-------- activists
Two Puerto Rico websites:
http://www.micronetix.net/virus/facts.htm -- Vieques Libre http://www.viequesvive.com/ -- Vieques Vive
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A crucial Senate vote on reducing the threat of accidental nuclear war is coming up the week of June 5th and we need your help!
From: IRARR84@aol.com Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 14:55:46 EDT
Senator Robert Kerrey (D-NE)is offering an amendment to the Defense Authorization bill that would allow the President to take nuclear weapons off alert status and to significantly reduce U.S. nuclear forces -- so long as Russia also takes these steps. Passage of this amendment would allow the US to get rid of Cold War weapons we no longer need or want and save taxpayers billions of dollars currently wasted on unnecessary weapons.
Please call your Senators at 202-224-3121 and ask them to support the Kerrey amendment to allow the President to reduce U.S. strategic nuclear forces below START I levels, and to take nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert.
Please forward this message on to friends and family and help spread the word! With your help we can reduce the threat of accidental nuclear war and reduce nuclear weapons world-wide. THANK YOU!
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Priority One Alert - Call until end of Memorial Day Recess (June 5).
Senate vote on Kerrey (Neb.) amendment expected week of June 5th!!
From: "Jim Bridgman" <jbridgman@peace-action.org> Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 11:53:14 -0400
The following message is baesd on discussion from yesterday's Nuclear Weapons Working Group meeting here in Washington, DC and a previous email from Daryl Kimball, Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers[mailto:dkimball@clw.org]
As soon as June 6th , the Senate may debate Sen. Bob Kerrey's (NE) amendment offered to the fiscal 2001 Defense Authorization bill that would allow the President to reduce U.S. strategic nuclear force levels below START I levels (approx. 6000) and take weapons off combat status (i.e. de-alert). Under current law <http://www.clw.org/coalition/xcutfy99.htm>, such actions are prohibited until and unless START II is implemented -- an unlikely near-term prospect. This restriction exists despite the Russian Duma's ratification of START II because of several related protocols that need to be approved (see CRND's Stuck at First START factsheet at bottom for more info). TARGET LIST: Bayh, Byrd, Graham (FL), Lincoln, Chafee, Jeffords, Snowe, Collins, Hagel, Domenici, Warner, Fitzgerald, McCain, Specter, Santorum, Gordon Smith, Thomas, Lugar (call Lugar at district office only please). If your Senator is not on this list, please feel free to call anyway!!! RAP for Republicans: With G.W. Bush's speech this week supporting reductions and de-alerting, you should tell GOP Senators, "A vote against Kerrey's amendment is a vote against George Bush!"
The House rules committee ruled the counterpart amendment sponsored by Allen (D-ME), McGovern (D-MA) and Gendjenson (D-CT), out of order, making the vote on the Senate amendment even more crucial (so it can go on to conference committee).
This year's Allen-McGovern-Gendjenson & Kerrey amendments are somewhat different than the approach that Senator Kerrey pursued last year on the floor and by Allen and Spratt in HASC this year, which was simply striking the restriction on cuts below START I before START II implementation. Kerrey's 1999 floor amendment was defeated 56-44. This vote is on the Peace Action Education Fund 1999 Voting Record at http://www.peace-action.org/99votingrecord.pdf. You can also see <http://www.clw.org/coalition/kerreydebate052699.htm> for the floor debate and roll call vote.
For further information see the following items, below:
* PSR Action Legislative Alert w/capacity for e-mail letters to Congress <http://www.psr.org/>
* "Stuck at First START: U.S. Forced to Maintain its Nuclear Arsenal While Russia's Declines," Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers ISSUE BRIEF, May 15, 2000 <http://www.clw.org/coalition/briefv4n6.htm>
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All-out security effort for GOP convention
By Thomas Ginsberg
5/26/00
Philadelphia Inquirer -MM
The Secret Service is checking rooftops. The FBI is monitoring the Internet. And city police are getting ready to play cat and mouse with protesters.
Unnoticed by most Philadelphians, security preparations for the Republican National Convention are moving into high gear about 10 weeks before the July 31-Aug. 3 event. Thousands of law enforcement officers will land in the city for an operation made particularly complex by the likelihood of civil disobedience and surprise protests.
"Virtually every resource that the FBI has available will be put into play," said Thomas J. Harrington, the assistant special agent-in-charge in the FBI's Philadelphia office. "After the Atlanta Olympics it was bombings that were the main focus. . . . Now protesters have become more of a focus."
At both the GOP event and the Democratic convention in Los Angeles two weeks later, the Secret Service is coordinating the work of dozens of federal, state and local agencies employing thousands of officers - some of whom will be dressed like tourists to mix with their surroundings.
The FBI will focus on intelligence gathering, investigation and prosecution if necessary. City police will police the city, perhaps the most complicated job.
The goal is a smooth, safe convention with minimal inconvenience to city dwellers and delegates. Subway and regional rail lines may run later into the night to handle extra passengers, streets will be closed as briefly as possible, and a caravan of tow trucks will stand ready to clear traffic jams.
"We're not going to shut the city down. . . . We have to live here too," said Thomas G. Spurlock, the Secret Service's assistant special agent-in-charge in Philadelphia.
With a command center in a Pentagon-owned building near 20th and Oregon Streets, the Secret Service will have direct responsibility for security inside the First Union Center, where the convention takes place. Inside and outside the arena its agents will guard every move by two former presidents (George Bush and Gerald R. Ford) and dozens of diplomats and dignitaries, including former first lady Nancy Reagan. Not to mention the presumptive nominee, George W. Bush.
The agency also will coordinate the work of police from 35 states guarding 35 Republican governors. It will oversee members of the Capitol Police arriving with the leaders of the GOP-controlled Congress.
An early word on VP
Spurlock said the agency would check every nook and cranny where the "protectees" will stay, visit or travel; scrutinize high-rise buildings for possible sniper's nests; and possibly move mailboxes and weld manholes shut around hotels or meeting halls. Agents are mapping out motorcade routes and backdoor exits from hotels and meeting spots, a challenge in Philadelphia's narrow downtown streets.
"We'll also have to protect the vice-presidential nominee," said Spurlock, who acknowledged that agents would get an early word on the choice. "We've heard about nobody yet," he joked.
The city's police force will have responsibility for security around the rest of the city and next to the First Union Center, including the 7,600-square-foot "free speech zone" already established in FDR Park across from the arena along South Broad Street. (Information on reserving a spot is available at www.phila.gov/rnc_permit)
Whether protesters bother with the rally site is another question. Few groups have signed up to use it; the largest rallies are planned in Center City, with some activists promising sporadic acts of protest and civil disobedience everywhere.
Several Philadelphia officers traveled to Washington, D.C., in April and New York City on May 1 to observe the protests there over global trade and multinational corporations. The FBI and Justice Department are holding training sessions in Philadelphia in crowd control and tactics for police officers and commanders. They say officers must be ready to respond to varying problems, such as a surprise blockade or protest in a city street.
'Mobile field forces'
Capt. William Fisher, commanding officer of the civil affairs unit, said police had identified several spots protesters may target: the First Union Center, City Hall plaza, the Liberty Bell area, and the delegates' hotels. Police intend to designate a special detention center for any protesters arrested.
At the same time, police will maintain full staffing at the city's 23 precincts during the week, Fisher said. Court sessions have been canceled and new vacation schedules have been offered to free as many officers as possible.
Taking their cue from recent protests in Washington, D.C., and Seattle, police intend to be ready to rush officers to potential flash points around the city in "mobile field forces," said Deputy Commissioner Robert Mitchell. They could travel in either marked or unmarked vehicles, he said, but he gave no details.
Police said protesters in Seattle, using their own mobile-phone network, dashed from one area to another to avoid police as they blocked streets.
In Philadelphia, police may deploy officers just to keep routes open for their mobile forces, a defense Seattle failed to use, Fisher said.
The tactics mean that both sides may end up playing a game of cat and mouse.
What city police will not do, Commissioner John F. Timoney said, is dress up in Ninja Turtle-like protective garb, or, except as an extreme resort, use gas to quell protesters. "We'll be very circumspect," he said.
Fisher said police would also be cordial but careful when faced with one expected protest tactic: the offering of food or drink by demonstrators hoping to sway police to their side.
"It all depends on the situation at hand," Fisher said. "Nobody eats open, exposed food like doughnuts. There are a lot of kooks out there."
With the First Union Center well-protected by a buffer zone, protesters have been discussing the idea of blockading delegates at their hotels. Fisher called hotel security "a serious concern," but neither he nor Mitchell would discuss the plans for addressing it.
Some activists have hinted at their plans on the Internet, where groups often publicize and discuss their events using e-mail systems called listservs. The FBI regularly reads the listservs, the agents said.
"E-mails are like leads," Harrington said. "We've had a lot of experience with them, whether it's stock fraud or child porn."
Or political organizing. Thomas F. Dowd, an FBI supervising special agent in Philadelphia and an expert on terrorism, said he knew that protesters may be "yanking the FBI's chain" by discussing blockades on the Internet, but that no threat could be taken lightly.
Asked whether security at the convention could include preemptive arrests of protesters, as in Washington in April, Dowd said it depended on whether officials thought that protesters intended to break a law.
Even though street confrontation may now be the primary concern of police, officials still are wary of other threats. They may create a no-fly zone over the First Union Center, particularly to keep TV helicopters away, and possibly will adjust flight patterns to and from Philadelphia International and Northeast Philadelphia Airports.
The FBI will be bringing specialists in terrorism and hazardous materials to Philadelphia, as well as extra computers to be linked with the bureau's Special Intelligence Operations Center in Washington, officials said.
"They'll be able to send even more resources and people," Dowd said, "if we need them."
-------- australia
Australian ISL controversy
Mining Journal
March 26, 1999, Volume 332. No.8524.
http://www.mining-journal.com/MJ/26mar99.htm
Heathgate Resources, a subsidiary of the US energy giant General Atomics Corp., has been given the go-ahead by Australia's federal government to develop the country's first in situ leach (ISL) uranium operation.The Beverley project in South Australia has received environmental approval but still needs an export licence and a state mining lease. Chuck Foldenauer, Heathgate's project manager for Beverley, said the company is confident of winning final approval, probably within six weeks.
Australian environmental groups strongly oppose the project and claim that the ISL process retains waste products underground and is a threat to groundwater supply. However, Environment Minister, Robert Hill, has said that the government has been advised that the Beverley aquifer is unsuitable for drinking water or for stock and irrigation purposes, and is isolated from other groundwater, including the Great Artesian Basin, "making it uniquely suited to ISL technology".
Beverley is located in a remote area of South Australia about 530 km northeast of Adelaide, and has an estimated resource of 21,000 t of uranium oxide. Heathgate expects to spend around A$30 million this year on the construction of a commercial plant and infrastructure, including an airstrip and campsite. According to Mr Foldenauer, commercial production could begin in the second quarter of calendar 2000. Production capacity would be 1,000 t/y of uranium oxide although initial output would probably be about 500 t/y (1 Mlb), depending on market conditions. The company has already secured three commercial sales contracts worth about A$60 million with undisclosed international utilities. Details of prices and volumes have not been given but the contracts are believed to average A$19/lb.
If the project proceeds, General Atomics will be the third uranium producer in Australia. The others are North Ltd's subsidiary, Energy Resources of Australia Ltd (ERA), which operates the Ranger mine and is developing the Jabiluka mine, both in the Northern Territory, and WMC Ltd which operates the Olympic Dam copper-gold-uranium mine in South Australia. The country's uranium sector received a fillip following the successful election in 1996 of the current Liberal/National government under the leadership of Prime Minister John Howard, which scrapped the previous Labor Government's restriction of uranium production to three mines - Ranger, Olympic Dam and the now-exhausted Nabarlek mine in Northern Territory.
All uranium projects are now being considered on their merits. In 1997, ERA received government approval to develop its Jabiluka underground mine near Ranger in the Kakadu National Park, despite environmental protests and a recent report from the World Heritage Bureau which recommended that Kakadu be placed on an 'in danger' list. Appeals led by the federal government against that recommendation are due to begin next month.
ERA, meanwhile, has continued work on an access decline at Jabiluka which was begun last year. It has now reached 860 m, almost half way to the orebody. ERA also intends to conduct detailed underground drilling and mine planning, and may seek extensions to the known orebody which remains open at depth and to the east. Jabiluka is expected to have a mine life of at least 25 years and a decision has yet to be reached on whether to truck ore to the Ranger mill or build a new mill on site. The first option would restrict project costs to around A$200 million whereas building a new mill would raise total costs to about A$350 million.
Other potential Australian uranium projects not pursued because of previous government policy (and low world uranium prices) include Rio Tinto's Kintyre deposit and WMC's Yeelirrie deposit, both in Western Australia. In South Australia, the Honeymoon deposit, located 75 km northwest of Broken Hill, is a possible second ISL project. Honeymoon is owned by Southern Cross Resources Inc. of Canada.
World mine output of uranium is around 35,000 t/y but this meets less than 60% of nuclear reactor requirements. The balance is made up by secondary supplies. Overshadowing the market has been the prospect of increased sales of blended down, highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium from Russia and sales of surplus uranium from the US Government inventory. This threat helped to push the uranium spot price down to a low of US$8.75/lb last year although prices have since risen to around US$11.50/lb.
-------- china
For Pentagon, Asia Moving to Forefront
Washington Post
Friday , May 26, 2000 ; A01
By Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=wpni/print&articleid=A7981-2000May25
When Pentagon officials first sat down last year to update the core planning document of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they listed China as a potential future adversary, a momentous change from the last decade of the Cold War.
But when the final version of the document, titled "Joint Vision 2020," is released next week, it will be far more discreet. Rather than explicitly pointing at China, it simply will warn of the possible rise of an unidentified "peer competitor."
The Joint Chiefs' wrestling with how to think about China--and how open to be about that effort--captures in a nutshell the U.S. military's quiet shift away from its traditional focus on Europe. Cautiously but steadily, the Pentagon is looking at Asia as the most likely arena for future military conflict, or at least competition.
This new orientation is reflected in many small but significant changes: more attack submarines assigned to the Pacific, more war games and strategic studies centered on Asia, more diplomacy aimed at reconfiguring the U.S. military presence in the area.
It is a trend that carries huge implications for the shape of the armed services. It also carries huge stakes for U.S. foreign policy. Some specialists warn that as the United States thinks about a rising China, it ought to remember the mistakes Britain made in dealing with Germany in the years before World War I.
The new U.S. military interest in Asia also reverses a Cold War trend under which the Pentagon once planned by the year 2000 to have just "a minimal military presence" in Japan, recalls retired Army Gen. Robert W. RisCassi, a former U.S. commander in South Korea.
Two possibilities are driving this new focus. The first is a chance of peace in Korea; the second is the risk of a hostile relationship with China.
Although much of the current discussion in Washington is about a possible military threat from North Korea, for military planners the real question lies further ahead: What to do after a Korean rapprochement? In this view, South Korea already has won its economic and ideological struggle with North Korea, and all that really remains is to negotiate terms for peace.
According to one Defense Department official, William S. Cohen's first question to policy officials when he became defense secretary in 1997 was: How can we change the assumption that U.S. troops will be withdrawn after peace comes to the Korean peninsula? Next month's first-ever summit between the leaders of North and South Korea puts a sharper edge on this issue.
In the longer run, many American policymakers expect China to emerge sooner or later as a great power with significant influence over the rest of Asia. That, along with a spate of belligerent statements about Taiwan from Chinese officials this spring, has helped focus the attention of top policymakers on China's possible military ambitions. "The Chinese saber-rattling has gotten people's attention, there's no question of that," said Abram Shulsky, a China expert at the Rand Corp.
The Buzzword Is China
Between tensions over Taiwan and this week's House vote to normalize trade relations with China, "China is the new Beltway buzzword," observed Dov S. Zakheim, a former Pentagon official who is an adviser on defense policy to Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush.
To be sure, large parts of the U.S. military remain "Eurocentric," especially much of the Army. The shift is being felt most among policymakers and military planners--that is, officials charged with thinking about the future--and least among front-line units. Nor is it a change that the Pentagon is proclaiming from the rooftops. Defense Department officials see little value in being explicit about the shift in U.S. attention, which could worry old allies in Europe and antagonize China.
Even so, military experts point to changes on a variety of fronts. For example, over the last several years, there has been an unannounced shift in the Navy's deployment of attack submarines, which in the post-Cold War world have been used as intelligence assets--to intercept communications, monitor ship movements and clandestinely insert commandos--and also as front-line platforms for launching Tomahawk cruise missiles against Iraq, Serbia and other targets. Just a few years ago, the Navy kept 60 percent of its attack boats in the Atlantic. Now, says a senior Navy submariner, it has shifted to a 50-50 split between the Atlantic and Pacific fleets, and before long the Pacific may get the majority.
But so far the focus on Asia is mostly conceptual, not physical. It is now a common assumption among national security thinkers that the area from Baghdad to Tokyo will be the main location of U.S. military competition for the next several decades. "The focus of great power competition is likely to shift from Europe to Asia," said Andrew Krepinevich, director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a small but influential Washington think tank. James Bodner, the principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, added that, "The center of gravity of the world economy has shifted to Asia, and U.S. interests flow with that."
When Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, one of the most thoughtful senior officers in the military, met with the Army Science Board earlier this spring, he commented off-handedly that America's "long-standing Europe-centric focus" probably would shift in coming decades as policymakers "pay more attention to the Pacific Rim, and especially to China." This is partly because of trade and economics, he indicated, and partly because of the changing ethnic makeup of the U.S. population. (California is enormously important in U.S. domestic politics, explains one Asia expert at the Pentagon, and Asian Americans are increasingly influential in that state's elections, which can make or break presidential candidates.)
Just 10 years ago, said Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales Jr., commandant of the Army War College, roughly 90 percent of U.S. military thinking about future warfare centered on head-on clashes of armies in Europe. "Today," he said, "it's probably 50-50, or even more" tilted toward warfare using characteristic Asian tactics, such as deception and indirection.
War Gaming
The U.S. military's favorite way of testing its assumptions and ideas is to run a war game. Increasingly, the major games played by the Pentagon--except for the Army--take place in Asia, on an arc from Tehran to Tokyo. The games are used to ask how the U.S. military might respond to some of the biggest questions it faces: Will Iran go nuclear--or become more aggressive with an array of hard-to-stop cruise missiles? Will Pakistan and India engage in nuclear war--or, perhaps even worse, will Pakistan break up, with its nuclear weapons falling into the hands of Afghan mujaheddin? Will Indonesia fall apart? Will North Korea collapse peacefully? And what may be the biggest question of all: Will the United States and China avoid military confrontation? All in all, estimates one Pentagon official, about two-thirds of the forward-looking games staged by the Pentagon over the last eight years have taken place partly or wholly in Asia.
Last year, the Air Force's biggest annual war game looked at the Mideast and Korea. This summer's game, "Global Engagement 5," to be played over more than a week at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, will posit "a rising large East Asian nation" that is attempting to wrest control of Siberia, with all its oil and other natural resources, from a weak Russia. At one point, the United States winds up basing warplanes in Siberia to defend Russian interests.
Because of the sensitivity of talking about fighting China, "What everybody's trying to do is come up with games that are kind of China, but not China by name," said an Air Force strategist.
"I think that, however reluctantly, we are beginning to face up to the fact that we are likely over the next few years to be engaged in an ongoing military competition with China," noted Princeton political scientist Aaron L. Friedberg. "Indeed, in certain respects, we already are." Twin Efforts
The new attention to Asia also is reflected in two long-running, military-diplomatic efforts.
The first is a drive to renegotiate the U.S. military presence in northeast Asia. This is aimed mainly at ensuring that American forces still will be welcome in South Korea and Japan if the North Korean threat disappears. To that end, the U.S. military will be instructed to act less like post-World War II occupation forces and more like guests or partners.
Pentagon experts on Japan and Korea say they expect that "status of forces agreements" gradually will be diluted, so that local authorities will gain more jurisdiction over U.S. military personnel in criminal cases. In addition, they predict that U.S. bases in Japan and South Korea will be jointly operated in the future by American and local forces, perhaps even with a local officer in command.
At Kadena Air Force Base on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, for example, the U.S. military has started a program, called "Base Without Fences," under which the governor has been invited to speak on the post, local residents are taken on bus tours of the base that include a stop at a memorial to Japan's World War II military, and local reporters have been given far more access to U.S. military officials.
"We don't have to stay in our foxhole," said Air Force Brig. Gen. James B. Smith, who devised the more open approach. "To guarantee a lasting presence, there needs to be a private and public acknowledgment of the mutual benefit of our presence."
Behind all this lies a quiet recognition that Japan may no longer unquestioningly follow the U.S. lead in the region. A recent classified national intelligence estimate concluded that Japan has several strategic options available, among them seeking a separate accommodation with China, Pentagon officials disclosed. "Japan isn't Richard Gere in 'An Officer and a Gentleman,' " one official said. "That is, unlike him, it does have somewhere else to go."
In the long term, this official added, a key goal of U.S. politico-military policy is to ensure that when Japan reemerges as a great power, it behaves itself in Asia, unlike the last time around, in the 1930s, when it launched a campaign of vicious military conquest.
Southeast Asia Redux
The second major diplomatic move is the negotiation of the U.S. military's reentry in Southeast Asia, 25 years after the end of the Vietnam War and almost 10 years after the United States withdrew from its bases in the Philippines. After settling on a Visiting Forces Agreement last year, the United States and the Philippines recently staged their first joint military exercise in years, "Balikatan 2000."
The revamped U.S. military relationship with the Philippines, argues one general, may be a model for the region. Instead of building "Little America" bases with bowling alleys and Burger Kings that are off-limits to the locals, U.S. forces will conduct frequent joint exercises to train Americans and Filipinos to operate together in everything from disaster relief to full-scale combat. The key, he said, isn't permanent bases but occasional access to facilities and the ability to work with local troops.
Likewise, the United States has broadened its military contacts with Australia, putting 10,000 troops into the Queensland region a year ago for joint exercises. And this year, for the first time, Singapore's military is participating in "Cobra Gold," the annual U.S.-Thai exercise. Singapore also is building a new pier specifically to meet the docking requirements of a nuclear-powered U.S. aircraft carrier. The U.S. military even has dipped a cautious toe back into Vietnam, with Cohen this spring becoming the first defense secretary since Melvin R. Laird to visit that nation.
The implications of this change already are stirring concern in Europe. In the March issue of Proceedings, the professional journal of the U.S. Navy, Cmdr. Michele Consentino, an Italian navy officer, fretted about the American focus on the Far East and about "dangerous gaps" emerging in the U.S. military presence in the Mediterranean.
Where the Generals Are
If the U.S. military firmly concludes that its major missions are likely to take place in Asia, it may have to overhaul the way it is organized, equipped and even led. "Most U.S. military assets are in Europe, where there are no foreseeable conflicts threatening vital U.S. interests," said "Asia 2025," a Pentagon study conducted last summer. "The threats are in Asia," it warned.
This study, recently read by Cohen, pointedly noted that U.S. military planning remains "heavily focused on Europe," that there are four times as many generals and admirals assigned to Europe as to Asia, and that about 85 percent of military officers studying foreign languages are still learning European tongues.
"Since I've been here, we've tried to put more emphasis on our position in the Pacific," Cohen said in an interview as he flew home from his most recent trip to Asia. This isn't, he added, "a zero-sum game, to ignore Europe, but recognizing that the [economic] potential in Asia is enormous"--especially, he said, if the United States is willing to help maintain stability in the region.
'Tyranny of Distance'
Talk to a U.S. military planner about the Pacific theater, and invariably the phrase "the tyranny of distance" pops up. Hawaii may seem to many Americans to be well out in the Pacific, but it is another 5,000 miles from there to Shanghai. All told, it is about twice as far from San Diego to China as it is from New York to Europe.
Cohen noted that the military's new focus on Asia means, "We're going to want more C-17s" (military cargo planes) as well as "more strategic airlift" and "more strategic sealift."
Other experts say that barely scratches the surface of the revamping that Asian operations might require. The Air Force, they say, would need more long-range bombers and refuelers--and probably fewer short-range fighters such as the hot new F-22, designed during the Cold War for dogfights in the relatively narrow confines of Central Europe. "We are still thinking about aircraft design as if it were for the border of Germany," argues James G. Roche, head of Northrop Grumman Corp.'s electronic sensors unit and a participant in last year's Pentagon study of Asia's future. "Asia is a much bigger area than Europe, so planes need longer 'legs.' "
Similarly, the Navy would need more ships that could operate at long distances. It might even need different types of warships. For example, the Pentagon study noted, today's ships aren't "stealthy"--built to evade radar--and may become increasingly vulnerable as more nations acquire precision-guided missiles.
Also, the Navy may be called on to execute missions in places where it has not operated for half a century. If the multi-island nation of Indonesia falls apart, the Pentagon study suggested, then the Navy may be called upon to keep open the crucial Strait of Malacca, through which passes much of the oil and gas from the Persian Gulf to Japan and the rest of East Asia.
The big loser among the armed forces likely would be the Army, whose strategic relevancy already is being questioned as it struggles to deploy its forces more quickly. "At its most basic level, the rise of Asia means a rise of emphasis on naval, air and space power at the expense of ground forces," said Eliot Cohen, a professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University.
In a few years, Pentagon insiders predict, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will be from the Navy or Air Force, following 12 years in which Army officers--Generals Colin L. Powell, John Shalikashvili and Henry H. Shelton--have been the top officers in the military. Perhaps even more significantly, they foresee the Air Force taking away from the Navy at least temporarily the position of "CINCPAC," the commander in chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific. There already is talk within the Air Force of basing parts of an "Air Expeditionary Force" in Guam, where B-2 stealth bombers have been sent in the past in response to tensions with North Korea.
Parallel With Past
If the implications for the U.S. military of a new focus on Asia are huge, so too are the risks. Some academics and Pentagon intellectuals see a parallel between the U.S. effort to manage the rise of China as a great power and the British failure to accommodate or divert the ambitions of a newly unified Germany in the late 19th century. That effort ended in World War I, which slaughtered a generation of British youth and marked the beginning of British imperial decline.
If Sino-American antagonism grows, some strategists warn, national missile defense may play the role that Britain's development of the battleship Dreadnought played a century ago--a superweapon that upset the balance by making Germany's arsenal strategically irrelevant. Chinese officials have said they believe the U.S. plan for missile defense is aimed at negating their relatively small force of about 20 intercontinental ballistic missiles.
