizing any missile defence system the U.S. might develop.
Over Russian objections, Washington wants to amend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to build missile defences it says would shield the country from possible attacks by rogue states.
Sergeyev also pointed at NATO's air campaign against Yugoslavia as signs of a growing Western threat to Russia.
---
Russian press back Yeltsin's nuclear reminder
Reuters 05:40 12-10-99 Reuters
MOSCOW, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Russian newspapers on Friday broadly supported President Boris Yeltsin for reminding the U.S. of Russia's nuclear might and suggested the outburst was staged.
Speaking in Beijing on Thursday, Yeltsin told the U.S. not to lecture Russia on its assault in Chechnya and said President Bill Clinton seemed to have forgotten ``for a minute, for a second, for half a minute'' that Russia had nuclear weapons.
All newspapers gave front page coverage to the comments, with photographs of Yeltsin hugging or conferring with Chinese President Jiang Zemin. They said Yeltsin wanted to remind the West that anti-Russian rhetoric would increase the influence of hardliners in the ex-Soviet state and cement ties with Beijing.
``Of course, there was nothing unexpected in the choice of place or time of the pronouncement of these words. It was all planned,'' said Vremya, dismissing the idea that the West now expected a rain of nuclear warheads to fall on it.
``Namely -- the more the West pressures Russia the more it pushes her into the embrace of its domestic militarists, mindless generals and...economists who champion the military orientation of Russia's economy,'' it added.
Izvestiya, in a section called quote of the day, reproduced the words of former Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev during a time of friction with the U.S.: ``We will show you what's what.''
Although the tone of some of the commentaries was sardonic, several decided Yeltsin's rhetoric was justified.
``The president was right when he reminded the world that Russia is a nuclear country. It is a pity of course that he has to remind them,'' said Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
``Two comrades made friends,'' said Moskovsky Komsomolets in approving tones of the talks between Jiang and Yeltsin.
China is one of the few countries to back Russia's Chechnya offensive.
European Union leaders meeting in Helsinki on Friday were expected to sanction Russia over its military action in the Caucasian republic.
---
Russia warns US over Chechnya
Dawn Internet 10 December 1999 Friday 01 Ramazan 1420
http://dawn.com/daily/text/int1.htm
BEIJING, Dec 9: Russian President Boris Yeltsin warned US President Bill Clinton on Thursday not to interfere over Russia's military offensive in Chechnya and pointed out Russia still possessed nuclear weapons.
"It seems Mr Clinton has forgotten Russia is a great power that possesses a full nuclear arsenal ... we aren't afraid at all of Clinton 's anti-Russian position," Yeltsin said after an informal summit with Chinese President Jiang Zemin.
"I want to tell President Clinton that he alone cannot dictate how the world should live, work and play. It is us who will dictate," he said through the English translation of a Russian official.
Clinton has warned Russia it will pay a high price for the way it is waging war in Chechnya, in particular its disregard for civilian lives.
Yeltsin, who was speaking loudly and animatedly, made the statements just before a meeting with Chinese parliamentarian and communist hardliner Li Peng at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse. Yeltsin earlier met President Jiang and Premier Zhu Rongji at the guesthouse.
In a 40-minute meeting with Yeltsin, the Chinese president reiterated Chechnya was an internal Russian affair and brooks no interference from outside forces, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov told reporters.
"Jiang Zemin completely understands and fully supports Russia's actions in combating terrorism and extremism in Chechnya and in the northern Caucasus," he said.
Concerning the warning to the American president, Ivanov said, "President Yeltsin was responding to criticism of Russia's internal policy. No one has the right to interfere into the internal affairs of another country." Yeltsin and Li also reaffirmed opposition to America's proposed National Missile Defense system.-AFP
---
Russian Leader Complains of Lack of Respect From U.S.
New York Times December 10, 1999 By ERIK ECKHOLM
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/121099russia-us.html
BEIJING -- President Boris Yeltsin, clearly bristling over President Clinton's criticism of Russia's military assault on Chechnya, complained on Thursday that the United States was not treating Russia with the respect due a nuclear power.
"President Clinton permitted himself to put pressure on Russia," Yeltsin said, loudly and deliberately, in front of television cameras after he arrived here on Thursday for a day and a half of meetings with Chinese leaders. "It seems he has for a minute forgotten that Russia has a full arsenal of nuclear weapons."
In Washington, Clinton played down Yeltsin's remarks, saying, "We can't get too serious about that." But he repeated his insistence that Russia's strategy to suppress secessionist rebels in Chechnya, which has involved large-scale bombardment of civilian areas, is counterproductive.
"I don't agree with what's going on there," he said. "And I think I have an obligation to say so."
But here in China, which has rejected international criticism of its own harsh treatment of restive ethnic minorities as unwarranted interference in its internal affairs, Yeltsin's Chechnya campaign was vigorously endorsed.
"President Jiang said he completely understood and fully supported Russia's actions in combating terrorism and extremism in Chechnya," reported Russia's foreign minister, Igor S. Ivanov, after Yeltsin met with President Jiang Zemin.
Despite poor health -- last week he battled pneumonia and he reportedly traveled here against his doctors' advice -- Yeltsin was obviously primed to launch a broadside against Clinton on Thursday.
Yeltsin made his apparently calculated outburst as he and Li Peng, the head of China's legislature, posed for photographs before their meeting. He turned to the cameras to remind Clinton of Russia's nuclear status and warn, "It has never been and never will be the case that he will dictate to the whole world how to live"
"A multipolar world -- that is the basis for everything," he continued, in remarks that were broadcast repeatedly on Thursday in Russia, where preparations for the Dec. 19 parliamentary elections are under way. "We will dictate to the world. Not him, not him alone."
