-------- NUCLEAR (by country)

-------- canada

INTERVIEW - Canadian military demands Arctic resources

CANADA : July 26, 2000
Story by David Ljunggren
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7607

OTTAWA - The commander of Canada's forces in the Arctic retired from the military yesterday with a blunt warning to Ottawa that it needs to devote more resources to monitoring the vast, resource-rich region.

"The end of the Cold War has made the Arctic more open, more available for a lot more activity. These activities right now are not monitored as well as they should be," Colonel Pierre Leblanc told Reuters in an interview from Yellowknife.

"The risk is simply that if we don't watch what's going on in the Arctic and control it, various parties may go up there and do as they please," said Leblanc, speaking just hours before officially handing over his command and retiring from the military.

During the Cold War the Arctic was a no-man's land crammed full of Western radar equipment monitoring the activities of the Soviet armed forces.

Since then there has been a boom in tourism as well as gold and diamond mining, leaving Canada virtually incapable of monitoring activity inside its own boundaries at a time when police are fretting about signs of increased organised crime in the Arctic.

Canada has just 200 military personnel and 400 police to monitor an Arctic expanse the size of continental Europe. It does not have a single icebreaker or submarine capable of operating year-round in the Arctic.

Some 1,400 Inuit Rangers carry out sovereignty patrols 10 days a year and Aurora long-range maritime patrol aircraft perform Arctic surveillance missions just four times a year. There is no radar system in place to monitor sea or air movements in the High Arctic.

"There is the need to improve monitoring of activities throughout the Arctic, more specifically, in and around the Northwest Passage," said Leblanc, referring to the potentially valuable ice-clogged shipping channel linking the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

Some analysts forecast that global warming will eventually melt enough ice to make the Passage open to shipping for five months rather than the current three months.

"Last year a cruise ship off Alaska was fined $10 million for dumping oily bilge water in an area that is under a significant amount of surveillance," said Leblanc.

"So if people are tempted to (dump) in a place like that what is the temptation of doing it up in the High Arctic if you know there is practically no surveillance at all? The temptation would obviously be very high."

Leblanc has spent much of the last two years trying to make Ottawa more aware of what he sees as the growing dangers to Canada's sovereignty in the Arctic. His call for more resources has irritated some in the defence ministry, already struggling to cope with slashed budgets and worn-out equipment.

Nevertheless, Leblanc said, defence officials are studying at a number of ways to increase monitoring "with a view to putting these systems in place relatively soon to make sure that we're not caught with our pants down".

One of the most realistic choices would be to monitor the Arctic from space by putting high-powered equipment on board a satellite which Canada is due to launch in the next decade.

"We're making sure the requirements to cover the Arctic are inserted into the statement of requirement - essentially the contract that defines what capability a system is going to have - for the satellite programme," said Leblanc.

"I think the best way to do surveillance of the Arctic would be to use the space dimension...(using) monitors that will be able to track ships transiting the Arctic or operating anywhere in the Arctic."

-------- depleted uranium

American Legion DU Resolution

Daniel Fahey [SMTP:duweapons@hotmail.com]
Wednesday, July 26, 2000 2:47 AM

Following is the resolution on DU passed by the California state American Legion, which is now on its way to deliberation in Milwaukee the first week of September. Any takers to go and speak?

Resolution Ban Depleted Uranium Weapons

WHEREAS The U.S. military used weapons containing depleted uranium (DU), the highly toxic, low radioactive byproduct of the uranium enrichment process, during Operation Desert Stormm; and

WHEREAS American tanks and aircraft fired hundreds of thousands of armor-piercing DU rounds in combat, scattering more than 350 tons of depleted uranium on the battlefields of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq; and

WHEREAS U.S. Army spokesmen stated that personnel who come into contact with contaminated vehicles destroyed by DU rounds can inhale or ingest the uranium particles which cover them; and

WHEREAS Inhaled DU particles become trapped in the lungs, and ingested DU particles deposit in the kidneys, liver, bone marrow, or reproductive organs, thereby causing acute and long-term health problems; and

WHEREAS Exposure to DU particles is one of the causes of illnesses affecting many Gulf War veterans, and is a cause of birth defects among the children of Gulf War veterans; now therefore be it

RESOLVED by Post 448, the American Legion Department of California, in a regular meeting assembled in San Francisco on March 16, 2000, that the Department of California of the American Legion of the United States, at its 82nd annual State Convention, sponsor and support legislation to enact a ban on the manufacture, procurement, deployment, and use of all types of depleted uranium weapons; and be it

FINALLY RESOLVED that this resolution be forwarded to our National organization for consideration at the American Legion at it's 82nd National Convention to be held in Milwaukee in August 2000.

----

Any Australians out there?

Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2000 10:18:05 -0400
From: "Dr. H. D. Sharma" hdsharma@golden.net

Mr. Laurence Aboukhater,

If I understand correctly, a little over 11 per cent of the Australian veterans who took part in the Gulf conflict are ill and have applied for medical discharge and made claims for some compensation. Are you able to provide some more statistics? According to you, the Australian veterans were fairly far away from the `war zone' and to my simple minded thinking a fair distance away on board some ships. It is necessary to know the approximate distance from Basra or Kuwait city where the ships were anchored or located so that we can get some idea what the veterans might have been exposed to. If the ships were located about 100 kilometers away from Kuwait City, it is unlikely they were exposed to depleted-uranium dioxide dust or organo phosphates. This is an important piece of information we need to know for assessing exposure to likely causative agents including depleted uranium. You may be holding some important key for finding a likely causative agent for the Gulf-war syndrome. Mr. Shaun Rusling, Chairman, UK National Gulf-war Veterans and Families Association gave me some information about the illnesses Australian veterans were suffering from. It will be good if we get some very reliable information.

It is my understanding that the Canadian veterans who took part in the Gulf conflict in the same sort of way as the Australian veterans did, are also suffering from the Gulf-war syndrome. We can possibly help to unravel the cause of illnesses if we get some reliable information. We need to have reliable input from all veterans who took part in the conflict for finding some credible solution to this puzzle.

Regards, Hari Sharma.

-------- india / pakistan

Threat of Imitation: Missile Submarines Proliferate
Another deadly missile race?

By Dr Ayesha Siddiqa-Agha,
The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2000
Wed, 26 Jul 2000
Stephen Kobasa skobasa@pop.snet.net

RECENTLY, Chinese President Jiang Zemin and his Russian counterpart Vladamir Putin criticized the US national missile defence (NMD) programme in a jointly issued statement. In their view, Washington's perception of security is divorced from any concern for security of other states. This attitude is not peculiar to the US. There is a lack of dialogue between states, especially nuclear weapon states, and insensitivity towards the security concerns of other countries. The question is how to bridge the gap in security perceptions.

The American national missile defence (NMD) and theatre missile defence (TMD) are geared to protect the US from weapons of mass destruction. Washington fears that the nuclear, chemical and biological arsenals of China, Russia, India, Pakistan and other countries can in certain situations be used against the US. In view of the American strategists, ballistic missile proliferation makes such a threat possible. The American political and military leadership was used to the nature and dimensions of a Russian threat for years. The entire nuclear deterrence was geared towards the threat posed by the former Soviet Union. The strategic arms reduction treaty (START) discussions and the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty aimed at reducing the threat of nuclear escalation and an accidental war between the US and former USSR.

The nuclear capability of other nuclear states like China was never seriously taken into account during the height of the cold war. Even today the Chinese nuclear and ballistic missile capability is not comparable to that of the US. Beijing has about 20 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) but American military planners are concerned about the Chinese capability to expand this arsenal. In a wider context, there is also worry about the ballistic missile capabilities of India, Pakistan, Iraq and Iran.

Therefore, the NMD is meant to intercept all incoming missiles. The programme, which was originally a technology development effort, was given a go-ahead in 1996. It is a fixed, land-based, non-nuclear missile defence system with a space-based detection system, consisting of five elements: (a) ground based interceptors, (b) battle management, command, control, and communications, which includes battle management, command, and control, and in-flight interceptor communications system, (c) X-band Radars, (d) upgraded early warning radar, and (e) defence support programme satellites/space-based infrared system.

All elements of the NMD system would work together to intercept all incoming missiles. TMD, on the other hand, is a battlefield system designed to protect the US deployed troops, allies and friends. This system is made for rapid deployment with provision for high maneuverability. Unlike the NMD, this system is made up of a number of sub-systems.

These systems have drawn criticism from the Chinese and the Russians. Moscow's censure, in particular, is caused by its understanding that a ballistic missile shield currently planned by the US is not only in contravention of the ABM treaty, but will also increase the strategic nuclear imbalance between the US and Russia. This concern appears to have been completely disregarded by Washington. The decision to develop the NMD is in response to the internal lobbying of the nuclear scientific community and the weapons industry. These two communities are concerned about losing the edge in nuclear know-how, a development linked with the moratorium on nuclear testing.

The NMD programme is sure to create jobs that would please Senators whose constituencies will benefit from it. Whatever the prompting factors and considerations, this development is likely to draw more than a vocal response from Russia and China. President Vladimir Putin has pledged to counter the NMD by increasing Moscow's nuclear capability. Beijing, on the other hand, could start increasing the range and production of missiles.

Escalation by China is likely to affect proliferation in South Asia. The Indians, who almost totally link their nuclear programme with that of China, will increase activities, including developing a sea-based second-strike capability and enhancing the range and number of missiles. New Delhi's response to Beijing's plans would also elicit a response from Islamabad. Very soon there will be a spiral of horizontal nuclear technological proliferation that will be extremely destabilizing for the world. This may actually undermine the whole CTBT agenda.

Until the NMD development, both India and Pakistan had shown a degree of inclination, however qualified, to sign on the dotted line for the comprehensive test ban treaty. However, with the spiralling effect of the NMD coming into play, the two countries would abandon the idea and instead opt for more testing. Nuclear tests, it must be noted, are not only to ensure reliability and upgrading of weapons but also to achieve further miniaturization of nuclear warheads. A sea-based capability (this includes sea-based ballistic and cruise missiles fitted with nuclear warheads) would require further testing.

The Indian doctrine envisages a nuclear triad that will guarantee a second-strike capability - which promises complete destruction of whatever remains of the adversary's assets after the first strike. New Delhi has been working on developing a sea-based nuclear capability. The Indian claims are that this capability is being developed to gain a certain strategic edge against China. According to the Jane's Defence Weekly, New Delhi is likely to acquire an indigenous nuclear submarine by 2007. It has also speeded up work on developing a sea-based ballistic and cruise missile, one of which was tested this year in April. This development does not take into consideration the fears and concerns of Pakistan next door.

Indian nuclear submarines equipped with nuclear capable ballistic or cruise missiles will not only increase the pressure on Pakistan but it will also increase the danger of conflict at sea. As it is, the sea borders are not demarcated because of the outstanding Sir Creek dispute. Pakistan's navy, which does not have a nuclear capability now, may also want to carry out its own weapons development, or acquire other means to counter the threat from the other side. Islamabad has been trying to voice its concerns at international forums to stop the proliferation. The cost of this development is yet another issue to be considered seriously. India is reported to have so far spent about US $600 million on its nuclear submarine project alone.

The problem here is that the three major powers which are engaged in the new ballistic missile race of a deadlier kind are hardly in a fit moral position to convince the two South Asian states to renounce their nuclear option. Which makes it seem that nuclear proliferation in South Asia is a reality that is likely to persist, at least, in the foreseeable future. Washington's main concern is about the lack of a reliable nuclear command and control system in South Asia.