If the United States actually builds a workable antimissile system, former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski predicts, "the effect of that would be immediately felt by the Chinese nuclear forces and [would] presumably precipitate a buildup." That in turn could provoke India to beef up its own nuclear forces, a move that would threaten Pakistan. A Chinese buildup also could make Japan feel that it needed to build up its own military.
Indian officials already are quietly telling Pentagon officials that the rise of China will make the United States and India natural allies. India also is feeling its oats militarily. The Hindustan Times recently reported that the Indian navy plans to reach far eastward this year to hold submarine and aircraft exercises in the South China Sea, a move sure to tweak Beijing.
Some analysts believe that the hidden agenda of the U.S. military is to use the rise of Asia as a way to shore up the Pentagon budget, which now consumes about 3 percent of the gross domestic product, compared to 5.6 percent at the end of the Cold War in 1989. "If the military grabs onto this in order to get more money, that's scary," said retired Air Force Col. Sam Gardiner, who frequently conducts war games for the military.
Indeed, Cohen is already making the point that operating in Asia is expensive. He said it is clear that America will have to maintain "forward" forces in Asia. And that, he argued, will require a bigger defense budget.
"There's a price to pay for what we're doing," Cohen concluded. "The question we're going to have to face in the coming years is, are we willing to pay up?"
An Eye on Asia
U.S. forces dedicated to the Pacific region:
U.S. Army Pacific 60,000 soldiers and civilians (two divisions and one brigade)
U.S. Pacific Fleet 130,000 sailors and civilians (170 ships) Pacific Air Forces 40,000 airmen and civilians (380 aircraft in nine wings)
Marine Forces Pacific 70,000 Marines and civilians (two expeditionary forces)
On Foreign Shores
Major U.S. deployments in Asia include:
U.S. Forces Japan
47,000 personnel ashore and 12,000 afloat at 90 locations.
U.S. Forces Korea
37,500 personnel at 85 installations
Training Grounds
The Pacific Command participates in dozens of joint exercises with allied countries each year, including:
1. Cobra Gold: The U.S.-Thai exercise is expanding to include Singapore.
2. Foal Eagle: Brings together U.S. and South Korean troops on the Korean peninsula.
3. Crocodile: A training exercise with Australia at Shoalwater Bay.
4. Rim of the Pacific: Participants include the U.S., Australia, Japan and South Korea (pictured above).
SOURCE: U.S. Pacific Command
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Ignored issue in the Taiwan debate
Washington Times
May 25, 2000
Larry Niksch
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/commentary-2000525161927.htm
The Clinton administration's recent decisions on arms sales to Taiwan came amidst the publicized debate between the administration and its critics, and the reported debate between the Pentagon and the White House, over how best to support Taiwan's security.
This debate intensified in response to China's deployment of 200 missiles opposite Taiwan and projections that the number will reach 600 to 800 by 2005. An added factor was China's White Paper, issued in February, in which China threatened to use military force if Taiwan delayed negotiations on reunification.
Despite the intensification of the debate, it has remained within certain boundaries. The debate over weapons systems is limited to the kind of systems to be sold to Taiwan. All these weapons systems are defensive systems with a heavy emphasis on anti-missile defense systems. There also is a long-range time perspective: Aegis destroyers that Taiwan would not take possession of for five years and a theater missile defense system that could not be put in place for 10 years and perhaps 15.
The debate largely omits consideration of threats and responses in the near term, especially the timeframe of China's missile buildup. In contrast, Chinese officials said after the issuance of the White Paper that China would give Taiwan three to five years to accept its negotiating terms. After Chen Shui-bian's election as Taiwan's president in March, Chinese officials reportedly said they would give him a few months to accept their terms.
There also are questions regarding the effectiveness of the weapons systems proposed for Taiwan. China may be able to overwhelm any missile defense system with a mass attack of hundreds of missiles. None of the systems being debated would give Taiwan the capability to conduct counterstrikes against the launch sites of Chinese military operations.
The debate has contained no discussion of that old but crucial concept of deterrence, especially the question: If China continues to build up its military power opposite Taiwan, what combination of military and diplomatic measures would provide the highest probability of deterring China from deciding on the military option?
The limitations of the debate will not be altered so long as it pays no attention to the issue of the adequacy of the U.S. force structure in the Western Pacific to influence the situation in the Taiwan Strait. No future decisions on arms sales to Taiwan will replace two fundamental roles that only U.S. forces in the Western Pacific can play. Only U.S. forces would have the capabilities to respond immediately to a Chinese attack by striking at bases and missiles launch sites that would be the sources of the attack, thus limiting the damage to Taiwan. Equally, and perhaps most important, only U.S. forces would constitute an effective deterrence against a Chinese decision to use military force. If China continues to escalate its threats and military buildup, Beijing will examine closely the indicators of U.S. intent and military capabilities. Chinese analysts and policy-makers increasingly will link U.S. intent with U.S. military capabilities in the region, especially if, as expected, the United States continues its policy of maintaining ambiguity regarding its commitment to Taiwan's defense. The need for debate and consideration of this issue stems from a central fact: The current U.S. force structure in the Western Pacific is not capable of responding quickly and effectively to a Chinese attack on Taiwan, especially a massive missile and air attack that Chinese military strategists reportedly are stressing in their planning. Under a 1995 policy of maintaining 100,000 U.S. military personnel in the Western Pacific, the current force structure is intended primarily to reassure U.S. allies of U.S. commitments. U.S. forces are designed to fight a ground war on the Korean Peninsula and thus include about 50,000 ground troops.
U.S. air and naval forces available for a Taiwan contingency are thin: one carrier battle groups with about 65 fighter aircraft, about 100 fighters in Japan and no heavy bombers (withdrawn from Guam in 1991). The 1996 tensions in the Taiwan Strait illustrated this inadequacy when the 7th Fleet had to swing a carrier thousands of miles from the Western Indian Ocean, taking several days, in order to assemble a two-carrier force off Taiwan. The inadequacy also is pointed up by comparison with the U.S. naval and air forces in the Persian Gulf conflict in 1991 (six carrier battle groups and about 880 combat aircraft) and near Yugoslavia in 1999 (323 strike aircraft, combined with 213 allied strike aircraft).
The static nature of the U.S. force structure in the Western Pacific now is in the context of a major strategic shift in the region. The Taiwan Strait is superceding Korea as the most likely military threat to U.S. security interests. This is due not only to the Chinese military buildup opposite Taiwan and prospects it will continue but the substantial decline in North Korean conventional military capabilities facing South Korea: obsolete offensive weaponry, declining big unit military exercises, marginal supplies of fuel and food, poor morale, and the deteriorating physical and mental state of North Korean draftees owing to a decade of malnutrition.
North Korea appears no longer capable of launching a massive invasion across the Demilitarized Zone. There is evidence North Korean political and military leaders are well aware of this situation. The loss of the invasion option greatly limits Pyongyang's options for using missiles and nuclear weapons against the United States and its allies.
The current "100,000 man" policy robs the United States of flexibility to reorient U.S. forces to the new strategic situation. A continuation of the "100,000 man" policy in the face of a continuation of China's military buildup facing Taiwan will create the crucial danger of an erosion of deterrence. Recent history reminds us of the failure of the United States to strengthen military forces near the Persian Gulf in 1991 in order to deter Saddam Hussein from invading Kuwait.
Regardless of the scale of future arms sales to Taiwan, the real U.S. policy choice is:
(1) Continue the existing Western Pacific force structure and hope that China's admission to the World Trade Organization and economic ties with the United States will soften Chinese policy toward Taiwan. This is a risky bet.
(2) Restructure U.S. forces by adding considerably more air and naval forces that could include at least one more carrier battle group, additional strike fighters and tomahawk missile launching submarines, and heavy bombers. This undoubtedly would require reductions in U.S. ground forces in Japan to balance the burden to Japan of basing new U.S. air and naval units.
A fundamental restructuring of U.S. forces in the Western Pacific would involve major planning, basing, and financial decisions. The issue thus needs to be a central element in the U.S. debate over Taiwan policy.
Larry Niksch is a specialist in Asian affairs for the Congressional Research Service.
-------- depleted uranium
U.S. Forces admit depleted uranium bullets stored in Okinawa
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 18:22:42 +0900
From: Japan Press Service <jpspress@twics.com>
TOKYO MAY 26 JPS -- The U.S. Air Force in Japan has stored depleted uranium bullets in the U.S. Kadena arsenal depot in Okinawa Prefecture, Akahata on May 26 reported.
In answer to a question at a news conference on May 24, James Smith, commander of the 18th Wing of the U.S. Air Force in Japan said that depleted uranium bullets are for 30mm guns on A-10 Thunderbolt attackers deployed in the U.S. Forces in South Korea. But he did not make clear the how much and where they are stored. Smith said that the U.S. Forces have no intention to remove the depleted uranium bullets from Okinawa.
In Okinawa from 1995 to 1996, the U.S. Marines had misfired total of 1,520 depleted uranium bullets, and these accidents caused a great controversy and anxieties among the people.
Depleted uranium bullet can easily pierce through an armored plate such as a tank because it has a greater specific gravity of depleted uranium to strengthen its power. The use of such a bullet is strictly restricted in the U.S. because of a possible diffusion of its radioactivity. (end item)
----
Local assembly in Okinawa denounces U.S. Marines
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 18:22:42 +0900
From: Japan Press Service <jpspress@twics.com>
TOKYO MAY 26 JPS -- A local assembly in Okinawa on May 25 expressed strong condemnation of U.S. Marines, firing exercise at a civilian sugar-cane field.
The unanimous resolution was adopted by in the Higashison Village Assembly. It demands that the U.S. Forces find the cause of what happened and immediately end firing exercises in the Northern Training Area to protect lives of local residents and the environment.
The village assembly also demands an apology from the U.S. Marines, thoroughgoing safety education and discipline of the Marines, compensation, installment of fences to divide the U.S. military facilities from residential areas and a ban on Marine vehicles going into civil roads in the farming area.
----
Alternative Natural Therapies Backed Up By Hard Science
From: smirnowb@ix.netcom.com
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 04:35:21 -0400 (EDT)
I'd suggest that anyone that's been exposed/poisoned by DU or for that matter ANY human being that wants to be healthy, either by preventing disease & enhancing immunity or mitigating or reversing any disease or injury they have, educate themselves as to the validity of alternative natural therapies most of which are backed up by hard science. This includes DU exposure. Please see the web site of Gary Null at: http://www.garynull.com Null has worked with Gulf War vets who've been poisoned by DU & other agents and has produced a documentry on it, contact info for interested parties is listed at the web site. He's also worked with many GW Vets & had much success in restoration of health IF the person chooses to remain on the protocol.
Mainstream pharmeceutical, allopathic "health" practice is NO WHERE near as successsful in treating any disease there is- immune suppression which is strongly related to cancer, arthritis, lupus, AIDS, heart disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, DU exposure- as are many alternative, natural homeopathic approaches. The heart of the problem and the reason for the existence, much less massive institionalized practice of allopathic[drug based] approaches is two fold. One obviously is huge $, the other closed minds and a medical school education which is funded by over 60% by the pharmeceutical industry.
Please read & study this web site, get the video & educate yourself via other sources- DO NOT trust maninstream MDs or other "health" practitioners who are illiterate when it comes to what constitutes health & how one goes about restoring it or preventing disease. Once learned, the fundamentals are amazingly simple. People just have to know & do them.
Another good site is either of the following 2: http://www.preventcancer.org or http://www.preventcancer.com The book "The Politics of Cancer" by Dr Samuel Epstein, is avalable in bookstores & via http://www.amazon.com is a great place to start educating oneself as to the nature, economically & ideologically of the medical-industrial complex.
Again, the site is: http://www.garynull.com
-Bill Smirnow
-------- europe
Clinton hoping for breakthrough in arms control, but chances slim
Pioneer Planet
Published: Sunday, May 28, 2000
STEVEN THOMMA WASHINGTON BUREAU
http://www.pioneerplanet.com/seven-days/4/news/docs/004075.htm
WASHINGTON, With time running out on his presidency, President Clinton heads to Europe today looking for a nuclear arms control agreement but facing hostility from America's European allies, from Russia and from the Republican Party.
Although his aides are publicly trying to lower expectations of a breakthrough, Clinton is seeking a compromise with Russia that would slash the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, amend a key 1972 arms treaty and open the way for the United States to develop a limited defense against ballistic missile attacks from so-called rogue nations such as North Korea and Iraq.
Without such a deal, Clinton faces the prospect of leaving office as the first president in a generation who did not negotiate a major arms control agreement. But aides to new Russian President Vladimir Putin have signaled their opposition to amending the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, GOP congressional leaders have said they will veto any arms agreement Clinton negotiates, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff have questioned how deeply America's nuclear arsenal should be cut.
Much more than an arms control agreement is at stake, however. Clinton will travel to four countries -- Portugal, Germany, Russia and Ukraine -- and he will face growing doubts about U.S. foreign policy. In his first summit with Putin, he will meet an energetic and somewhat enigmatic leader who wants both continued economic support from the West and a stronger, more independent Russia.
While stressing Moscow's interest in good relations with the West, Putin has ignored Western criticism of Russia's war against Chechnya and moved to improve relations with states such as Yugoslavia, Iraq and Syria.
Republicans fear that in Clinton's eagerness to negotiate a sweeping arms deal, he will trade away any chance for the United States to develop an effective missile defense and turn a blind eye to Russian domestic and foreign policies that challenge American interests.
Clinton, however, is under increasing pressure -- much of it from GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush -- to cut an arms control deal with Putin. The Texas governor has proposed offering the Russians even deeper cuts in nuclear weapons in exchange for greater freedom to field a far more ambitious missile-defense system that would protect not only the United States but also American allies and overseas military bases.
``The administration's whole position is purely political,'' said Spurgeon Keeny, an arms control negotiator under presidents from Kennedy to Carter and now president of the Arms Control Association, a group that supports deeper cuts in nuclear arsenals but opposes amending the ABM Treaty. ``They must be trying to take an issue away from the Republicans in the upcoming presidential campaign.''
``The pressure is coming from the Republicans,'' said Marshall Goldman, the associate director of Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian Studies.
The White House itself is not above using the upcoming presidential election as a bargaining chip with the Kremlin. National Security Adviser Samuel Berger all but warned Putin he could get a more favorable deal from Clinton than he might get with the next president.
``They have to decide whether they want to reach an agreement now that will assure them that a limited (missile defense) system will take place,'' Berger said, ``or whether they want the possibility that a future president might go forward . . . perhaps even a more Star Wars-oriented (missile defense) system that would be more threatening to the Russians in the absence of an ABM treaty. That's a calculation they have to make.''
The treaty the Clinton administration is asking Russia to amend prohibits either country from building more than a very limited system to shoot down incoming missiles. The treaty cemented the policy of ``mutual assured destruction,'' under which each country remained vulnerable to missile attack -- and thus assured that neither would dare strike first.
But 28 years later, the threat to the United States is considerably different, said Henry Kissinger, who as Richard Nixon's national security adviser helped negotiate the ABM treaty and now supports proposals to amend it or end it to allow a missile defense.
``Today the threats have moved into many different areas,'' Kissinger said.
The United States now faces the possibility of missile attack not just from Russia or China, but also from rogue nations such as North Korea, Iran or Iraq that could develop missiles capable of hitting American cities in the next 15 years, according to a recently declassified analysis by the National Intelligence Council.
The most dramatic concession to win Russian agreement on a missile defense system would be to agree to reduce each country's nuclear arsenals more than the Pentagon wants.
Both countries are committed to cutting their arsenals to, at most, 3,500 warheads under the Start II treaty. Looking ahead to a Start III treaty, the United States proposed cutting back to between 2,000 and 2,500 warheads. But the cash-starved Russians can barely afford to maintain their nuclear stockpile and want to reduce to 1,500 warheads.
``If we agree to reduce the number, they might let us have the ABM treaty,'' said Harvard University's Goldman. ``But if he does that, that will just create anger among the military and the hard-liners who say we've got to keep our missile strength.''
Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has said that any agreement to amend the ABM treaty would effectively recommit the United States to a pact he says died with the Soviet Union. He vowed that any agreement would be ``dead on arrival'' in the Senate.
Another possible outcome is that Clinton could approve development of the missile defense system even without Russian approval or agreement -- and end up driving Russia and even China to start building more missiles so they could ensure their ability to overwhelm the American defenses.
``If the United States unilaterally withdrew from the ABM treaty, Russia will withdraw from Start II and will go in for new (multiple warhead missiles),'' Alexei Arbatov, deputy chairman of the Committee on Defense in the Russian Duma, said during a recent visit to Washington.
That's just the sort of response that has U.S. allies in Europe, particularly France and Germany, worried. Fearful of upsetting the balance that has kept the peace for a generation, European leaders will express their opposition when they meet with Clinton at a U.S.-European summit in Lisbon.
Said Goldman: ``We get relatively few benefits from the whole thing. We pay enormous costs. And it stirs up a hornet's nest.''
-------- food irradiation
USDA Proposes Irradiation of Fruit, Veggie Imports
Friday May 26 12:04 PM ET
Reuters
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000526/hl/usda_1.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Zap those fruit flies. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) proposed on Thursday to allow irradiation of imported fruits and vegetables to control the highly destructive agricultural pest.
Last year, the department approved irradiation to curb illness-causing bacteria on meat.
Many companies have been slow to adopt the technology because of fears of a possible consumer backlash, even though many researchers believe irradiation would enhance meat safety.
Allowing irradiation of imported fruits and vegetables would provide an alternative to current treatments for controlling fruit flies. USDA said.
The federal agency will hold a two-month comment period on its proposal.
-------- france
French court to rule on Chernobyl case in June
FRANCE: May 26, 2000
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=6851
PARIS - A special French court will decide on June 15 if it will take up a case against ex-cabinet ministers accused of failing to warn the public about the dangers of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, judicial sources said on Thursday.
The novel case was brought by Yohann Van Waeyenberghe, 31, from the Champagne capital of Reims, who claims his thyroid cancer was caused by fallout in eastern France from the 1986 disaster.
The complaint, the first such legal action in France, aims to have then Interior Minister Charles Pasqua, Health Minister Michele Barzach and Environment Minister Alain Carignon tried by the High Court of Justice of the Republic.
Van Waeyenberghe asked that the three politicians "recognise their stupidity" in not issuing explicit warnings of the dangers of the fallout from the explosion of one of the reactors of the Ukrainian nuclear plant in April 1986.
A radioactive cloud swept from Chernobyl across much of eastern and western Europe after the blast, the world's worst civilian nuclear disaster.
Van Waeyenberghe said in his complaint that he would show his medical condition was a result of the disaster.
The High Court of Justice of the Republic exists solely to try serving or past government members for offences committed while in office.
Last year, it acquitted former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius on charges of knowingly allowing AIDS-tainted blood to be used for transfusions.
Soviet officials originally tried to play down the seriousness of the disaster, which official data show killed thousands of people and affected millions more in Ukraine alone.
-------- imf / world bank
All-out security effort for GOP convention
5/26/2000
Philadelphia Inquirer
By Thomas Ginsberg
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
The Secret Service is checking rooftops. The FBI is monitoring the Internet. And city police are getting ready to play cat and mouse with protesters.
Unnoticed by most Philadelphians, security preparations for the Republican National Convention are moving into high gear about 10 weeks before the July 31-Aug. 3 event. Thousands of law enforcement officers will land in the city for an operation made particularly complex by the likelihood of civil disobedience and surprise protests.
"Virtually every resource that the FBI has available will be put into play," said Thomas J. Harrington, the assistant special agent-in-charge in the FBI's Philadelphia office. "After the Atlanta Olympics it was bombings that were the main focus. . . . Now protesters have become more of a focus."
At both the GOP event and the Democratic convention in Los Angeles two weeks later, the Secret Service is coordinating the work of dozens of federal, state and local agencies employing thousands of officers - some of whom will be dressed like tourists to mix with their surroundings.
The FBI will focus on intelligence gathering, investigation and prosecution if necessary. City police will police the city, perhaps the most complicated job.
The goal is a smooth, safe convention with minimal inconvenience to city dwellers and delegates. Subway and regional rail lines may run later into the night to handle extra passengers, streets will be closed as briefly as possible, and a caravan of tow trucks will stand ready to clear traffic jams.
"We're not going to shut the city down. . . . We have to live here too," said Thomas G. Spurlock, the Secret Service's assistant special agent-in-charge in Philadelphia.
With a command center in a Pentagon-owned building near 20th and Oregon Streets, the Secret Service will have direct responsibility for security inside the First Union Center, where the convention takes place. Inside and outside the arena its agents will guard every move by two former presidents (George Bush and Gerald R. Ford) and dozens of diplomats and dignitaries, including former first lady Nancy Reagan. Not to mention the presumptive nominee, George W. Bush.
The agency also will coordinate the work of police from 35 states guarding 35 Republican governors. It will oversee members of the Capitol Police arriving with the leaders of the GOP-controlled Congress.
An early word on VP
Spurlock said the agency would check every nook and cranny where the "protectees" will stay, visit or travel; scrutinize high-rise buildings for possible sniper's nests; and possibly move mailboxes and weld manholes shut around hotels or meeting halls. Agents are mapping out motorcade routes and backdoor exits from hotels and meeting spots, a challenge in Philadelphia's narrow downtown streets.
"We'll also have to protect the vice-presidential nominee," said Spurlock, who acknowledged that agents would get an early word on the choice. "We've heard about nobody yet," he joked.
The city's police force will have responsibility for security around the rest of the city and next to the First Union Center, including the 7,600-square-foot "free speech zone" already established in FDR Park across from the arena along South Broad Street. (Information on reserving a spot is available at www.phila.gov/rnc_permit)
Whether protesters bother with the rally site is another question. Few groups have signed up to use it; the largest rallies are planned in Center City, with some activists promising sporadic acts of protest and civil disobedience everywhere.
Several Philadelphia officers traveled to Washington, D.C., in April and New York City on May 1 to observe the protests there over global trade and multinational corporations. The FBI and Justice Department are holding training sessions in Philadelphia in crowd control and tactics for police officers and commanders. They say officers must be ready to respond to varying problems, such as a surprise blockade or protest in a city street.
'Mobile field forces'
Capt. William Fisher, commanding officer of the civil affairs unit, said police had identified several spots protesters may target: the First Union Center, City Hall plaza, the Liberty Bell area, and the delegates' hotels. Police intend to designate a special detention center for any protesters arrested.
At the same time, police will maintain full staffing at the city's 23 precincts during the week, Fisher said. Court sessions have been canceled and new vacation schedules have been offered to free as many officers as possible.
Taking their cue from recent protests in Washington, D.C., and Seattle, police intend to be ready to rush officers to potential flash points around the city in "mobile field forces," said Deputy Commissioner Robert Mitchell. They could travel in either marked or unmarked vehicles, he said, but he gave no details.
Police said protesters in Seattle, using their own mobile-phone network, dashed from one area to another to avoid police as they blocked streets.
In Philadelphia, police may deploy officers just to keep routes open for their mobile forces, a defense Seattle failed to use, Fisher said.
The tactics mean that both sides may end up playing a game of cat and mouse.
What city police will not do, Commissioner John F. Timoney said, is dress up in Ninja Turtle-like protective garb, or, except as an extreme resort, use gas to quell protesters. "We'll be very circumspect," he said.
Fisher said police would also be cordial but careful when faced with one expected protest tactic: the offering of food or drink by demonstrators hoping to sway police to their side.
"It all depends on the situation at hand," Fisher said. "Nobody eats open, exposed food like doughnuts. There are a lot of kooks out there."
With the First Union Center well-protected by a buffer zone, protesters have been discussing the idea of blockading delegates at their hotels. Fisher called hotel security "a serious concern," but neither he nor Mitchell would discuss the plans for addressing it.
Some activists have hinted at their plans on the Internet, where groups often publicize and discuss their events using e-mail systems called listservs. The FBI regularly reads the listservs, the agents said.
"E-mails are like leads," Harrington said. "We've had a lot of experience with them, whether it's stock fraud or child porn."
Or political organizing. Thomas F. Dowd, an FBI supervising special agent in Philadelphia and an expert on terrorism, said he knew that protesters may be "yanking the FBI's chain" by discussing blockades on the Internet, but that no threat could be taken lightly.
Asked whether security at the convention could include preemptive arrests of protesters, as in Washington in April, Dowd said it depended on whether officials thought that protesters intended to break a law.
Even though street confrontation may now be the primary concern of police, officials still are wary of other threats. They may create a no-fly zone over the First Union Center, particularly to keep TV helicopters away, and possibly will adjust flight patterns to and from Philadelphia International and Northeast Philadelphia Airports.
The FBI will be bringing specialists in terrorism and hazardous materials to Philadelphia, as well as extra computers to be linked with the bureau's Special Intelligence Operations Center in Washington, officials said.
"They'll be able to send even more resources and people," Dowd said, "if we need them."
-------- india / pakistan
TWO YEARS AFTER THE ATOMIC TESTS:
A LACK OF DEMOCRATIC DEBATE IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN
by Bernard Imhasly
Neue Zürcher Zeitung
NZZ Background on World Affairs, May 2000
From: South Asians Against Nukes Post, Harsh Kapoor aiindex@mnet.fr
26 May 2000
With their nuclear tests of May 1998, India and Pakistan crossed a threshold to become acknowledged nuclear powers. Their euphoria was followed by the sobering reality of sanctions - and by the knowledge abroad that the two countries had been working toward the tests for a long time. Because of a lack of democratic debate, India today does not quite know how to reconcile its new status as a nuclear power with its older one as an apostle of disarmament.
On 28 April, a fire broke out in India's second-largest munitions dump, near the city of Bharatpur in the state of Rajasthan. The blaze destroyed at least 12,000 tons of munitions, including ground-to-air and anti-tank missiles. In the fireworks, during which thousands of grenades rained down on some 20 villages in the area around the depot, two people were killed and countless others injured. The inferno, which had broken out while the ambient temperature was well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, caused damage estimated at the equivalent of 88 million dollars.
In violation of regulations, the elephant grass which grows around the explosive munitions stored in the open had not been cut for two years. The question in many inhabitants' minds after this huge accident was openly voiced in India's Parliament by Deputy Eduardo Faleiro: What would have happened if a similar incident had occurred at a nuclear storage depot?
Highs and Lows
India's atomic tests of 11 and 13 May 1998, followed by Pakistan's on 28 May, triggered euphoric reactions in both countries before a sobering-up process began when sanctions were imposed on them. But the sanctions had widely divergent impact: Pakistan's economy threatened to collapse under their weight, while the incomparably larger Indian economy, strengthened by decades of import substitution, was able to shrug them off.