Russia, a faltering world power, and China, an aspiring one, are united in fear of U.S. domination, and the statements issued on Thursday emphasized their shared support for a world with no single pre-eminent power. The countries signed two new border agreements and reaffirmed the "strategic partnership" they have extolled in summit meetings over the last several years, an effort to erase past tensions and counter U.S. power.
Cash-hungry Russia has been an important seller of weapons to China, but trade between the countries remains modest and a serious military alliance between the historical rivals is unlikely, Western diplomats say. Both countries also badly want U.S. economic cooperation.
China and Russia, both worried about potential ethnic unrest at home as well as by American swagger, found common cause earlier this year in opposing NATO's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. They vehemently condemned it as a criminal violation of a sovereign country's control over its domestic affairs.
The two countries also emphasized on Thursday their shared opposition to U.S. plans for an antimissile defense system, which they say will only set off a global arms race.
As for Chechnya, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, Zhang Qiyue, said on Thursday that "China understands and supports the efforts made by Russia in safeguarding national unity and territorial integrity."
Brushing aside the global outcry over Russia's shelling and bombing of towns and threats to obliterate remaining inhabitants of the Chechen capital of Grozny, she added, "We have also taken note of the fact that in the Chechnya action, the Russian side has tried to avoid civilian losses as much as it can."
In Moscow on Thursday, Russia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin, tried to play down Yeltsin's remarks.
"I want to draw your attention to the fact that we have very good relations with the United States," he told reporters. "I would consider it absolutely incorrect to produce the impression that some kind of period of cooling off of relations between Russia and the United States has begun."
Earlier this week, in remarks that seemed to have wounded Yeltsin's pride as leader of a global power, Clinton criticized the brutal Chechnya offensive, saying that it undermined Russia's prestige and risked alienating international investors and lenders.
"They may believe that because of their position in the United Nations and because no one wants them to fail and have more problems than they've got, that they can do this," he said on Wednesday. "I don't think the strategy will work."
---
Yeltsin starts war of words, but Clinton able to parry
Washington Times 12/10/99 By Andrew Cain
http://208.246.212.80/world/news1-19991210.htm
President Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin traded sharp taunts over Chechnya Thursday, widening the worst rift in U.S.-Russia relations since the Cold War ended.
The verbal jousts escalated as the United States ordered a Russian diplomat out of the country for spying, another flashback to an era of U.S.-Russia confrontation.
"It seems Mr. Clinton has forgotten Russia is a great power that possesses a nuclear arsenal," Mr. Yeltsin said during a visit to Beijing.
"We aren't afraid at all of Clinton's anti-Russian position. I want to tell President Clinton that he alone cannot dictate how the world should live, work and play. It is us who will dictate."
Mr. Clinton returned the jab at the White House.
"I haven't forgotten that," Mr. Clinton said. "You know, I didn't think he'd forgotten that America was a great power when he disagreed with what I did in Kosovo."
The verbal sparring over Chechnya took a sharp turn this week after Russia vowed to kill all Chechens who do not flee Grozny by Saturday.
The war of words illustrates a growing list of U.S.-Russia disputes over spy expulsions, missile defense, NATO expansion, the war in Kosovo, Russia's squandering of international loans and America's sponsorship of a Caspian pipeline that bypasses Russia.
Mr. Yeltsin referred to Russia's nuclear arsenal as his visit to Beijing appeared to indicate a warming relationship between Russia and China.
Mr. Clinton tried to tone down the rhetoric before he flew to Massachusetts for a memorial service in honor of six Worcester firefighters.
"We can't get too serious about" the verbal jousting, he said. "Let's not talk about what the leaders are saying and all these words of criticism. Let's focus on what the country is doing. Is it right or wrong? Will it work or not? What are the consequences?"
"I don't agree with what's going on there. And I think I have an obligation to say so."
Mr. Clinton said at a news conference Wednesday that the United States should not cut off aid to Russia because two-thirds of the money goes to denuclearization and safeguarding nuclear materials. The other third promotes democracy.
Mike Hammer, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said Thursday that America's policy of engagement with Russia is unchanged.
"We have a broad range of shared interests in the U.S.-Russia relationship and we intend to continue to pursue them," he said.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the former president of the Soviet Union, denounced Mr. Yeltsin's reference to Russia's nuclear arsenal.
"I hope this wasn't a carefully considered statement," Mr. Gorbachev told Russia's private television channel NTV. "It is not serious for such a high-level politician."
Earlier this year, the United States complained to Russia that its spying was approaching Cold War levels. U.S. officials asked Russia through diplomatic channels to cut back, suggesting that a failure to do so could result in forced expulsions.
On Wednesday, Washington ordered Russian diplomat Stanislav Gusev to leave the country. U.S. officials said they caught him monitoring a listening device found in a State Department conference room.
Last week, Russia gave a U.S. Embassy second secretary, Cheri Leberknight, 10 days to leave that country. Russian counterintelligence said it had caught her red-handed and equipped with James Bond-style spy gadgets.
Mr. Clinton says Russia has a right to protect its territorial integrity and to crack down on terrorism. But for weeks Mr. Clinton has urged Mr. Yeltsin to halt indiscriminate attacks against civilians in Chechnya. Mr. Clinton's warnings became more dire when Russia vowed to kill Chechens who do not leave Grozny by Saturday.