If these two countries insist on retaining their nuclear option, Washington would like them to develop a stable nuclear deterrence and a command and control system. India and Pakistan can ill-afford the sophisticated and expensive technology like the permissive action links to ensure that weapons are not released accidentally.

The real challenge in South Asia is to discourage situations that could lead to an escalation of tension resulting in policymakers considering the use of nuclear weapons. The region cannot afford military adventurism. Some analysts, advocating the benefit of nuclear weapons, are of the view that nuclear option has deterred a conventional war in South Asia. The argument is debatable. If India and Pakistan want to retain their nuclear option it is imperative for them to ensure stability that, in this case, can be guaranteed through working out an arrangement for non-escalation of tension. There are sufficient communication channels between the two countries that, nonetheless, may be prone to breakdowns in times of heightened tension. The situation around Operation Brasstacks, the Kargil crisis and the shooting down of the PN aircraft in October 1999 are some of the many examples when hotlines did not work.

An agreement to solve outstanding issues would be a step in this direction. This approach could be pursued along with agreement on norms that would be adopted while issues are sorted out. A regional nuclear stability move has to go hand in hand with a global security agenda. Nuclear weapon states have to engage the two countries in a dialogue. Western analysts, of course, would argue that sitting down around a table with India and Pakistan would amount to recognizing these countries as nuclear weapon states and that this would encourage other nations to adopt the same course.

Although not an ideal situation, it would be prudent to contain regional or global instability by engaging these countries in a debate. Non-recognition of their nuclear status is not going to make the problem go away. Of greater importance is the need to convince the two countries to adopt a more responsible behaviour pattern. India has to recognize that its proliferation activities will impact on Pakistan's strategic planning. Islamabad, on the other hand, could be convinced to adopt a prudent style of military planning.

A similar attitude needs to be adopted by the P-5 states as well. American concern about its security is logical but a more sensible approach would be to jointly consider the question of KSdeterrence with other nations. Considering Washington's conventional and non-conventional defence superiority vis-a-vis other states like India, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran and North Korea, it is unimaginable for these countries to threaten the US. It would be best to start talking about a global strategic arms control regime that imposes limits on all nuclear capable states on their capabilities.

----

Pakistan Unveils Nuclear Procedures

Associated Press
By KATHY GANNON
From: Ndunlks@aol.com

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistan has a new procedure for the export of nuclear material and equipment, according to full-page advertisements placed by the government in English- and Urdu-language daily newspapers Tuesday.

The army-led government published application forms for any firm that might want to export material referred to in the advertisement as ``nuclear substances, radioactive material or any other substances prescribed by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission.''

This procedure is apparently part of Pakistan's earlier promise to establish clear controls over its nuclear material and equipment.

Pakistan and hostile neighbor India declared themselves nuclear powers in 1998 after conducting tit-for-tat nuclear explosions. Both countries say they possess a nuclear deterrence, but neither has said which nuclear weapons they possess and how many.

The international community has been pressing both countries to come up with legislation that will protect the transfer of nuclear technology.

Pakistan has repeatedly given assurances that its nuclear know-how would not be for sale.

The commerce ministry's public notice also covers the sale of ``equipment used for production, use or application of nuclear energy, including generation of electricity.''

The notice lists the substances that require special permission to sell. The 11 items on that list include enriched uranium, plutonium, heavy water, nuclear grade graphite, and natural and depleted uranium.

The ministry also has listed 17 pieces of nuclear-related equipment that requires special permission to export. The list includes nuclear power reactor, reactor control system, nuclear research reactor, and equipment for separating uranium isotopes, including gas centrifuges and magnets.

The notice is the first detailed explanation of what Pakistan's military government considers sensitive materials that require controls. It also gives responsibility to the Atomic Energy Commission, a government agency, to verify equipment and material to be exported.

----

New method of tapping n-energy

By Arunkumar Bhatt,
The Hindu
http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/2000/07/26/stories/08260001.htm

MUMBAI, JULY 25. Like their European counterparts, Indian scientists have also commenced work on a new way of tapping nuclear energy, terminating chain reaction at a sub-critical level, according to Dr. S.S. Kapoor, director of Physics Group of Bhabha Atomic Research Centre here.

Presently, fission-chain reaction is the only method known to tap nuclear energy, both in controlled and uncontrolled ways with uranium or plutonium fission reactions as the source. Energy from fusion reactions between isotopes of hydrogen in an uncontrolled way (hydrogen bomb) is also realised. But unlike the chain reaction, the new method uses a large number of neutrons for terminating the chain reaction.

The new method is what Dr. Kapoor calls Accelerator- Driven Sub- critical Reactor System (ADSS). It will have terminating chain reaction at a sub-critical level and consumes actinide nuclei and fission products. He was presenting here a paper on Basic Research in the Context of Futuristic Nuclear Energy Sources at a seminar under the auspices of the Indian Physics Association.

India is endowed with the largest thorium deposits in the world and the father of Indian nuclear programme, Dr. Homi Bhabha had seen it energy security for the country. Hence, the ADSS has added attraction for the country.

Dr. Kapoor told the gathering of physicists that the new method facilitated straight use of thorium and the country could bypass its current three-stage power programme to reach the level of thorium option.

But the biggest problem was `the state-of-the-art' accelerator needed for carrying out the research and development, the noted physicist said pointing out, nobody would sell it to India. The country would have to build one of its own.

The 500-odd nuclear power reactors operating in the world people were apprehensive about them because of the accidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. But the subcritical ADSS is absolutely safe.

Talking to The Hindu later, Dr. Kapoor said that the new option removed that `one in a million chance at least in theory' for radiation accident of which one was apprehensive.

The present Indian nuclear power programme envisages conversion of thorium into uranium 233 in breeder reactors and use that as fuel in the third stage reactors. The ADSS facilitates the use of thorium straight and one would need only little uranium 233 as `seed' fuel to be able to burn thorium in situ.

Like others, India is also many years away from the ADSS. For a host of new technologies are needed to finally assemble the ADSS, Dr. Kapoor said. These may include even superconductivity. The need was to convert electric power into beam power.

The Europeans are interested in the ADSS for it could be used to incinerate troublesome actinide nuclei which have very long half- life, the period for which they would continue to emit deadly radiation, ranging from few to hundreds of years. ``These are very difficult to dispose off and therefore better to burn them and take energy out,'' he said. Such a reactor could be used also to recycling warheads of dismantled weapons.

-------- israel

The risk of leaving Iraq unchecked

July 26, 2000
Jerusalem Post
By Allyn Fisher-Ilan
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2000/07/23/Features/Features.9997.html

Ten years after its invasion of Kuwait, the subsequent Gulf War, and the implementation of sanctions aimed at stripping Iraq of its most dangerous weapons, former UN arms inspector Richard Butler tells Allyn Fisher-Ilan that a now unmonitored Baghdad appears to be rebuilding its arsenal --

Iran's newly tested Shihab-3 missile is certainly "a dangerous and difficult weapon" with a capability of carrying a one-ton warhead, says Richard Butler, former head of the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) charged with ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.

But Butler, who spent a couple of years trying in vain to disarm Iran's equally menacing neighbor, Iraq, seems more concerned that the projectile fired successfully last week may give Iran's more immediate enemy, Iraq, more incentive to produce its own long-range missile.

"There's no doubt [Iraq is] seeking to acquire a long range missile capability," Butler told The Jerusalem Post in an interview. "They probably have some already hidden. They tried to keep from me their indigenous production of long range missiles."

That's not all Iraq has attained in recent years, in defiance of UN resolutions passed since the 1991 Gulf War to strip the country of its dangerous weapons.

According to Butler, who was visiting here this week, Iraq has the know-how to put together an atomic bomb within 12 months. All it is missing is some fissionable material, such as enriched uranium or plutonium, which could be purchased on the black market, he says.

This "is one of the main concerns that intelligence agencies around the world have" today, he says. "Saddam [Hussein] knows how to make an atomic bomb and he has the people who can do it for him."

An even greater threat to Israel, in Butler's view, is Iraq's apparent commitment to producing biological weapons or germ warfare, with Israel in mind as a potential target.

He says that Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tarik Aziz once told him that the reason his country needs biological weapons is to deal with the hostility of the "Zionist entity."

He says Aziz referred to Israel's 1981 bombing of the Osirak reactor outside Baghdad and "made clear to me in a private conversation that the current Iraqi regime views Israel as an enemy of Iraq, as a threat to Iraq. He actually tried to say to me that that's why Iraq created biological weapons, as if in some way they were especially reserved for Israel."

Butler adds that he "will go to the grave not understanding exactly what he was saying there - not understanding the inner meaning of that. It almost sounded genocidal. But I don't want to say that, because I don't understand exactly what he was saying."

BUTLER, a seasoned diplomat in the area of arms control and a former Australian ambassador to the UN, headed UNSCOM from 1997 through June 1999. The agency was dismantled following Saddam's continued refusal to cooperate with the inspections, last conducted in late 1998 before the US and Britain retaliated for Iraq's noncompliance by bombing its weapons factories in Operation Desert Fox.

Now a diplomat in residence at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York, Butler is worried about the vacuum created by the absence of any arms inspections in Iraq for nearly two years. In his new book, The Greatest Threat: Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Crisis of Global Security, he elaborates on these misgivings, and details his troubles in dealing with Saddam's regime.

The volume, published last month in New York, offers details about the cat-and-mouse game Butler and his fellow inspectors were forced to play while trying to verify whether Baghdad was complying with UN rules to curtail the production of lethal weapons.

Iraq made major efforts to conceal suspected weapons depots and production sites, sometimes threatening the UN inspectors, he writes. In one chilling encounter, a helicopter carrying inspectors nearly crashed when an Iraqi pilot threatened to interfere with the flight controls. He had been trying to prevent a photographer on board from taking pictures of a vehicle exiting a military barracks in Saddam's hometown of Tikrit.

Butler and other officials were repeatedly forced to do detective work when confronted by Iraq's obvious concealment efforts. He writes of instances where inspectors were kept waiting outside an installation's gates while truckloads of equipment would be carted out of a building.

He maintains that there is evidence that Iraq is flouting international law by going ahead unchecked with the production of weapons of mass destruction.

Butler has mounted a campaign to raise public awareness about the risk this poses. This past week he lectured on "The emerging threat of Iraq" at an event sponsored by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and the New Atlantic Initiative, American Enterprise Institute. On Tuesday, Butler addressed the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

"Since we were stopped in our work almost two years ago, there's been no monitoring whatsoever of Iraq," Butler told the Post. "The place that we're in is a dangerous one. I don't see a resolution in sight."

He refers to recent reports of Iraq taking advantage of a loophole in UN restrictions by trying to produce missiles with a range of up to 150 kilometers. He says the Iraqis intend to use the technology "to make them fly longer."

The report was published this month in The New York Times, but Butler says he has known about the project for two years. He suggests it is one of many Iraqi weapons endeavors that the UN has had little success in stopping.

In his book, he notes how Aziz once remarked, in one of the many testy meetings between them while Butler was head of UNSCOM, that if you can make a weapon fly 150 kilometers you can make one to fly farther.

Regarding chemical and biological weapons, Butler says there have been reports that Iraq is rebuilding the factories wrecked by US and British bombings in Operation Desert Fox.

"It is folly not to assume that Iraq is back in the chemical and biological business," Butler says. "They know how to do it and they have an established track record in doing it. We know that Saddam has used those weapons, including on his own people. Why in the name of the Lord would you assume otherwise?"

EARLIER this year, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed a new agency in charge of weapons inspections and disarmament in Iraq. The new agency is called UNMOVIC, the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission.