Indeed, the sanctions strengthened the national applause of the tests, which drowned out the isolated voices of anti-nuclear forces. When the latter carried out a protest march lasting several weeks and extending from the testing ground in Rajasthan to Buddha's traditional territory in Bihar, participation was thin and the media barely reported on the event.
Subsequently, there was no national pro-and-con debate about atomic weapons, and the enormous costs to a poor country of creating an adequate control system for nuclear weapons came up for very little discussion. Questions about the lack of facilities for civil defense or protection against radiation are met with the same shrug of the shoulders as those concerning the truth or falsity of frequent reports about "leaky" nuclear power stations.
For decades, official India had trumpeted its policy of unconditional rejection of atomic weapons. The government underscored this stance with its decision not to translate the technical competence shown in its 1974 atomic tests into a nuclear arsenal. But, as author Arundhati Roy expressed it, the second series of tests in 1998 marked "the end of a fantasy": India, too, had accepted the Bomb as the ultimate emblem of power.
This was accompanied by the end of an illusion. Several studies, especially that of American political scientist George Perkovich ("India's Nuclear Bomb"), have since demonstrated that the government's long years of moral wrestling between idealistic rejection and "realistic" acceptance of the atomic bomb was nothing but a highly effective public relations show. To demonstrate that the 1998 tests had not been a mere upwelling of nationalism, the government headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party opened its archives. And what was revealed was that India's acquisition of nuclear arms had been systematically prepared for over decades and had received the political approval of all its governments.
Behind Closed Doors
The silence of those in India who oppose nuclear power is doubtless also an expression of shock at the revelation that, in an ostensibly democratic state, a small group of insiders makes all the crucial decisions and had been able to fool the public and Parliament for many years. Critics' tongues were not loosened even when the government made public an aggressively formulated draft of a nuclear doctrine last August. The projected doctrine assured the world that India would not carry out a nuclear first strike and imposed upon itself the limit of a "minimal deterrent" - but the flexibility built into the definition of that minimum did nothing to reassure outsiders. And the formulation of the country's second-strike capability leaves a fearful question hanging in the air: Might that capability be used at the mere threat of an enemy's nuclear first strike? Moreover, the capability is conceived in the form of a triad of land, air and sea-based carrier systems involving enormous investments and maintenance costs.
Here, too, criticism has been voiced primarily from abroad, while it has been limited in India itself to a few journalists and academics. According to political scientist Amitabh Mattoo, this is the result of a decades-long hide-and-seek game played by a numerically tiny establishment, which has hindered the formation of an open, broad-based public opinion in the name of national security.
The lack of a diverse public voice actively interested in nuclear policy is especially evident in the weakness of the running debate on Indian accession to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (NTBT). The government enjoys trumpeting its increased power, but seems baffled about what to do with its newly won nuclear trump. It made no effort to be admitted as an observer to the review conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty currently running in New York, in order at least to establish contacts with the nations of the "new agenda coalition." In its drive to be recognized as a nuclear power - possibly to be accompanied by a seat on the UN Security Council - Delhi has also avoided any criticism of Washington's plans for a National Missile Defense system.
The Indian government is so torn between acceptance and rejection of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that it could not even bring itself to welcome the recent ratification of the pact by its Russian allies. Nor can Delhi decide whether the NTBT would tie India's hands while the other nuclear powers would be able to expand their capabilities through test simulations, or whether the treaty is a genuine instrument of disarmament capable of imposing limits on America's upgrading of its armaments through its "stockpile stewardship program."
Tilting at Windmills
Pakistan too, its nuclear policy fixated on India in any case, is undecided whether it should sign the NTBT. Doing so could win it some urgently needed diplomatic points in the West. But Islamabad cannot shake the fear that India, by continuing to stand on the sidelines, might score some strategic advantage. Pakistan's military regime accepts that its nuclear arms program must be allowed to continue gravely undermining the country's economy, because its members are firmly convinced that nuclear parity with India is a way to finally neutralize the enemy's superiority in the realm of conventional armaments.
Even after its defeat at Kargil, Pakistan continues to value the usefulness of such military actions on the grounds that the risk of a nuclear escalation sharply lowers the probability of a conventional war. Pakistan cannot win such wars - but it could win locally limited mini-wars under the shadow of its nuclear umbrella. The head of Pakistan's disarmament agency recently opined that "only when an atmosphere of confidence is created, will South Asia be capable of relinquishing its atomic weapons." But the creation of such an atmosphere is very remote indeed. As long as the Kashmir dispute remains unresolved, the diplomat clearly stated, the idea of a disappearance of nuclear weapons from the subcontinent is "nothing but tilting at windmills."
----
Pakistan Vows to 'Consolidate' Nuclear Capability
Reuters
May 26, 2000 Filed at 1:11 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-arms-pa.html
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan, which U.S. officials say may be preparing new nuclear tests, said on Friday it would consolidate its nuclear capability demonstrated by its atomic explosions two years ago.
The statement by a government spokesman came after military ruler General Pervez Musharraf chaired a meeting of the National Command Authority (NCA) set up in February to command and control Pakistan's nuclear weapons.
``The (NCA)...reaffirmed Pakistan's resolve to consolidate its nuclear capability as a means of deterring aggression,'' a government statement quoted the spokesman as saying ahead of Sunday's second anniversary of the country's tit-for-tat nuclear tests after similar tests by arch-rival India.
The statement coincided with the current visit to Islamabad by U.S. Under-Secretary of State Thomas Pickering to discuss issues including security and Pakistan's tense relations with India.
U.S. officials voiced fears this week that Pakistan could be making preparations to conduct more nuclear tests, but Islamabad has denied it.
Pakistan says it will abide by a unilateral moratorium on testing it announced after the May 28, 1998, tests and follow a policy of ``responsibility and restraint.''
General Musharraf told a news conference on Thursday, however, that Pakistan should not be stopped from testing if India carried out more tests.
The government spokesman said Friday's inaugural meeting of the NCA also ``reaffirmed Pakistan's nuclear policy of responsibility as restraint, consistent with its obligations as a de facto nuclear power.''
``It also discussed a number of policy issues including proposals relating to command, control and restructuring of strategic organizations,'' the spokesman said, without giving any details.
The NCA includes key cabinet ministers, heads of armed forces and senior scientists.
---
Pakistan Presses Kashmir Issue
Associated Press
May 26, 2000 Filed at 10:07 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Pakistan-US.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- U.S. Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering on Friday launched a two-day visit to Pakistan to discuss issues that include nuclear testing, terrorism and Pakistan's troubled relations with neighbor India.
Pickering met Pakistan Army Chief Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who urged the United States to press neighboring India to start talks on the disputed Kashmir region -- the flashpoint of two previous wars.
``The U.S. should prevail upon India to agree to Pakistan's sincere offer of a dialogue to resolve all outstanding problems, particularly the core issue of Jammu and Kashmir,'' a Pakistan statement said.
India demands that Islamabad first withdraw Muslim militants from its Kashmir territory before talks are held. Pakistan says its support is political and moral.
Pickering's visit comes at a time of strained relations between Pakistan and the United States, two Cold War friends who have been struggling to define their post-Cold War relationship.
Washington is pressing both Pakistan and India to sign the global test ban treaty, especially given reports this week of fresh U.S. warnings being issued to Pakistan against conducting nuclear tests.
India and Pakistan conducted tit-for-tat nuclear tests in May 1998 and declared themselves nuclear powers, generating international worries about a nuclear arms race on the Asian subcontinent.
On Thursday, Musharraf told reporters that Pakistan has no plans to conduct any nuclear test. However, he warned that Pakistan will respond if India conducts one.
The United States also wants Pakistan to use its influence with Afghanistan's Taliban rulers to hand over Osama bin Laden, accused by the U.S. of masterminding deadly bombings of its embassies in East Africa in 1998.
For its part Pakistan says the U.S. has been a fair-weather friend, embracing Pakistan during the 1980s war in Afghanistan, encouraging Islamic militants to the region to fight against invading Soviet soldiers and then turning its back on the area and becoming Pakistan's biggest critic.
---
Musharraf Pledges Return of Democracy
Washington Post
Friday, May 26, 2000; Page A24
Associated Press
WORLD In Brief by Virginia Hamill
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-05/26/080l-052600-idx.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan--For the first time since toppling Pakistan's civilian government, Gen. Pervez Musharraf said unequivocally he would honor a Supreme Court order to return the country to democratic rule in three years.
The court's ruling was part of a decision that upheld the military takeover in Pakistan Oct. 12. The court said the army was driven to take power by a civilian government rife with corruption and incompetence.
"We will hand back power to the civilians in three years. This is the Supreme Court decision," Musharraf said at a news conference.
The Supreme Court also gave Musharraf sweeping powers to change Pakistan's constitution, which he told reporters he would do. Musharraf is believed to favor a constitution that gives the military a role in governing the country. Pakistan's 53-year history has been marked by periods of army rule, and it is the only military-run country known to possess nuclear weapons.
-------- iraq
Death Rates Rising in Iraqi Children
Report shows child death rate doubled
Friday May 26, 2000 Reuters News
From: "Dan Fahey" mtpdu@dclink.com
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Since the end of the Persian Gulf War, child and infant death rates in Iraq have more than doubled, according to a new report.
The jump in death rates coincided with the economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations (UN) against Iraq. However, in the northern, mainly Kurdish region of Iraq, where more humanitarian aid has gotten through, child and infant death rates have declined. Dr. Mohamed M. Ali, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the UK, led the study.
In the May 27th issue of The Lancet, Ali's team reports that between 1989 and 1999, infant and child death rates rose in southern and central Iraq, reversing a decline that began in the 1970s. During the same period, deaths among infants and children younger than age 5 in the north fell to levels more than 40% lower than those in the south.
A variety of reasons for the increase in child deaths is cited in the paper; Ali and his colleagues note that since 1991, most Iraqi hospitals have remained in a state of disrepair, and contaminated water supplies have caused an upswing in communicable diseases. In fact, they write, most Iraqis in the southern and central regions do not have access to clean drinking water, and general malnutrition has resulted in more low birth weight babies.
In 1995, the UN adopted a program in which Iraq could trade oil for food and other humanitarian aid. This aid, Ali's team explains, has been ``distributed more rapidly'' in the Kurdish region.
In an editorial, The Lancet contends that the Iraq ''disaster'' is mainly the fault of Saddam Hussein, but that the UN ``has become a secondary perpetuator of it.'' Continuing suspicion of the Iraqi leader's intentions, the editorial states, have put on hold any requests to the UN for aid that might be weapons-related.
The ``courageous policy,'' according to the journal, would be to suspend the sanctions against Iraq, lest young, resentful Iraqis ``grow up to be as aggressive as their current leader.''
SOURCE: The Lancet 2000;355:1837, 1851-1857.
----
HALL CALLS FOR SMARTER U.N. SANCTIONS THAT SPARE INNOCENT IRAQIS
From: "Dan Fahey" mtpdu@dclink.com
Congressman Tony P. Hall
www.house.gov/tonyhall/
U.S. House of Representatives
1432 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
April 24, 2000
Suffering -- especially among children -- is real and severe, says first US official to examine Iraq's humanitarian situation since Gulf War
WASHINGTON -U.S. Rep. Tony Hall, D-Ohio, today called for an end to efforts to demonize Iraq's people - and for a more effective response to their suffering from officials charged with supervising Iraq's purchase of humanitarian supplies. He also said that lifting sanctions at this point would be irresponsible.
Hall visited Iraq April 16-20, touring hospitals, schools, clinics and water-treatment plants in Baghdad, Basra, Babylon, Samawah and Nasiriyah. He was accompanied in Iraq by representatives of the Red Crescent, Red Cross, UNICEF, and others and met with aid workers, Western diplomats, and Iraq's Minister of Health. His statement on his trip to Iraq follows:
"Iraq's people are suffering terribly, and it was heartbreaking to see their pain firsthand. I left Iraq convinced that a great deal more could be done to address its people's humanitarian needs, and I am determined to do all I can to persuade the U.S. Government to take these steps.
"But, like the majority of American citizens, I remain concerned about the military threat Iraq continues to pose to its neighbors and the world - and convinced that until progress is made on eliminating weapons of mass destruction, lifting sanctions would be irresponsible.
"I wish that I could support lifting sanctions: many religious leaders, aid workers, and other people I respect oppose them. I am troubled, though, that some opponents of sanctions don't focus as much attention on Iraq's government as I believe they should.
"While sanctions clearly have played a role in Iraqis' suffering, though, lifting them would not provide much comfort to citizens there. If Iraq's government would show it is serious about easing its people's suffering - instead of using their problems to support its bid to end sanctions - it would be easier for me to see sanctions as the primary culprit. Or, if Iraq would show good faith in keeping the promises it made at the end of the Gulf War, perhaps that would prompt good faith measures by the United Nations -- such as adding a sunset provision to some of the economic sanctions.
"I am hopeful that Iraq is realizing the long-term human cost of its strategies, and I will look for signs that it will set more humane priorities in the near future. For example, trying to mask dual-use or other prohibited items by inserting them into contracts for humanitarian goods is counterproductive. Iraq's government knows those efforts only result in the delay of needed food, medicine and other humanitarian items. I was also troubled by Iraq's recent attempt to reject Canada's offer of a significant contribution to Unicef's operations there.
"That said, I also believe the U.N.'s Sanctions Committee, and particularly its U.S. representatives, ought to use much better judgment. For example, American officials tell me that only a small percentage of items raise security concerns - but those concerns hold up entire shipments of humanitarian goods. Surely, the U.N. could employ a line-item veto approach -- allowing what is permitted under the sanctions, barring what is not, and paying only for what is sent to Iraq. If the U.N. Sanctions Committee's top priority were humanitarian, as I believe it should be, this would be a way to quickly resolve many of the causes of Iraqis' difficulties.
"I appreciate the high priority my country puts on security considerations. But there are humanitarian standards that are equally central to America's character. There also are political realities that should make us think twice about the wisdom of a crippled nation in this dangerous Middle East neighborhood. I hope that U.S. policymakers can better balance these competing concerns and redouble efforts to heal this festering sore.
"There are some confidence-building measures the United States could take, to demonstrate its concern for Iraqis' suffering. For example, I hope our government will support a scientific study by the World Health Organization of the effects of depleted uranium (DU) and other potential pollutants on Iraqi civilians -- who are suffering very high rates of leukemia. Not only could work like this engage representatives of the international community and Iraqis in constructive work together; it also could yield health benefits for American veterans of the Gulf War as well as Iraqi civilians.
"I fear that no matter how quickly sanctions are lifted, the future of most of the people I met in Iraq will be bleak. That is because its children are in bad shape, with a quarter of them underweight and one in 10 wasting away because of hunger and disease. The leading cause of childhood death, diarrhea, is 11 times more prevalent in Iraq than elsewhere - and while polio has been wiped out throughout the Mideast, it has returned to plague Iraq's people. Schools and water systems -- the infrastructure any nation's future depends upon -- are decrepit and hospitals lack basic medicine and equipment. Ordinary civilians have exhausted their resources and their health trying to survive on $2-6 per month.
"The country's isolation has made it easy for some to demonize its people, and for Iraq's government to denounce Westerners. Blocking Iraqis' access to outside information contributes nothing to positive change, and this policy's result is innocent people who seem angry and past hoping for a different life. A Christian minister working in Iraq summed up the situation this way: 'The children in Iraq no longer know how to dream,' he said.
"It will take Iraqi people a generation to recover from their present situation. Sanctions imposed by the United Nations are partly to blame, but it is the stalemate - and not the sanctions - that causes Iraqis to suffer. I want to see all concerned look harder for ways to rebuild the confidence needed to end this stalemate.
"Finally, I want to commend the superb work that UNICEF, Care, and other organizations are doing under difficult circumstances. I particularly appreciated the efforts of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Society in helping to make my trip a success."
Hall first became involved in humanitarian work when he served in the Peace Corps 30 years ago. In recent years, he has focused his legislative and other efforts on fighting hunger and the other problems that affect the poor of the United States and other nations and has recently visited North Korea, Sierra Leone, Laos, Burma, Cambodia and Sudan.
-------- israel
Biggest Ever Anti-Nuke Protest at Israeli Dimona
Knesset Member, Organizations Call for the Release of Mordechai Vanunu
Fri, 26 May 2000 23:05:59 -0200
From: otherisr@actcom.co.il
Almost 200 people marked Women's International Day for Disarmament and Peace at a protest demonstration near Israel's major nuclear reactor in Dimona today, calling for Israel to dismantle its nuclear weapons and to open all its nuclear facilities to independent local and international inspection. This was the largest anti-nuclear protest ever to take place in Israel, as well as the most diverse in composition.
The Dimona demonstration and rally were organized by a coalition of women's, green and human rights organizations and movements, including Green Action, the Movement of Democratic Women in Israel, the Israeli Committee for Mordechai Vanunu and for a Middle East Free of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Weapons, One Out of Nine, Adala (Justice), the Association for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, Hadash (Israeli Communist Party), Physicians Against Nuclear War, New Profile, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the Alternative Information Center, the Lesbian Feminist Community and for the first time - the Hebrew Israelite Community, a Black Hebrew community based in Dimona city.
The participants heard speeches by Knesset Member Issam Makhoul (Hadash), who in February of this year initiated the first ever parliamentary debate on Israel's nuclear policy; Nuri al-Ukbi, founder of the Association for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, who spoke on behalf of the Bedouin residents in the Dimona area; Rela Mazali, whose New Profile organization challenges the militarization of Israeli society; Dr. Perla Perez of Physicians Against Nuclear War (a Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization); U.S. anti-nuclear activist Felice Cohen-Joppa, editor of the Nuclear Resister newsletter; author Yael Lotan and nuclear physicist Daniel Rohrlich of the Israeli Committee for Mordechai Vanunu and others.
While nearly all speakers called for the immediate release of imprisoned nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu - and were enthusiastically applauded - the crowd was visibly moved by the personal statement of Mary Eoloff, Vanunu's adoptive mother. "We had a wonderful visit with Mordechai yesterday," she told the protesters, "and he asked me to tell you this: Nuclear weapons will lead to a second holocaust. The Dimona reactor is a second Auschwitz. The State has no right to kill civilians, but that is exactly what these weapons are for - killing civilians." Eoloff likened Vanunu's disclosure of Israel's nuclear secrets to a person breaking into a burning house to save the people inside. "For this, he was silenced and imprisoned," she said, saying that he appreciated all efforts that are made for his release and all protests against nuclear weapons, and urged Israelis to continue and expand their anti-nuclear struggle.
A poem by prominent Israeli author Orly Kastel-Bloom, "Whistles", which ridicules government statements that Israel's nuclear facilities are absolutely safe, was read, and dedicated to the memory of Yafka Gavish and Inbal Perlson, two Israeli anti-nuclear activists who had for years protested at Dimona.
The rally ended with a short performance by a band from the Hebrew Israelite Community in Dimona, who dedicated their song to Mordechai Vanunu. Improvising while singing He Has the Whole World in His Hands, they led the participants in a new verse: "He Has Mordechai Vanunu in His Hands".
Rayna Moss
The Other Israel is the newsletter of the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace pob 2542, Holon 58125, Israel - ph/fx: +972-3-5565804; http://members.tripod.com/~other_Israel/
----
Former Israeli Soldier [JHU Professor] Recalls Israel's Brutality in Lebanon
From: "Max Obuszewski" mobuszewski@afsc.org
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 17:37:49 -0400
The next step for Israel
By James Ron,
5/25/2000,
Boston Globe letter@globe.com
Letters to the Editor
Many hope that Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon will bring peace to the troubled border. But without acknowledgment of the destruction visited on Lebanon by Israel over the last 32 years, some Lebanese will not forgive and forget. Guerrillas will continue to fire rockets over Israel's northern frontier, triggering retaliations and more fighting. If the international community pushes Israel to acknowledge and compensate its Lebanese victims, however, the hostilities will finally end. I'll take a first step by apologizing for my own misdeeds.
My first Lebanon raid was in 1986. I was a 19-year-old Israeli conscript, and my paratroop platoon was sent to a village whose name I can't recall. I provided security for two Lebanese militiamen and their Israeli handler. We broke down the door of a home, shoved the family aside, and pulled a middle-aged man outside. After blindfolding him and tying his hands behind his back, we took him to a secluded alley, forced him to his knees, and put a gun to his head, threatening to shoot if he didn't talk. A UN peacekeeper appeared and put an end to that incident, but there was more to come.
The next day we performed a mock execution on a 10-year-old Lebanese boy. We forced his family into the kitchen and dragged him to a nearby orchard. My lieutenant pressed the child's face into the dirt while I jammed my rifle against his skull.
Although the officer threatened to shoot his head off, the boy did not respond, keeping silent even after we threatened to throw him from the roof of his three-story home.
I was a recent transfer from another unit, and my colleagues were more familiar with the drill. I watched and learned as they blew off doors with explosives, poured sacks of flour onto dirt floors, scattered utensils, broke dishes, and rifled through drawers. For days we ransacked the village, searching for signs of guerrilla presence. The elderly, female, and young villagers were trapped in their homes, ordered to observe a 24-hour curfew. Their men were gathered in a central square, blindfolded, and hauled off for questioning. When another soldier and I expressed reservations, we were ridiculed by our colleagues. More often than not, however, we thought little about the villagers we were tormenting.
Casual brutality was not limited to lower-income recruits. Omri, child of an intelligence officer, liked to fire bursts toward villagers peeking through doorways. Rafi, son of a liberal parliamentarian, kicked a cup of hot tea into an elderly man's face. Several were from kibbutzim, others from middle-class families, and our lieutenant was devoutly religious. We were one of the standing army's elite and disciplined units.
My experience was a small part of a long-running conflict. During the 1947-49 war, more than 750,000 Palestinians lost their homes to the new Israeli state, and many fled to Lebanon. In the late 1960s, Palestinian guerrillas began raids from Lebanon, provoking powerful retaliations.
After their main Jordanian base was crushed in 1971, Lebanon became a center of guerrilla activity. Palestinian attacks killed 332 Israelis between 1967 and July 1982. In return, Israel killed 5,000-6,000 Lebanese and Palestinians. The fighting helped trigger a 15-year Lebanese civil war that claimed 75,000-120,000 lives.
During the 1970s, Israeli shelling emptied dozens of villages and drove an estimated 300,000 civilians into Beirut's slums. Northern Christian militias received Israeli arms and training, while Syria supplied Israel's opponents. In the south, Israeli-paid gunmen acted as informants, interrogators, and enforcers. Israel's strategy was to disrupt Palestinian guerrillas by punishing the surrounding Lebanese population; the result was deeply felt Lebanese anger.
Israel invaded in 1982 to end Palestinian political ambitions. Jewish nationalists were eager to annex the West Bank and Gaza, and many believed this first required smashing the Palestinians' Lebanon base. One goal of the invasion, later publicized by Israeli journalists, was to deport Palestinian refugees from Lebanon with Christian militia help. The plan later collapsed, along with Israel's other grand designs.
During the invasion's first months, Israel killed 12,000-15,000 persons and lost 360. Although the Israeli casualties were combatants, most of their victims were civilians. Israel pounded Palestinian camps and Lebanese slums to drive the guerrillas out, turning neighborhoods into rubble.
Israel's allies doubled as death squads, massacring hundreds in Tel el-Zatar, Sabra, Shatila, el-Khiam, and elsewhere. Palestinian fighters were eventually driven from Beirut, but Israeli brutality helped create new enemies. Islamist fighters began to attack Israeli troops and fire rockets into Israel, stimulating further reprisals. When Jewish civilians were forced into shelters, journalists diligently conveyed their suffering. They did not give Israel's victims equal attention, however. With television dwelling on Israeli rather than Lebanese pain, the more plentiful Israeli-induced casualties became remote statistics.
How do nations move beyond such conflicts? Recent history suggests that political deals are not enough, and that truth-telling is vital. Consider South Africa, where a commission requires former abusers to acknowledge their crimes in return for amnesty.
Or consider El Salvador and Guatemala, where commissions have publicized definitive accounts of official wrong-doing, helping the political healing. The international community has advocated reconciliation through truth-telling and accountability in Argentina, Congo, Cambodia, Chad, Chile, Indonesia, Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and now Sierra Leone. In these and other cases, war termination can be helped by official recognition of victims' pain, apologies, and compensation. Why should Lebanon be different?
If Israel wants a peaceful border, it must do more than withdraw from a mess it helped create. Palestinians and Lebanese languishing in camps and slums still harbor great bitterness toward Israel. If it wants to end this anger, Israel should recognize and compensate those it harmed. If Israel will not do so on its own, the international community should pressure it to do so. If other countries can face up to their unpleasant pasts, why not Israel?
Let me begin by asking forgiveness from the 10-year-old whose name I never knew and from the village whose name I no longer remember.
James Ron, assistant professor of sociology at Johns Hopkins University, is a field investigator for international human rights groups.
-------- korea
N. Korea Reactors May Be Delayed
By The Associated Press
May 26, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-NKorea-Nuclear.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- A prolonged strike by North Korean workers may further delay construction of two internationally financed nuclear reactors in the communist country, South Korean officials said Friday.
About 350 South Korean experts and workers, assisted by 200 North Korean laborers, are building two Western-provided nuclear power plants in the North. It is part of a 1994 agreement aimed at freezing Pyongyang's suspected nuclear weapons program and replacing Soviet-designed reactors.
The U.S.-endorsed agreement calls for the first reactor with a rated capacity of 1,000 megawatts to be built by 2003 and the second with the same capacity by the next year.
But the $4.6 billion project -- bankrolled mostly by South Korea and Japan -- is lagging far behind schedule. Western officials now say several years of delay is inevitable.
The delay so far has been caused by military tension on the Korean Peninsula and the North's firing of a long-range missile over Japan in 1998.
A further delay is feared after North Korea pulled half of its 200-man work force from the construction site in Sinpo in the country's northeastern region in late March, demanding pay hikes, Seoul officials said. Seoul's state utility, Korea Electric Power Corp., is the prime contractor and has no immediate plan to send substitute manpower from the South, the officials said.
Under the deal, the North Koreans have been hired for $110 a month since 1997, with annual pay hikes of no more than 2.5 percent. South Korean officials said that North Korea is threatening to pull out the rest of its work force unless the pay is raised to up to $600 a month.
They said the strike may affect their plan to hire up to 1,000 North Koreans by year's end.
North Korea's ruling communist party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, on Friday denounced the United States for the delay in the reactor project, saying that it would consider a ``countermeasure.''
-------- japan
Buckets used after nuclear accident
Yomiuri Shimbun,
May 26, 2000
From: Peter Diehl p.diehl@sik.de
MITO -- Workers at JCO Co.'s nuclear fuel processing facility in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, used stainless steel buckets to collect uranium solution that was leaking from a pipe at a facility near the uranium-reconversion complex where the nation's worst-ever nuclear accident occurred in September, it was learned Thursday.