"Russia will pay a heavy price for those actions, with each passing day sinking more deeply into a morass that will intensify extremism and diminish its own standing in the world," Mr. Clinton said Monday.
In Istanbul Nov. 18, Mr. Clinton publicly scolded Mr. Yeltsin about Chechnya during a European security summit. But the Russian president left the summit after vowing to continue fighting "bandits and murderers."
Mr. Yeltsin's public jousting may have been for public consumption. During a private meeting with Mr. Clinton at the Istanbul summit, Mr. Yeltsin greeted Mr. Clinton with a bear hug and asked him for help in safeguarding Russia's plutonium stockpile.
At the same summit Turkey, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Azerbaijan signed an accord to build a pipeline that would carry oil from the Caspian region to the Mediterranean. The pact gives the West access to Caspian oil without relying upon Russia.
U.S.-Russian tensions have have built since the spring. On March 12, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic formally joined NAT0, extending the alliance's borders east toward Russia.
Twelve days later, NATO began its 78-day bombing campaign in Kosovo. The Russian parliament reacted by putting ratification of the START II nuclear treaty on hold.
Russia opposes U.S. plans to revise the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. George W. Bush, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, says he would build a missile defense system regardless of whether Russia agrees to modify the treaty.
"There is a serious fraying in the relationship" between the United States and Russia, said Thomas Graham, a senior associate in the Russia/ Eurasia department at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Mr. Yeltsin's reference to Russia's nuclear arsenal sounds like a bluff, an indication that Russia "is beginning to feel some pressure from the West on Chechnya," he said.
Mr. Yeltsin is "pointing to the one last attribute of a great power."
Russian troops marched into two key Chechen strongholds Thursday expecting heavy fighting but found them little more than ghost towns as rebels began to retreat to the safety of the mountains.
Russian generals have been incredulous at the ease of their advance. Federal forces are close to winning complete control over the breakaway republic's heartland after the fall of Urus-Martan, nine miles southwest of the capital, Grozny, on Wednesday evening, and Shali, 12 miles to the southeast, Thursday.
An estimated 3,500 rebels were believed to be holding out in Urus-Martan and 1,000 in Shali. But when federal troops began clearing the two towns yesterday they found them nearly deserted. Rebel defenders had melted away in the night.
---
Boris Yeltsin's Outburst
New York Times December 10, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/99/12/10/editorial/10fri3.html
President Boris Yeltsin of Russia is known for his occasional bombast, some of it playful, some angry, some merely erratic. But when the man who commands the largest nuclear stockpile in the world rattles that arsenal after he gives his vintage bear hug to President Jiang Zemin of China, the scene is, at best, unsettling. There is reason for reassurance, however, in the calm response from the Clinton administration and the speedy effort by Russia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin, to emphasize the stability of overall relations between the United States and Russia.
Recently ill with pneumonia and increasingly irritated at Western criticism of his country's war in Chechnya, Mr. Yeltsin accused President Clinton yesterday of forgetting that "Russia is a great power that possesses a full nuclear arsenal." The 68-year-old Russian leader also said during his visit to Beijing, in a reference to Mr. Clinton, "It has never been and never will be the case that he will dictate to the whole world how to live."
Mr. Yeltsin has reverted to adversarial rhetoric in the past, and American officials have learned to count on the transience of these outbursts. He was irritated in this case by the Clinton administration's warnings that Russia's military campaign in Chechnya would not achieve the desired result. Mr. Clinton tried to discount his Russian counterpart's comments by saying, "We can't get too serious about that." Meanwhile, Mr. Putin assured the administration that Russian-United States relations were not as strained as Mr. Yeltsin had made them out to be, despite the two nations' differences on Chechnya.
Mr. Clinton has hardly been strident in his criticism of Russia's brutal Chechen policy. He has not called for sanctions or an end to aid for Moscow, as have several American presidential candidates. But the president has repeatedly said that Russia's policy -- pursuing terrorists by leveling Chechnya's capital, Grozny, and killing innocent civilians -- is inhumane. He also argues that the war is self-defeating, both militarily and ultimately for Russia's longer-range goals of being considered by the world as a more enlightened nation.
Russia should absorb that analysis and move toward a political settlement in Chechnya. Meanwhile, despite Mr. Yeltsin's outburst, the signals from the White House and Mr. Putin underscored an important point about the larger framework of Russian-American relations. Both countries have a strong interest in seeing continued progress on combating nuclear proliferation and safeguarding the transition to democracy represented by Russia's parliamentary election on Dec. 19 and its presidential election next year.
---
A U.S. Role in Chechnya
New York Times December 10, 1999 By THOMAS GRAHAM
http://www.nytimes.com/99/12/10/oped/10grah.html
WASHINGTON -- Russia issued an ultimatum on Monday to the citizens of Chechnya's capital -- leave before Saturday or die. True, after stern words from the United States and the rest of the world, Russia backed off one day later. But yesterday President Boris Yeltsin was rattling his saber again, this time issuing an ominous reminder to President Clinton that Russia "has a full arsenal of nuclear weapons."
Such bluster deserves a quick and firm response. But the Clinton administration, in typical fashion, is waffling. Although the president himself warned earlier this week that Russia would pay "a heavy price" for its conduct in Chechnya -- the warning that apparently ignited Mr. Yeltsin's outburst -- Mr. Clinton has been unwilling to put the teeth in that rhetoric.
Why? The United States, senior administration officials claim, has few levers to push. And they say that if we use the levers we have, like suspending financial aid to Russia, we will undermine our larger national interest in helping Russia build a democratic, free-market society and safeguarding its nuclear materials.