But a renewal of inspections has been delayed by what Butler suggests to be Russian delaying tactics, at Iraq's behest. In an April letter urging a more detailed outline of how inspections would be conducted, Russia "said in writing to the council that 'we will support them [the Iraqis] and we, with our veto, will not approve of things of which they don't approve.'"

Giving Iraq such veto power over the inspections, says Butler, "sounds awfully like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop, doesn't it?"

Butler accuses Russia of taking Iraq under its wing like a client state, a type of relationship more reminiscent of the Cold War era, he points out.

He calls for Russia "to stop patronizing Saddam Hussein. It has to find another way to show the world that it still is really a global power instead of hitching its wagon to the dictator of Iraq."

The US and other countries could do more than they are doing to put pressure on Moscow and renew weapons inspections in Iraq, Butler believes.

"The whole world has to be worried about nonproliferation arrangements crumbling - because the Security Council is allowing its authority to be so trashed," he says. "It's not about a trade matter or some other diplomatic matter. It's about no less than weapons of mass destruction.

HE'D like to see Washington force renewed weapons inspections in Iraq before the issue is forced by another crisis. If long-range missiles don't worry Washington, the potential for errant nuclear arms, chemicals and biological agents being used for terrorism should be a cause for concern, Butler says.

"I think the whole world has to be worried about the continued existence of a person who's shown that he has an addiction to weapons of mass destruction, whose products, especially, chemical or biological, could easily find their way into terrorist hands.

"Do we really have to wait for him to fire missiles again at a neighboring country or to have substances turn up in the subways of New York and then discover they were of Iraqi origin?" Butler asks.

The potential for nuclear capability should also be of concern.

"Russia doesn't even know how much plutonium they made under their old system... People like the Iraqis or the Iranians have a cartload of money at their disposal and for them to say to some errant scientist, I'll give you $5 million for that briefcase of material - for that person it's their whole life, while for Baghdad, that's lunch money."

He adds that "the whole world has to be worried about arrangements we've built over 40 years crumbling," referring to the various arms control mechanisms of the world community.

LISTENING to Butler, one wonders whether any progress was made in disarming Iraq since the Gulf War. What does Butler think?

"One has to recognize we are in a different place from where we were in 1991," he replies. "The simplest way of illustrating that is to ask the question rhetorically - where, as it were, in the name of God, would we be if there had been no intervention to take away Saddam's weapons-making capability and a good deal of the weapons that he had made, and to hold him under monitoring for eight years?"

He notes that in 1991 Saddam was only six months away from acquiring one or more atomic bombs.

"If he had not brought himself to attention in the way he did by invading Kuwait, if he had just proceeded in what we now know was a detailed program for the creation of weapons of mass destruction, I think we'd be in a terrible place," Butler adds.

The trouble is, he says, "we were unable to finish the job" of disarming Iraq.

-------- treaties

N-Testing Update -- new CTBT ratifications; status of Shalikashvili effort on the CTBT; new report on stockpile maintainance alternatives; Congress debates NIF funding

Daryl Kimball, Executive Director, Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers - dkimball@clw.org
Wed, 26 Jul 2000 13:21:05 -0400

Despite the failure of the U.S. to ratify the CTBT thus far, the number of states that have signed the CTBT has grown to 155 countries and the number that have ratified is up to 60, as of July 12, 2000. The most recent ratifications are Chile (July 12); the Russian Federation (June 30); Iceland (June 26); and Portugal (June 26).

To date 30 of the 44 states required for CTBT entry into force have ratified. (See http://www.ctbto.org/ctbto/sig_rat.shtml for more details.) Key hold-out states include: China; India; Pakistan; North Korea; and the United States. With ratification by Iceland and Portugal, the United States is now the only NATO state that is not party to the Treaty.

Obtaining additional ratifications will be increasingly difficult in the absence of U.S. ratification.

Meanwhile, the the U.S. and Russian President's reiterated their commitment to the CTBT (and NPT) in their July 21, 2000, Joint Statement on Cooperation on Strategic Stability. The statement, prepared at the G-8 Economic Summit in Okinawa reads, in part:

"The United States and Russia reaffirm their commitment to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons as the foundation of the international nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament regime. They will work to ensure early entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and seek to expand cooperation related to the CTBT to promote mutually beneficial technical exchanges that will facilitate implementation of the CTBT after its entry into force."

Whether President Clinton will put the force of action behind those words to increase the prospects for the CTBT is another matter.

The CTBT Task Force: General Shalikashvili, Special Advisor to the President and Sec. of State on the CTBT, has reported that his "quiet" dialogue with key Senators and experts on the Treaty is moving ahead and into the next major phase. After having met with dozens of key Senators to canvass them on their views, concerns, and questions regarding the Treaty, he and his staff are, over the next 30-45 days, preparing a draft of his report to the President and Secretary of State. Following the August Congressional recess, Shalikashvili will conduct a second round of meetings with Senators to discuss some of his preliminary findings and recommendations and then will finalize and release all or part of the report sometime this fall.

Nuclear Weapons R & D -- NIF and the "Stockpile Stewardship" Budget: One of the tough issues that Shalikashvili will likely try to tackle in his report is how the remaining U.S. nuclear arsenal can be maintained in the absence of nuclear weapons test explosions. The Livermore, CA-based Tri-Valley Cares has made an important contribution to our understanding of this issue with a new report, Managing the U.S. Nuclear Stockpile, by former Office of Management and Budget examiner Robert Civiak.

The report describes and rates 5 strategies, including the DOE's preferred "science-based stockpile stewardship" program, for accomplishing this task. Among the key points that emerge are that the existing nuclear weapons arsenal can be maintained in a "safe and reliable" fashion with existing facilities and programs and that some of the DOE's expensive and problem-riddled experimental facilities, such as the National Ignition Facility (NIF), are largely irrelevant to the core function of maintaining the existing nuclear stockpile in a safe and reliable condition.

The executive summary of the report is attached below in text form and available on-line from http://www.igc.org/tvc/

Also this month, the House and Senate have approved an ever growing amount of funds for the DOE's nuclear weapons activities (a.k.a. "science-based stockpile stewardship"). The Senate Appropriations Committee approved a nuclear weapons activities budget of $4.88 billion -- $250 million above the Clinton administration's request for fiscal year 2001. The House approved a budget of $4.625 billion.

As Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) told the Albuquerque Journal: "Our labs will be in great shape."

(See http://www.igc.org/tvc/budget2001.htm for a detailed analysis of the FY 2001 Clinton Administration request.)

Even as larger budgets for the program are authorized, members of the House and the Senate continue to struggle to understand what stockpile stewardship is, and which of its components are actually useful to maintain the existing arsenal and which are not. As a result, some Senators remain uncertain about whether "stockpile stewardship" can maintain the arsenal without reverting to nuclear testing, and are therefore, uncertain about the CTBT.

Congress Considers NIF: A new General Accounting Office report critical of DOE's management of the NIF project (see July 20 WSJ article below) has fueled a growing Congressional skepticism about the cost and utility of NIF. Nevertheless, both the House and the Senate appropropriations bills include $74.1 million for construction of NIF. The Senate also approved by a voice vote an amendment to the defense authorization bill from Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) to authorize additional funding on NIF if the DOE completes its "re-baselining" report to Congress.

These results are partly due to pork-barrel politics and the ongoing lack of Congressional understanding about the role of NIF and other stockpile stewardship projects in maintaining the existing arsenal. For example, when two House members (Ryan R-WI and Kucinich D-OH) sought to cut funding for NIF through a floor amendment to the House E&W Appropriations bill on June 27, two other Democrats spoke in opposition to the amendment on the basis of inaccuracies and misperceptions about the relationship between NIF and the CTBT. Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) made the preposterous claim that "... the NIF is the cornerstone of [the science-based stockpile stewardship] program. The NIF is the best way to ensure the safety and reliability of our nuclear weapons and to promote arms control and non-proliferation." John Spratt (D-SC) made the highly misinformed claim that: "... NIF ... is essential to the quest for reliability of nuclear weapons."

The Ryan/Kucinich amendment to cut $74.1 million in National Ignition Facility construction funds failed on a voice vote. Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) may attempt to cut or limit spending on NIF through a floor amendment to the upcoming Senate Energy and Water Appropriations bill (which will not likely be considered by the full Senate until September).

NIF may be useful for keeping weapons scientists busy and Livermore open, but it is not essential to weapons reliability. In reality, maintaining the arsenal without testing can continue to be achieved without nuclear explosive tests (and without the NIF) primarily through existing stockpile surveillance and remanufacturing facilities and processes. See http://www.psr.org/nifsheet.pdf for a short analysis on NIF from Physicians for Social Responsibility, or see http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/nif/nifinx.asp for a more detailed critique of the NIF program from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

NNSA Leadership in Place: the new head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), John Gordon, has been sworn in. His deputy, Madelyn Creedon (formerly of the Minority Staff of the Senate Armed Services Committee) has also been confirmed. The NNSA was created by Congress as a semi-autonomous agency within the DOE responsible for the nuclear weapons-releated responsibilities of the Department of Energy, including: "maintenance of a safe, secure and reliable stockpile of nuclear weapons and associated materials capabilities and technologies; promotion of international nuclear safety and nonproliferation; and administration and management of the naval nuclear propulsion program." This new bureacracy-within-a-bureaucracy will likely become a powerful player in future U.S. nuclear weapons policy and may add to the nuclear weapons laboratories' strong influence on Capitol Hill. Gordon will likely be preoccupied with the controversy about nuclear laboratory security in his first few months.

South Asian Nuclear Developments: New reports suggest that the situation between Pakistan and India remains volatile, with the use of nuclear weapons a seriously-considered option. Indian P.M. Vajpayee has announced that he will visit the U.S. for three days in September (apparently in connection with the UN's Millenium Summit) and will commence a debate on the CTBT in the Indian parliament this session. (See news reports, below.)

CONTENTS

1. CTBT Signature/Ratification Around the Globe

status of ratifications and signatures of 44 states needed for CTBT EIF http://www.ctbto.org/ctbto/sig_rat.shtml

CTBTO, Press Release, CHILE RATIFIES COMPREHENSIVE NUCLEAR-TEST-BAN TREATY, July 18, 2000

2. Nuclear Weapons R & D

Executive Summary of "Managing the U.S Nuclear Stockpile: A Comparison of 5 Strategies," A Report for Tri-Valley CAREs by Dr. Robert Civiak

"Giant Laser Project Is Running Over Budget, the GAO Reports," The Wall Street Journal, July 20, 2000, by John J. Fialka

"Virtual Nuclear Arms Tests," The Washington Post, July 22, 2000, by Walter Pincus

3. South Asian Nuclear Weapons Developments

"India's Vajpayee to Visit U.S. in September," Reuters, Tuesday, July 25

"Pakistan to consider using nukes if attacked," Financial Times, 20 July 2000

PREPARATORY COMMISSION FOR THE COMPREHENSIVE NUCLEAR-TEST-BAN TREATY ORGANIZATION (CTBTO PrepCom)

PROVISIONAL TECHNICAL SECRETARIAT

Vienna International Centre P.O. BOX 1200, A-1400 Vienna, AUSTRIA Telephone: +43 1 26030 6200 Facsimile: +43 1 26030 5877

PRESS RELEASE
CHILE RATIFIES COMPREHENSIVE NUCLEAR-TEST-BAN TREATY

Vienna, Austria, 18 July 2000 Chile deposited its instrument of ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) with the Secretary-General of the United Nations on 12 July 2000. Chile is the sixtieth State signatory to have ratified the Treaty and the thirtieth of the 44 States listed in the Treaty to do so. To enter into force, the Treaty has to be ratified by the 44 States named under Article XIV that formally participated in the work of the 1996 Conference on Disarmament and that possess nuclear power or research reactors.