When prefectural officials inspected the facility--which was used to process fuel for light-water reactors--in November, they discovered a damaged valve in a solvent-extraction device and uranium solution leaking from a nearby pipe, they said. According to the officials, the leakage was being caught in 20-liter buckets, which were of the same type as those used at the uranium-reconversion complex. Several of the buckets were filled to more than 50 percent of capacity.
The inspectors also found that the solution and precipitation devices had been illegally modified and did not conform with the law regulating nuclear reactors and other facilities, the officials said.
-------- russia
UN: Russia Renews Call For Deep Nuclear Cuts
Radio Free Europe
By Robert McMahon
26 May 2000
http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2000/05/F.RU.000526133300.html
Russia has opened a new session of a disarmament conference in Geneva by calling on the U.S. to join it in making deep cuts to nuclear warheads. But the U.S. national security adviser says he does not expect any major agreement on nuclear cuts at the upcoming summit of the U.S. and Russian presidents. UN correspondent Robert McMahon reports.
United Nations, (RFE/RL) -- Russia has opened the latest session of the UN's Conference on Disarmament by calling for deep cuts in strategic nuclear weapons as an alternative to amending the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) pact.
Russia's envoy to the disarmament conference in Geneva, Vasily Sidorov, on Thursday reaffirmed Moscow's position the 1972 ABM treaty is a key element of strategic stability and a condition for reducing strategic nuclear weapons.
Sidorov expressed concern at U.S. plans to move forward with a national missile defense plan that would require changes to the ABM treaty. The United States says the missile defense system would protect the country from attacks by rogue nations.
Sidorov told the conference it also had the opportunity to build on the momentum he says was gained at the recently concluded non-proliferation treaty conference in New York. That treaty is aimed at controlling and eliminating nuclear weapons. This year the five nuclear powers for the first time pledged an "unequivocal" commitment to eliminate their nuclear arms.
The Russian envoy's remarks in Geneva come slightly more than one week before U.S. President Bill Clinton and Russian President Vladimir Putin hold their first summit meeting in Moscow.
Clinton and former Russian President Boris Yeltsin agreed in 1997 to seek deeper arms reductions after Russia ratified the START II agreement. START II, which would reduce arsenals to between 3,000 and 3,500 strategic nuclear warheads, was approved by the Russian Duma last month.
Russia is now seeking in the next round of the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks to reduce nuclear arsenals to 1,500 strategic warheads. But the United States has repeatedly said it was seeking cuts only as low as 2,000 warheads.
Sidorov said on Thursday Russia is willing to cooperate with the United States on countering the threat of rogue states. And as part of this process, he said, it could avoid any weakening of the ABM treaty.
"There is a real alternative to the destruction of the ABM treaty, and it is taking up, gradually, a clear shape. It is based on further deep reductions in nuclear weapons, collective steps to counter the threat of the proliferation of missiles and missile technologies, cooperation concerning non-strategic missile defense systems on the basis of the 1997 New York arrangements, the joint analysis of the real scope of 'new' missile threats, (and) strengthening confidence-building measures in international affairs."
But Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, told reporters in Washington on Thursday that he doesn't expect any breakthroughs at the summit in connection with the ABM or START issues.
"I've never expected an issue as complex as this to be resolved in this summit. This is the first time that President Putin and President Clinton will have an opportunity to discuss this. These are serious issues. And they involve both whether we can agree to modifications in the ABM Treaty, whether we can make further progress on the START THREE process that President Yeltsin and President Clinton set as an objective in Helsinki in 1997. Hopefully, we will have some greater degree of understanding of each other's position."
During the non-proliferation conference (NPT) that ended last week, a number of UN member states and non-governmental organizations criticized Russia and the United States for the slow pace of arms reduction talks. Both countries are still believed to possess about 30,000 nuclear warheads between them.
The president of the NPT conference, Algerian ambassador Abdallah Baali, told reporters this week the final statement by the nuclear powers was important. But he said there were also concerns about the dangers posed by the United States and Russia still possessing thousands of nuclear weapons.
"It would be a very dangerous situation. I think it's absolutely vital that the Russians and the Americans come to an agreement."
The UN disarmament conference that got underway in Geneva on Thursday is the world's only multilateral disarmament forum. The 66 member states to the conference will now meet for seven weeks and are scheduled to hold another session late in the summer.
---
Russia Wants Missile Defense Off Agenda Altogether
By Reuters
May 26, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-arms-ru.html
MOSCOW (Reuters) - A senior Russian general said on Friday that Moscow wanted to drop the issue of changes to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty altogether in talks with Washington.
Interfax news agency quoted Valery Manilov, the first deputy chief of Russia's General Staff, as saying Washington's proposals to change the treaty to let it deploy a limited Star Wars style anti-missile shield, were unacceptable.
``Therefore we are carrying out all our talks with the American side -- not with the goal of finding a way to resolve the issue of changes to the ABM treaty -- but to have this issue struck off the agenda,'' Manilov was quoted as saying.
He was speaking a day after U.S. National Security Adviser Samuel Berger acknowledged publicly that Washington does not expect a deal on the ABM treaty to emerge from a June 3-5 Moscow summit between the countries' two presidents.
It seemed unlikely Manilov meant ABM discussions should be avoided at the summit.
Washington has been asking Russia to agree to make changes in the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty to allow the United States to deploy a system to shoot down enemy missiles.
Moscow says that would threaten three decades of arms control deals in which both sides agreed to limit their defenses so they could reduce their stockpiles of nuclear missiles without worrying that the enemy would gain an undue advantage.
Changes to ABM would bring about ``the destruction of the balance between offensive and defensive weapons, which would inevitably lead to a new arms race,'' Manilov said.
With no hope for a breakthrough on arms control, U.S. officials say Clinton will focus on basic themes, such as the importance of free speech, democracy and free-market reforms.
``Russia has a chance for a fresh start,'' Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Friday in London.
``As President Clinton will make clear, if the new leaders back their promises with performance we will enthusiastically support Russia's efforts to integrate itself into the world economy and encourage appropriate investments on Russian soil.''
---
Arms, economics on Clinton-Putin agenda
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Sunday, May 28, 2000
By Ann McFeatters, Post-Gazette National Bureau
http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20000527summitnatworld1.asp
WASHINGTON -- President Clinton leaves tomorrow for what is likely to be his last trip to Europe while in office. He goes without a clear national consensus on what his goals should be while there.
In addition to meetings with European leaders in Portugal and Germany, Clinton will be honored for his work in trying to make Europe united, peaceful and free.
But he also will have his first one-on-one meeting with Russia's new president, Vladimir Putin. Both sides say it will be a high-stakes meeting, but both sides purposefully are sending mixed signals regarding what they hope to accomplish.
Clinton would like an agreement with Russia that reduces the number of nuclear warheads from about 3,200 to 2,000 and also an acceptance of the planned limited development of a U.S. missile defense system. But he would face enormous backlash back home if either happens.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms, R-N.C., said any agreement that Clinton and Putin reach in Moscow would be "dead on arrival" in the U.S. Senate.
Texas Gov. George W. Bush, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, has taken the unusual step of holding a news conference to warn Clinton not to sign any accord that might limit development of a missile defense system, which Russia now opposes on grounds that it could upset the so-called balance of power and give the United States an edge.
Richard Haass, director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank, said Clinton "must resist the temptation" to polish his legacy by a last-minute arms control deal with the Russians because the American people have not yet had the proper national debate about the next chapters in defense and arms control.
In fact, there are few foreign policy players in Washington who don't have a firm opinion about what Clinton should do while he's overseas for the next week.
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has vowed that the two leaders -- one about to exit the world stage and the other just entering -- will talk about arms control.
But neither is the administration specifically ginning up expectations for either a new understanding about the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which many observers see as banning missile defense system development, or cutting the number of nuclear weapons by creating a new Strategic Arms Reduction Talks, or START III agreement.
Conservative Republicans are worried that Clinton and Putin will reach a new agreement to support the ABM Treaty, which some of them think should instead be junked because they believe that it will impede development of the $60 billion missile defense system.
For their part, administration officials point out that former President George Bush negotiated the START II accord just as he was leaving office, although it was mainly a done deal by then.
Russian officials are edgily saying it's good for Clinton and Putin to meet, but that Putin has his own agenda, and they stress that this is a meeting of equals.
Fiona Hill, director of Strategic Planning for the Eurasia Foundation and author of books on Russia, said there is a clear recognition in the Kremlin that Clinton is a lame duck. On the other hand, a Republican administration would assuredly emphasize missile defense despite Russian opposition.
To show good faith, Putin recently pushed through the Russian Parliament's lower house, or Duma, ratification of the long-delayed START II arms control treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the U.S. Senate has so far refused to ratify. Putin would love to make a joint statement with Clinton in support of the ABM Treaty.
Sandy Berger, Clinton's national security adviser, said Clinton also wants to celebrate his European policy this week, even though "major" trade disputes remain and there is not yet agreement over how to handle infectious diseases.
Nonetheless, Clinton is proud that NATO has been enlarged, that it took an active role in ending the bloodshed in Kosovo, that the war in Bosnia was stopped, and that he is attending his 14th U.S.-European Union summit -- a record.
While in Germany, Clinton will meet with other leaders at a good-governing conference and receive the Charlemagne Prize -- its 50th year of honoring leaders who have made "major contributions to European unity and world peace."
Then Clinton goes on to Moscow and Kiev. While there have been economic setbacks in Russia, Berger said, the fact that it just completed its first democratic transfer of power in a thousand years is cause for celebration.
Clinton is visiting Ukraine to try to give its new leaders confidence in a free-market system. Berger said Clinton's message in Kiev is simple: "Your success, Ukraine, is important to us."
Berger noted that Clinton and Putin won't have just one meeting this year, but will meet again in July at the G-8 economic meeting in Okinawa and in the fall at the United Nations as well as at the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation forum -- time enough to negotiate the framework of an arms-control pact.
Clinton will talk about many issues besides U.S.-Russian arms control with Putin, Berger said. Nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction will also be discussed, he said, as will "our continuing concerns about Chechnya."
Russia's war against its breakaway republic has dismayed the Clinton administration, as have the chaos of Russia's economic system and its restrictions on press freedoms, Berger said.
On the other hand, the administration is wary of having a lackluster summit that accomplishes little. That could renew criticism of Clinton's Russia policy -- mainly the complaint that, following a much-hailed summit with former Russian President Boris Yeltsin in Vancouver, B.C., soon after Clinton first took office, little has happened because of what the critics regard as a lack of administration follow-through.
Many Russians blame the United States for their new poverty, arguing that U.S. policy has forced economic reforms upon Russia, including privatization of industries, without adequate infrastructure to sustain them.
As a result, unemployment is high, wages are low, pensions are almost gone, subsidized bread is a thing of the past and misery is rampant.
To be sure some summit results are clear, Berger said. "I hope that we will be able to reach an agreement by the summit that will result in the destruction of 34 tons of military-grade plutonium on each side."
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Albright: Russia Future Unclear
Associated Press
May 26, 2000 Filed at 9:07 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-US-Russia-Albright.html
http://news.excite.com/news/ap/000526/09/int-us-russia-albright
LONDON (AP) -- U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Friday it is too soon to gauge which direction Russia will take under President Vladmir Putin, but warned that the depth of U.S. investment will depend on his stand on economic reform, democracy and human rights.
Speaking ahead of a June 4-5 summit in Moscow between Putin and President Clinton, Albright welcomed the new Russian administration's ``ambitious agenda.'' But she said its capacity to reform is so far unproven and its commitment to democratic values and human rights ``still to be measured.''
``President Clinton will make clear at the summit: If its new leaders back their promises with performance, we will enthusiastically support Russia's efforts to integrate itself into the world economy and encourage investments on Russian soil,'' Albright said in a speech at the London School of Economics.
Predicting the future of Russia's economy, she said, can be like ``one of those traditional English mystery novels.''
``There is a sense of anticipation, but also a nagging feeling that you may have read the same book -- albeit with a different cover -- before. Doubts will dissipate only after the first chapters have been read,'' she said.
The White House says the Moscow summit will not be an occasion to resolve major differences over nuclear arsenals or U.S. plans to build a national missile defense system. However, it has raised the prospect of an agreement to destroy 34 tons of military grade plutonium on each side.
Talks also will focus on Russia's relationship with Europe and the Chechnya conflict, which Albright, returning from a NATO foreign ministers' summit in Italy, said is endangering Russia's democracy and is ``an obstacle to its integration.''
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Russia Gen. Against Changing Treaty
New York Times
By The Associated Press,
May 26, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-US-Summit.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- With a U.S.-Russia summit a week away, a top Russian general on Friday spoke out against compromise on one of the main disputes between the two countries -- U.S. efforts to change the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
Col. Gen. Valery Manilov said ABM treaty changes, vigorously opposed by Russia, should be ``taken off the agenda'' of the June 3-4 summit with President Vladimir Putin. A U.S. official meanwhile said no arms control breakthrough was expected during the visit.
``We are conducting all those talks with Americans not in order to find a way to change the ABM treaty but in order to take it off the agenda altogether,'' Manilov, first deputy chief of the general staff, was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
The U.S. wants to modify the ABM treaty, which bars nationwide missile defenses, to allow a limited national missile defense against attacks by so-called rogue states such as North Korea. Russia opposes the changes, fearing they would undermine the deterrent value of its arsenal.
A U.S. official, who spoke to reporters Friday, confirmed that no ABM agreement had been reached despite recent visits to Moscow by Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and National Security Adviser Sandy Berger.
``The Russians have so far given no go-ahead, no indication that they are ready to accept the amendments to the ABM treaty,'' said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
With Russia appearing to hold its ground on the ABM, no quick progress is expected on further nuclear arms cuts under the proposed START III treaty, the official said.
Analysts say Washington may offer Russia deep arms cuts in exchange for the ABM changes. Russia, burdened by the cost of maintaining its nuclear arsenal, is eager for such cuts.
Putin has threatened to abandon all arms treaties with the United States if Washington follows through on the missile defense system.
After years of delay, the Russian parliament recently approved the START II Treaty, which would roughly halve U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals to some 3,500 warheads each.
But the U.S. military has expressed reservations about Russia's proposal to reduce each side's arsenal to 1,500 warheads.
Clinton and Putin will have an opportunity to continue efforts to reach arms control agreements at another three meetings they are expected to have later this year, the U.S. official added.
Along with arms control, Clinton and Putin have many other issues to discuss, he said.
In particular, Clinton plans to reiterate U.S. calls for Russia to stop its military action in Chechnya and to negotiate a political solution, the U.S. official said. He would also like to hear Putin's plans for reforming the Russian economy and the government structure and discuss Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization.
In view of the recent raid of Russian police on the Media-MOST company that has prompted fears of a government crackdown on the news media, Clinton plans to ``underscore our belief that free press is an absolutely essential and critical element in the development of democratic society,'' the U.S. official said.
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VERY BAD NUCLEAR NEWS FROM RUSSIA -
WORLD'S NUKE WASTE APPARENTLY SET TO BE IMPORTED TO RUSSIA
May 26, 2000 Moscow
ECODEFENSE! Antinuclear campagn of the Socio-Ecological Union Int'l For more information in Moscow - 2784642, 7766546, Vladimir Slivyak
GOVERNMENT PRINCIPALLY APPROVED IMPORT OF NUCLEAR WASTE!
According to reports in Russian mass-media, Russian government approved yesterday new 50-years strategy for nuclear development prepared by Minatom (ministry of atomic power). Strategy includes the import of nuclear waste from all over the world to Russia.
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ENS report of May 24 explaining details of new Minatom' strategy
Russia's 50 Year Nuclear Plan: 23 New Reactors, Import Waste
MOSCOW, Russia, May 24, 2000 (ENS) - Russia's Minister for Atomic Power, Dr. Evgeny Adamov, is expected to propose Thursday that Russia build 23 new nuclear reactors and change its laws to allow the import of nuclear waste. Presently, Russian law on nature protection bans the import of nuclear waste.
Adamov will present his ministry's new program of nuclear development for the next 50 years to the new government of President Vladimir Putin in a speech tomorrow.
A nuclear scientist who has specialized in reactor design, Dr. Evgeny Adamov was appointed by then Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1998 to his position as Minister of Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation. (Photo courtesy Uranium Institute)
According to confidential documents obtained by environmental groups EcoDefense! and the Anti-nuclear campaign of the Socio-Ecological Union, Adamov's national strategy for nuclear development includes 23 new nuclear reactors to be built before the year 2020. Russia currently operates 29 nuclear power plants. The text of Adamov's speech obtained by environmental groups details Adamov's strategy of nuclear development for Russia. In this strategy, the Minatom minister proposes to decrease the consumption of natural gas and increase nuclear power generation to replace natural gas.
In his speech, Adamov will state that Russia will run out of natural uranium in 60 years if government agrees to his proposed strategy.
Investment needed for implementing of this strategy is US$32 billion. According to the text of Adamov's speech, expenses will be covered by increasing prices for electricity and import of nuclear waste from all over the world to Russia.
Vladimir Slivyak, antinuclear campaigner for EcoDefense and Socio-Ecological Union who received the confidential documents, is opposed to the Adamov strategy for Russia's nuclear future. He supports development of renewable energy instead.
"New nuclear developments projected by Minatom include 23 new dangerous, expensive and not needed reactors," said Slivyak. "At the same time, energy-efficiency technologies just doesn't exist on industrial scale in Russia. Development of renewable sources of energy would provide Russia will great amount of electricity as well. But efficiency and renewables doesn't have as great lobbyists as one of richest corporations of the world - Minatom - has."
The amount of spent nuclear fuel accumulated in Russia is about 14,000 tons, Slivyak estimates. Minatom's new strategy allocates only about US$3.6 billion in 30 years for nuclear waste management - lowest ever amount, Slivyak warns.
The documents obtained by the environmentalists are new, but Dr. Adamov's position on Russia's nuclear future is well known.
In a September 1999 speech to the Uranium Institute annual symposium in London, he said, "At the beginning of a new century we have two different options for the future of nuclear power. One option is to have the same level of nuclear power that we have now. In reality this means decreasing the participation of nuclear in resolving energy supply and environmental problems. However, for people who are more optimistic, as I am, about the future of nuclear power, I think we can not only investigate but also justify another model of development for nuclear, involving large scale deployment of nuclear energy technology." In the same speech, Dr. Adamov showed that he too has questions about nuclear waste disposition that he believes can only be resolved with a "closed fuel cycle."
"We have much better technology than we did 30 years ago to resolve the waste disposition problem. But at the same time there are questions. What is public opinion on this matter? Does the public agree that we have not so much waste, that we have good technology? No, they do not understand it," Adamov acknowledged.
"As a scientist in my previous life, I also cannot understand how I can take the results from, say, 50 years and extrapolate them for 10,000 years. There are no scientific methods which show us how to extrapolate such results."
"In Russia, we have adopted quite a different approach in the last seven or eight years to investigate this subject. We ask ourselves, is it possible for the world to have large scale nuclear energy? By large scale, I do not mean the same as we have now, with around 5 percent to 7 percent of the total energy balance. This is a very small contribution to resolving the energy problem. Large scale is, for example, 30 percent, 40 percent or 50 percent. At this scale we could really resolve not only the energy demand problem, but also environmental problems," Adamov said. "The question is, if we have such a level of nuclear energy, is it possible to manage the waste, particularly the spent fuel? Can we keep the same level of radioactivity as we had before we developed nuclear at all? The answer is yes, if we have the closed fuel cycle, we have the possibility to keep the same level of radioactivity. This means achieving a balance between the radioactivity of the waste being buried and of the uranium extracted from the earth," the minister explained.
But speaking for EcoDefense, Slivyak disagrees. "Right at the same time when Minatom argues that the nuclear waste problem doesn't exist, Russian nuclear plants contribute to this problem every day," he said Wednesday. "According to the strategy, nuclear waste problem will not be solved in next 50 years, as it was not solved during past 50 years of nuclear development."
This is not the Russian government's first look at changing the law governing import of nuclear waste. Last February and again in September, the State Duma (Parliament) considered measures favoring spent fuel imports.
Meanwhile, the United States and Russia signed two "Implementing Arrangements" that focus on geologic disposal of Russian nuclear waste last week in Moscow at the first meeting of the Joint Coordinating Committee on Science and Technology Cooperation (JCC).
U.S. Under Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz, and academician Nikolai Laverov, vice president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who serve as co-chairs of the JCC, signed the agreements at the Russian Academy of Sciences headquarters.
The U.S. and Russian partners will study the behavior and transport properties of radioactive waste at contaminated sites in Russia; and prepare a plan for the development of a geologic repository or repositories at a site or sites in Russia. The scientists will study the conditions of uranium migration and accumulation in rock similar to those found in the U.S. at possible repository sites. They will investigate the chemical and thermochemical properties of radionuclides and the characteristic migration processes important to repository performance.
Moniz said the new agreements will "focus important attention on nuclear waste management and remediation problems that plague both of our countries due to our shared nuclear waste legacy."
The agreements facilitate collaboration between the Department of Energy and the Russian Academy of Sciences on environmental stewardship of the former nuclear weapons complex in each country, and development of clean energy technologies.
The agreements provide for expenditure of US$906,000 from the U.S. Department of Energy over three years.
The JCC is the managing body for a Memorandum of Understanding on Cooperation in Science and Technology signed in March 1999 between the U.S. Department of Energy and Russian Academy of Sciences as part of the Nuclear Committee of the US-Russian Joint Commission for Economic and Technological Cooperation.
To read Adamov's speech to the Uranium Institute symposium in London on September 9, 1999 go to: http://www.uilondon.org/sym/1999/adamov.htm
To view the activities of EcoDefense! visit: http://www.ecoline.ru/antinuclear/eng/index.htm
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Wasted
By Jeffrey St. Clair,
In These Times
May 15, 2000
http://www.inthesetimes.com/stclair2412.html
Back in October, In These Times reported on a scheme hatched by the Russian nuclear agency to import spent nuclear waste from commercial reactors in Europe and Japan for storage in the Russian outback (see "Hot Property, Cold Cash," October 17). This story finally has grabbed the attention of the national press. On April 12, the Boston Globe reported that Russian Minister of Atomic Energy Yevgeny Adamov is proceeding with plans to import 20,000 tons of radioactive waste for storage and eventual recycling at the Mayak nuclear facility in the Ural Mountains.
Adamov boasted that the deal would generate more than $21 billion over the next 10 years, a figure nearly equal to the Russia's entire 1999 budget. "The deal is extremely beneficial for the ministry," Adamov said, "and we are intending to carry it out."
The main stumbling block is a 1992 law passed by the Duma that prohibits Adamov's agency from importing nuclear waste from countries outside the former Eastern Bloc. But Adamov claims to have the blessing of new Russian President Vladimir Putin and, according to Russian greens, has vowed to overturn the ban in the upcoming legislative session. Last year, Adamov was accused of offering Russian legislators a variety of bribes for their votes, including cash, trips to France and prostitutes.
Adamov never enjoyed a particularly close relationship with the Yeltsin government's inner circle. But he and Putin have been close since the president's days in the KGB. Russian greens rightly fear that the Putin/Adamov alliance will prove dangerous to both the environment and environmentalists.
Under Putin, the FSB - the KGB's successor - has interrogated and locked up several anti-nuclear organizers on trumped-up drug charges, or the absurd pretext that they are aligned with Chechen separatists. And Putin's state prosecutors have continued to harass Alexander Nikitin, the nuclear whistleblower acquitted of violating Russian secrecy laws in December. The new crackdowns have given a chilling context to Putin's vow to lead the country through "the dictatorship of law."
Jeffrey St. Clair is a contributing editor of In These Times.
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Hot Property, Cold Cash The plan to turn Russia into the world's nuclear waste dump
In These Times
October 17, 1999
By Jeffrey St. Clair, In These Times
http://www.inthesetimes.com/stclair2323.html
The world's nuclear plants are rapidly running out of places to store their nuclear waste. Public opposition so far has blocked plans to build centralized nuclear waste dumps in Sweden, Switzerland and Australia. The scheme to bury the spent fuel from U.S. nuclear plants deep inside Yucca Mountain in Nevada has run into one political and environmental pitfall after another. Security risks and liability concerns have made keeping the spent fuel on site an economic nightmare for utilities. But where there's danger, there's financial opportunity.
Economically starved Russia is hungry for the chance to cash in on the radioactive loot. In May, Yevgeny Adamov, the head of MinAtom, Russia's ministry of atomic energy, told the Moscow Times: "Russia must fight for its share of the nuclear waste market." Adamov wants the Russian Duma to overturn its ban on the import of commercial nuclear waste for storage and Russian plants to reprocess the waste and then export it as nuclear fuel or, perhaps, fissile material. The crafty Adamov estimates that the entire operation could produce $150 billion in revenue, making MinAtom the most powerful operation in Russia.
At this opportune time, along comes a proposal by the altruistic sounding Non-Proliferation Trust (NPT) that would supply Russia with exactly what Adamov and his cronies crave: tons of nuclear waste and billions of dollars. The NPT bills its plan as a way to help Russia secure "fissile" plutonium and uranium and to provide money for its comatose economy. The Washington-based NPT is an offshoot of the politically connected U.S. Fuels & Security (USF&S), a group which a few years ago promoted a scheme to dump radioactive waste on Wake Island, an atoll in the South Pacific.
Russia's desperate financial straits also have made the Russian government, never an environmental guardian, amenable to proposals that would have seemed outlandish only a few years ago. The NPT/MinAtom proposal is the latest example of how far Russia has fallen. This deal would set dangerous precedents by opening up an international market in radioactive waste and by placing nuclear bomb-making materials into the hands of private groups with little or no government oversight. Moreover, anti-nuclear groups charge, a deal to make Russia the dumping ground for the world's nuclear waste could end up saving the nuclear power industry, which is teetering because of financial and public relations burdens stemming from the accumulation of spent fuel that is stacking up at the rate of 500 pounds of plutonium per reactor each year.
In These Times has obtained a proposal drafted by the NPT that spells out an ambitious scenario for making Russia the dumping ground for the world's commercial nuclear waste, including shipments of high-grade plutonium that could be used to make atom bombs.
According to the documents, the NPT, which would be the managing partner in the scheme, would arrange for at least 10,000 metric tons of radioactive waste to be shipped to sites in Russia, most likely the Mayak facility in the southern Urals and Krasnoyarksk - 26 in Siberia. The spent nuclear fuel would come from commercial reactors in Switzerland, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. Under the plan, the NPT, a private entity, would retain title to the nuclear waste.