This stance is wrong. The war in Chechnya is itself a grave threat to democracy in Russia. It is fueling ethnic hatred among Russians, and siphoning financial support to an unreformed military and military-industrial complex. It provides cover for the successors to the K.G.B. who are emboldened to harass Russian citizens.
Most important, by soaking up Russia's scarce resources, the war weakens the response to the nation's socioeconomic crisis, which is a much graver threat to long-term security than anything that has happened in or around Chechnya in the past few years.
If the United States backs up its oratory with action, will the Russians listen? There are several reasons to think they will.
The most important is that Russians respect strength. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has become phenomenally popular largely because he has demonstrated toughness with the Chechen rebels. Likewise, we need to demonstrate resolve in defending our values and principles if we ever hope to persuade Moscow to negotiate with Chechnya.
Also, for all their anti-Western talk, Russians fear isolation from the West. Most members of the elite have their savings and investments in Western institutions. Capital flight remains unabated. Russian elites need to understand that by continuing the war in Chechnya they are isolating themselves from the West and jeopardizing their investments.
Moreover, support for the war is not as great as many in the West have been led to believe. One-third of Russians are opposed to Russia's involvement, according to recent public opinion polls. Some critics are looking to the West for support.
I spoke to a number of these people, including leading businessmen, when I was in Moscow last month. They wanted the United States to take a tough, principled stand on Chechnya. The pressure, they thought, would have impact over time and encourage more Russians to speak out.
In addition, the majority that supports the war is beginning to waver. A recent poll by the Russian Center for Public Opinion suggests that close to half of all Russians would support negotiations with the Chechen leadership.
The polls also show that getting tough with Russia would not, as the Clinton administration fears, help the Communist and ultranationalist parties in the parliamentary elections nine days from now.
Virtually every major political party in Russia already supports the war, even the reformist Union of Right-Wing Forces.
The only parties to register a rise in the polls as a result of the war are the reformers and the pro-government bloc of regional governors.
Support for the Communists has not budged over the past few weeks; ultranationalists are faring poorly. Nothing the United States says or does is likely to change the situation.
How do we get tough with Moscow?
Suspend all loans from the International Monetary Fund and the Export-Import Bank, and explicitly link the suspension to the war in Chechnya. In no way should these loans even indirectly finance the military operation.
Along with our allies, review all technical assistance to Russia. Suspend any aid provided directly to the Russian government except those programs dealing with nuclear weapons and material. Continue the assistance that directly benefits regional governments, private business and individuals, thereby encouraging democratic and market reforms.
Warn that continuing the Chechen war will jeopardize Russia's invitation to the meetings of the seven most industrialized countries.
Step up our support for Georgia, the Caucasus nation that has come under increasing pressure from Moscow for its alleged support of Chechen rebels.
Granted, none of these actions will persuade Moscow to move immediately toward a political solution in Chechnya. But over time, the pressure, along with inevitable battle fatigue among Russians, will nudge Moscow toward a negotiated settlement.
Resolving this dispute peacefully is the best thing the Clinton administration can do, if, of course, it still believes democracy has a chance in Russia.
Thomas Graham, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was the chief political analyst at the United States Embassy in Moscow from 1994 to 1997.
---
Russia backpedals on Grozny ultimatum
USA Today World, December 10 1999
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/nw1.htm
GEKHI-CHU, Russia - As jets and helicopter gunships pounded the Chechen capital Grozny, a top official indicated Friday that Moscow may push back an ultimatum to clear the city before a massive attack. Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu said efforts were under way to evacuate civilians from Grozny. Shoigu also indicated he was prepared to hold negotiations with Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov to save civilian lives. It was the first time a senior Russian official has said he was ready to meet the Chechen leadership since federal forces attacked Chechnya in September. Shoigu said he was ''ready to meet anyone, even the devil,'' if it meant that civilians trapped in Grozny could be saved, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. Shoigu's offer coincided with another warning from President Boris Yeltsin to the West not to meddle in Russia's internal affairs.
---
Yelstin, Jiang Share Stance on U.S.
New York Times December 10, 1999 Filed at 5:40 p.m. EST By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-China-Yeltsin.html
BEIJING (AP) -- Standing together to counter what they see as U.S. hegemony, Russian President Boris Yeltsin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin swapped pledges of support Friday on two sensitive matters: Chechnya and Taiwan.
At the end of a two-day summit that highlighted the partnership between China and Russia, the two leaders also voiced their shared frustration over U.S. influence.
In a joint statement peppered with digs at the United States, Yeltsin and Jiang noted ``negative'' trends in world affairs, including ``the forcing of the international community to accept a unipolar world pattern and a single model of culture, value concepts and ideology, and a weakening of the role of the United Nations and its Security Council.''
While China and Russia appear far from establishing a formal alliance, a series of disputes with Washington -- not least NATO's war with Yugoslavia over Kosovo -- have pushed the former Cold War foes together.
As permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, both were frustrated at their inability to stop the NATO campaign. Both have voiced a shared desire to establish a ``multipolar world'' not dominated by the United States -- a wish repeated in the statement Friday.
In an apparent reference to Kosovo, they spoke out against ``the replacing of international law with power politics and even resorting to force, and the jeopardizing of the sovereignty of independent states using the concepts of `human rights are superior to sovereignty' and `humanitarian intervention.'''
The Security Council's ``status and function should not be doubted or lessened under any circumstances,'' they added.
The Russian president's main goal during his 26-hour visit -- Yeltsin returned to Moscow on Friday -- was to win support for his nation's military campaign in Chechnya, which has drawn sharp Western criticism. Yeltsin came to China just three days after leaving the hospital, where he was treated for pneumonia.