Chile is contributing two auxiliary seismological stations, two radionuclide stations, two infrasound stations and one hydroacoustic station to the international network of monitoring stations that the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) is establishing or upgrading to verify compliance with the Treaty. The auxiliary seismological stations at Easter Island and Limon Verde will require minor upgrades to meet the specifications of the International Monitoring System. Contracts for site surveys for the two radionuclide stations in Punta Arenas and Easter Island, as well for the hydroacoustic station at Juan Fernández Island, are under negotiation. Site surveys for both infrasound stations, on Easter Island and Juan Fernández Island, have been completed. All radionuclide, hydroacoustic and infrasound stations are scheduled for installation in 2001.

Under the CTBT, the network of 321 monitoring stations - known as the International Monitoring System (IMS) - will record data necessary to verify compliance with the Treaty using four complementary technologies. The stations will be capable of registering vibrations from a possible nuclear explosion underground, in the seas and in the air, as well as detecting radioactive debris released into the atmosphere. The monitoring stations will transmit, via satellite, the data to the International Data Centre (IDC) within CTBTO Preparatory Commission in Vienna, where the data will be used to detect, locate and characterize events. These data and other IDC products will be made available to the signatory States for final analysis.

The 60 States that have ratified the Treaty are: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Fiji, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Grenada, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Lesotho, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mali, Mexico, Micronesia (Federated States of), Monaco, Mongolia, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Romania, Russian Federation, Senegal, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and Uzbekistan. To date, 155 States have signed the Treaty.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty bans any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion anywhere in the world. Drafted in the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva and adopted by the General Assembly on 10 September 1996, the Treaty was opened for signature on 24 September 1996 at the United Nations in New York.

Executive Summary of "Managing the U.S Nuclear Stockpile: A Comparison of 5 Strategies," A Report for Tri Valley CAREs by Dr. Robert Civiak

Available on-line at http://www.igc.org/tvc/

Introduction:

Under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) the United States and the other four major nuclear powers have pledged to:

". . . pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control."

Unfortunately, achieving the goal of complete disarmament does not appear imminent. The United States still maintains some 10,400 nuclear weapons in operational condition. Until all nuclear weapons can be eliminated, we must maintain the safety and security of the remaining stockpile. In addition, present policy dictates continued reliance on the nuclear stockpile to deter others from using nuclear weapons against us. Maintaining the safety, security and deterrent value of the U.S. nuclear stockpile must not, however, impede efforts to reduce or eliminate nuclear weapons. We are concerned that the current approach to managing the stockpile does just that.

The Department of Energy (DOE), manages the nuclear stockpile under a program called the Stockpile Stewardship Program. The DOE approach goes well beyond merely maintaining current nuclear weapons. DOE's Stockpile Stewardship Program is a multifaceted effort to:

 Expand the scientific knowledge and understanding of nuclear weapons physics and engineering using a host of sophisticated experimental facilities;

 Model the behavior of exploding nuclear weapons using the world's fastest computers; and

 Refurbish and modernize all the weapons in the stockpile by replacing components with updated versions and, in some cases, by designing and manufacturing completely new nuclear weapons.

The DOE approach is a massive program whose cost is approaching $5 billion per year. At the height of the Cold War, DOE spent $3.8 billion per year (in today's dollars) on nuclear weapons' design, testing, and manufacture.

This report examines other ways to ensure the safety and reliability of the stockpile, including options that are simpler, less costly, and more certain than the DOE approach, and which better match U.S. commitments to end the arms race and eliminate nuclear weapons.

We take a comprehensive look at a wide range of strategies for managing the nuclear weapons stockpile. Each option is precisely defined and the activities that would be conducted and facilities that would be needed are specified. Each option is evaluated on its ability to meet five criteria, which we believe must be satisfied to adequately maintain the nuclear weapons stockpile and achieve broad political support.

 Maintaining weapons safety and security;  Maintaining weapons reliability and performance;

 Supporting arms control and nonproliferation;  Controlling costs; and

 Minimizing adverse environmental impacts.

We also evaluate the options on their ability to improve and modernize nuclear weapons.

The five options are:

 The current DOE Stockpile Stewardship Program;

 A Remanufacturing Option, under which DOE would periodically replace all the components in every nuclear weapon with new ones. Nuclear components would be remanufactured as closely as possible to the original designs, but other components could be modified;

 A Curatorship Option, under which DOE would rely on surveillance and nonnuclear testing to determine when repairs are necessary to nuclear weapons. Only if there is compelling evidence that components have degraded or will soon degrade, and could cause a significant loss of safety, reliability, or performance, would DOE replace the affected parts with new ones. All new components would be remanufactured as closely as possible to the original designs;

 A Passive Arms Reduction Option, in which DOE would replenish tritium supplies and replace traditional "limited life components," such as batteries and neutron generators, but would make no other repairs to nuclear weapons; and

 A Return to Testing Option, under which DOE would conduct two to four underground nuclear explosive tests per year, in addition to continuing nearly all the activities of the current Stockpile Stewardship Program.

Under each of the options, the Department of Energy could adequately maintain a sizable U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile for many years. That is not meant to imply our lack of support or interest in rapid reductions and eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons. Active steps to bring about U.S. and international arms reductions are beyond the scope of this report. Rather, this report looks solely options for managing U.S. nuclear weapons until they can all be eliminated.

Under each of the options, the Department of Energy could adequately maintain a sizable U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile for many years.

Assessment of the Options for Managing the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Stockpile: Our assessment of the five options against each of six criteria is shown in Table ES-1. The assessments are summarized below. Table ES-2 shows our estimates of the likely annual costs to pursue the major elements of each option for the next five to ten years.

The Curatorship Option is the only one of the five options that we rate as superior or good on all five criteria, which we believe must be satisfied to adequately maintain the nuclear weapons stockpile and achieve broad political support. Curatorship rates superior for Maintaining Weapons Safety and Security and good for Maintaining Reliability and Performance. Those high ratings are due primarily to the strong emphasis under this option on replacing degraded components with new ones as close to the original designs as possible. DOE would not attempt to make any improvements. In general, the fewer changes one attempts to make in safe and reliable warheads, the more likely they are to remain safe and reliable. Curatorship rates good rather than superior for Maintaining Reliability and Performance, because DOE would not replace most weapons components until it observed some degradation in their condition. That would entail some risk that once degradation of a component is observed, it might already prevent the weapon from performing properly. Curatorship rates good on Supporting Arms Control and Nonproliferation, because of its policy of no improvements to nuclear weapons and because DOE would cease all research and experimentation that is not absolutely necessary to maintain the nuclear weapons stockpile. It falls short of superior, because it does not automatically reduce the number of nuclear weapons. The curtailment of most of DOE's current weapons-related research and experimentation is also the primary reason that Curatorship receives good ratings for Controlling Costs and for Minimizing Adverse Environmental Impacts. The Curatorship Option rates poor on the criterion of Improving and Modernizing Nuclear Weapons. Efforts to improve U.S. nuclear weapons can encourage other nations to develop their own nuclear weapons. Such efforts are also inconsistent with the U.S. commitments under the NPT to cease the arms race. Therefore, we view the low rating for the Curatorship Option on this criterion as further reason to favor it.

The Remanufacturing Option is the only one that we rate as superior for Maintaining Weapons Reliability and Performance. It also rates superior for Maintaining Safety and Security. Those high ratings are due to the pro-active posture of this option in replacing components on a regular basis, before degradation occurs. Nuclear components would be replaced with new units as close to the original design as possible. Changes would be allowed to nonnuclear components under this option, but since such changes can be thoroughly tested, they do not detract from the superior ratings for these criteria. On the other hand, since DOE would, under this option, continue an active weapons research and engineering program, begin remanufacturing and replacing nuclear weapons' primaries as soon as possible, and seek to make improvements in the nonnuclear components of nuclear weapons, this option rates only fair for Supporting Arms Control and Nonproliferation. In addition, the Remanufacturing Option rates poor for controlling costs and only fair for minimizing adverse environmental impact. This option gets low ratings on those criteria because it would promptly proceed to remanufacture a considerable number of plutonium pits, absent significant arsenal reductions. Furthermore, proponents of this option assume that most of DOE's weapons related research and experimentation programs would be continued. If, however, weapons-related research activities and improvements to weapons components were constrained under the Remanufacturing Option, it would become more attractive. A hybrid option is possible that retains the pro-active stance of the Remanufacturing Option by replacing components before degradation is observed, and combines that with the restricted research and engineering and prohibition on improvements to nuclear weapons of the Curatorship Option. Such a hybrid might be attractive to those who do not support the approach of the Curatorship Option of waiting for defects to be discovered before making repairs.

The Passive Arms Reduction Option rates superior on four of the five key criteria we believe must be satisfied to adequately maintain the stockpile and achieve broad political support. However, it rates only fair on Maintaining Reliability and Performance. That low rating is due primarily to this option's approach of removing failed weapons from the stockpile, instead of fixing and replacing them. We assume that under this option DOE would conduct a thorough surveillance and testing program to identify degraded warheads and remove them from the stockpile. In that case, the remaining weapons could be as reliable as under any of the other options. The number of reliable warheads would decline over time, however. Eventually, one or more classes of warheads might have to be removed from the stockpile. This would reduce the flexibility in the United States response to a potential aggressor. This approach is likely to make the Passive Arms Reduction Option politically unacceptable in the current environment. However, even under the "no repairs" policy of this option, it is very unlikely, that the number of reliable nuclear weapons in the stockpile would fall precipitously for at least the next few decades. Thus, those who support a minimum core deterrence role for nuclear weapons might favor this option.

The DOE Stockpile Stewardship Program rates poor and the Return to Testing Option rates inferior on Support for Arms Control and Nonproliferation. In both cases, we assign those low ratings because of their broad programs in weapons research and engineering and their plans for improving nuclear weapons. Such plans are inconsistent with U.S. commitments under the NPT to cease the nuclear arms race. Those options serve to encourage further development of nuclear weapons around the world. In addition, those options are by far the most costly and least protective of the environment.

Conclusion and Recommendations:

We have identified three distinctly different options that offer substantial improvements over the Stockpile Stewardship Program. They are the Curatorship Option, the Remanufacturing Option, and the Passive Arms Reduction Option. We rate all three of those options higher than the Stockpile Stewardship Program for maintaining weapons safety and security; supporting arms control and nonproliferation; controlling costs; and minimizing environmental impacts. We therefore recommend the following:

Recommendation 1. The U.S. Congress should request from the Congressional Budget Office and the General Accounting Office financial and policy analyses of the five strategies identified here for managing the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.

Recommendation 2. Congress should hold comprehensive oversight hearings examining DOE's Stockpile Stewardship Program in comparison to the full suite of stockpile management options.

Recommendation 3. Congress should redirect funds from DOE's efforts at expanding nuclear weapons science and engineering and improving nuclear weapons designs. Instead, some of the funds should be used to increase support for basic programs in surveillance, testing, and evaluation of existing weapons in the active stockpile.

Recommendation 4. The Department of Energy should conduct a comprehensive reevaluation of how it manages the nuclear weapons stockpile. The reevaluation should consider a range of options, such as those presented here, and evaluate the options against a set of criteria similar to those used here. The reevaluation should give special consideration to options that are more supportive of U.S. arms control and nonproliferation objectives than is Stockpile Stewardship.