The trust plans to charge nuclear utilities as much as $2,000 per kilogram to dispose of the waste in Russia. This would generate as much as $12 billion in revenue and $10 billion in profits for MinAtom and the contractors. How much NPT personnel would make is unclear. The documents suggest that the trust would retain at least 10 percent of the revenue for administrative overhead.
Under the plan, the waste would be shipped from Europe and Asia on large ships mounted with an arsenal of weapons designed to ward off nuclear pirates. A preview of these trans-oceanic nuclear armadas came in August when two merchant ships, armed with 30-millimeter cannons, carried enough weapons-grade plutonium to make 75 A-bombs across the Pacific from France to Japan, where it will be burned as mixed oxide (MOX) fuel in Japan's nuclear power plants.
The big question is what happens to the waste after it arrives in Russia. According to the NPT, the fuel would be either stored in casks or buried in deep geological formations in the Russian outback. Under either scenario, the NPT/MinAtom contract is for only 40 years, the equivalent of a nanosecond for waste that remains radioactive for nearly a million years. During that time, the trust claims that the fuel would not be reprocessed. But the Russian government has other ideas.
Officials with MinAtom, which has long been known as a lucrative feeding ground for corrupt officials and the resurgent Russian Mob, believe they can use the new stream of money to rebuild crumbling nuclear facilities and then reprocess the waste into weapons-grade uranium. Under terms of a 1993 agreement forged between Vice President Al Gore and former Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, the Russians believe they could then turn around and sell the uranium to the United States. Or the hot materials could be sold on the nuclear market to willing buyers, such as Pakistan, India, Israel, Iran, China or North Korea.
Complicating matters further, one of the stranger aspects of the proposal would have the NPT taking control of 50 tons of fissile plutonium from the Russian government and storing it at Mayak. The trust argues that this would secure the weapons-grade material. But questions arise as to how a U.S.-based nonprofit would guard the plutonium at a site inside the heart of Russia: Will they have a security force? Will they be permitted to fire on Russian troops if they attempt to seize the materials? "What you have is a private nonprofit group taking title to bomb-making materials," says Michael Mariotte, director of the Washington-based Nuclear Information and Resource Service. "This sets a dangerous precedent and undermines years of non-proliferation agreements."
Ironically, the NPT proposal uses some of these very prospects as a pretext to advance its plan. "In Russia, economic conditions make it difficult for many to find a job with decent and reliable compensation," reads the proposal.
"Many nuclear defense workers in Russia are now suffering uncertainty and deprivation. To reduce the prospect that some of those workers may face opportunities internationally to market their skills that could be adverse to the security interests of Russia and the United States, programs are needed which enhance opportunities for them to continue to benefit their homeland."
The biggest initial hurdle for the NPT is Russian environmental statutes that currently outlaw the import of spent fuel for storage in Russia. MinAtom has been attempting to overturn these bothersome laws for the past few years. The NPT proposal will make MinAtom's lobbying job a lot easier. Recognizing the central fact that money is the real grease to the legislative gears of the Russian Parliament, the trust has pledged to spend at least $3.5 billion on the pet projects of key leaders of the Duma - including $1.8 billion for a spent-fuel geological repository, a scheme to bury the waste in deep underground caves. Critics note that this is barely a down payment on the price tag of such a facility. The trust also has promised to dole out nearly $2 billion to "safeguard" weapons-grade plutonium and hundreds of millions for charitable and environmental programs, the pensions and salaries owed to Russian nuclear and defense workers, and, most peculiarly, Russian orphans.
Russian environmentalists, though, say that any compacts with MinAtom are fraught with peril. "If this goes through, the deal will make MinAtom, an agency that is already barely answerable to the government, the most powerful entity in Russia," says Vladimir Slivyak, an organizer with the Social Ecological Union, the largest environmental group in Russia. "Certainly, MinAtom will be one of the few agencies with any money and they sure won't spend it on social programs."
On its face, the NPT proposal might sound far-fetched, but the organization is taken seriously in Washington. According to sources at the Department of Energy, over the past couple of years USF&S officials now associated with the trust have also talked about the possibility that nuclear waste from U.S. plants could end up being ferried to Russia on large ships, especially if the troubled plan to store U.S. nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain falls apart.
MinAtom actively courted this very scenario in a December 1998 letter, in which Adamov shrewdly reminds U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson of the political, environmental and legal problems surrounding the Yucca Mountain site. He goes on to suggest: "It would be advisable to examine the question of possible transfer, on a commercial basis, of spent fuel from U.S power plants to Russia for its long-term storage and subsequent reprocessing at [MinAtom]."
So far, the United States has rebuffed Adamov's offer. But a recent court victory by the nuclear power industry has complicated the situation enormously. A federal court ruled earlier this year that the U.S. government had made a contractual agreement with the nuclear utilities to assume all of the liabilities and most of the costs for the disposal of the nation's commercial nuclear waste. This decision may make the U.S. government much more anxious to dispose of the waste overseas.
Most senior officials in the Department o Energy oppose this scenario. The DOE has a huge financial stake in Yucca Mountain. Moreover, the agency is also pursuing the possibility of reprocessing spent fuel in a MOX fuel program to make weapons-grade plutonium. But sources at the DOE say that the State Department is fervently pushing the plan for a Russian dump. A key player here is Strobe Talbott, assistant secretary of state and roving Russian envoy, who reportedly has argued that the NPT proposal may be a way to buttress the ailing Russian economy and keep the defense and nuclear forces from disintegrating.
The fact that the NPT plan is supported by top officials in the Clinton administration is a sign of how tightly wired this group is to the Washington establishment. The trust is overseen by some of America's top nuclear warriors. Its board includes Adm. Daniel J. Murphy, Adm. Bruce DeMars, William Webster, and Dr. William Von Raab. Murphy, the founder of USF&S, is former commander of the Sixth Fleet, deputy director of the CIA, chief of staff for George Bush when he was vice president, and vice chairman of Hill and Knowlton, the global PR firm. DeMars is former director of the Navy's nuclear propulsion program, chief of its nuclear submarine fleet, head of its reactor program during the Clinton era and, after his retirement, a high-paid consultant to defense firms. Webster is former director of both the CIA and the FBI and now an adviser on nuclear issues to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a D.C. think tank that is home to many former intelligence operatives. Von Raab served as U.S. Customs commissioner during the Reagan era (when tons of cocaine were being moved under the noses of customs agents by the contras) and as a top official of the old Federal Energy Administration. USF&S's corporate counsel is James Baker, former chief of staff and secretary of state under President Bush.
Over the past four years, the firm also has employed a retinue of lobbyists close to Congress and the White House. Most notable are Joseph R. Egan, who specializes in nuclear issues, William Oldaker, former general counsel to the Federal Election Commission, and Mark Grobmyer, one of Clinton's golfing buddies from Arkansas. In 1996, Grobmyer helped arrange a meeting between USF&S and Katie McGinty, then head of the President's Council on Environmental Policy, to discuss a hare-brained plan to move spent nuclear fuel from Russia to atolls in the South Pacific. Similar meetings took place at the National Security Council, CIA and DOE. One of the more bizarre figures involved in this outfit is Alex Copson, who variously has claimed to have been the drummer and the bassist for the dreadful heavy metal band Iron Butterfly. Copson has served as the frontman for USF&S, lining up venture capitalists as backers and promoting the firm's various schemes in the press. (A thorough account of Copson's earlier exploits can be found in Ken Silverstein's excellent book, Washington on $10 Million a Day.) For an impresario, Copson has a tendency to stick his foot in his mouth. When an early scheme to dump 200,000 tons of nuclear waste on the Marshall Islands collapsed due to fierce opposition from the islanders, Copson showed his true colors. "They're all scam artists, banging the tin cup in front of the white man," Copson told Outside magazine in 1995. "They've never lived so good since that bomb, the fat lazy fucks."
The NPT bills itself as a nonprofit enterprise, but the trust's partners and its principals could stand to make a killing in the international nuclear waste trade. The administrative take alone could top $1.2 billion. Plus, multimillion-dollar contracts would flow to allied firms such as Alaska Interstate Construction, which would designand build the storage facilities in Russia, and shipbuilder Halter Marine, a Gulfport, Miss. firm with close ties to Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott.
This is how the revolving door in Washington works these days. While they were government officials, the key players in the NPT ruthlessly pressed for ever-escalating expenditures for the nuclear arms and power industry. Now in the private sector, they are using their connections to cash in by inducing Russia to accept delivery of the world's most toxic materials.
The prospect of an international trade in nuclear waste troubles many environmentalists. "This plan represents the ultimate in 'not-in-my-backyard' thinking," says Mariotte of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. "The only real beneficiaries are nuclear utilities and the NPT personnel."
The NPT anticipated opposition from environmentalists in Russia and the United States. To deflect such criticism, they recruited one of the world's most prominent green groups, the Natural Resources Defense Council, as an ally. Thomas Cochran, director of the NRDC's nuclear program, has portrayed his and the NRDC's roles as limited. "I only provide public policy advice to NPT," Cochran told the industry newsletter NuclearFuels.
But according to the documents obtained by In These Times, the NRDC stands to play a much bigger role. Cochran is listed as a trustee of the MinAtom Development Trust (MDT), an entity described as "holding, disbursing, and auditing funds provided by the NPT for the purpose of modernizing and improving the security of MinAtom nuclear facilities and assisting MinAtom in non-proliferation goals." The MDT is hardly a small-time operation. According to the proposal, more than $3 billion could flow through its accounts.
The NRDC may stand to reap substantial financial benefits from the project. According to the proposal, the NPT would set up a $200 million "Russian Environmental Reclamation Fund" to be used "for the cleanup of radiologically contaminated sites and other worthy environmental protection initiatives in Russia." The fund would be managed by the NRDC - whose cut could total about 10 percent of the entire fund, or $20 million. In 1998, the NRDC's annual income was only $27 million.
Cochran responds that the agreement is an innovative approach that would give the ailing Russian economy, including its budget-strapped environmental programs, an infusion of cash as well as keep weapons-grade plutonium off the nuclear black market.
However, these marginal potential gains are far outweighed by the environmental and security risks posed by creating an international market for materials that remain lethal for millennia and can be converted relatively easily into the ingredients that power bombs capable of destroying cities. The responsibility for the safe disposal of commercial nuclear waste should reside with the nuclear utilities and not economically desperate governments that are driven to take the spent fuel over the objections of their own people.
Perhaps this is why the NRDC's partnership with MinAtom, the NPT and the former CIA men has not served to muzzle criticism of the plan by environmentalists in Russia, where it is fiercely opposed by all the leading green groups. "The plan by the NPT and the NRDC has nothing to do with environmental principles," says Slivyak of the Social Ecological Union. "Instead, it unethically promotes the interests of the Western nuclear industry, whose main interest is to get rid of its own nuclear waste."
Jeffrey St. Clair is a contributing editor of In These Times.
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C.I.A. Punishes 6 for Failure in Inquiry on Ex-Director
New York Times
May 26, 2000
By JAMES RISEN
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/052600cia-deutch.html
WASHINGTON -- The CIA said Thursday it had reprimanded six current or former officials for their roles in the agency's initial investigation into evidence that John Deutch, the agency's former director, mishandled classified information.
Gen. John A. Gordon, the deputy intelligence director, supervised the disciplinary action because the current director, George Tenet, participated in the Deutch inquiry. Gordon issued reprimands to two former senior officials and to one current one; admonished in writing another former employee and one current official; and orally admonished one other current employee.
Tenet was not among the six people reprimanded by Gordon. But Tenet has met privately with President Clinton to discuss a recent report on the handling of the Deutch case issued by the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. That report, which had been written at Gordon's request, criticized Tenet for failing to involve himself more forcefully in the Deutch case to ensure proper resolution.
In his meeting with the president, Tenet "acknowledged that he shared in the responsibility for shortcomings identified" in the advisory board's report, the agency said in a statement Thursday. Tenet's meeting with Clinton was the equivalent of the admonishments issued by Gordon to subordinates at the intelligence agency.
The agency did not identify the current or former officials reprimanded by Gordon. But it said that he had based his decisions on a review of reports by the agency's inspector general and by the advisory board, both of which criticized the same group of current and former intelligence officials involved in the initial investigation. The reports were particularly critical of the roles played in the investigation by Nora Slatkin, the former executive director of the agency, and by its former general counsel, Michael O'Neil.
Others cited in the two reports included Frederick Hitz, the agency's former inspector general, and Richard Calder, its deputy director for administration. The advisory board also criticized Tenet for allowing Slatkin to take charge of the Deutch investigation.
Both O'Neil and Slatkin were issued written reprimands by Gordon, their lawyers said.
"We sincerely regret and vigorously disagree with General Gordon's decision to reprimand Mr. O'Neil," said Roger Spaeder, O'Neil's lawyer. "At all times during his employment by the CIA, Mr. O'Neil acted in the utmost good faith."
Mark Tuohey, a lawyer for Slatkin, said she was "pleased this matter is concluded," and "still believes that the intent from the beginning to conduct a thorough investigation (of the Deutch case) was accomplished."
The disciplinary actions taken by Gordon followed a series of investigations dating back to the initial discovery in December 1996 that Deutch had placed classified material on unsecured computers in his home.
After being passed over for secretary of defense in President Clinton's second term, Deutch resigned as director soon after the 1996 election. As Deutch was leaving, an agency computer security official found that Deutch had stored large volumes of classified information he had created on unsecured, agency computers at his home.
The agency's security office began an investigation into whether Deutch had mishandled classified material in violation of agency rules and federal laws, but that inquiry soon bogged down.
Within weeks of the discovery, some CIA security officers came to believe that senior agency officials seeking to protect Deutch were blocking their efforts to conduct a thorough inquiry.
A security office report on the Deutch case was completed in 1997, but it was effectively shelved. No action was taken against Deutch, and the Justice Department was not notified that he might have broken the law until more than a year after the security breach was discovered. In 1998, an agency employee told the the Inspector General's Office that the initial investigation had been handled improperly. The inspector general then opened his own investigation and notified the Department of Justice.
In April 1999, Attorney General Janet Reno decided not to prosecute Deutch, but this year, the Justice Department opened a criminal investigation of the matter. In August 1999, Tenet suspended Deutch's security clearances.
-------- us military
Vaccine `Injuries' Cost Feds $1 Billion;
Database of CasesNow Available on Web
From: Preston Truman hermit@downwinders.org
WASHINGTON, May 26 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Government has paid more than $1 billion to compensate victims of vaccination injuries and continues to compile a huge database of all reported ``adverse events'' from vaccine administration, it was reported today by FedBuzz.com
The database, made available publicly for the first time on the Internet at http://www.fedbuzz.com , was instrumental in helping health officials detect bowel obstruction problems that led to the recent withdrawal of the rotavirus vaccine. While the overwhelming majority of vaccinations are safe and without incident, about 1700 of the 11,000 "vaccine adverse events" reported annually are serious, a category that includes hospitalizations, death or disability, FedBuzz reported.
For the more seriously harmed or fatally injured victims, many of them children, the government has established a Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP). The VICP has awarded more than $1 billion in compensation since it began in 1988, FedBuzz reported.
The FedBuzz.com special report -- When Vaccines Go Wrong`` -- will appear on the FedBuzz site home page (at http://www.fedbuzz.com) throughout the Memorial Day weekend, the company said. Starting on Tuesday, it can be found on the FedBuzz health and safety channel.
Called the VAERS database, for Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, the huge data file has been enhanced for public viewing by FedBuzz. Parents and others interested in the kind of reactions occurring after vaccinations can search all cases for the past several years.
``We're very glad that people have the opportunity to look at the database for themselves,'' said Susan S. Ellenberg, Ph.D., who helps monitor VAERS. ``Because the truth is, the more people are looking at VAERS, the more likely they are to find some kind of a signal that should be pursued.''
The FedBuzz news package also includes interviews with parents of children who suffer from vaccine-related medical problems.
FedBuzz.com, viewed at http://www.fedbuzz.com, is an OmniSite which provides news and data to help all Americans better access vital federal information. Last week, it was named a ``Hot Site of the Day'' by USA Today.
SOURCE: FedBuzz.com
----
Secret mission
Washington Times
May 26, 2000
Inside the Ring Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring-2000526211824.htm
The Pentagon has no plans for putting American peacekeepers in war-torn Sierra Leone. But that doesn't mean the United States isn't helping.
According to a reliable Army source, the United States dispatched from Germany to Sierra Leone a task force of Army Special Forces soldiers to help capture notorious rebel leader Foday Sankoh.
The source said the U.S. commandos blended in among 10,700 United Nations peacekeepers and helped pro-government forces locate Mr. Sankoh. The key break was developing an informant who said the Revolutionary United Front leader planned to return to his home to recover some stashed cash and diamonds. When he arrived, he was shot in the leg and captured.
The Sierra Leonean government announced that forces loyal to the government found him. But our source said it was the American soldiers who did the heavy lifting.
Mr. Sankoh is blamed for orchestrating a wave of violence and killings in an eight-year civil war. He was turned over to government troops and flown via British helicopter to a military police jail. British troops are openly assisting U.N. peacekeepers.
An administration official said Thursday that "to my knowledge" no U.S. Special Forces were sent to the West African nation.
The United States has acknowledged positioning a PT boat, presumably with Navy Seals on board, in the vicinity to handle any contingency. "The boat never did any upriver missions," the official said. It left the area after Mr. Sankoh's capture.
Ninja peacekeepers
The U.S. Army took it on the chin during a recent meeting of military representatives from the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia. The session at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, England, included addresses by British generals who criticized the Army for what they called its Ninja turtle approach to peacekeeping in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo.
They said American troops dress like ninjas with helmets and body armor and hide out in heavily fortified cantonments. The British, these generals said, shun body armor and wear light headgear. They extend their footprint with patrols of two lightly armed soldiers.
"The U.S. took the beating with regret, as it believes force protection is a responsibility, not a mission," said one Pentagon official. The official noted that the Clinton administration's approach is Somalia-centric - based on the disastrous peacekeeping operation in Somalia that led to the deaths of 18 U.S. soldiers in a firefight with Somalian rebels. "The administration's attitude is 'go everywhere, but don't get anyone hurt and don't hurt anyone,'" the official said.
Clinton's Air Force II
President Clinton is again mobilizing the Air Force for his upcoming trip to Russia. Pentagon officials said for the past several weeks huge C-5 cargo jets, and other aircraft, were diverted from other operations (such as sending humanitarian supplies) to ferry helicopters, limousines and security vehicles across the Atlantic. Word is the Air Force had to use 40 aircraft for the job. As one military officer put it, only half-jokingly: "We work harder to deploy the president than we ever have for a war."
The traveling White House leaves Monday for the eight-day trip to Portugal, Germany, Russia and Ukraine. The aircraft are sent because the president refuses to trust the local's helicopters for travel.
The last presidential junket was to India and cost upward of $27 million.
Costs for the latest trip? We won't know until after the trip, we are told.
-------- us nuc facilities
Nuclear Stockpile Guardians Squabble Over Cost of Project
New York Times
May 26, 2000
By JAMES GLANZ
http://www.nytimes.com/00/05/26/news/national/nuclear-stockpile.html
In an unusually public display of acrimony among the caretakers of the nation's nuclear stockpile, Sandia National Laboratories has charged that cost overruns on a giant laser at another federal laboratory may disrupt the program to ensure that the stockpile remains safe and reliable.
The laser, the National Ignition Facility, is designed to mimic some conditions at the heart of an exploding hydrogen bomb. But its expected construction costs at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have doubled to $2.1 billion, and critics in Congress have begun to wonder aloud if the project is worthwhile.
Since 1992, when the United States abandoned nuclear tests, the national laboratories have vied to devise ways to simulate nuclear explosions in hopes that these methods will allow them to determine whether stockpiled warheads are still usable.
Officials at the Energy Department, which runs both Sandia in Albuquerque and Lawrence Livermore in Livermore, Calif., publicly rebuked Sandia, saying its criticism was inaccurate and, in any event, should not have been made in public.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said the Sandia criticism was "totally out of line and inconsistent with the nation's stockpile stewardship policies."
Mr. Richardson said the cost overruns would be handled with money from defense programs, and largely within Livermore's existing budget.
"The labs are very competitive with each other, and this outburst is typical lab belly-aching that is sometimes aimed at jockeying for appropriations at the expense of each other," he said. "While we have contained the rivalries in the past, it seems that N.I.F. is too big a pot to ignore."
Under pressure, Sandia tempered its stance late yesterday, issuing a more conciliatory statement on the project.
But opponents of the laser seized on the original statement to advance their argument that the project was unworkable.
"The objections have been echoing around the weapons complex for the last couple of years," said Christopher Paine, a senior researcher at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "They're now being publicly stated."
The National Ignition Facility would consist of 192 individual laser beams converging on a tiny pellet of nuclear fuel to generate fusion energy -- a vastly scaled-down version of one element of a hydrogen bomb.
The laser, like other parts of the stockpile stewardship program at Sandia, Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratory, would allow scientists to approach the harsh conditions in bombs for study. But the project, which has been under construction since 1997, has encountered a series of problems, including the resignation of its director, construction delays and ballooning costs.
Those problems led to the critical statement on Tuesday from Tom Hunter, a senior vice president for defense programs at Sandia.
Delays and overruns at the laser project "will disrupt the investment needed to be made at the other laboratories," Mr. Hunter said. "This causes us to question what is a reasonable additional investment in the N.I.F."
Even though Sandia had contacted reporters with those criticisms, the statement today called their release inadvertent. Mr. Hunter is quoted in the release as saying that "public divisiveness is not helpful in finding good solutions," but he did not directly contradict the criticisms.
Rod Geer, a Sandia spokesman, said "the concern still exists" on how the various parts of the stockpile stewardship program will fit together financially.
Clay Sell, a staff member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the cost overruns were placing the project in jeopardy.
"Absolutely, it's in danger as a program," Mr. Sell said.
Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who is a member of the committee, said, "The project's costs appear to be rising sky-high," adding that "Congress needs to take more decisive action to prevent further money down the drain."
Mr. Richardson said, "We believe N.I.F. is important. And I have made the necessary management and structural changes to make it viable. The last thing we need is the Congress to try to decimate the project on the basis of their own local priorities."
----
Energy Dept. Nuke Contractors Fined
New York Times
May 26, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Nuclear-Facility-Fines.html
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000526/us/nuclear_facility_fines_2.html
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) -- The Energy Department has fined two contractors at nuclear sites in Washington and Colorado a total of $123,750 for failing to adequately protect workers exposed to radioactivity.
The agency also cited a contractor at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, but levied no fine.
Bechtel Hanford, Inc., a contractor at the Hanford reservation in south-central Washington, was fined $82,500 over a June 1999 incident in which three workers were exposed to airborne radioactivity after they unwrapped a ``highly contaminated'' piece of equipment, the DOE said.
No signs were posted to warn of the hazard, and employees continued to work in the area for about 13 days without protective gear, though none appeared to have suffered any ill health effects, the DOE said.
A statement released Thursday by Bechtel Hanford said the company ``takes responsibility for this incident ... and agrees with the conclusions from the DOE.''
The DOE also ordered a fine of $41,250 against Kaiser-Hill Co., LLC, the main cleanup contractor at the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant outside Denver.
It involved a February 1999 incident in which an employee performing decontamination work received a dose of radioactivity that entered his body through a cut on his finger, the DOE said. An investigation revealed shortcomings in safety procedures.
Spokeswoman Greta Thomsen said the company would not contest the fine. ``As a result of our corrective actions, we've greatly improved our work controls and procedures,'' she said.
Both fines were reduced because the companies took corrective steps, the DOE said.
International Isotopes Idaho, Inc., a subcontractor at INEEL in southeastern Idaho, was cited but not fined after two workers were exposed to a small amount of radioactivity while they were replacing ventilation filters last July, the DOE said. They were not harmed. Investigators determined the subcontractor failed to adequately plan how to protect the workers.
-------- california
"Living Next to a War Factory"
Date: Sat, 27 May 2000 17:27:18 -0700 (PDT)
From: Steve Wagner <lakemerrittneighbors@yahoo.com>
THYROID DISEASE AND ROCKET PRODUCTION
You may have read about the relationship between perchlorate, a byproduct of rocket production, and thyroid disease in previous articles here at the website. (See: http://thyroid.about.com/library/weekly/aa061999.htm) The L.A. Weekly had a news feature in early May, "Living Next to a War Factory," http://www.laweekly.com/ink/00/24/news-collins.shtml, which covered the issue of perchlorate contamination of the water that was caused by the company Aerojet's Chino Hills, California military industrial complex facility. Now, the O.C. Weekly has come out with an expanded cover-story of the piece with much more crucial information about the subject. The title of the cover story is "HEY! This Water Tastes Like Rocket Fuel! Russians, Rockets and the Santa Ana River." The article is available (hard-copy) locally in Orange County, Long Beach and at the L.A. Weekly. The O.C. Weekly cover-story is also available on- line at http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/00/37/news-collins.shtml Concerned Orange County, California citizens, and anyone else caring about the perchlorate situation and its impact on health and thyroid are encouraged to participate in this discussion by sending a letter to: http://www.ocweekly.com
-------- idaho
INEEL INCINERATOR TO SHUT DOWN
AmeriScan:
May 26, 2000
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/may2000/2000L-05-26-09.html
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho, May 26, 2000 (ENS) - The Department of Energy (DOE) plans to shut down an operating radioactive waste incinerator at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL) no later than September 2002. The agency has decided against upgrading the Waste Experimental Reduction Facility (WERF) incinerator at the INEEL to meet new air emissions standards established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Instead, DOE plans to use commercial facilities and non-incineration processes to treat the mixed low level radioactive waste that has been burned at WERF. The incinerator may shut down by the end of September 2001, unless DOE decides to seek a one year extension allowed by EPA regulations.
"The amount of waste that we've been able to identify for potential treatment in the future doesn't justify the expense of upgrading the facility," said Beverly Cook, manager of DOE's Idaho Operations Office. "I want to emphasize, however, that until the incinerator is shut down, we will continue to operate it safely, and within the current health and safety standards." The WERF incinerator began burning low level radioactive waste in 1985. In 1995, it began treating mixed waste, which contains both radioactive wastes and hazardous chemicals. Incineration destroys hazardous chemicals and reduces waste volume. The incinerator has treated about 9,500 cubic meters of low level waste, and about 570 cubic meters of mixed waste, including waste from other DOE facilities. About 2,000 cubic meters of mixed low level radioactive wastes are now stored at INEEL. Alternative treatment methods include binding contaminants into an inert material or compressing the wastes before shipment for offsite disposal. DOE will also consider shipping wastes to commercial incinerators. A draft document of the shutdown plan will be made available to the public by June 30 for a 30 day comment period.