In the joint statement, China reiterated that ``the Chechnya issue is purely the internal affair of Russia, and China supports the moves taken by Russia to crack down on separatist forces.''
In return, Russia said it ``supports China's principled stand on the issue of Taiwan.''
Beijing shares Moscow's profound fear of ethnic separatism and is equally wary of intervention by Western nations in internal conflicts, which it believes could set a precedent for international interference in Tibet and Taiwan, the island Beijing regards as its territory.
The two leaders also warned against a proposed U.S. national anti-missile shield, and Russia backed China in opposing the inclusion of Taiwan in any regional anti-missile umbrella.
Weapons sales to China were an important topic in Yeltsin's meetings with Jiang, and Moscow has agreed to deliver more top-of-the line Sukhoi fighters in a $1 billion deal, Russia's Interfax news agency reported.
Despite their budding cooperation, China and Russia still depend heavily on their economic ties with the United States.
In their statement, Jiang and Yeltsin said Chinese-Russian cooperation ``is not targeted at any third nation, but aimed only at safeguarding the fundamental interests of each country.''
And in Moscow, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin struck a conciliatory note, noting that Russian and U.S. leaders enjoy ``very good relations,'' the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
Putin played down Yeltsin's outburst Thursday, when he lashed out at President Clinton for criticizing Russia over Chechnya, saying ``Mr. Clinton has forgotten Russia is a great power that possesses a nuclear arsenal.''
Yeltsin's comments were not meant ``to bring about a period of coolness in our relations with the United States,'' Putin said.
---
Yeltsin, Jiang End Summit With Joint Stand Against U.S. Domination
New York Times December 10, 1999 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/99/12/10/late/10russia-china-ap.html
BEIJING -- Russian President Boris Yeltsin and his Chinese counterpart, Jiang Zemin, wrapped up a two-day summit on Friday, declaring their countries' commitment to oppose foreign intervention on behalf of human rights.
"No country can interfere in another sovereign country's attacks against domestic terrorism," said a summit-ending statement issued by the leaders.
The statement underscored how close the fierce Cold War rivals have become this year, propelled by their opposition to NATO's war to stop ethnic purges in Kosovo and sharp Western criticism of Russia's military offensive in Chechnya.
Having collected unequivocal support from Jiang on Thursday for Russia's Chechen campaign, Yeltsin promised Russian backing of China's claim over Taiwan.
"Russia supports China's principled stand on the Taiwan issue. The People's Republic of China supports the Russian Federation's attack against Chechen terrorist and separatist activities," said a separate communiquDe released with the joint statement.
Jiang told Yeltsin that with Beijing's Dec. 20 recovery of the Portuguese colony of Macau, the Taiwan issue will become "still more pressing," the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.
Their joint statement was filled with criticisms, both veiled and obvious, of the United States. Earlier, Yeltsin, in a meeting with Chinese legislative leader Li Peng, lashed out at President Clinton for criticizing Russia's war in Chechnya, bluntly reminding Clinton that Russia remains a nuclear power.
In a dig at U.S.-led NATO's war with Yugoslavia over Kosovo, the statement railed against unnamed countries that weakened the United Nations by seeking "excuses" to intervene in other nations' domestic affairs.
"Using power, even threats of force, instead of international law, they cite 'human rights is higher than sovereignty' and 'humanitarian intervention' to harm the sovereignty of independent nations," the statement said.
It also warned against U.S. plans to set up a national anti-missile shield, and Russia backed China in opposing the inclusion of Taiwan in any regional anti-missile umbrella.
The two sides also expressed "deep regrets" over the U.S. Senate's refusal to approve a treaty banning nuclear tests and spoke out against the "reinforcing and expanding of military blocs," an apparent reference to NATO's expansion that Russia has opposed.
The statement added, however, that Chinese-Russian cooperation was not aimed at third countries but was intended to protect their "vital national interests."
Despite their budding cooperation against perceived U.S. global dominance, China and Russia both depend heavily on their economic ties with the United States.
In Moscow, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin struck a conciliatory note, noting that Russian and U.S. leaders enjoyed "very good relations," the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. He claimed that Yeltsin's outburst in Beijing was not meant "to bring about a period of coolness in our relations with the United States."
Yeltsin, who returned to Moscow on Friday, made the 26-hour visit to Beijing just three days after leaving a hospital where he was treated for pneumonia.
"We all begged him not to go, and we all begged him not to leave the hospital so soon and go to work. Well, you know it is useless to ask, it is his style of work all his life," Yeltsin's wife, Naina, said in remarks broadcast on Russian television late Thursday.
During Yeltsin's visit, the two countries signed three accords defining the countries' 2,630-mile border and joint use of disputed islands.
Weapons sales also were an important topic in the leaders' talks. Moscow agreed to deliver another batch of top-of-the line fighter jets to China in a $1 billion deal, a Russian news agency said on Friday.
The Interfax report quoted Yeltsin's foreign policy adviser Sergei Prikhodko as saying that arms trading companies of both nations had struck the deal on selling Sukhoi fighters to China shortly before Yeltsin's visit.
Prikhodko refused to elaborate on the jet sale, but an official with the Russian Trade Ministry said the contract envisaged the delivery of several dozen modern fighters.
---
Yeltsin Flies Home, Lifted by China's Support
New York Times December 10, 1999 Filed at 4:42 a.m. ET By Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-china-r.html
BEIJING (Reuters) - Russian President Boris Yeltsin flew home on Friday blowing kisses to his hosts in Beijing and singing the praises of a ``strategic partnership'' with China, the only major country to support his assault on Chechnya.