Recommendation 5. Citizens groups and the general public should use the information presented in this report to advocate for changes in U.S. nuclear weapons policy that would reduce the worldwide danger from nuclear weapons.

-------- turkey

Akkuyu Turkey makes the right decision

From: "Jim Karygiannis" krygnsmp@yesic.com
IT'S OVER AKKUYU STOPPED
July 26th 2000

Dear Friends

I am writing to thank all those who participated in the awareness campaign as well as the writing campaign against Turkey's wish to buy a nuclear power plant.

Bellow I am attaching an article from the Globe & Mail a major Canadian National Newspaper.

Again a million thanks to all and everyone of you that helped.

Sincerely

Jim Karygiannis Member of Parliament House of Commons Ottawa Ontario Canada

Turkey's nuclear decision a major blow for AECL Country shelves long-time plan to buy reactors

SHAWN McCARTHY Parliamentary Bureau;
With files from AP
Wednesday, July 26, 2000

Ottawa -- AECL Inc. has suffered a major setback in its push for financial stability as Turkey yesterday shelved a controversial plan to buy nuclear reactors.

AECL -- a federal Crown corporation -- led one of three consortia bidding for the plum Turkey contract, which had been one of only a few proposed nuclear projects under way in the world.

The federally owned company even enlisted the support of Prime Minister Jean Chretien who lobbied the Turkish government on behalf of the Canadian proposal.

AECL has spent more than five years and millions of dollars in bidding for the contract, which its president Allen Kilpatrick has described as "crucial" to its export-oriented business plan.

Turkey's Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit said yesterday that the government cannot afford to spend an estimated $4-billion on the Akkuyu nuclear plant, given its economic austerity program, which was undertaken with the support of the International Monetary Fund.

AECL spokesman Larry Shewchuk said the loss of the Turkish business was disappointing but not devastating. "It's always disappointing to lose out on a potential sale, but given the circumstances it was not terribly surprising."

Anti-nuclear activist Dave Martin, a researcher for the Durham, Ont.-based Nuclear Awareness Project, said the Turkish decision is just one more nail in the coffin of the international nuclear industry.

"This has got to hurt the nuclear industry big time," Mr. Martin said. "It's not only sounding the death knell of the nuclear industry worldwide but is a major blow to AECL -- it represents the collapse of its export program."

The researcher said few countries -- with the exception of China and South Korea -- are considering new nuclear projects.

He added that Turkey's about-face is also embarrassing for Mr. Chretien, who has promoted Candu technology there and elsewhere around the world.

"No question, the Prime Minister has egg on his face," he said.

AECL -- formerly called Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. -- is the country's flagship nuclear company, and has received billions of dollars in federal subsidies since it was founded in 1947.

Ottawa has cut its federal grant to $100-million in the current year from $175-million in 1995.

Mr. Martin said the government should end all funding for the "sunset industry." However, John Embury, a spokesman for Natural Resources Minister Ralph Goodale, said Ottawa has confidence in the future of the industry and is providing the funding to support research in nuclear power and related fields, such as medicine.

In an independent review of AECL in 1995, Nesbitt Burns Inc. said it would have to sell nine reactors in 10 years, eliminate much of its scientific research, and close facilities across the country to remain viable with a federal grant of only $100-million.

Since then, AECL has rationalized its operations, but has sold only two reactors, those to China in 1996.

In an interview in 1998, Mr. Kilpatrick said the Turkish deal was "extremely important" to the company and critical to its export program.

Mr. Shewchuk said yesterday that AECL hopes to sell more Candu reactors to China and South Korea. In the longer term, he said countries such as Indonesia and the Philippines could be in the market for nuclear power.

He added that AECL has seen the nuclear servicing side of the business boom in recent years as utilities such as Ontario Hydro and New Brunswick Hydro look to extend the life of existing reactors.

Mr. Kilpatrick has also conceded that high front-end capital costs can price nuclear power out of competitive electricity markets.

It was those front-end costs that drove a financially troubled Turkey to cancel the project.

"It is unnecessary for us, for the time being, to invest in nuclear energy. . . . Our economic stability program could seriously be hampered [by the project]," Mr. Ecevit said.

He said Turkey -- which had cancelled a similar plan in the 1980s -- would reconsider building the plant in 10 to 20 years.

-------- u.s. nuc facilities

-------- pennsylvania

Nuclear waste editorial to Harrisburg Patriot News

From: "Scott D Portzline" happen@pipeline.com
Wed, 26 Jul 2000 11:36:25 -0400

The nuclear power industry has recently benefited from an estimated $50 billion dollar bailout. That kind of money should be invested into renewable energy sources that are already economically viable. But the government continues to promote a failing industry which still has no solution for its 40,000 tons of spent fuel and other dangerous wastes.

Now, the Department of Energy (DOE) has set a worrisome precedent by allowing the Peach Bottom plant to defer up to $80 million dollars in nuclear waste fees. The DOE planned to begin accepting spent fuel into an environmentally sound repository by now. But, technical and geological problems at the planned site could prevent it from ever opening.

Furthermore, many nuclear plants might become repositories by default for other deadly radioactive wastes. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is taking a serious look at favoring this possibility called the "entombment option" - with the exception that the spent fuel be removed.

It makes sense to stop generating these wastes as early as possible. Solar energy and other alternatives are economically and environmentally friendly now. Nuclear power has never been safe, clean or cheap. In Pennsylvania, the most expensive form of electrical energy is nuclear. We must not allow our state to become a waste site to a failing industry.

Scott D. Portzline Three Mile Island Alert

-------- washington

Lab Tests Indicate Plutonium in Air

Wednesday July 26
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20000726/us/hanford_fire_1.html

RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) - Air samples taken during and after the Hanford nuclear reservation fire last month show an increased concentration of plutonium in public areas outside the reservation, but still in non-harmful quantity, officials said Wednesday.

Five of 41 routine monitoring samples contained above-normal concentrations, though all are significantly below federal and state limits for radiation releases, said representatives of the state Department of Health and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

``They are on the order of a thousand-fold lower than what would drive public protective action,'' said Jerry Leitch, the EPA's regional radiation program manager.

The five increased readings were measured in the Pasco, Richland and West Richland communities, which are within 10 miles of the reservation.

At a fire station in Pasco where the highest reading appeared, a person breathing the measured amount of plutonium for a year would be exposed to about 10 millirem of radiation, about the equivalent of a dental X-ray, federal officials said.

People on average absorb about 350 millirem of radiation a year from a variety of sources, Leitch said.

Hundreds of air, soil and vegetation samples were taken during and after the 191,000-acre wildfire burned nearly half the reservation, the most contaminated nuclear site in the country.

Department of Energy managers at Hanford have said they expected laboratory analysis to show some presence of radioactive material after wind, firefighting equipment and the fire itself dispersed contaminated dirt and ash from the surface.

The Energy Department is offering testing for 700 firefighters most likely to have been exposed to radioactive elements.

Debra McBaugh of the state Department of Health said the radioactive materials posed no immediate danger to residents.

``There is no reason they have to do anything differently than they are doing,'' she said.

-------- us nuc politics

Cheney's Style: Cool, Methodical, And Conservative

By Edward Walsh and Amy Goldstein
Washington Post
Wednesday, July 26, 2000; Page A01
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/26/168l-072600-idx.html

At 2 a.m. on a June night in 1978, Lynne V. Cheney raced down the stairs in the Cheyenne, Wyo., home of Joseph B. Meyer, an old high school friend of her husband, who was making his first race for Congress.

"Dick's got a tingling in his left arm," she told Meyer. They rushed her husband to the hospital, where doctors discovered he'd had a heart attack.

The next day, Lynne Cheney sat at the Meyers' kitchen table distraught, wondering about what would happen to their two young daughters, her husband's political ambitions, the fabric of their lives.

But when 37-year-old Richard B. Cheney returned from the hospital, Meyer recalled, he was utterly calm. "He was very quiet about it. They had a family meeting about what to do next. They picked up the reins of the campaign and got on with things."

Cool and methodical, Cheney's response to that potentially life-changing event was characteristic of an operating style that has served him well throughout his career, from White House chief of staff for President Gerald R. Ford at age 34 through five terms in Congress to his current tenure as chairman and chief executive officer of Halliburton Co., an energy services and equipment firm where he has overseen the layoffs of 9,000 employees.

In various ways, some surprising, the 59-year-old Cheney is similar to Texas Gov. George W. Bush, 54. While Cheney from an early age was far more focused and disciplined than Bush, Cheney had his own, shorter version of what Bush terms his "irresponsible" youth.

Cheney--six years ahead of Bush at Yale--dropped out after his sagging grades cost him his scholarship, and he was twice arrested in his early twenties for drunken driving, a fact that Cheney privately revealed when he was nominated to be secretary of defense.

Like Bush, Cheney managed to avoid being drafted for service in Vietnam, receiving a string of student deferments and then, just as married men without children were being called up for military duty, celebrating the birth of his first child. "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service," Cheney said during his tenure as defense secretary.

And much as with Bush, Cheney's pragmatic, congenial manner helps soften an unyieldingly conservative stance. In Congress, Cheney's moderate demeanor helped him get along with those across the political spectrum even as he racked up a conservative voting record that Democrats are already eagerly mining. "He had a very disarming personality," said former House minority leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.). "He could always sit over on the other side of the aisle and talk to the Democrats."

But where Bush is gregarious, Cheney is reserved. In his memoirs, former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Colin L. Powell recalled of Cheney, "He and I had never, in nearly four years, spent a single purely social hour together."

And Cheney, unlike Bush, held back from seeking the presidency when he considered making a run for the White House five years ago. After spending two years visiting 47 states and laying the groundwork for a race, Cheney made the wrenching decision that the personal cost to his family--one of his two daughters is gay, and was not yet public about her sexual orientation--would be too high.

"The more I thought about it, the more the process you have to subject yourself to weighed heavily on my mind," Cheney said at the time. "I concluded I wasn't prepared to pay that price."

A Rising Star

Richard Bruce Cheney was born in Lincoln, Neb., the eldest child of Richard Herbert Cheney and the former Marjorie Lauraine Dickey. When he was 13, he moved with his family to Casper, Wyo., where his father directed the local soil conservation district for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

His parents struck people as apolitical, and Cheney himself showed no ideological leanings. At Natrona County High School, "there were the Young Republicans and Young Democrats. We never had an interest in anything like that," said Tom Fake, who was co-captain with him of the football team their senior year.

Yet he gravitated to leadership roles: senior class president, an officer of Wyoming's Boys' State. He impressed adults as uncommonly responsible. Meyer said parents often would let their own sons go out at night if Cheney was along.

Cheney caught the notice of Tom Stroock, president of the local school board at the time, who was helping Yale, his alma mater, recruit students.

Some days, Cheney would stop by Stroock's office, where the high schooler's girlfriend--named Lynne Vincent at the time--worked as a secretary after school. But Yale proved an imperfect match for Cheney. At the end of his first year, Cheney's grades were so poor, he lost his scholarship.

"He drank and got bad grades," said Kenneth L. Adelman, who would become a good friend of Cheney's soon after he arrived in Washington. "He was a big partier. A lot of beer."

Back in Wyoming, Cheney took a job as a $2-an-hour lineman for what was then Pacific Power and Light Co. After one more unsuccessful semester at Yale, Cheney eventually enrolled at the University of Wyoming.

It was there that friends began to notice a spark of political interest. Dave Nicholas, who was Cheney's best man when he married his high school sweetheart during the summer of 1964, remembers having an endless "polemic" with Cheney that year about the presidential candidates, Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson and Republican Barry Goldwater.