* PORTSMOUTH WORKERS EXPOSED TO RADIATION FOR DECADES
WASHINGTON, DC, May 26, 2000 (ENS) - Workers at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Ohio were exposed to uranium dust, arsenic and other toxins for decades, the DOE reported Thursday. The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant is one of two facilities owned by the U.S. government which enrich uranium for use as fuel in nuclear power reactors. Certain work activities and locations were more risky for workers than others, the agency said in releasing the results of a five month investigation of past and current practices that affected the environment and the safety and health of workers and the public at the plant. Personnel working in the oxide conversion section of the plant were exposed to continuous airborne and surface radioactive contamination between 1957 and 1978. Workers were also exposed to asbestos, beryllium and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls).
The report concludes that current operations in DOE controlled areas of the plant do not present an immediate risk to workers or the public, but that there are also weaknesses that need to be addressed. Work has begun to reduce the spread of contamination from waste areas and to public areas beyond the plant's boundaries. The DOE says progress has been made implementing existing cleanup agreements, and the plant is in full compliance with state and federal Environmental Protection Agency requirements. The team did not look at uranium enrichment operations now conducted at the plant by the United States Enrichment Corp., which is regulated by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. "Our investigations of the Energy Department's environmental, safety and health practices during the Cold War help in determining additional steps we can take today to correct the wrongs of the past," said Assistant Secretary for Environment, Safety and Health Dr. David Michaels. "While this report confirms that workers and the public aren't at risk, there are actions the department can and will take to promote the safety and heath of our workers and the public." The full report is available at: http://www.tis.eh.doe.gov/oversight/reviews/portsmouth/
* NUCLEAR CONTRACTORS CITED FOR ENDANGERING WORKERS
WASHINGTON, DC, May 26, 2000 (ENS) - The DOE has cited three of its nuclear site contractors for exposing workers to radiation. Bechtel Hanford, Inc., the contractor at the Hanford Site in Washington state, was fined $82,500 for exposing three workers to airborne radioactivity in June 1999. Workers unwrapped a contaminated filter press in a transfer bay without using appropriate precautions. The bay was not posted as a radioactive hazard, and workers continued to access the bay for about 13 days without required respiratory protection. None of the workers had measurable increases in radioactive contamination.
At the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site outside Denver, Colorado, a worker was exposed to plutonium and americium through a cut on his finger. The Kaiser Hill Company, LLC was fined $41,250 for the February 1999 event involving an employee performing decontamination and decommissioning work. The worker received an estimated dose of 65 rem, which exceeds the DOE's exposure limit of 50 rem. The department found that Kaiser Hill managers failed to take appropriate safety precautions and allowed a lone worker to dismantle a large glove box, a violation of operating procedures. International Isotopes Idaho, Inc., a subcontractor at the DOE's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory in southeastern Idaho, was cited but not fined after two workers were exposed to a small amount of radioactivity while replacing ventilation filters in July 1999. "The Department of Energy has established clear nuclear safety procedures, and we expect these procedures to be followed," said Dr. David Michaels, the DOE's assistant secretary for Environment, Safety and Health. "Although not every violation of safety procedures results in harm to workers or the public, we demand that our contractors adhere to the rules, so that serious accidents can be prevented."
-------- california
Dangerous Dirt
Many critics question cleanup of toxic William Mead
by Joseph Treviño,
L.A. Weekly
May 26 - June 1, 2000
http://www.laweekly.com/printme.php3?&eid=15195
Barely visible from the street, bulldozer crews toil to dig up tons of toxic soil from once well-kept lawns. Silver air monitors that look like space-age bird houses can be seen through the green-colored dust guard draped around a 10-foot steel fence.
Here in Lincoln Heights, a $1.5 million cleanup is under way at William Mead Homes, one of L.A.'s largest housing projects. Residents of three buildings have been temporarily moved out. Windows and doors are sealed with plastic covers to prevent possibly cancer-causing dust from seeping inside.
To some residents and community-watchdog groups, the measures taken over the last seven years by the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles fall far short. They believe that replacing two feet of toxic dirt with fresh soil will not solve the environmental problems they blame for sickening them and, in a dozen or so cases, causing the cancer deaths of tenants.
"Capping-off two feet of soil is a Band-Aid approach," said Suzanna Tapia, the executive director for Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), a watchdog group based in L.A. "In a few years, the contamination will resurface again."
According to tests overseen by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), some of the highest levels of toxics in William Mead occur as deep in the soil as five feet. Tapia and others fear that rain could, in a matter of years, bring the contamination back to ground level. Tapia and attorneys from the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles have asked housing officials to stop the cleanup until more thorough testing can be done. But those officials refused, said Bill Davis, the Housing Authority staff member who is overseeing the removal effort.
Forty-nine families have been relocated, and another 64 families from three other buildings will be moved in a matter of weeks, said Housing spokesman Hugo Garcia. Some families have been moved to hotels, while others have been given stipends or are staying with relatives.
The cleanup is expected to take another six months. Housing officials say work crews will remove up to 11,500 tons of soil that was contaminated by an old oil refinery operated by the Amalgamated Oil Company during the early 1900s. The William Mead projects were constructed in 1940, long before concerns about environmental hazards were raised.
Toxicologists with the State Department of Toxic Substances Control say there are high levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), a cancer-causing oil byproduct, in the surface soil of William Mead. Over the years, they cautioned residents to avoid direct contact with the soil, advice that is especially unlikely to be followed by children and gardeners. Tests found the average levels of the compound at 19 parts per million; the state considers 1 part per million a safe level.
During a recent meeting at William Mead, hundreds of residents displayed their dissatisfaction with the removal and relocation efforts. They told Housing Authority and DTSC officials that they have always had little say in the way things are done at William Mead.
"The process is under way, and we will not stop," the Housing Authority's assistant executive director, Lucille Loyce, told residents.
Maria Quezada, a William Mead resident who says that she and her two children have been suffering from respiratory problems since they moved to William Mead, asked the residents, "Those of you who are unhappy with the way things are [being] done, raise your hands." Most hands went up.
One of the oldest housing projects in Los Angeles, William Mead is home to 1,400 low-income Latino and Vietnamese immigrants. It is also the site of an elementary school.
For years, William Mead residents have complained of many illnesses, such as cancer and respiratory problems. They blame these health problems on the contamination, including more than two-dozen deaths they believe to be linked to the contamination. Housing officials were first alerted about the William Mead contamination in 1993 by a former resident, many of whose relatives and friends had died of cancer. He believed that their illnesses were linked to the site.
One of the nagging issues for residents has been what they perceive as a lack of concern for their problems. After a story appeared in the Weekly in January documenting the contamination, DTSC spokesman Ron Baker suggested that a health study should be done to determine whether the contamination might be responsible for the illnesses of the residents. But getting government agencies to respond hasn't been easy.
County health officials, claiming they were never officially notified, said that they have just recently begun to look into the health problems at William Mead, and that it is still too early to say what measures might be taken. Housing Authority Executive Director Don Smith has said in interviews that he sympathizes with sick residents and encourages them to be screened at a William Mead on-site clinic. But environmental and tenant rights organizations, including CBE and the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, have asked DTSC and Housing Department officials to help residents get health screenings at an independent medical facility.
Baker compared the William Mead situation to Northern California's Midway Village, a Daly City housing project that was built on top of a former gas plant. According to state scientists, the plant left chemical residues that include PAH's - the same oil byproduct found in William Mead. The levels found in 1990 in Daly City were 170 times higher than the state standards.
As at William Mead, Midway Village residents believe that a slew of illnesses, including cancer, are linked to the contamination. Fifty-eight of 400 residents went so far as to pay the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to analyze DNA tests they also had paid for themselves, according to San Francisco Chronicle stories that ran earlier this year.
Federal tests showed that 32 of 34 residents ages 18 and under had defective chromosomes. Out of 24 adults, 19 had abnormal levels of irregularities in their DNA. (Scientific studies have revealed that genetic defects can make people more prone to cancer and other illnesses.)
Following the Chronicle stories, Daly City elected officials, unlike those in Los Angeles, stepped in and demanded that the residents be screened. State Assembly majority leader Kevin Shelley introduced a bill that would require the state to conduct a health assessment to try to determine whether there is a linkage between the illnesses of residents and the toxics there.
At William Mead, even as housing crews unearth tainted soil, a Los Angeles Unified School District environmental expert said that the process might endanger children who attend an on-site elementary school. In a letter to LAUSD Interim Environmental Health and Safety Director Angelo Bellomo, Bill Piazza, an environmental assessment coordinator for the LAUSD, said that the process of removing tons of dirt could cause soil particles to be blown toward nearby Ann Street Elementary School.
The removal, Piazza wrote, "cannot ensure the health of our students and staff attending class and/or working at . . . Ann Street School." He added that the project should stop until further studies could be done. In his letter, Piazza said that the removal of the soil in William Mead could cause "inhalation of particulates [that] may cause coughing, wheezing and [other] physical discomfort in breathing, and may alter the immune system." He added that the "elevation in the level of ambient particulates has been linked to increased mortality, respiratory infections, asthma attacks, and aggravation of pre-existing respiratory and cardiovascular diseases." A screen cover has been attached to a fence that surrounds the affected buildings, as have air monitors, to ensure that contaminated particles are not blown in the direction of students or residents, said Housing Authority spokesman Garcia.
Legal Aid attorneys and CBE members were outraged by the problems noted in Piazza's letter. Both groups scolded Housing Authority officials during a recent meeting at William Mead. CBE member Fidel Rodriguez told Housing officials that community members felt that additional soil tests were needed before continuing with the removal project.
Tenants continue to complain about relatives who have been struck by cancer or by respiratory problems. Quezada, the mother of two, said that she started having breathing problems as soon as she moved into William Mead almost two years ago. "I am sick and so is my family," Quezada said.
"This is outrageous," said the CBE's Rodriguez in an interview. "You know this wouldn't be happening in Beverly Hills. This is outright environmental genocide." And at a recent meeting with Housing Authority officials, Rodriguez said, "This is purely environmental racism" as residents cheered on. "You are saying that everything is just fine, but you don't care about the residents. People are dying here."
----
Living Next To A War Factory
Neighbors of Closed Aerojet Plant Worry About Their Health and Water
by Michael Collins
The L.A. Weekly, May 5 - 11, 2000
Full Story Found at http://www.laweekly.com/ink/00/24/news-collins.shtml
Fred Sharp thought it was funny the time his son brought home 20 rounds of machine-gun ammo he had found in his Chino Hills neighborhood. But Sharp was less amused on March 14, 1999, when a neighbor pointed out an odd-looking metal egg in a vacant lot. It was a grenade - with the pin missing. Soon the Fire Department's arson unit arrived to blow it up.
Sharp lives in one of the hottest new cities in Southern California, a burgeoning bedroom community where luxurious tract homes sell for a tidy $700,000. Many residents are unaware of the Cold War legacy hidden high in the local hills - one that includes radioactive and chemical contamination, in addition to countless undetonated munitions.
They are the products of a clandestine 800-acre complex that operated for nearly 40 years before it was closed in 1995 by military-industrial giant Aerojet General. The site, surrounded by barbed wire and virtually inaccessible cliffs, is near the juncture of Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties. There, Aerojet detonated mustard- and tear-gas weapons, exploded depleted uranium-tipped projectiles, and produced a galaxy of bombs and munitions. The depleted uranium on the projectiles, which were deployed as tank-busters in the Gulf War and Kosovo, is linked to bone cancer and kidney disease and has a half-life of 4.468 billion years. The Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute noted in 1998 "possible relationships between depleted uranium and neurological, immunological, carcinogenic, genotoxic and mutagenic effects."
Residents of Chino and Chino Hills claim that chemical and radioactive poisons oozing from the site are damaging their health, even causing cancers. And though linking specific cases of cancer to environmental causes is exceedingly difficult, 58 residents have sued Aerojet, alleging fraud, negligence and seven wrongful deaths. They seek compensation for medical expenses, lost wages, lower property values, and legal fees for, according to the complaint, "willful, wanton and despicable conduct."
"It's Rocketdyne East," said Jonathan Parfrey, local director of the environmental group Physicians for Social Responsibility, referring to the better-known military-industrial complex tucked between the Simi and San Fernando valleys. Residents there blame their sicknesses on cancer-causing chemicals and radioactive pollutants. "But unlike the Rocketdyne situation, the community in Chino Hills is disorganized. Aerojet's classified experiments haven't been scrutinized, and the government has apparently bought Aerojet's [contention] that decades of spraying and exploding death-dealing chemicals can be remediated simply by trucking loads of contaminated dirt off-site."
Now, after the nearly five-year-long dismantling of Aerojet's massive complex, activists and residents are worried that their air and soil have been contaminated by radiation and chemicals. Despite reassurances from the government that a proposed cleanup plan will repair the damage, they point to secretive Aerojet restoration activities, a lack of company openness about chemicals deemed classified and an outright dismissal by Aerojet of responsibility for some of the toxins found in the area. And their misgivings may be legitimate - there is evidence that not only is the site polluted, but its toxins may have seeped toward the water supplies used by millions of Southern Californians.
-------- california
Date: Fri, 26 May 2000 16:58:23 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: NIF articles
Greetings NIF foes:
The other day I posted Tri-Valley CAREs' media advisory regarding the Sandia Lab position paper stating that the National Ignition Facility mega-laser at Livermore Lab should be cut in size and budget. Since then, there has been a flurry of activity, including a sharp rebuke from Energy Secretary Bill Richardson and a next day "mea culpa" statement from Sandia about making its position public -- but, very importantly, not in any way backing off from the substance of the position. There have been a number of good stories in the press, including in the New York Times, the "trade" papers, the New Mexico papers and the Livermore, California area papers. For some articles, I don't have electronic files, and for others the e-files are a formatting disaster zone with as many weird symbols as there are words. Also, I don't want to burden the list serve with too many articles. So I have chosen one from the Alburquerque Tribune to post to you all. I think that you will enjoy reading them, and together, they will give you a pretty good idea of what's going on. Peace, Marylia Read on...
NIF story #2, this one from New Mexico...
Sandia labs 'regrets' its NIF project assessment
By Lawrence Spohn
Albuquerque Tribune reporter
Sandia National Laboratories went from superhero to wimp in 24 hours in the eyes of critics of a multibillion-dollar laser project.
After being verbally hammered by Department of Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, the Albuquerque labs issued a statement "of regret" Thursday for revealing its assessment of the over-budget and delayed national fusion laser at a sibling lab in California.
Sandia believes the multibillion-dollar National Ignition Facility at Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif., should be reduced in size, scope and budget because of its impact on other vital nuclear-weapons missions.
But Sandia President Paul Robison on Thursday called the public release of Sandia's "internal" position paper "inadvertent." He said Sandia regrets it got out. However, nothing in his one-page statement countered Sandia's analysis of NIF.
Tom Hunter, Sandia's senior vice president for defense programs, said: "It is not our role to take a formal public position on this issue, nor to second guess the Department of Energy."
DOE operates the nation's three nuclear-weapons labs, Sandia and Los Alamos in New Mexico, and Livermore in California.
"Public divisiveness between the laboratories is not helpful in finding good solutions," Hunter said, "and is counter to the approach we try to take in dealing with these important national issues."
While NIF critics had praised Sandia's independence Wednesday, the lab was called on the carpet by Richardson, who called its assessment of NIF "totally out of line and inconsistent with the nation's (nuclear-weapons) stockpile stewardship policies."
Richardson's own NIF plan, announced earlier this month, is to complete the troubled laser that has been under construction since 1997 at Livermore, where lab officials acknowledged last fall that the project was hundreds of millions of dollars over budget and some 18 months behind schedule.
Livermore public affairs official Susan Houghton said Thursday that NIF's original $1.2 billion budget will need an additional $1 billion to complete, and it will be delayed until about 2008.
But critics contend that NIF has ballooned into a $10 billion boondoggle -- the ultimate cost to taxpayers for completing it. That amount, critics contend, will be needed to pay for conducting research to fix NIF's extensive and unique technical deficiencies, and for operating it for experiments designed to simulate nuclear-weapons explosions. Even then, they claim, it will fail.
In a terse statement issued after Sandia's analysis was reported in The Tribune on Wednesday, Richardson, a former New Mexico congressman, blasted Sandia and especially Hunter, who had prepared the assessment.
Richardson said Sandia's "view will be totally disregarded" in the process of salvaging NIF.
But longtime NIF critic, Marylia Kelly said she hopes that it's Richardson who Congress disregards in dealing with NIF and Livermore lab, a facility she sees as a spoiled child.
"They're like children in a candy store who want it all, and I mean everything, no matter what it costs," said Kelly, who is director of the Livermore citizens watchdog group Tri-Valley Cares.
She said if Richardson can't be the responsible parent acting in the interests of taxpayers footing the bill, Congress needs to step in and reign the project in.
Kelly's organization favors canceling NIF, saying it's too costly and serves "no national-security role."
The Energy Department and Livermore contend NIF is crucial to maintaining the nation's nuclear arsenal, and the directors of the three national labs issued a white paper last month re-validating the project's potential scientific role.
But Kelly; Tom Cochran, a nuclear-weapons analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, D.C.; and Leo Mascheroni, a former Los Alamos Lab fusion scientist, are among NIF critics calling for full congressional hearings.
"This is a $3.6 billion monkey on the taxpayers' backs," Mascheroni said Thursday. "It has an incredible history of mismanagement, waste, lies and fraud that needs to be exposed."
He said Richardson himself likely is not aware of most of it.
Kelly said the important thing about the Sandia assessment is "that horse is out of the barn. They can't take it back, and it's about time somebody stood up and told the truth about NIF.
"I was heartened by Sandia's courage and independence (Wednesday)," she said, "but today I am disheartened by their backing off of issuing it. But the content remains, and that's what's important for the public and Congress to look at."
Marylia Kelley Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment) 2582 Old First Street Livermore, CA USA 94550 http://www.igc.org/tvc/ - is our web site, please visit us there! (925) 443-7148 - is our phone (925) 443-0177 - is our fax
-------- new mexico
Nuclear Stockpile Guardians Squabble Over Cost of Project
New York Times
May 26, 2000
By JAMES GLANZ
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/052600sci-missile-defense.html
In an unusually public display of acrimony among the caretakers of the nation's nuclear stockpile, Sandia National Laboratories has charged that cost overruns on a giant laser at another federal laboratory may disrupt the program to ensure that the stockpile remains safe and reliable.
The laser, the National Ignition Facility, is designed to mimic some conditions at the heart of an exploding hydrogen bomb. But its expected construction costs at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have doubled to $2.1 billion, and critics in Congress have begun to wonder aloud if the project is worthwhile.
Since 1992, when the United States abandoned nuclear tests, the national laboratories have vied to devise ways to simulate nuclear explosions in hopes that these methods will allow them to determine whether stockpiled warheads are still usable.
Officials at the Energy Department, which runs both Sandia in Albuquerque and Lawrence Livermore in Livermore, Calif., publicly rebuked Sandia, saying its criticism was inaccurate and, in any event, should not have been made in public.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said the Sandia criticism was "totally out of line and inconsistent with the nation's stockpile stewardship policies."
Mr. Richardson said the cost overruns would be handled with money from defense programs, and largely within Livermore's existing budget.
"The labs are very competitive with each other, and this outburst is typical lab belly-aching that is sometimes aimed at jockeying for appropriations at the expense of each other," he said. "While we have contained the rivalries in the past, it seems that N.I.F. is too big a pot to ignore."
Under pressure, Sandia tempered its stance late yesterday, issuing a more conciliatory statement on the project.
But opponents of the laser seized on the original statement to advance their argument that the project was unworkable.
"The objections have been echoing around the weapons complex for the last couple of years," said Christopher Paine, a senior researcher at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "They're now being publicly stated."
The National Ignition Facility would consist of 192 individual laser beams converging on a tiny pellet of nuclear fuel to generate fusion energy -- a vastly scaled-down version of one element of a hydrogen bomb.
The laser, like other parts of the stockpile stewardship program at Sandia, Livermore and Los Alamos National Laboratory, would allow scientists to approach the harsh conditions in bombs for study. But the project, which has been under construction since 1997, has encountered a series of problems, including the resignation of its director, construction delays and ballooning costs.
Those problems led to the critical statement on Tuesday from Tom Hunter, a senior vice president for defense programs at Sandia.
Delays and overruns at the laser project "will disrupt the investment needed to be made at the other laboratories," Mr. Hunter said. "This causes us to question what is a reasonable additional investment in the N.I.F."
Even though Sandia had contacted reporters with those criticisms, the statement today called their release inadvertent. Mr. Hunter is quoted in the release as saying that "public divisiveness is not helpful in finding good solutions," but he did not directly contradict the criticisms.
Rod Geer, a Sandia spokesman, said "the concern still exists" on how the various parts of the stockpile stewardship program will fit together financially.
Clay Sell, a staff member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the cost overruns were placing the project in jeopardy.
"Absolutely, it's in danger as a program," Mr. Sell said.
Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who is a member of the committee, said, "The project's costs appear to be rising sky-high," adding that "Congress needs to take more decisive action to prevent further money down the drain."
Mr. Richardson said, "We believe N.I.F. is important. And I have made the necessary management and structural changes to make it viable. The last thing we need is the Congress to try to decimate the project on the basis of their own local priorities."
---
Monitoring of Los Alamos Lab Sought
Associated Press
May 26, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Fire-Air-Monitoring.html
LOS ALAMOS, N.M. (AP) -- Environmentalists are demanding an independent analysis and regular monitoring of radiation levels on the fire-ravaged land around Los Alamos National Laboratory.
A federal air-monitoring team last week reported elevated background radiation levels, which it said would be normal when vegetation burns. But the levels, in some cases 2 to 10 times higher than normal, triggered concern among some New Mexico residents.
``We're calling for an independent citizens review board to assess the monitoring data and risks, and we want a long-term health study of people exposed to the smoke,'' Suzanne Westerly, director of Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety in Santa Fe, said Thursday.
Russian nuclear and atmospheric scientist Sergei Pashchenko, a consultant to a non-governmental group which works to ban weapons containing depleted uranium, said he analyzed the limited data available on the lab's Internet site and determined it could not be discounted as naturally occurring effects of the fires.
Lab spokesman Kevin Roark had no comment on the claims but said he wasn't surprised.
``Every time we put out data, the activist groups dispute it,'' he said.
The wildfires burned more than 48,000 acres and destroyed more than 200 homes near the labs in northern New Mexico.
On the Net: Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety: http://www.nuclearactive.org/
Los Alamos National Laboratory: http://www.lanl.gov/worldview
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Long Island Prosecutor Will Lead Case Against Wen Ho Lee
New York Times
May 26, 2000
By JAMES STERNGOLD
http://www.nytimes.com/00/05/26/news/national/nuclear-case.html
LOS ANGELES, May 25 -- The Justice Department said today that it was sending George A. Stamboulidis, a respected prosecutor from Long Island who is experienced in organized crime and public corruption cases, to lead the prosecution of the scientist accused of illegally downloading highly sensitive nuclear weapons secrets at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Mr. Stamboulidis, who successfully prosecuted a number of organized crime figures in the Genovese, Colombo and Luchese crime families, will take over from Bob Gorence, an assistant United States attorney in Albuquerque, where the scientist, Wen Ho Lee, will be tried.
Officials said several weeks ago that Mr. Gorence was being replaced as the lead prosecutor, but they have not said why. Patricia Chavez, a spokesman for the United States attorney's office in Albuquerque, said only that Mr. Gorence would remain one of the prosecutors on the case. Mr. Gorence could not be reached for comment today.
It is somewhat unusual for the government to switch lead prosecutors so late in a case. Mr. Lee was indicted last December; his trial, which is expected to be highly complex and involve large volumes of classified information on thermonuclear weapons technology, is scheduled for early November.
Mr. Lee is charged with improperly downloading a vast quantity of classified data with the intention of providing it to a foreign country. Although he was investigated for years on suspicion of passing secrets to China, he is not charged with espionage or with actually handing over any classified data to anyone else. Mr. Lee has denied the charges.
Two important hearings will be held in the coming weeks, and Mr. Lee's lawyers have said they will resist any delays because Mr. Lee is being held in jail without bail.
A hearing is scheduled for June 7 on the defense's challenge of the original search warrant used to gather evidence from Mr. Lee's home. And the United States district judge overseeing the case, John Edwards Conway, has set June 12 as the date for what could prove to be a crucial hearing: the defense's request that all the classified data Mr. Lee is accused of improperly downloading be admitted as evidence in the trial.
The defense has said it will try to show that the data was, in most instances, either already available publicly or useless without other codes and equipment. The government is expected to argue that, for national security reasons, the information must be kept confidential.
If the judge rules that the data is admissible, the government would have to decide whether to allow its release or potentially to drop the charges. If the judge denies the request, it could force a major reconsideration of the defense strategy.
Mr. Stamboulidis recently succeeded in the prosecution of the head of the Republican Party in Suffolk County, John Powell, but does not have extensive experience with national security issues.
Alan Vinegrad, the chief assistant United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, who supervises Mr. Stamboulidis, said he did not believe that would matter because of Mr. Stamboulidis's extensive trial experience with complex cases.
"He is a superb prosecutor and trial lawyer," Mr. Vinegrad said.
"He's a quick study."
---
Veteran Prosecutor on Lee Case
A veteran federal prosecutor who has won convictions of organized crime figures in New York was named to take charge of the case against a former U.S. government scientist accused of mishandling nuclear secrets, the Justice Department said.
George Stamboulidis, who put members of four crime families in prison, will become the lead prosecutor in the government's case against Wen Ho Lee, a former scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.
Stamboulidis will replace Bob Gorence, the locally based assistant U.S. attorney. A Justice Department official said Gorence was removed as lead prosecutor after allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct toward support staff in the office.
-------- ohio
Report may push legislation to help Piketon workers
Columbus Dispatch
Friday, May 26, 2000
Jonathan Riskind Dispatch Washington Bureau
http://www.dispatch.com/news/newsfea00/may00/292811.html
WASHINGTON -- The federal investigation of conditions at a southern Ohio uranium-enrichment plant provides powerful ammunition to pass legislation compensating sickened nuclear-plant workers nationwide, several Ohio lawmakers said yesterday.
But the lawmakers expressed concern that the U.S. Department of Energy's four-month investigation of the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, Ohio concluded that ongoing cleanup work could endanger employees if safety practices aren't improved.