Yeltsin, ending a 26-hour visit in which comradely bearhugs and anti-U.S. bombast overshadowed concerns about his health, hailed the Chinese leaders who gave him respite from critical world opinion.
``Jiang Zemin is my great friend,'' Yeltsin said of the Chinese president with whom he held extensive talks.
``Our two countries hold the same basic views on the current situation in the world.''
The two powers baldly rejected the evolving Western doctrine, born of the carnage in countries such as the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, that state sovereignty no longer provides cover for gross human rights violations and the international community has a moral duty to protect citizens from abusive governments.
China and Russia declared in a joint communiqu they would fight the ``use of pretexts such as human rights and humanitarian intervention to destroy the sovereignty of independent states.''
They pledged to forge a ``multipolar world'' and deplored the ``expansion of military blocs.''
COMMUNIQUE UNDERSCORES GROWING WARMTH
Jiang, the only major world leader to back the Chechnya campaign, and Yeltsin held a final round of talks in Beijing before issuing a communiqu which underscored their new-found warmth and shared anti-Western political stances.
Chinese backing for the Chechnya campaign, offered forcefully by Jiang, appeared to invigorate Yeltsin, who defied doctors' orders and his wife's pleas to fly to Beijing on Thursday.
Under increasing verbal fire from the West and threats to international aid and loans for Russia's stumbling economy, Yeltsin let rip after some trenchant criticism from President Clinton as thousands of Chechens fled their homes.
Nobody was going to tell nuclear-armed Russia what it should or should not do in Chechnya, Yeltsin thundered in the presence of television cameras.
``It seems he has for a minute, for a second, for half a minute, forgotten that Russia has a full arsenal of nuclear weapons. He has forgotten about that. Therefore he decided to play with his muscles, as they say,'' Yeltsin said of Clinton.
``I haven't forgotten that. You know, I didn't think he'd forgotten America was a great power when he disagreed with what I did in Kosovo,'' Clinton replied in short order.
The 68-year-old Yeltsin appeared to have chosen carefully his moment to blast Clinton with comments which were played repeatedly on television in Moscow.
Hardline leader Li Peng, scorned in the West for his major role in the 1989 brutal military suppression of pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, was at Yeltsin's side.
CONVERGING WORLD VIEWS
Yeltsin's talks with China's top leaders were designed to push a ``strategic partnership'' between the two giant neighbors and his outburst came shortly after Jiang fully endorsed the high firepower campaign against Chechnya's Muslim separatists.
Although no longer Communist soulmates since the collapse of the Soviet Union and Russia's embrace of multi-party democracy, Beijing and Moscow have mended fences in recent years.
Jiang, a Soviet-trained engineer, greeted Yeltsin with a bear hug on Thursday and called him ``my old friend'' in Russian. Later, they toasted the formal signature of agreements which erased centuries of border disputes which had bedeviled relations.
On Friday, in a symbolic gesture not unlike the White House tours Clinton gives favored statesmen, Jiang and Yeltsin strolled through the scenic grounds of Beijing's Diaoyutai State Guest House complex. The two men gestured and chatted amiably.
Beijing has found itself aligned with Moscow in opposition to the West over major international issues in the past few years.
China -- which faces strong separatist sentiment in the remote Western regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, as well as on the Nationalist-ruled island of Taiwan -- went even further than Russia in opposing NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia.
Beijing is particularly concerned that the NATO bombing, launched without the sanction of the U.N. Security Council, might set a precedent for Western intervention in Xinjiang or Tibet.
PARTNERSHIP SEEN LIMITED
China and Russia also saw eye-to-eye in opposing U.S. research into a missile shield for American troops in Asia which China fears could cover arch rival Taiwan.
The joint communiqu said ``plans by some countries to build an anti-missile system in the Asia-Pacific region will sabotage the region's peace and stability.''
They also vowed to oppose U.S. efforts to alter the 1972 Anti-ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union which limits missile defenses.
Despite the anti-U.S. tone of the meetings in Beijing, both countries insisted they were not building an anti-U.S. front and analysts say their ``strategic partnership'' may be a limited one.
Neither Russia nor China is likely to risk vital relations with the United States, analysts say.
``I don't think the West is under any illusion as to any kind of real active alliance between China and Russia. They haven't got enough in common and they don't trust each other,'' said another Western diplomat in Beijing.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin appeared to bolster that view as he stepped in swiftly to soften Yeltsin's verbal barrage against Clinton.
``I want to draw your attention to the fact that we have very good relations with the United States. We have very good relations with the leadership of the United States,'' Putin told reporters in Moscow.
``I would consider it absolutely incorrect to produce the impression that some kind of period of cooling off of relations between Russia and the United States has begun or is beginning.''
-------- china
Chinese official defends efforts to strengthen military
Washington Times 12/10/99 By Gus Constantine
http://www.washtimes.com/world/world2-19991210.htm
Liu Xiaoming, deputy chief of mission at the Chinese Embassy, Thursday justified China's efforts to strengthen itself militarily while refusing to confirm or deny reports it is building new bases close to Taiwan and upgrading its missiles.
Mr. Liu also told reporters and editors of The Washington Times at a Chinese Embassy luncheon that any inclusion of Taiwan in a theater missile defense system (TMD) would trigger an arms race in the region rather than deter one.
Meanwhile, in Taipei, Thursday, Vice President Lien Chan called for development of long-range, ground-to-ground missiles that could reach China.