With the war in Vietnam raging, Cheney stayed clear of the draft. He kept a student deferment even while holding the lineman job because he was also attending community college. And when the Selective Service System expanded the draft to married men without children, Cheney got another deferment: Lynne Cheney gave birth to their first child nine months and two days after the order. "I . . . would have obviously been happy to serve had I been called," Cheney said years later.

He stayed at Wyoming long enough to pick up bachelor's and master's degrees in political science, then moved to Madison, Wis., to work on a PhD. But Cheney never wrote his planned thesis.

Instead, he won a congressional fellowship and moved to Washington to work, first in the office of a young Republican congressman from Wisconsin, William A. Steiger, and then for Donald H. Rumsfeld, who was head of the Office of Economic Opportunity.

"From the first time I met him, he sounded very conservative," said Adelman, who met Cheney at OEO. "I never detected a liberal inclination in Dick."

By 1970, when Rumsfeld was named a White House counselor, Cheney came along as his deputy. In 1973, when Rumsfeld left the White House, Cheney left, too, remaining in Washington as a vice president of an investment firm.

The August night a year later when President Richard M. Nixon resigned, Rumsfeld was in France when he got an urgent message from Vice President Ford to return to Washington at once. Rumsfeld asked Cheney to meet him at Dulles International Airport.

"He was the first person I thought of I wanted to assist me in whatever role President Ford had in mind for me," Rumsfeld recalled. "He's totally reliable. He's enormously capable."

Ford named Rumsfeld his chief of staff, and Cheney followed him into that office. At the end of 1974, when Rumsfeld left the White House to become secretary of defense, he recommended that Cheney succeed him as chief of staff.

Cheney was 34 at the time, the youngest person ever to assume the job.

He eschewed certain trappings of power. He rejected a chauffeur, preferring to drive himself to work in his 10-year-old Volkswagen.

In an interview several years later, Cheney reflected on his White House role. "A lot of it is quite pedestrian and not very creative. It's the wrong place for an artist who wants to go off by himself and think deep thoughts."

Conservative Record

At the end of the Ford administration, Cheney returned to Wyoming and worked briefly in the banking business. But by then, politics was in his blood and in 1978 he set his sights on the state's lone seat in the House of Representatives.

After the heart attack, the first of three, followed by quadruple bypass surgery, Cheney won the three-way GOP primary and the November general election with 59 percent of the vote.

With his White House credentials, Cheney entered the House as more than an obscure freshman lawmaker. In 1981, in only Cheney's second term, Minority Leader Michel backed him for an open leadership post that would position Cheney for the legislative ladder.

"We were pretty much tilted to the right and I thought we needed a little more moderate voice," Michel recalled.

In 10 years in the House, Cheney compiled a voting record that was anything but moderate. Elected to the House the same year as a fiery young Republican from Georgia named Newt Gingrich, Cheney repeatedly received higher marks from the American Conservative Union. In 1985 and 1986, Gingrich could muster only 81 percent approval from the conservative organization; Cheney scored 100 percent both years.

Cheney was against the Panama Canal treaties and creation of the Education Department. He opposed abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment, and favored a constitutional amendment to require a balanced budget. He voted for virtually all military weapons systems and to cut education spending. He opposed sanctions against the apartheid government of South Africa and in 1986 voted against a resolution calling for the release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners.

Michel, of course, knew just how conservative Cheney really was. But he knew something else as well. "He was always very amiable, always dealt with the subject, not the personality," Michel said. "That was Newt's problem, he made it so personal."

Cheney continued to rise in the House GOP leadership, becoming Republican whip, next in line to succeed Michel. Then the nomination of Sen. John Tower (R-Tex.) to be defense secretary unraveled and President George Bush turned to Cheney.

Years later, Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.) said the effects of Cheney's move to the Pentagon were still being felt. "I think his departure . . . marked the end of the House as a collegial institution," Obey said.

Running the Military

Cheney was a surprise pick for the defense job but quickly proved to be a strong, even feisty, secretary, unafraid to rap the knuckles of the brass in order to demonstrate who was in charge of the vast defense bureaucracy.

It was a trait that would serve him well when the Persian Gulf War broke out later in his term, enabling him to keep in line generals such as the volcanic Norman Schwarzkopf, the Gulf commander, and Gen. Powell, the powerful and politically savvy chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Cheney had been in office just eight days when Gen. Larry Welch, the Air Force chief of staff, provided him with what pilots call "a target of opportunity." At his first news conference at the Pentagon, Cheney cut Welch off at the knees for discussing with members of Congress the possibility of a compromise plan to modernize the nation's strategic missiles.

Cheney charged that Welch had been engaged in "inappropriate . . . free-lancing." He hadn't even spoken to Welch at that point, and Welch really hadn't been engaged in unusual conduct, but Cheney had made the point that there was a new sheriff in town.

His next step was to challenge the services on some of their most prized weapons programs. He took aim at the Marine Corps' V-22 Osprey troop transport, and although his effort to cancel the V-22 ultimately failed, Cheney had shown that he was willing to fight. He also canceled the Navy's troubled A-12 attack jet program in such a precipitous manner that his action has been the subject of years of litigation between the government and defense contractors.

Cheney also delved deeply into U.S. plans for nuclear war against the then-Soviet Union, questioning much of the military's thinking, especially the number of warheads necessary.

But Cheney's time at the Pentagon will be best remembered for his management of the Pentagon during the Gulf War.

Cheney responded characteristically to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. Wanting to provide President Bush with options for military responses, he quickly fell into a confrontation with the top brass. According to Bob Woodward's "The Commanders," Powell resisted laying out military options, arguing instead that a military action might provoke Iraq to continue its movement southward and invade Saudi Arabia.

Cheney grew angry, feeling that Powell was giving him political advice, not the military options he'd requested. "It was one of the tensest exchanges the two ever had," Woodward wrote.

A month later Cheney had yet another of these bruising confrontations. Gen. Michael Dugan, Larry Welch's successor as chief of the Air Force, had given an interview in which he said that the United States planned to execute a massive bombing campaign against Baghdad that specifically targeted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Cheney hit the roof. Then, in his methodical manner, he sat down and wrote out on a yellow legal pad nine reasons for firing Dugan. No. 1 was, "You displayed egregious judgment."

The next day, Cheney called in Dugan, read him the list of reasons, and informed him that he was relieved of duty.

Woodward's "The Commanders" portrays Cheney as a man clear-eyed about the faults of his bosses, yet still powerfully loyal to them. At one point, according to that account, Cheney warned Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff before Powell, that President Bush had "a long history of vindictive political actions."

At the same time, the book notes, after the president, against Cheney's advice, decided to seek a congressional resolution supporting the Gulf War and won that backing, Cheney called Bush to apologize and tell him he did the right thing.

A Race Not Run

Dick and Lynne Cheney were one of the power couples of the Bush administration--while he was at defense, she was the outspoken head of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

After President Clinton took office, Cheney began the methodical planning necessary for a presidential run of his own. In February 1994, he set up a political action committee that raised $1.4 million that year.

Cheney campaigned for Republicans across the country in 1994, attacking the Clinton administration as "the least competent administration this century" while he contemplated whether to run against him.

Still, Cheney was not sure he wanted to commit to the race. One reason for his hesitation was not revealed until years later. In Woodward's book about the 1996 campaign, "The Choice," he described how Cheney worried that the existence of a gay relative would expose his family to unpleasant scrutiny, particularly in light of his stance against allowing gays to serve in the military.

"You've got to realize," political consultant Stuart Spencer, a friend since the Ford days, told Cheney, "you'll go to the grocery store and see your face plastered on the National Enquirer."

Woodward's book did not reveal the identity of the family member, who was then not openly gay. Since then, however, Cheney's younger daughter, Mary, has made no secret of her sexual orientation. Until recently, she worked as director of gay and lesbian marketing at Coors Brewing Co.

Over Christmas 1994, under pressure from his political advisers to make a decision, Cheney gathered with his family in Wyoming. On Jan. 3, 1995, he announced his choice: He would not run.

After leaving government, Cheney also threw himself into corporate life, joining the boards of directors of a half-dozen companies, including Procter & Gamble Co., Union Pacific Corp., US West Inc., and investment banker Morgan Stanley Group.

Some conservatives grumbled in February 1995, when, on a trip to China with top Morgan Stanley executives, Cheney opined that China was no threat to the United States or Asia. These remarks came only weeks after the Chinese navy launched provocative maneuvers in the Spratly Islands near the Philippines.

"There was surprise and quiet criticism of that speech, but it's unfair to presume this reflects his views today," said Richard Fisher, a senior fellow specializing in Asia at the conservative Jamestown Foundation.

After Cheney bowed out of the presidential race, Halliburton Co., an oil field services firm based in Dallas, asked him to sign on as chairman, seeing Cheney as the man who would expand its largely domestic portfolio into foreign markets.

The firm sprang the news of Cheney's appointment in August 1995, shocking the insular oil industry. His management style, say analysts, has been hands-off. He has given subordinates lots of leeway, acknowledged his own lack of expertise in technical areas, and set high standards for performance.

"He's set a tone of greater accountability in the organization," said Merrill Lynch & Co. oil services analyst Kevin Simpson.

Other analysts view those tendencies less positively. "I'd give him mixed reviews," said Robert Hinckley, an analyst with the Petroleum Research Group. "I'd just as soon see a guy more involved day-to-day."

Cheney's overall success as a business executive, by conventional measurements, such as stock price and profits, has been underwhelming, but the problems can partly be traced to the slump in oil prices in 1998 and 1999. The company's stock, which topped $60 per share in 1997, dipped below $30 in 1998, and now stands at $42.25 a share.

Cheney has aggressively acquired competitors; the largest was Dresser Industries, purchased in 1998 for $5.4 billion. The very month that the merger was consummated, low oil prices forced the combined company into waves of layoffs that ultimately cut 9 percent of the work force.

Along with several other leading oil industry executives, Cheney has been a vocal critic of U.S. sanctions against "rogue" nations such as Iran and Libya, complaining that sanctions "are nearly always motivated by domestic political pressure, the need for Congress to appeal to some domestic constituency."

Representatives of Jewish organizations--which favor upholding U.S. sanctions against Iran because of its record of terrorism and development of nuclear missile technology--say they are alarmed by Cheney's stand.

Cheney also helped broker a recent loan deal for Halliburton that could contradict a stand that Bush has taken as a candidate. Bush opposes all international financial assistance to Russia because of its attacks on civilians in Chechnya. But in April the U.S. Export-Import Bank approved loan guarantees to a Russian oil company totaling $500 million, most of which will be used by Halliburton to increase output from a Siberian oil field.

Halliburton has been good to Cheney, too. In May, he sold stock in the company worth $5 million, and he holds options worth an additional $14 million.

Staff writers John Mintz, George Lardner Jr., Thomas E. Ricks and Neil Irwin, and researchers Madonna Lebling and Margo Williams, contributed to this report.