Energy Department officials formally released the Piketon report yesterday and briefed Republican Sens. Mike DeWine and George V. Voinovich of Ohio and Democratic Rep. Ted Strickland of Lucasville.
The Dispatch yesterday disclosed report findings, detailing exposures to dangerous materials during the Cold War and current problems with cleanup efforts, after obtaining a copy of the executive summary.
The report raises a "red flag'' about how environmental cleanup of abandoned parts of the Piketon plant is being conducted, DeWine said. He wants the Energy Department to give an update in four to six months showing how safety practices have been improved.
Among the criticisms leveled at cleanup contractor Bechtel Jacobs is that the radiation-protection program has a "lack of rigor, formality and discipline'' and that efforts to assess what contaminants are on the site and the potential dangers to workers are inadequate.
"We think there are no significant dangers to workers at the present,'' said David Michaels, assistant secretary of energy for health, safety and environment, after he briefed the lawmakers. But more needs to be done to "achieve a maximum level of protection for workers.''
Joe Nemec, president of Bechtel Jacobs, yesterday issued a statement noting that current conditions are safe. Bechtel, which has been in charge of the cleanup effort for less than two years, is still in the midst of putting its plan into effect.
"We take the . . . investigative report very seriously, and we view it as a tool to help us continue improving our environment, health and safety program,'' Nemec said.
The Piketon plant -- which produced weapons-grade uranium during the Cold War, but now manufactures commercial-grade material for nuclear-power-plant fuel -- is run by USEC, a privatized federal corporation.
USEC, which operates the country's two remaining enrichment plants, has said it is considering closing either the Piketon plant or its sister facility in Paducah, Ky., partly to bolster its sagging financial condition.
The Energy Department is responsible for cleaning up contaminated areas around the plant and would have to decontaminate the entire site if USEC shuts down its operations in Piketon.
Vina Colley, a former worker at the Piketon plant who does research into possible plant problems, said she is suspicious about the Energy Department's ability to investigate itself. She said years of radioactive releases from the plant endanger workers and nearby residents.
Energy Department officials insist that neither cleanup workers nor nearby residents are at risk and that many criticisms involve making sure Bechtel Jacobs puts better procedures in place to guard against potential dangers.
But there is considerably more danger of exposure to radiation and chemicals as the environmental restoration and decontamination goes forward, Strickland said. That is particularly so if the plant buildings have to be cleaned up.
About 350 cleanup workers are at Piketon, but those numbers are expected to sharply increase over the next several years, particularly if the plant, which employs about 2,000, shuts down.
"As the cleanup work continues, the potential risks increase,'' Strickland said after being briefed on the report. "The good news is, there is no current danger; the bad news is, unless some changes are made, there could be hazardous circumstances confronting workers in the future.''
Voinovich agreed, saying, "Current workers are not in jeopardy, but many things need to be improved.''
He also said the report, which follows similar findings at the Paducah plant, should make it easier to convince other Congress members of the importance of compensating nuclear-plant workers nationwide.
The Clinton administration has proposed giving up to $100,000 each to workers sickened by past radiation exposures. But Ohio lawmakers want to double that payment and include workers made ill by chemical exposures.
DeWine said the report should end the debate about whether Piketon plant workers and surviving family members deserve compensation.
"This report gives us more ammunition to go to our colleagues and say the federal government messed up; the federal government was negligent, the federal government hurt people, and they need to be helped,'' DeWine said.
-------- utah
Nuclear Waste Battle a Lost Cause?
BY JIM WOOLF
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
http://www.sltrib.com/05262000/utah/utah.htm
Utahns may not be able to stop construction of a temporary storage site for highly radioactive wastes on the Skull Valley Band of Goshute reservation in Tooele County, Gov. Mike Leavitt conceded Thursday.
"We are doing all we can to resist it," Leavitt said during his monthly televised news conference on KUED. "It's not inconceivable we won't succeed, but it's worthy of our efforts to prevent it."
And in an early-morning interview on KALL Radio, the governor noted: "We are slowly running out of ways to object" to the project.
The comments are markedly different from the defiant tone the governor has used in the past.
In 1993, when the Goshutes first expressed interest in storing on their land spent fuel from America's nuclear power plants, Leavitt said: "This is an over-my-dead-body issue. . . . They may be able to get a grant [to continue the study], but I guarantee they'll never get a permit to move waste over our borders.''
Since then the state has tried to place obstacles in the path of the consortium of eight nuclear utilities proposing the project.
But the consortium, known as Private Fuel Storage (PFS), has continued to move forward and now has a license application being considered by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Company officials say the facility could be open as early as 2003.
The latest blow to the governor's attempts to stop the project came Tuesday when the Tooele County Commission signed a contract giving PFS permission to operate in the area. The county would receive between $90 million and $300 million in the next 40 years, depending on how much waste is moved to the reservation.
"It's pretty clear that utilities are willing to spend billions to move it [the spent fuel] out of their back yard into ours," Leavitt said at the news conference.
"They were able to satisfy the needs of the Indian tribal nation -- with money. They were able to satisfy the needs of the [surrounding] private landowners -- with money. They were able to satisfy now the needs of the county -- with money.
"I don't think this ought to be about money. I t ought to be about the safety of people who live as neighbors to this potentially harmful installation."
Steve Erickson, from the Downwinders citizens watchdog group, agreed the governor is losing the battle.
But rather than "whimpering" about the situation, he encouraged the governor to fight harder and organize Utahns in a vocal protest against the storage site.
"This is not just over his dead body," said Erickson. "This affects all of us. We need to have broader public involvement."
Sue Martin, spokeswoman for PFS, said Tooele County commissioners' decision to support the project is an indication Utahns are beginning to understand what is being proposed.
"With more education about the science, technology and safety of the project, people become more comfortable with it. We hope that before this is over the governor and his staff will be comfortable too," she said.
The highly radioactive spent fuel rods would be sealed inside steel containers at the nuclear power plants. These containers then would be inserted into heavy transportation casks and shipped to Utah by railroad. Once at the site, about 70 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, the sealed containers would be transferred to above-ground concrete storage silos. The plan is to store the waste in Utah until a permanent disposal site is available in a mined cavern in southern Nevada.
Leavitt fears the waste never will leave Utah. Once the waste is safely stored in Tooele County, he says there will be no incentive to continue with the politically unpopular disposal site in Nevada.
-------- washington
Hanford firm faces fine for cleanup violations
The Oregonian
Friday, May 26, 2000
By Brent Hunsberger of The Oregonian staff
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/news/oregonian/00/05/lc_61fine26.frame
The U.S. Department of Energy has fined Bechtel Hanford Inc. $82,500 for allowing three workers to repeatedly expose themselves to airborne radioactivity while cleaning up a retired plutonium reactor at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
The department said workers at Hanford's 105B Reactor Facility, the world's first plutonium reactor, unwrapped a highly radioactive filter press June 8, 1999, without using proper safeguards. They then worked around the area for 13 days without proper respiratory protection, the agency said.
A department investigation this year found that none of the workers had absorbed measurable levels of radiation. But officials said the incident put workers at risk of significant multiple exposures.
Agency officials originally threatened to fine the company $165,000 but cut the penalty in half May 19, based on Bechtel Hanford's cooperative response.
David Michaels, the department's assistant secretary for environmental health, said the company took measures to prevent further problems. The company has 30 days to protest the fine.
-------- us nuc waste
TRANSMUTATION OF RADWASTE IS "NUCLEAR ALCHEMY GAMBLE"
From: "Gary Vesperman" <vman@skylink.net> Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 07:01:32 -0700
I suggest that the federal government instead take a proactive look at using low-voltage nuclear transmutation methods such as the ones being developed by Trenergy, Inc., in Salt Lake City, Utah. Gary
-------- us nuc weapons
The new arms race
Christian Science Monitor
May 26, 2000
By DANIEL SCHORR,
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1999/10/29/text/p11s1.html
The Clinton administration appears to be heading for a confrontation with Russia and China on its plans to develop an antiballistic missile (ABM) system capable of warding off blows from rogue states like North Korea and Iran.
This week the Russian Defense Ministry called a news conference to warn that if the US attempts to establish an ABM system, Russia will deploy enough nuclear warheads to overwhelm it. Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Mikhalov said Russia also has the capability of targeting any ABM installation.
The administration has offered Russia inducements such as help in completing a giant radar installation in Siberia in return for changes in the 1972 ABM Treaty banning antimissile defense.
What the administration has not disclosed is that Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott also delivered what the Russians regard as "a polite ultimatum" indicating the United States will abrogate the ABM Treaty if the Russians do not agree to modify it.
At a Moscow meeting on Sept. 8 and 9, Mr. Talbott presented President Yeltsin's government with two letters outlining the American position. Shortly hereafter, a delegation of American scientists and former diplomats arrived in Moscow and was briefed by the Russians on the Talbott meeting.
The statement is said to have told the Russians that President Clinton expects to give a green light next June for a so-called "national missile defense system," starting with sites in Grand Forks, N.D., and Alaska, and eventually covering all 50 states. The Russians quoted the letter as saying that if the Russians don't agree to changes, the US may simply abrogate a treaty as not being in the American national security interest.
The Russians said they had told Talbott that "we are on the threshold of disaster and a destruction of the whole arms control framework." Since then, the Russians have met with officials in Beijing. As a result, Russia and China have joined forces in submitting a resolution to the United Nations Security Council calling for "strict compliance" with the ABM Treaty.
Professor Theodore Postol of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a member of the American arms-control delegation that met with officials and military leaders in Moscow, says, "The Clinton administration has put us on the path to an arms race ... an international disaster of historic proportions."
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Gore backs arms talk Denies nuclear policy remarks related to Bush
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
May 28, 2000
Scott Shepard
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/sunday/news_93035b7a00d3202c1092.html
West Point, N.Y. --- Vice President Al Gore skirted dangerously close to partisan politics Saturday in an address to graduating West Point cadets that included indirect criticism of Texas Gov. George W. Bush's recent nuclear defense proposals.
Gore, in an interview with Cox Newspapers that followed the roughly 15-minute address, emphatically denied that his remarks were aimed at Bush. He also insisted that he scrupulously adhered to the tradition of avoiding partisan politics at the U.S. Military Academy.
"I defy you to find anything political in them," he said of his graduation remarks, his first at the historic campus. He said his comments reflected nuclear disarmament positions "I have held for 15 years," beginning with his career in Congress in which he became an acknowledged expert on nuclear arms reduction.
Leon Feurth, Gore's longtime national security adviser, told reporters that Gore's comments were timed to precede President Clinton's upcoming trip to Russia, not in response to last week's policy proposals by Bush. Clinton's trip is expected to center on talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin about further arms reductions.
There was no protest from West Point officials. Lt. Gen. Daniel Christman, the academy's superintendent, said the vice president's speech was "an apt description of the environment" in which West Point's graduating class of 943 cadets will find themselves.
In addition to defending the administration's nuclear defense policies, Gore reaffirmed his commitment to upgrading defense readiness and improving the life of military men and women through increased pay and benefits.
Gore also proposed strategies in which the United States aligns itself with those nations moving toward freedom and "still pressing for reform," while at the same time modernizing its own weaponry and strategies for a "Global Age."
"We have . . . to transform today's armed forces into tomorrow's information-age force, one that fully invokes America's strategic advantages, talent and technology," he said.
Gore did not mention Bush in his address. Yet many of the vice president's comments alluded to stands staked out by Bush last week and echoed comments the vice president had made about Bush's proposals on Air Force Two Friday night en route to New York.
"Any effort to go back in time to the Star Wars proposal . . . is, in the opinion of most experts that have talked about it, wildly optimistic," he said on his way to New York. "I'm persuaded by their arguments."
Bush, surrounding himself with GOP foreign policy luminaries last week, called for building a national missile defense system while simultaneously beginning unilateral cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
"An approach that combines serious unilateral reductions with an attempt to build a massive defense system will create instability, and thus undermine our security," Gore said in his address Saturday.
"Nuclear unilateralism will hinder, rather than help, arms control," he said. "Reductions have to be carried out in a way that reduces the risk of confrontation. If you're not careful, you could have a reduction of missiles and a more dangerous world."
Gore outlined the Clinton administration's efforts toward creating a national missile defense system that would protect all 50 states from a limited attack.
"We believe, however, that it is essential to do this in a way that does not destroy the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty," Gore said.
Some experts have suggested that Bush's missile defense proposal, which he envisions being extended to European, Asian and Middle Eastern allies, would violate the 1972 ABM Treaty with Russia. And Bush has said he is willing to scrap the pact to make room for the development of technology that could protect the country against missile strikes from a growing number of nuclear threats.
Bush, in unveiling his proposal at the National Press Club last Tuesday, suggested that nuclear policy in the Clinton administration "still resides in that already distant past" of the Cold War.
But Gore, before handing out diplomas to the graduating cadets, noted that "the classic security agenda is still with us," and that "we still face competition among nations that can lead to war."
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U.S. Defends Antimissile Plan
New York Times
May 26, 2000
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/052600sci-pentagon-missile.html
The Pentagon defended its antimissile plan yesterday against a critic who contends that the proposed system of ground-based interceptors is crippled by a technical flaw.
The critic, Theodore A. Postol, an arms expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, made his accusations in a May 11 letter to the White House. His criticism centers on the hardest part of the missile-defense challenge, distinguishing incoming weapons from decoys. He said a test had proved the job to be impossible, and said the Pentagon had conspired to cover up the failing.
Yesterday in a brief statement, the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization said, "The information on which he based his claims is incomplete and his conclusions are wrong." It said other parts of the antimissile system other than the criticized interceptor, including high-frequency radar on the ground and satellites in low orbit, would aid the job of distinguishing the decoys from the weapons.
"Dr. Postol," the statement said, "is not considering all the capabilities of our system of systems."
"For obvious reasons," the statement said, "we do not discuss the capabilities of the systems and how they deal with countermeasures," the term for ways an enemy might try to outwit a defensive shield.
Last week, the organization said a detailed written response was being prepared for Dr. Postol and the White House. Yesterday a spokesman said it had yet to be sent.
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Nuclear Swords and Shields
New York Times
May 26, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/00/05/26/editorial/26fri1.html
It seems fitting that the first presidential campaign of the new century should confront the most dangerous military legacy of the last century, nuclear arms. Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore initiated an important and healthy debate in recent days about how best to reduce nuclear arsenals and diminish the threat of an accidental or intentional nuclear conflict. America's security will be best protected if the next president moves boldly to cut nuclear arms without suddenly overturning the carefully calibrated balance between offensive and defensive weapons that has long been central to preserving the peace.
Mr. Bush, like Ronald Reagan in the 1980's, is impatient with the balance. The impulse is understandable. The primary deterrent to war is the chilling notion of mutual assured destruction, which requires Washington and Moscow to maintain sufficient nuclear firepower to annihilate one another. That balance of terror has always been unsettling and should be supplanted by a less threatening calculus. Placing a greater emphasis on defensive systems, as Mr. Bush proposes, is alluring.
But there are disabling problems with Mr. Bush's desire to make an antimissile shield a centerpiece of his nuclear strategy. For one thing, the technology to destroy even a handful of incoming warheads in outer space remains elusive. Intercepting just one warhead has proved difficult in recent tests. For another, an abrupt shift to defensive strategies would invite Moscow to increase its nuclear arsenal to ensure that it could overwhelm even a limited American antimissile system.
Though such matters of nuclear theology may seem anachronistic eight years after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, they cannot be escaped. Even at a time of cooperation, the United States and Russia possess thousands of nuclear weapons that must be responsibly managed. It is in neither nation's interest to make the other feel less secure.
But that is just the risk that Mr. Bush takes by emphasizing the immediate development of a robust antimissile defense. Apart from questions of cost and technology -- the United States has already wasted billions of dollars chasing this goal -- Mr. Bush's approach will tempt Washington to break out of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty. The pact limits the defensive systems that Washington and Moscow can construct. An American breakout would unravel the arms control work of six presidents, and encourage China to join a new arms race to overcome the shield.
Even Mr. Bush's own arms reduction proposals would be threatened. Many of the ideas he presented this week were constructive and creative. Mr. Bush made clear his commitment to seek deeper cuts than those provided under the last arms reduction treaty. The 1993 agreement requires Washington and Moscow to slash the number of long-range warheads from roughly 6,000 on each side to half that count. Mr. Bush seemed comfortable with eventually leaving each country with 2,000 to 2,500 long-range weapons. Drawing on the positive example his father set as president, Mr. Bush also said he would consider eliminating some American missiles and lowering the alert status of others on his own to encourage Moscow to respond in kind.
Given the potential threat of a missile attack from rogue nations like North Korea, the United States should be seeking to develop a limited defensive system against such an assault, which the Clinton administration is doing. But Washington must proceed with care by working with Moscow to reopen the ABM treaty rather than withdrawing from it. The next president should avoid reliance on expensive and unworkable antimissile technologies and not take steps that would lead Russia to rearm.
------
Bush Proposal on Arms: Breaking Cold War Mold
New York Times
May 26, 2000
By JOHN M. BRODER
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/052600wh-bush-missiles.html
WASHINGTON, May 25 -- Gov. George W. Bush's proposal this week to consider unilateral reductions in the American nuclear arsenal was a break with decades of strategic doctrine, a break that may foretell the end of traditional theories of arms control.
In Mr. Bush's vision, still lacking in many details, the threat of global annihilation -- or "mutual assured destruction" -- would no longer govern relations between the United States and other powers. The size of the American nuclear arsenal would no longer depend on the number of warheads that Russia possesses, nor be set in lengthy and painstaking arms control negotiations.
And the defensive shield against nuclear weapons that he proposes to build -- significantly larger than that envisioned by the Clinton administration -- would be shared with American allies and, perhaps one day, with Russia or even China.
Many of these ideas have been percolating among a bipartisan body of experts in the arms control community for years.
Indeed, it was President Ronald Reagan who trumpeted the idea of slashing offensive nuclear weapons and relying instead on a defensive shield that would render nuclear missiles obsolete. And at Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1986, Mr. Reagan also agreed with Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, on the principle of eliminating all their nuclear weapons, before he was pulled back by his advisers.
Years later, arms control is suddenly back at center stage in a presidential campaign that was expected to focus on domestic policy. And some of those same advisers who pushed Mr. Reagan away from his radical views on arms control are now advising Governor Bush, the presumptive Republican nominee, as he gives new voice to the idea of large cuts in offensive weapons, coupled with construction of missile defenses, and places it squarely on the current political agenda.
President Clinton will push his own arms control agenda in Moscow in 10 days when he meets with President Vladimir Putin to discuss cuts in long-range warheads. For new cuts, the administration wants Moscow to accept changes in a 1972 treaty to allow the fielding of a limited missile defense system.
Mr. Bush and his advisers argue that it is long past time for a radical reassessment of nuclear armaments. The idea of holding populations hostage to annihilation is worse than immoral, they say; it is irrelevant. They complain that President Clinton has wasted much of the decade since the end of the cold war by clinging to the orthodoxy of using the specter of "mutual assured destruction" to deter any nuclear power from contemplating a first strike.
"It's way past time for some fresh thinking about the structure of military capability in light of the kind of world we now live in," said George P. Shultz, secretary of state in the Reagan administration and one of Mr. Bush's foreign policy advisers. "That really hasn't been done."
Mr. Shultz, who was well known as a skeptic about Mr. Reagan's vision of a space-based umbrella to shield the United States from nuclear warheads, said his thinking has evolved on such defenses because of the rapid advance of technology. He said Mr. Bush knows that current technology cannot produce an impermeable nuclear shield any time soon. But, he added, "it's not too much to say there is a reasonable prospect to interpose a thin layer of defense."
Barry Blechman, a nuclear analyst at the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington, called this sort of talk "a breakthrough in Republican thinking."
"Bush is talking about going down to numbers that are lower than the military is currently willing to go," Mr. Blechman said.
What's more, Mr. Bush is discussing the possibility of making such reductions unilaterally, rather than through years of negotiations with Russia or China over accuracy, throw-weights, basing modes, build-downs and other esoterica.
Mr. Bush said he envisions a sweeping review of strategic needs by the Pentagon that will help establish the optimal size of the nuclear force. He will then challenge Russia to match American reductions in weaponry. His chief foreign policy adviser, Condoleezza Rice, calls these "reciprocal unilateral measures" and describes them as a simpler and less time-consuming way to do arms control than the interminable talks that have dominated arms control efforts with Moscow.
As another Bush adviser put it: "The governor said he was going to figure out what we need, reduce to that level, and encourage the Russians to do the same. We're not going to build stuff we don't need just because Russians have stuff they don't need."
But that was precisely the calculation that governed the arms race in the second half of the 20th century: each superpower kept building up its stockpile to match the other's, far beyond the needs of deterrence or any possible military requirement.
Vice President Al Gore had hoped that such questions would not become central to the presidential campaign this year. He and other administration officials felt they had neutralized much of the Republican fervor for a robust missile shield by moving toward a decision this year on a limited system of land-based national missile defense.
But Governor Bush portrayed the administration's approach as timid. He proposed a broader missile shield to appeal to conservatives and deeper weapons cuts than the administration has been willing to entertain.
Since the days of the missile gap, four things have changed the nuclear equation in fundamental ways: The Soviet Union fell apart. Advances in technology have held out the promise of missile defenses that may be at least partly effective. Years of arms control agreements have reduced the numbers of nuclear weapons by thousands with no apparent impact on the relative security of the United States and Russia. And a handful of smaller nations, among them North Korea and Iraq, have made strides toward developing nuclear weapons.
Mr. Bush and his advisers argued this week that United States policy has not kept pace with any of these developments.
"While deterrence remains the first line of defense against nuclear attack, the standoff of the cold war was born of a different time," Mr. Bush said in a speech Tuesday at the National Press Club. "Yet almost a decade after the end of the cold war, our nuclear policy still resides in that already distant past."
He proposed measures that would alter that policy, including building a defensive system that would cover all 50 states and could be extended to protect allies in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. In addition to holding out the possibility of large unilateral arms cuts, he said most American nuclear weapons should be removed from hair-trigger alert status.
He also offered reassurance to Moscow and Beijing that the American system, though it would almost surely entail violating the Antiballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, was not aimed at neutralizing their arsenals of long-range weapons.
That is an argument that has so far been rejected by those two countries, especially by China, whose relatively small nuclear force could be rendered irrelevant by even the limited antimissile system favored by Mr. Clinton.
Both countries argue that the old system of deterrence that Mr. Bush derides as outdated is still the most reliable method of keeping the nuclear peace. Chinese officials have said they might have to accelerate their own nuclear program if the Americans build an antimissile shield.
Mr. Gore quickly issued a statement rejecting Mr. Bush's ideas as risky and irresponsible. He said Mr. Bush wanted to resurrect the discredited Star Wars program of the Reagan era and flaunt American military superiority over Russia, China and every other nation. And he chastised Governor Bush for opposing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which was defeated in the Senate last fall on a largely party-line vote.
Mr. Gore's response drew a rebuke from Mr. Bush's advisers.
Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to President George Bush and a retired Air Force general, said construction of missile defenses should not be seen as a threat to the nuclear forces of Russia and China nor as an incentive for them to beef up their arsenals.
Moscow has sufficient political and financial reasons to continue to draw down its nuclear stockpile, he said, while Beijing is likely to continue its nuclear buildup regardless of what the United States does because it faces growing threats in its own region.
"This goes back to the cooperative concept," he said. "We tell both of them, 'North Korea is a problem for us; it's a problem for you, too. How can you help us, by changing the threat or helping us deal with it?' "
In a statement today, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, praised Mr. Bush's ideas -- up to a point. He applauded his intention to undertake a thorough review of America's nuclear posture and endorsed his plan to take weapons off high-alert status. He agreed that the size of the nuclear arsenal could safely be reduced.
But Mr. Biden also said that Mr. Bush held an unrealistic view of the feasibility and cost of missile defenses and that a radical revision of decades of deterrence unnerve allies and adversaries alike.
The senator urged Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore to remove the question from the political debate and to allow the next president to study the matter outside of the electoral arena.
"The longest-lasting foreign policy debate is not likely to be settled any time soon," Mr. Biden said.
-------- uranium
Geology Rules govern rock beds' names
Columbus Dispatch
Sunday, May 28, 2000
Dale Gnidovec For The Dispatch
http://www.dispatch.com/news/newsfea00/may00/295565.html
A few weeks ago, I mentioned that in the summer I will be collecting dinosaurs from the Morrison Formation. What is that?
A formation is a unit of rock that is thick enough, extensive enough and distinctive enough to be mapped by a geologist. Formation names have two parts, the first of which usually refers to a geographic feature nearby.
If the unit is predominantly one rock type, it takes that type as the second part of its name. Examples include the Columbus Limestone or the Ohio Shale. If the unit is not dominated by one rock type, it takes the word formation as part of its name. An example is the Morrison Formation, named for the town of Morrison, Colo., near Denver.
Formations are the basic unit of geological mapping, but they are often divided into subunits called members. In some areas, the Morrison is divided into a lower Salt Wash Member and an upper Brushy Basin Member.
During the Jurassic Period, an arm of the sea extended south from the arctic, covering much of what is now the American West. Called the Sundance Sea, it stretched from Nevada to Kansas and as far south as northern New Mexico.
Late in the Jurassic, about 150 million years ago, the Sundance Sea began to withdraw. As it did, the sediments that filled the area, deposited by lakes and rivers, built the Morrison Formation.
Found in 13 states, the Morrison covers about 750,000 square miles, making it one of the largest freshwater formations known. It is thin as formations go, averaging 420 feet thick but reaching 750 in some areas.
The Morrison is composed mainly of varicolored mudstones, with minor amounts of sandstones and shales. During deposition, sometimes the sediments were exposed to air. Oxidation ("rusting'') produced the red and purple layers that give the Morrison its nickname, "the Rainbow Beds.'' Some Morrison rocks contain significant amounts of volcanic ash, blown from volcanoes that were erupting to the west.
The Morrison Formation is famous for two things, one of which is uranium. It provided nearly all the uranium in the early generations of U.S. atom bombs and nuclear reactors. Carnotite, a powdery, bright-yellow uranium oxide, was the main ore, but the original source of the uranium is a mystery.
The Morrison is even more famous for its dinosaurs. I'll discuss them next week.
Dale M. Gnidovec (who is reachable online at: gnidovec@orton.mps.ohio-state.edu) is curator of Ohio State University's Orton Geological Museum.
-------- us politics
Won't You Be My Nader?
Grist Magazine
05.26.00
by Donella H. Meadows
http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/citizen/citizen052600.stm
Russell Peterson, former governor of Delaware, ardent environmentalist, lifelong Republican until a few years ago when he switched to being a Democrat, was appalled when I told him I couldn't bring myself to vote for Al Gore.