"To make a foe afraid to attack Taiwan, we definitely must develop a reliable deterrent force and strengthen our second-strike capability," Mr. Lien told a conference on defense.
"That includes developing the potential force of a long-range, surface-to-surface missile," said Mr. Lien, the candidate of the ruling Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, to succeed President Lee Teng-hui in March elections.
The Washington Times reported Wednesday that a second short-range missile base is under construction in China near Taiwan that will significantly increase the threat to the island.
The Times earlier reported another base under construction at Yongan, about 220 miles from the island, on Nov. 23.
"I do not know the military specifics," said Mr. Liu, China's No. 2 diplomat in Washington, when asked about The Times' reports.
"But we have to look at the big picture here," he said, citing statements of the Taiwan president "suggesting independence" and the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, by NATO warplanes.
"These things have created powerful pressures within China for a military strengthening," he declared.
In Beijing Thursday, the Foreign Ministry denied that China is building a second short-range missile base near Taiwan.
"This report is based entirely on fabricated rumors," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue told reporters.
Both the United States and China have struggled to repair relations that were severely strained by the NATO bombing in May, allegations of Chinese spying at American nuclear laboratories and renewed tension between Taiwan and China.
China and the United States clinched a deal last month paving the way for Beijing to join the World Trade Organization.
Mr. Liu also said he agreed with the criticism that President Clinton went too far in Seattle by endorsing greater environmental protection and higher labor standards as part of a WTO agreement.
"The WTO should stick to matters of trade," he declared. "There are other organizations to deal to these other matters, such as the International Labor Organization."
China views itself as a Third World country and is apprehensive that any labor standards requirements written into WTO could be used by outside challengers to weaken Chinese competitiveness.
On the environment, China's longstanding position is that the developed countries are the ones who have damaged the environment and that they should pay a higher share of the costs than the developing world for cleaning it up.
Although the Chinese envoy lamented the strains in U.S.-Chinese relations, he saved his most severe criticism for Taiwan's President Lee.
"It is clear that Lee wants to lay the groundwork for the declaration of an independent Republic of Taiwan," Mr. Liu said.
"That is the only meaning of his May 9 statement that relations between China and Taiwan should be conducted as special state-to-state relations."
The government of Taiwan denies that it has abandoned the principle of one China, with Taiwan as part of it. The principle forms the basis of the complex trilateral relationship between Washington, Beijing and Taipei.
In several statements following his new position, the Taiwan president has argued that his intention is to correct the disadvantage of Taiwan in its dealings with the mainland.
"If Mr. Lee seeks to amend the constitution to make his government the Republic of Taiwan, it would pose serious risks for the region," Mr. Liu said.
---------
Key Events in China Spying Case
Associated Press December 11, 1999 Filed at 1:16 a.m. EST http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-China-Spying-Chronology.html
Key events in the China spying developments:
Mid 1980s: China is believed to have obtained critical design information about the W-88 nuclear warhead, one of the most sophisticated warheads in the U.S. arsenal.
1988: China explodes a ``neutron'' bomb, based on U.S. secrets believed to have been stolen earlier in the 1980s.
1995: U.S. intelligence officials learn of the W-88 theft and informs the FBI.
Early 1996: FBI begins an investigation at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and focuses on a scientist suspected of providing nuclear secrets to China.
April 1996: Energy Department officials brief Sandy Berger, then deputy national security adviser, on security lapses at weapons laboratory and espionage investigation at Los Alamos.
July 1997: Berger is briefed again with more detailed information on the security problems. Berger says he briefed the president.
February 1998: President Clinton issues a directive calling for tougher counterintelligence and security measures at the labs.
July 1998: A special House committee begins investigating U.S. technology transfers to China, a probe that within months turns its focus on espionage.
November 1998: The Energy Department begins to make changes in security counterintelligence.
March 8, 1999: A Taiwan-born scientist at Los Alamos, Wen Ho Lee, is fired for security violations. He had been under investigation since 1996 in connection with the 1980s theft of the W-88 warhead information.
March 19, 1999: Clinton says he is unaware of ``any espionage which occurred by the Chinese against the labs during my presidency.''
April 1999: After learning that Lee had transferred top-secret nuclear computer codes to his unsecured computer, the Energy Department shuts down computer systems at all its weapons labs, because of concerns about possible espionage.
May 11, 1999: Energy Secretary Bill Richardson announces an overhaul of security and counterintelligence activities at the Energy Department, including creation of a ``security czar.''
May 25, 1999: The House select committee on Chinese technology transfers issues a 700-page report saying China had obtained nuclear secrets about all U.S. warheads over a 20-year campaign of espionage.
Dec. 10, 1999: After hearing evidence for several months, a grand jury in Albuquerque, N.M., issues a 59-count indictment accusing Lee of removing nuclear secrets from a secured Los Alamos computer. Lee is arrested.
---
Nuclear Scientist Lee Arrested
New York Times December 10, 1999 Filed at 4:54 p.m. EST By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-China-Spying.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Fired computer scientist Wen Ho Lee was arrested today after being indicted for removing nuclear secrets from a secured computer at the Los Alamos weapons lab where he worked, government officials said.
FBI agents immediately apprehended Lee at his home outside of Los Alamos, N.M., and he was taken to Albuquerque and held by the FBI until an initial appearance later in the day before a federal magistrate, said FBI Special Agent Doug Beldon.
The indictment, which was expected to be unsealed later today, was issued by a federal grand jury in Albuquerque at the request of U.S. Attorney John Kelly. Justice Department officials said only that Kelly planned a news conference ``to discuss the Los Alamos ... security matter.''