Cheney's Record

Richard B. Cheney's House votes on key issues:

Year For
1979 An anti-busing amendment
1982 Balanced budget constitutional amendment
1983 Raising Social Security retirement age to 67
1983 Barring use of federal funds in abortion, with no exception
1984 Denying federal funds to hospitals that perform abortions
1984 Cutting education spending
1985 Weakening gun control laws

Year Against
1980 Strengthening fair housing laws
1979 Panama Canal Treaty
1979 Establishing Department of Education
1981 Reauthorizing Legal Services Corp.
1983 Prohibiting covert U.S. aid to Nicaragua
1983 Equal Rights Amendment
1985 Ban on armor-piercing bullets
1986 South African sanctions
1986 Superfund reauthorization
1987 Reauthorizing Clean Water Act
1988 Undetectable firearms act
1988 Federal hate crimes law
1988 Seven-day waiting period for handgun purchases

----------

The moral flaws in our peace

WEDNESDAY, JULY 26, 2000
OPINION
Tyler Stevenson
SAN FRANCISCO
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/07/26/fp9s2-csm.shtml

With the current flurry of renewed discussion over nuclear arms and its irritating younger sibling, national missile defense, it is a glad thing to see a simultaneous American interest in remembering World War II.

Tom Brokaw's book "The Greatest Generation," the D-Day Museum in New Orleans, and the pending Washington, D.C. WWII memorial testify to the continuing importance of the war in our nation's experience.

The Germans remember WWII as well, though in a different spirit. And it is questionable whether we have learned as much from our victory as the Germans did from their loss. In Germany, you see, a newly rededicated Army base has been named for Sgt. Anton Schmid.

Sergeant Schmid, an Austrian drafted into the German Army in 1941, witnessed the mass murder of Lithuanian Jews at his post in Vilnius. He responded by hiding more than 250 Jews and aiding the Jewish underground. Schmid was caught in January 1942, and executed that March. In the 58 years since Schmid's death, Germany has learned enough from its WWII sins to honor a man with the ethical courage to betray the evil of the Reich.

In this US election year, however, we fail in our own ethical courage: The US and other WWII victors - the official nuclear-weapon states - still fail to move with passionate intensity toward the elimination of nuclear weapons, the war's continuing legacy to world affairs. We thus demonstrate our fatal misunderstanding, casting disarmament as a question of policy instead of morality.

Our nuclear weapons remain on hair-trigger alert, the cornerstone of our security policy. Disarmament is hostage to senatorial squabbling that treats international treaties as partisan prizes.

Neither Al Gore nor George W. Bush urges his proposed strategic-arms reductions in the context of eliminating nuclear weapons altogether. Our leaders ignore our sworn national oath under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, reviewed and rededicated last May: We and the other nuclear- weapon states are bound to the "unequivocal undertaking" of complete nuclear disarmament.

More important, our leaders ignore the common person's sense of right and wrong.

We nations victorious in WWII never learned the very human morality for which we sent a great generation to fight and die. Allied soldiers returned from liberating Dachau and Auschwitz to discover their own homelands busy building death camps with wings. Our nuclear-war plans require at best what would be hanging offenses at Nuremburg - the wholesale burning of millions of civilians.

There is breathtaking evil in our sterile arguments of strategic necessity and the invention of a doctrine called Mutually Assured Destruction.

The political proponents of our nuclear system carry briefcases, not billyclubs; so we maintain and mostly ignore this modern evil, which Ronald Reagan, citing C.S. Lewis, called the evil of smooth-faced men in well-lit halls.

We who cast judgment at Nuremburg have failed to abide by its ethic to choose morality over country, doctrine, pride, or revenge. In five nations over 50 years, how has noone with the power to say simply, "This ends here," also possessed the ethical courage to do so?

A judgment of the cold war, however, must acknowledge it was an age of transcendent fears and abstract, seemingly uncontrollable forces. This cannot excuse, but does help to explain. It has been difficult enough to find heroes who resisted even an evil as immediate as the Holocaust.

It is in the decade following the cold war that we've run out of explanations for why we continue to ignore Sergeant Schmid's lesson. This is the people's lesson to learn, and we have failed.

Nuremburg was a reparation forced by a common people's relentless failure to be horrified by pervasive sin. We victors of WWII will not have the abhorrent luxury of a half decade of death to help us discern our wrongs.

We cannot wait for a nuclear bomb to be used before learning to speak our ethical integrity. Our moral voice withers with disuse.

We the people continue our mute permission of nuclear weapons, death camps in our own backyards, with thousand of hydrogen furnaces at the ready. We continue to allow ourselves the false comfort of imagining that a matter of absolute morality could somehow be discussed using the language of strategy or security.

Worse still, in this election year, we continue to allow ourselves the silent cynicism of believing it naive and unrealistic to speak otherwise. The self-evident morality of nuclear weapon elimination is all the reason we need to proceed toward that goal; our debate should be limited to determining the safest and fastest means.

Human ethics own a place in the too-often amoral arena of international politics. Politics and foreign policy rooted in virtues offer us a third way of thinking, unconstrained by tired, cold-war-era paradigms.

In Schmid's last letter home, he wrote that he "merely behaved as a human being."

In this election year, we would do ourselves a service to demand that our leaders follow this example in dismantling our nuclear arsenal. In being men and women before their offices, they would honor the ethic of Nuremberg for which our soldiers died: Our humanity above all else.

Tyler Stevenson coordinates religious and political field operations for the Global Security Institute, a nonprofit organization specializing in nuclear disarmament and security issues. The views expressed here are his own.

-------- u.s. nuc weapons

Cohen Urges Missile Defense Delay
Clinton Decision Could Preclude Changes, Secretary Says

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post
Wednesday, July 26, 2000; Page A20
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-07/26/103l-072600-idx.html

A decision by President Clinton this fall to go ahead with preparations for an Alaska radar site could lock the next president into a type of national missile defense system he may not want, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said yesterday.

Noting that Texas Gov. George W. Bush prefers "a more robust system," Cohen, in an appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee, asked rhetorically: "Would you want to lock the next president into this system if in fact he has already expressed an interest in going in a different direction?"

Cohen noted that the incoming president would have "a fairly short time" after taking office before he would have to decide on full construction of the Alaska radar, a move that government lawyers have said would put the United States in violation of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Moscow.

Cohen appeared before the panel in the wake of a failed July 7 test of the Clinton administration's controversial proposed anti-missile system. His appearance also came amid diplomatic discussions between Washington and Moscow over how to handle a potential ICBM threat from North Korea.

As he has before, Cohen said the test earlier this month was not a total failure, despite the fact that a "kill vehicle" was not released and could not hit its target.

The national missile defense (NMD) system has raised objections from Russia and China and upset some European allies. A number of Democratic lawmakers and critics of the system, which in an expanded form could cost as much as $60 billion, have urged Clinton to defer his decision to the next president.

Cohen expects to make a recommendation to the president on NMD after receiving a technical evaluation of the program from his staff next month. No one in the Defense Department, he said, "would suggest that we continue to move forward if we haven't, in fact, cured the defects or the deficiencies that we've identified in the testing process."

Cohen said he has not yet concluded the system is "technically feasible," one of the four criteria Clinton has listed for going ahead with the program. But he added: "I believe that the trend is such that these problems are correctable."

He did indicate that the next test, scheduled for October or November, may not be conducted until December.

Cohen also put new emphasis on another of Clinton's criteria for proceeding--the need for U.S. allies to support the NMD decision and Russia and China to allow it to happen without withdrawing from arms control agreements. The system, he said, could not be considered "technically feasible without taking into consideration the arms control issue."

He added: "Having the support of your allies to have [forward-based radars] remains critical." Without the radar systems in Britain and Greenland, Cohen said, "you can't see the missiles coming."

He added that "you can't get the support of allies unless you at least try to work it out with the Russians."

In an ironic twist, Cohen pointed out that the current proposal for a limited, land-based NMD system resulted from a decision made in 1991, during the Bush administration. Scientists at that time considered both sea-based and space-based systems, Cohen said, but it was determined that the ground-based system could be developed most rapidly.

When asked about the recent change of atmosphere in North Korea, Cohen said that even if North Korea halted its missile program, "that would not alter the situation as far as other countries acquiring a long-range missile capability and there negate any need for an NMD."

As for the Russians, Cohen said the United States is interested in pursuing their ideas for a joint missile-interception program but that so far Moscow's leaders have remained enigmatic about what they have in mind.

<a name="military"></a>
-------- MILITARY (by country)

-------- arms sales

Cohen to probe DIA exclusion

July 26, 2000
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://208.246.212.80/national/default-2000726222438.htm

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen yesterday told a Senate committee he will look into a report that the Pentagon is excluding his intelligence branch from commenting on proposed weapons transfers to Israel.

Mr. Cohen also told the Senate Armed Services Committee that any Middle East peace deal in which the United States is a party must include guarantees from Israel that it will not divert controlled U.S. technology and weapons to third countries.

"I will look into it," Mr. Cohen said during testimony on a proposed national missile defense system. "I am someone who is very familiar with the importance of maintaining the integrity of our arms sales, making sure they don't go into third countries. . . . We are concerned whenever there is a transfer in a region that could shift the balance of power and possibly involve us in some negative, adverse way."

The defense secretary was responding to a question from Sen. Robert C. Byrd, West Virginia Democrat, who cited a story in yesterday's editions of The Washington Times.

The Times reported that a memo circulating inside the Pentagon's Defense Threat Reduction Agency told analysts they no longer had to gain input from the Defense Intelligence Agency before deciding whether controlled technology should be transferred to Israel.

The DIA has compiled evidence that Israel has violated U.S. export regulations by transferring missile, laser and aircraft technology to communist China.

"I have no knowledge of that memo, who generated it, what it's veracity or lack thereof is, but I will look into it," Mr. Cohen said. "It's news to me - short answer."

Mr. Byrd responded, "Your response is very reassuring to this senator. Not only am I glad that you're going to look into it, will you let this committee know, and let me know, on what your result of your looking into it may be?"

Mr. Cohen said he would.

The memo was written by a staffer inside the threat reduction agency based on a meeting with David Tarbell, who heads the agency's Technology Security Directorate. It is that directorate that analyzes proposed sales of controlled technology to foreign countries, then recommends approval or disapproval.

The memo says, "As a result of a meeting with Dave Tarbell, the previous guidance of staffing all Israeli cases to [the directorate] and DIA is rescinded. Cases for Israeli companies and or the Israeli [Defense Ministry] should be staffed to [the directorate] only. . . . Israeli cases will not be routinely staffed to DIA."

A Threat Reduction Agency spokeswoman declined to respond to oral and written questions about the memo from The Times.

Mr. Cohen said yesterday, "Senator Byrd, there are 23,000 people who work in the Pentagon, and I suspect there are at least 23,000 memos that are generated during the course of a day, most of which never come to me unless I read about it in the press. I am not aware of any attempt to cut DIA out of analysis of sales of technology going to Israel and with the potentiality of it going on to third countries."

Mr. Cohen pointed out that the administration this month convinced Israel not to go ahead with the planned sale of its Phalcon surveillance radar system to China.

Beijing planned to install the radars in a fleet of early-warning spy planes similar to the U.S. Air Force AWACS.

Pentagon officials protested the sale on grounds the radars could be used against U.S. forces defending Taiwan or that the Chinese planes could be sold to rogue nations, such as Iran.

Mr. Cohen suggested that one topic in the just-ended Camp David peace talks was winning Israeli assurances not to divert U.S.-provided technology to third countries.

He said, "I can tell you that certainly there are serious negotiations under way in Camp David, that - but any kind of agreement that we have with Israel now or in the future will need to take into account our requirements for prohibition of transfer of high technology and classified technology to third countries."

Pentagon officials who oppose the memo's change in policy say excluding the DIA from reviews will make it more difficult to stop a sale to an Israeli company suspected of technology diversions. It is often the DIA that supplies the evidence to stop a sale, the officials said.

Suspected transfers of U.S. technology to China, via Israel, has become a growing concern in the 1990s as Tel Aviv seeks cash contracts for its defense industry.