He gave me the undeniably rational argument. George W. shows no sign of either knowing or caring about the environment. If he is president, especially if he's blessed with a Republican Congress, our environmental laws will be decimated. Anyone who has watched Washington for the past six years has seen the Republican Congressional leadership work unceasingly to clear-cut the national forests, gut the Endangered Species Act, and let the polluters write the pollution laws. Gore may not be the dauntless warrior for the environment we would like, but at least he will probably, like Bill Clinton before him, veto most of the worst ideas of the anti-environmental right wing.
I assured Peterson that I have no intention of voting for George W. (In my household we have the terrible habit of calling him "George the Gerbil.") I will vote and work for Democrats for Congress. I am sick of Republican committee chairs trying to give away overgrazing rights on public lands, privatize national parks, drill for oil in wildlife refuges. But for president I'll vote for Ralph Nader.
Russ Peterson's jaw dropped. He's in his eighties now, but he's as energetic and forceful and political as ever, and so he bore in on me. But that will put Bush in office! Nader will draw votes away from Gore, not Bush. How can you do that?
Not only do I sympathize with his argument; I've made it to myself. Why waste a vote on Nader, who is not even a serious candidate? He spent $5000 on his last presidential campaign (and got 800,000 votes in what must be one of the best votes-to-dollars ratios in history). He says he'll spend $5 million on this one -- a drop in George W.'s overflowing campaign bucket. How will you feel, Peterson asked me, as I had already asked myself, if you ditch Gore and then have to watch Bush for four or eight years take away abortion rights, build prisons, promote guns, and enrich oil companies?
But what does it mean to waste a vote? I may disagree with Bush on just about 100 percent of all issues, but I disagree with Gore on maybe 50 percent. He promotes free trade and the WTO -- two of the worst things I can imagine for the environment. He has done nothing to push for auto fuel-efficiency standards or regulations on genetic engineering or a strong enough climate policy to actually stabilize the climate. The Greens are the only party talking seriously about solar energy or stopping corporate welfare or real campaign reform. Isn't it worse to waste your vote on a spineless party patsy, up to his neck in his own overflowing bucket of campaign contributions, than on a guy who will at least speak and fight for what you want fought for -- no matter what his chance of winning?
Tim Russert asked Ralph Nader that very question on May 7 on Meet the Press: "So if you wake up in November of 2000 and the Green Party has gotten 5 percent of the vote but Al Gore has lost and George W. Bush is the next president, you'll consider the day a success?"
Nader answered, "The Green Party will get more than 5 percent of the vote, number one. Number two, there's nothing preventing Al Gore from grabbing hold of these corporate power issues: corporate welfare, strong labor laws, crack down on consumer fraud, corporate crime, challenging autocratic forms of government like the WTO.
"The two parties are converging more and more into a huge vested interest money pot and are turning their backs on very important needs of the people. So we're appealing to conservatives, liberals, all the people who feel they're losing control in this country over everything that matters to them -- their government, big business, environment, the workplace, the marketplace, even their own children being seduced by corporate hucksters and entertainers."
Sometimes he sounds like a real candidate, sometimes like he's just trying to knock the Democratic party back into its one-time groove. Too bad. If Ross Perot could get 19 percent of the vote, Nader, who is modest, well-spoken, well-informed, steady, of unassailable integrity, and actually working for the public interest, should be able to do much better. If he could become visible. And if people voted for what they want, instead of what they think can win.
What is a vote, anyway? A chit we use to play political games, figuring the chances, trying to choose the least distasteful candidate who has some chance of coming out on top? Or our one straight signal to our government telling it what we -- we who pay the bills, we whose interests the government is supposed to represent -- really want?
I hope Russ Peterson will forgive me.
Donella H. Meadows is director of the Sustainability Institute and an adjunct professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College.
---
Bush Bolsters His Foreign Policy
By The Associated Press
May 26, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/p/AP-Foreign-Policy-Politics.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- George W. Bush is trying to counter the foreign policy advantage of a rival plainly ahead of him in international experience.
Surrounding himself with GOP foreign policy luminaries, proposing to cut the nuclear arsenal, meeting foreign leaders, the Texas governor is out to show it's not necessary to have been there and done that to guide America's place in the world.
In the week leading up to Memorial Day, a time when the thoughts of many Americans are turning to the beach or barbecue, Bush devoted himself to foreign policy activities meant to draw contrasts with Democrat Al Gore and to flesh out a platform the vice president slams as ``noticeably blank'' or ``risky.''
Gore takes his turn Saturday when he speaks to the West Point military academy on defense readiness, a non-campaign event tied to his duties as vice president but useful to his aspirations to become commander in chief.
On Memorial Day itself, Bush will visit Fort Hood in Texas. Gore, at a Pennsylvania appearance, will be able to talk about his own Vietnam service.
Gore has seven years of vice presidential diplomacy behind him and a first-name familiarity with some of the leaders whose names or titles Bush has struggled to bring to mind.
However, Bush has made a bit of progress from the days when he was seen as a neophyte on international affairs, analysts say. And some believe a bit may be enough, because voters don't care much about foreign policy credentials in the absence of crisis.
A basic level of comfort suffices, says presidential historian John Mueller of the University of Rochester. ``He has to get up to the minimum and he's probably OK.''
Maxine Isaacs, who teaches public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government and was press secretary for Walter Mondale's 1984 Democratic presidential campaign, said foreign policy counts for little on its face but can play an outsized role in helping voters judge leadership.
``Being 'blank' on foreign policy is probably fairly easy to fix because there's enough time and he has a first-rate team,'' she said of Bush.
Bush and Gore both met this week with South African President Thabo Mbeki during his U.S. visit, and both addressed a pro-Israel lobbying group.
Later, with retired Gen. Colin Powell, Henry Kissinger and other foreign policy notables at his side, Bush proposed a unilateral -- although unspecified -- cut in U.S. nuclear arms. Previously accused by Gore of being locked in Cold War thinking, Bush turned the same charge on the vice president.
The Bush camp had considered scheduling foreign trips for the candidate before the election, but those plans have been set aside.
Recent history is replete with examples of foreign policy successes that went unrewarded by voters, failures that went unpunished and expertise that seemed to meet only indifference, especially since the question of who could best stand against communism lost its urgency.
``A lot of American presidents have come to office with very limited experience,'' said Allan J. Lichtman, history department chairman at American University. ``There's little evidence that candidates have lost elections because they seemed too callow about foreign policy.''
Isaacs recalled the October 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon -- causing the heaviest loss of life for the U.S. military since the Vietnam War -- and how the invasion of Grenada shortly after ``changed the subject'' to the benefit of President Reagan, who easily won re-election in 1984.
Coming off Cold War and Gulf War victories, President Bush was fond of saying his dog knew more about foreign policy than Bill Clinton ever did. Clinton was branded the ``failed governor of a small state.'' All to no avail.
``People were resentful of what they perceived to be President Bush's relentless focus on foreign policy and his willful neglect of economic issues,'' said Paul Begala, an architect of Clinton's 1992 victory and now a pundit favoring Gore. ``It was most important to us to display Clinton's mastery of economic policy.''
Even so, Clinton delivered a lengthy foreign policy lecture early in the campaign, enlisted heavyweights on international affairs and displayed an eagerness to learn.
Begala contends that Bush, in contrast, betrays an ``uncurious intellect'' speaking to the larger question of leadership.
Lichtman said that assertion has had some merit but might be getting outdated, with Bush showing himself more surefooted than many people thought. ``I think he's come a long way to dispelling that,'' he said.
----
THE VICE PESIDENT
Democrats Say Bush Isn't a Keeper
New York Times
May 26, 2000
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/052600wh-dem-gore.html
NASHVILLE, May 25 -- Gov. George W. Bush may be a fun date, but he's not the kind of guy you want to settle down with. So says the chairwoman of the Texas Democratic Party, Molly Beth Malcolm, one of more than 70 Democratic officials from 34 states who met here today with Vice President Al Gore and his senior campaign staff.
Although Mr. Gore has been lagging Mr. Bush in the public opinion polls, the meeting was not an emergency session but a long-planned chance for the campaign to coordinate with its state emissaries. Many left the impression that they were not worried about an election more than five months away, although they were trying to prepare for it.
"One of the basic tenets of politics," said Paul Berendt, Democratic chairman in Washington State, "is that you don't fight the battle in May that you need to fight in October."
The state officials said they recognized that voters seemed to like Mr. Bush's personality more than Mr. Gore's, but they suggested that the more voters saw of Mr. Bush, the less they would like him.
Ms. Malcolm put it most graphically: "He's the guy you want to go to the ballgame with, he's the guy you want to come to your party because he's going to be lots of fun. But it reminds me of when I was in college. There were lots of guys who were lots of fun to go out with, and you wanted them at your party, but when it came time to settle down, he wasn't the one you're looking for."
Later, for the first time in quite a few weeks, Mr. Gore referred to his vanquished Democratic primary foe, former Senator Bill Bradley, with some graciousness, a hint that the icy relationship between them might be beginning to thaw.
"One of our greatest challenges, as Bill Bradley so eloquently said during the primaries, is that we need to bring our people together," Mr. Gore said at a low-key fund-raising reception tonight in calling for anti-hate-crime legislation.
---
THE TEXAS GOVERNOR
Bush Rebuffs Warning From an Abortion Foe
New York Times
May 26, 2000
By ALISON MITCHELL
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/camp/052600wh-gop-bush.html
AUSTIN, Tex., May 25 -- Faced with a new warning by a prominent religious conservative against selecting a running mate who supports a right to abortion, Gov. George W. Bush today called himself "a pretty independent thinker" whose main criterion for a vice-presidential nominee was an ability to assume the presidency.
Mr. Bush spoke of his vice-presidential search as he stood beside Colin L. Powell, the retired general and Republican dream candidate who refuses to seek elective office. General Powell, prompted by reporters' questions, repeated his wish to see the anti-abortion plank removed from the Republican platform. And he once again said he would not be interested in being Mr. Bush's running mate.
"I am not a candidate for the vice presidency, and I'm not seeking it," he said. "The governor knows that." But he left the door open to a cabinet post. "In any other capacity," he said, "one has to listen when the president asks you to consider a job."
The day's event had not been devised for talk of abortion politics.
In the garden of the Governor's Mansion, Mr. Bush and General Powell signed an agreement in which Texas and America's Promise, the general's volunteer group to help the nation's youth, vowed to work together.
But the subsequent news conference quickly turned to the jousting inside the Republican Party over Mr. Bush's choice of a running mate, just a day after the religious conservative James C. Dobson told reporters that Mr. Bush "sounds a whole lot more conservative when he is talking to conservatives and a whole lot more moderate when he is talking to moderates."
Dr. Dobson accused Mr. Bush of sacrificing the party's core principles and called on him to choose a running mate opposed to abortion.
"The base in the Republican Party is pro-life," Dr. Dobson said.
"You can't have it all, and you can't win without that base."
Asked his response, Mr. Bush gave neither a nod to Dr. Dobson's concerns nor a hint where his running mate would stand on abortion. "I appreciate advice," the governor said. "I'm getting it from all corners. But I'm a pretty independent thinker." And, he said, his political message is always consistent. "It's basically this: we're going to trust people, not government," he said.
Pressed several times on whether he was listening to either conservatives or abortion-rights Republicans about the choice of a vice-presidential nominee, Mr. Bush listed some of his criteria for selecting a running mate.
"I'm looking for someone who could be president, someone able to fill that job," he said, a theme he emphasized twice.
"I'm looking for someone who would be loyal," he added. "I'm looking for someone who brings honesty and integrity to the office, someone whose judgment I could count upon."
Mr. Bush repeated his position that the Republican platform's plank against abortion should remain intact. General Powell, asked whether he agreed, said: "I would work to remove it. But good friends can disagree on issues, so I don't see that there is a big fight over that."
Mr. Bush, who has been positioning himself close to the political center, faces a major decision on whether he can afford to select a running mate, like Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, who backs abortion rights. In a New York Times/CBS News survey this month, 3 of every 10 Republican voters polled said they would be less likely to support Mr. Bush if he picked a running mate who backed a right to abortion.
As reporters tried and failed several times to draw Mr. Bush out on how much he was weighing abortion in his choice of a running mate, he seemed to grow impatient.
"I'm making an exhaustive search," he said. "I've laid out the characteristics necessary for the vice presidency. And at some point in time you're going to find out who it is. And on that cheery note we will end."
But Mr. Bush did say, in an interview with The Associated Press, that he was not considering either General Powell or Senator John McCain, taking them at their word that they did not want the job.
---
Powell, McCain Not on Bush VP List
Associated Press
May 25, 2000 Filed at 12:35 p.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/p/AP-Bush-Interview.html
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- Retired Gen. Colin Powell, one of the Republican Party's most potent political figures, said today, ``I am not a candidate for vice president.'' George W. Bush seems to be taking him at his word -- for now.
At a morning event, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee reaffirmed his support of Powell's national volunteerism campaign. A follow-up news conference focused on politics.
``I do not seek elective office and so I'm not a candidate for vice president and I am not seeking it,'' said Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Bush, a two-term Texas governor, said in an interview Wednesday that Powell was not on his list of vice presidential prospects for that reason.
``People who don't want to be considered for vice president are not going to be considered for vice president,'' Bush said. He said the same goes for Arizona Sen. John McCain, Bush's vanquished primary rival who says he doesn't want to play second fiddle at the White House.
Polls show McCain and Powell are popular with voters and would enhance the GOP ticket.
That may be why Bush seemed to leave the door open for both men, saying with a grin, ``If they ever change their mind, I'll let you know.'' And Powell's statement was not unequivocal; the fact that he is ``not seeking'' the job is not the same as saying he would not accept it.
Just before their get-together, Bush met with South African President Thabo Mbeki and said afterward that South Africa would play an important role in keeping peace in the region. With Mbeki at his side, Bush said, ``I told him if all goes well I look forward to working with him.''
On politics, Bush brushed aside criticism from conservative leader James Dobson, who accused the governor on Wednesday of being too moderate and urged him to pick an anti-abortion running mate. Standing beside Powell, who supports abortion rights, Bush said he would base his decisions on ``what I think is right for America.''
Trying to show his independence from the party's conservative base, Bush said, ``I appreciate advice. I'm getting it from all corners. But I'm a pretty independent thinker.''
Powell has not ruled out a Cabinet post, if offered to the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Bush's advisers say Powell is a formidable prospect for the secretary of state post.
Bush offered a rare glimpse into his decision-making process, saying he was actively considering ``a couple dozen'' vice presidential prospects. He said he talks frequently about the choices with Dick Cheney, the former defense secretary heading up his search.
The prospects cut a wide swath throughout the GOP ranks -- ``I'm looking at everybody,'' he said -- with each candidate undergoing an initial background review. Bush said he is being updated by Cheney as the reviews are processed, and is informed whenever important information crops up about a prospect.
``I'm watching it very closely,'' he said.
He returned to Texas Wednesday from Ohio, where he had told local reporters that Rep. John Kasich and Sen. George Voinovich, a former governor, were under consideration. Both men are from Ohio. In Michigan, he said governor John Engler is a prospect.
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge is said to be a top candidate.
With Powell and other GOP foreign policy experts at his side, Bush unveiled a nuclear-reduction plan Tuesday to help bolster his foreign policy credentials.
On other topics in the interview Bush:
--Reiterated his support for limited gun control measures. He said he would reauthorize the ban on certain assault weapons when the bill expires in 2004, and would sign a bill requiring guns be sold with trigger locks.
At the same time, Bush said he likely would oppose any effort by Congress to forbid states from passing concealed-weapons laws. ``I don't like to take away states' authority,'' he said, noting that no such proposal is pending before Congress.
Bush signed a bill as governor of Texas allowing residents to carry concealed weapons; Democratic rival Al Gore plans to make an issue of the bill in an effort to drive suburban women from Bush's camp.
--Accused Gore of running a negative campaign, and said voters are looking for a more civil tone. ``It seems like he's talking a lot about me -- ridiculing, using numbers that aren't true,'' Bush said.
---
Is This Any Way to Pick A Winner?
Washington Post
Friday , May 26, 2000 ; A01
By Robert G. Kaiser Washington Post Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/cgi-bin/gx.cgi/AppLogic+FTContentServer?pagename=wpni/print&articleid=A9159-2000May25
So how exactly did Al Gore win the election of 2000? By making the clever decision to run in the midst of an economic boom, and by choosing to succeed a popular incumbent.
You didn't realize that Gore has won the election? A technicality. According to half a dozen political scientists who have honed and polished the art of election forecasting, the die is all but cast. Today, with 165 days left before Americans go to the polls, they are saying Gore will win 53 to 60 percent of the vote cast for him and George W. Bush.
Although Bush's pollster finds fault with these forecasts, these academic prognosticators have a startlingly good record predicting election results months in advance. The fact that opinion polls today give Bush a modest lead over Gore doesn't faze them. Polls this early in the campaign "just have a relatively low correlation with the fall vote," said Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution, who has written about election forecasting. The forecasters have a better record, Mann added.
"It's not even going to be close," said Michael Lewis-Beck of the University of Iowa, who foresees Gore winning 56.2 percent of the two-party vote. Lewis-Beck's forecasting model is based on growth of the gross domestic product from the fourth quarter of the preelection year through the first quarter of election year, and on poll findings on presidential approval and voter opinions on which party's candidate will best promote peace and prosperity.
Should anyone listen to Lewis-Beck? Well, in 1996 he did miscall the final results. His July forecast that year foresaw President Clinton winning 54.8 percent of the two-party vote in November. In fact, Clinton won 54.7 percent. Yipes. That was a better prediction four months before the election than most commentators and pollsters could make a few days before the voting. Indeed, Lewis-Beck was much closer to the actual result than the national exit poll taken on Election Day as voters left their polling places, which overstated Clinton's vote by more than 3 percentage points.
The leading academic forecasters share the belief that elections reflect, first of all, underlying trends in the economy and public opinion. Each has his own elaborate mathematical model, but they share common ingredients: a measurement of the health of the economy and poll findings on the public's political views. Some leave it at that, some add other factors, such as how Americans are feeling about their personal economic situations (literally better than ever before, at this moment). And different forecasting models use different measurements of the economy and of public opinion, taken at different times from about now through Labor Day.
All of them use elaborate higher mathematics to come up with predictions of the share of the two-party vote that the candidate of the incumbent party will win in November. (All agree that third-party candidates have no palpable impact on their models, and history bears them out.) Five of the best forecasters (measured by their records) say that as of today, Gore can be expected to win 53 to 60 percent of the two-party vote in November. This means none of the forecasts predicts a really close election. Most of these models have picked the winner correctly in years since 1952 when the winner got 53 percent or more of the vote.
If these models are right--and in fairness to their cautious authors, none seems ready to bet his pension on his prediction--Gore's biggest advantages are the popularity of the president and the continuing economic boom. Clinton enjoys an approval rating of about 60 percent in polls, a number that has remained constant for many months. This suggests that by November, many Americans may not agree with Bush and the Republicans that it's time for a change in the party holding the White House. While the longest economic expansion of the modern era continues, the status quo retains considerable appeal.
Thomas M. Holbrook, a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, uses as an economic indicator public responses to a question asked regularly by one of America's oldest polls, the University of Michigan's survey of consumers: ". . . Would you say that you . . . are better off or worse off financially than you were a year ago?" Positive answers to this question are literally off the chart.
In 1984, when President Ronald Reagan buried Walter F. Mondale, Holbrook noted in an interview, most Americans answered that question affirmatively. He gave their answers a numerical value of 121, meaning 21 percent more Americans said they were better off than said they were worse off, compared with a year earlier. This was the highest ever in an election year, Holbrook said--until now. In March of this year, the index was 135.
Reagan's 1984 approval rating, Holbrook noted, was actually lower (about 54 percent) than Clinton's is now, though of course Reagan was running for reelection, and Clinton is not. Nevertheless, Holbrook said he predicts that Gore will win 59.6 percent of the two-party vote. In 1996 Holbrook's model predicted a Clinton victory but overstated Clinton's share of the vote by 2.6 percent.
How confident is Holbrook in his prediction? "We all take a deep breath about now and hope nothing unusual happens" before November, he replied.
Holbrook explained that one problem faced by all the forecasters is the relatively small number of elections on which they can base their predictions. Most built their models using data from the last 13 elections, since 1948--that is, the elections for which comparable poll results and economic data are available.
Statistically, 13 is a small number--about 30 cases would sharply increase confidence in the model, Holbrook said. So the forecasts for the 2068 presidential election should be really reliable.
Another uncertainty is what Alan I. Abramowitz of Emory University calls the "time for a change" factor. Democrats are seeking a third consecutive term in the White House, and Abramowitz believes that fact will convince some voters who might otherwise support them that it is indeed time for a change. In his model, an incumbent party seeking a third term is docked 4 percentage points. This year, according to Abramowitz's model, if Clinton's approval rating and the economy remain at today's levels until the beginning of July, Gore will win 53 or 54 percent of the two-party vote.
Christopher Wlezien of the University of Houston said there might have been a "time for a change" factor in the 1960, 1968 and 1976 elections, when his forecasting model would have underpredicted the challenging party's vote. (Like the other forecasters, Wlezien has gone back to calculate predictions for elections that took place long before his model was invented.) But in 1988, when the Republicans were seeking a third consecutive term, Wlezien's model had George Bush's vote right within six-tenths of 1 percent.
In June 1996, Wlezien's model picked Clinton's November vote within one-tenth of 1 percent. As of this month, Wlezien said in an interview, his model gives Gore 56.1 percent of the two-party vote in November.
If election results can actually be predicted so far in advance, does that mean campaigns are irrelevant? Not at all, according to these political scientists. Two of them--Holbrook and James E. Campbell of the University of Buffalo--have written books on the subject. They differ on some points, but both agree that campaigns invigorate partisans, convey information to voters that helps them choose a candidate and expose the candidates to the public. And like all these prognosticators, Holbrook and Campbell said their predictive models assume that the campaign willoccur and that both major party candidates will perform reasonably well.
As Abramowitz of Emory put it, "Campaigns play an important role in activating voters' partisan and ideological predispositions." But, he added, "these predispositions are largely determined before the campaign begins." In other words, the logic of the election can be seen far in advance, even if the voters need the effects of the campaign to see it for themselves, then act on it.
Asked for comment, an adviser to the Gore campaign said these models have some merit. "This is one of the reasons the campaign feels good about the election," said Samuel L. Popkin, a political scientist working during the campaign with Harrison Hickman, Gore's pollster.
Fred Steeper, Bush's pollster, however, said the forecasts "are probably wrong, and Bush will win." Steeper said that models dependent only on the state of the economy and a few basic poll findings miss special facets of this year's electorate, including voters' belief that although the country is doing well economically, it is suffering "a decline in moral values." He added that the forecasts also miss voter concerns with issues such as education.
Several of the forecasters pointed out that Americans are notoriously nonpolitical most of the time. Celinda Lake, a pollster, has written: "We should realize that the average family in America spends five minutes a week on politics."
The political scientists said their models could be undermined by a particularly good or bad performance by one candidate in a campaign. "What if Gore turns out to be a terrible candidate?" asked Wlezien. "This may be the year we find out something different" than the models predict. But he didn't sound like a man who expected to be surprised.
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Democratic Leaders Voice Confidence in Gore
Yahoo News
Friday May 26 2:50 PM ET
By Thomas Ferraro
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000526/pl/campaign_gore_167.html
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Reuters) - State Democratic leaders express confidence in Al Gore (news - web sites)'s White House bid, but concede that his Republican foe, Texas Gov. George W. Bush (news - web sites), comes across as ``nice'' and ``fun'' to the American public.
They contend polls that show Bush out in front are a reflection of a thus far superficial assessments of the two contenders and once the public gets a better understanding of Gore they will flock to him.
Following a private meeting between the vice president and party leaders on Thursday night, Doug Horne, chairman of the Tennessee Democratic Party, admitted Gore -- long portrayed as stiff, wooden and even boring -- ``may not be the guy you drink beer with at a NASCAR race.''
``But he is the man who ought to be president of the United States,'' Horne said. ``He has the depth, understanding, knowledge and experience.''
Texas Democratic Chairperson Molly Beth Malcolm, a former Republican, said Bush ``is a nice person, he is a friendly person.''
``He is the guy you want to go to the ball game with. He is the guy you want to come to your party because he is going to be a lot of fun,'' Malcolm said.
``But he reminds me of when I was in college,'' she said. ''There were lots of guys (who were) fun to go out with, but when it came time to settle down (they) weren't the one you are looking for.''
Look At Qualifications
``I think than when Americans look at who is going to be the leader of the free world, who has the qualifications, there is not going to be any question that it is Al Gore,'' she said.
A variety of polls show voters agree with Gore on many of the issues, but find Bush as more likable and possessing greater leadership skills. Some Democrats have worried that Gore's campaign may be drifting since he clinched the nomination and is losing momentum to Bush.
Consequently, the Democratic National Committee is considering airing biographical television ads of Gore to essentially reintroduce the two-term vice president, Vietnam veteran, former congressman and one-time reporter to the American people.
The state party chairmen and chairwomen met to spread the word that the Gore campaign is not in trouble.
``Al Gore is a great story,'' said Horne. ``The more people know him, the more they'll like him.''
Still, some party leaders offered Gore some advice at their closed door meeting.
``We told him ... all he needs to do is be himself and tell the success story of this administration,'' said Washington State Party Chairman Paul Berendt. ``The economy is roaring.''
Democratic Party Chairman Ed Rendell assured state party leaders and other party faithful at a fund raiser in Nashville on Thursday night, ``We're going to move ahead in these polls. If we get our message across, we're going to win.''
Not Concerned
Gore, who long insisted he is not concerned about the early polls, said he told state party leaders, ``I feel really good where things are.''
``I think it is a mistake for anyone to base their entire view of what the American people are thinking on the basis of these snapshot polls,'' Gore said on Thursday. ``They mean nothing.''
The vice president, who took his campaign on Friday to Cordova, Tennessee, a Memphis suburb, chuckled about a story in The Washington Post on Friday that quoted political forecasters as saying that despite the polls they expect Gore to win.
Their forecasts were based on a number of factors with proven historical significance -- including the gross national product, the popularity of the incumbent president and voter opinions on what candidate will better promote peace and prosperity.
Gore joked that while polls are routinely wrong, political forecasters know what they are doing. ``They have gotten so good at it,'' he said. ``That is a science.''
The vice president spent Friday at Cordova School, a kindergarten though eighth grade public school, to underscore his vow to make education a top priority if elected president.
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