While the government is prosecuting Lee for security violations, authorities have been unable to prove that Lee gave specific secrets to any country, including China, officials said.
The grand jury has been hearing evidence for months concerning alleged security violations by Lee at the Los Alamos lab where he had worked for nearly 20 years before being fired last March.
Kelly refused to comment on the case.
But officials familiar with the prosecutor's plans said the government planned to charge Lee with downloading secrets of American nuclear weapons and tests from a secured computer at the lab.
The government would further allege the scientist stored the secret data on computer tapes and removed them from the lab, the officials said.
Lee, a Taiwan-born computer scientist who worked on top-secret nuclear weapons programs, has been the center of a controversy involving alleged theft of nuclear secrets by China dating back to the 1980s. He has been the prime target of an FBI investigation involving alleged theft of nuclear secrets by China since 1996.
The Justice Department, which wrestled for months over whether to seek an indictment, was unable to develop evidence that Lee ever deliberately provided secrets to China, according to the sources.
The decision to prosecute Lee was made by Attorney General Janet Reno earlier in the week after a Saturday White House meeting of top administration officials including Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, FBI Director Louis Freeh, CIA director George Tenet and Samuel Berger, the president's national security adviser.
Richardson, who ordered Lee fired last March for security violations and has argued for criminal prosecution, said he would have no problem in declassifying certain nuclear weapons secrets needed in a trial once a decision was made to prosecute.
Mark Holscher, Lee's attorney, did not return telephone calls to his office in Los Angeles today.
Lee was fired for failing to safeguard classified material and not informing Energy Department officials about details of several trips to China.
At the time, Lee had been the target of a three-year FBI investigation concerning the alleged theft of secrets by China in the 1980s of details about the W-88 miniaturized nuclear warhead used on Trident submarines. Prosecutors, however, have never been able to clearly link Lee to the loss of the W-88 warhead secrets.
It was not until after he was fired that authorities discovered that Lee, around 1994, had improperly transferred thousands of computer codes -- the ``legacy codes'' that provide a history of nuclear weapons development -- from Los Alamos' highly secured computer system to his less-secure personal office computer.
Lee, who has rarely spoken publicly in the last nine months, acknowledged the computer file transfers, but maintained that he had put the codes into his office computer as a backup to safeguard against a computer crash. Los Alamos officials have scoffed at the explanation.
More recently, according to the government officials, it was determined that Lee also copied some of the computer codes onto tapes and taken them from the lab. Investigators have been unable to account for the movement of the computer tapes, according to the sources.
While the government's case focuses on the transfer of the legacy code files, no evidence appears to have surfaced to link Lee with the loss of the W-88 warhead material in the mid-1980s -- the case that put the spotlight on Lee at the outset.
In fact, the FBI's investigation into the W-88 warhead loss -- and even how extensive of a loss might, in fact, have occurred -- has been a subject of growing controversy in recent months.
Last summer a Senate report and then a report by the president's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board criticized the FBI and Justice Department for focusing too narrowly on Los Alamos and on Lee in the investigation. These groups said the information about the warhead could have come from many other places.
In September, Reno ordered the investigation into the W-88 matter to broaden its focus to other labs, Energy Department sites and defense contractors.
---
Los Alamos Scientist Lee Indicted
By CHAKA FERGUSON Associated Press Writer DECEMBER 10, 18:51 EST
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/main.html?FRONTID=NATIONAL&STORYID=APIS718P40G0
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - After three years under suspicion as a spy for China, computer scientist Wen Ho Lee was arrested and charged Friday with removing nuclear secrets from highly secure computers at the Los Alamos weapons lab.
There was still no proof that he passed information to China or any other country, officials said.
The 59-count indictment charges that Lee violated the federal Espionage Act by the ``unlawful gathering and retention of national defense'' secrets and violated the Atomic Energy Act by removing secret weapons files from the Los Alamos computers.
If convicted, he could face up to life in prison and a $250,000 fine for conviction of any of the counts, officials said.
Although he has not been charged with providing secrets to a foreign country, Lee's ``mishandling of classified information ... has resulted in serious damage to important national interests,'' said U.S. Attorney John Kelly.
The indictment says that Lee, working in 1993 and 1994 in a Los Alamos division dealing with ``the most sensitive nuclear data and information possessed by the United States,'' assembled 19 files containing secret data relating to atomic weapon research, design, construction and testing. He then transferred the information to an unsecure computer and downloaded 17 of the files to nine portable computer tapes.
Lee made a 10th portable computer tape with current nuclear weapons design codes and other information necessary to compare computer-generated, calculated results with actual test data, the court papers say. Seven of the tapes Lee made remain unaccounted for, the U.S. attorney's office said.
The Taiwan-born scientist, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, appeared before a federal magistrate. The magistrate scheduled a hearing for Monday to consider the prosecutor's motion to detain Lee, who was taken into custody at his home outside Los Alamos, about 90 miles from Albuquerque.
Asked how Lee was feeling, his attorney, Nancy Hollander, said, ``How would you be if you were just snatched out of your house and taken to jail?''
Lee was fired last March for security violations after being the primary focus of a three-year FBI investigation into the alleged loss of nuclear weapons secrets to China in the 1980s.
Lee, 60, has steadfastly maintained that he never provided secrets to anyone. And investigators have been unable to link him to espionage involving China or any other country.
But his dismissal in March fed a growing controversy in Washington over alleged Chinese spying at the Energy Department's nuclear weapons la