After the 1991 Persian Gulf war, the DIA compiled evidence that Israel gave China information on the U.S. Patriot anti-missile system.

Later in the decade, the United States obtained evidence that Israel helped China develop its new J-10 fighter-bomber based on the ill-fated Lavi fighter. The United States bankrolled and equipped the Lavi, then convinced Tel Aviv to cancel the program because of excessive costs.

"Israel has helped China with its development of the J-10 fighter aircraft [similar to the U.S. F-16] by providing technology developed for the aborted Israeli Lavi fighter project - and of various missiles," Harold Johnson, an associate director of the General Accounting Office, told Congress in 1998.

Israel denies violating U.S. export agreements.

China watchers on Capitol Hill expressed puzzlement yesterday over why the DIA was being avoided.

"It just seems curious," said William Tripplet, a Senate staffer and author of books on the emerging Chinese threat.

"Why do you cut out the people who have the most expertise? The question is, what is the motivation? I don't have an answer. Israel has gone up the tech-transfer curve so far that it's more than a bit of a problem."

The internal Pentagon memo says, "There has been a new focus on Israel cases upstairs. That is what's prompted the guidance."

Meanwhile, Mr. Cohen said during the hearing on national missile defense that the system is needed because of the growing threat of missile attacks from North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

"The national missile defense is not, as some have suggested, a solution in search of a problem," Mr. Cohen said. "Quite to the contrary: For America, our European and Asian allies, the threat of longer-range missiles from rogue nations is substantial and it's growing."

Mr. Cohen said the technology of hitting an incoming warhead with an interceptor missile "has in fact been demonstrated" in the successful test in October.

Two other tests have not been successful but are part of a development program that will include up to 19 more tests, he said.

Mr. Cohen said construction of the first part of the system, a radar on the remote Alaskan island of Shemya, could begin next year without violating any arms-control treaties with Russia.

He also said opposition to the system from Russia and China will not be allowed to derail a future deployment.

"The Chinese do not have a veto. The Russians don't have a veto," he said. "No one really has a veto."

• Bill Gertz contributed to this report.

-------- colombia

Europeans refuse to support the peace plan in Colombia

Le Monde,
July 26, 2000
Translated by JF Delannoy jfdelannoy@onlinedirect.com
http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0,2320,seq-2037-82890-QUO,00.html

The risk of escalation in the armed conflict in Colombia, which caused the death of more than 120,000 persons over the last three decades, is more real than ever today. This is evidenced by the multiplication of offensives from various sides during the last three weeks, between the militaries, paramili- taries and guerrilla movements (FARC and ELN), which left more than 400 persons dead. On Monday July 24 only, at least 9 policemen, 4 soldiers and 12 guerrillas died in various confrontations across the country, the authorities said.

Yet, Europeans do not approve the peace plan elaborated by the Colombian government, seeking a large financial commitment from the EU. Naively, Bogota had high expectations for the meeting organized in Madrid on July 7, designed to collect financing and give a new impetus to its efforts to put an end to narcotrafficking and armed violence. Beyond the usual declarations of satis- faction, this meeting was a crushing failure for Colombian diplomacy, which did not manage to convince the Europeans, except Spain, of the pertinence of its requests and of the adequacy of the means considered by the government to reach its objectives.

The representative of the EU, the Spaniard Javier Solana, expressed Europe's concern for the evolution of the situation, and indicated that the amount of the EU's contribution would not be announced before September in Bogota, during another international meeting. Some European diplomats even consider as premature this declaration by the head of European diplomacy, as other sources are saying that nothing will be announced before the end of the first quarter of 2001.

This situation reveals abysmal divergences between the vast majority of European countries and Colombia on the proposed peace plan. Today, the lack of financing (Bogota hopes for a $1.5 billion commitment from Europe, on a total cost of $7.5 billion for the plan) is less a concern than the stalled dynamics around this project.

Moreover, the amount available in Brussels for all of Latin America does not exceed $350 million Euro, and after the succession of awkward moves by Bogota there is no high likelihood for an exceptional decision to raise the amount, or allocate all of it to Colombia. Europeans have also deemed in- appropriate to hold this meeting in Madrid - the Spaniards' propensity to claims for itself the merits of European credits assigned to Latin America is increasingly irritating its partners. But Bogota's main error, according to Paris, was to conceive its peace plan only in a strict and exclusive relationship with the United States, which has accepted early in July, after months of discussions, the principle of an exceptional aid over two years. The Fifteen also do not share the American views on the militarist dimension of this plan, being apprehensive of the risk of escalation it may induce in the conflict.

Lastly, the Europeans remain skeptic about how financially disinterested Washington's contribution may be, as 70 % of its $1.3 billion are devoted to the strictly military component: purchase of 60 combat helicopters, training and equipment of army battalions specialized in anti-narcotics operations, delivery of sophisticated material to intelligence services, and destruction of fields of illicit crops (coca and poppy). Thus, close to $900 million of the American "gift" will return directly to the United States, between military equipment manufacturers, the Pentagon for the training of Colombian military units, and the companies in charge of spraying the plantations concerned.

The rest will be dedicated to the social dimension of the peace plan (help to population displaced by the conflicts, opening up of some regions by the creation of infrastructures, implementation of crop substitution projects, etc.), for which the Europeans have been very emphatically solicited. The European capitals are quite irritated by a situation in which, according to a French diplomat, just as "what is occurring in the Middle East, Washington puts together a peace plan on its own and then passes the bill to other countries".

Plan Colombia, accounted by president Andrés Pastrana in the Fall of 1999, suffers many other weaknesses, according to the Europeans. First, the partner he chose for its peace talks, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC, the main guerrilla movement of the country, with 15,000 members), rejects it. FARC considers that massive military aid from the U.S. is an act of hostility, and has declared that it would oppose it both militarily and socially by the mobilization of coca-producing peasants. So the EU has ask Colombia -- to no avail so far -- to give a larger place to political, social, and economic reform. All those reservations are supported by numerous non-governmental organizations (ONGs) who fear that the military option may cause an increase of the repression against small producers without addressing the structural causes of the problem.

Indeed, President Pastrana has clearly indicated that international aid was designed to "fight narcotrafficking and conclude peace", and that the funds collected must be used for the first phase of a move for the "definitive eradication of drugs and the final battle against narcotrafficking in the country". What he did not say too clearly is that by attacking militarily, with means unprecedented in Colombia, drug production and trafficking and the armed groups involved in them, the government wants to deprive the far-left guerrillas and the far-right paramilitaries of their main source of income - and thus place them in a weak position at the same time that it is negotiating with some of them.

Alain Abellard

Financing for the plan is far from secured

The cost of Plan Colombia is estimated at $7.5 billion (8 billion Euro) by Bogota, who has planned to contribute $4. Colombia has asked the inter- national community to cover the other $3.5 billion. The U.S. has approved at the end of June the principle of a $1.3 billion contribution. The rest, that is $2.2 billion, was to be obtained via a commitment of close to $1 billion by the European Union and via international financial organizations, or by bilateral contributions. But the meeting of funding countries on July 7 in Madrid has only mobilized $120 million (Spain will supply 100, and Norway 20), plus a $131 million contribution by the UN. $370 million are advanced as preferential loans by the Interamerican Development Bank ($300) and Japan ($70). The $250 million announced at that occasion by the U.S. are part of the $1.3 billion package.


The fighting continues during the talks

The Colombian guerrilla movement ELN (National Liberation Army, Guevarist) has started peace talks with the Colombian government on Monday July 24 in Geneva. Yet its troops were still fighting in Colombia Tuesday to defend its embattled headquarters against the paramilitaries of the United Self-Defense of Colombia (AUC, five thousand men) on the slopes of the San Lucas mountain, 650 km (about 400 miles) north of Bogota. The ELN, the second guerrilla movement with six thousand men, has started a dialogue with the authorities in October. In Geneva Monday and Tuesday it was meeting 80 representatives of Colombian civil society, as part of a talk process without a preliminary cease-fire.

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North Korea joins Southeast Asia security group

July 26, 2000
By Joshua Kurlantzick
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-200072622163.htm

BANGKOK - Asian nations today will welcome North Korea into East Asia's only regional security organization, continuing the Stalinist state's process of opening up to the world.

But several members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Regional Forum (ARF), the organization that North Korea is joining, believe the hermit kingdom must atone for crimes against the region before winning respect as an equal.

The ARF, a security working group comprising the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and 13 other countries with security interests in Asia including the United States and Japan, is meeting here beginning tomorrow.

Pyongyang's inclusion in the ARF will contribute to creating a freer political and economic climate in North Korea, Thai Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan said yesterday.

"We welcome North Korea into the ARF with the hope that it will serve to reinforce the progress" in liberalization that Pyongyang has already made, he said.

At the ARF, North Korean Foreign Minister Paek Nam-sun is expected to hold bilateral meetings with top officials from South Korea, Japan, the United States, as well as at least six other nations.

They include sessions with his South Korean counterpart Lee Joung-binn today followed by a historic meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Yohei Kono.

Mr. Paek also is scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the ARF meeting with Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, another first.

For a time it appeared that she would not make the trip because of the Mideast talks. But last night, U.S. officials announced that she would go after all, but they did not say specifically that the meeting with Mr. Paek was still on.

The ARF accession is the latest step in what appears to be a concerted campaign of conciliation with the outside world by reclusive North Korea.

North Korea established diplomatic ties with Italy in January and with Australia in May, and is on the verge of doing so with Canada.

Pyongyang's recent high-profile summit with Seoul introduced its leader, Kim Jong-il, to the world, and North Korea was a major topic of discussion at the weekend summit of the eight leading industrialized nations summit in Japan.

At the summit, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that North Korea was willing to stop building missiles in exchange for help in developing a space program.

Despite Pyongyang's apparent charm offensive, ARF members have not forgotten North Korea's past.

Thailand restored diplomatic ties with North Korea in 1975, but relations between the two countries have been strained in the past two years due to a botched kidnap attempt involving Pyongyang diplomats stationed in Bangkok.

Burma, almost as much of an international pariah as North Korea, has a freeze on diplomatic relations with Pyongyang dating back to the 1983 Rangoon bombing by North Korean agents who were attempting to kill South Korean President Chun Doo-hwan. Four South Korean Cabinet ministers perished along with 13 senior officials traveling in Mr. Chun's motorcade.

Japan is seeking information on more than a dozen of its citizens that were believed kidnapped by North Korean agents during the past three decades to teach Japanese to its spies.

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North Korean Leader Reported to Be Planning Trip to Russia

July 25, 2000
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/072600russia-nkorea.html

MOSCOW, July 25 -- The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, is planning to visit Russia in September, Russian officials said today, in a further step by the once-secretive North Korean state to overcome its isolation.

The visit is planned for Vladivostok, a port city in Russia's Far East. Arrangements for the visit were confirmed today by aides to Yevgeny Nazdratenko, the governor of Russia's Primorsky region, which borders North Korea.

The trip is being billed as an "unofficial" visit to the region, not a negotiating session with Kremlin leaders. But the agenda includes trade, economic cooperation and other measures to expand ties between Russia and North Korea.

Long one of the most insular of nations, North Korea has begun to break down the barriers that have separated it from the world. Last month, Mr. Kim was host of a summit meeting in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, with his South Korean counterpart. North Korea has also established diplomatic relations in recent months with Italy, the Philippines and Australia.

The Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, recently visited Pyongyang. After meeting with Mr. Kim, he reported that North Korea had offered to abandon its missile program if other nations would help it launch satellites into space.

While there was considerable ambiguity at first about the North Korean proposal, Russian officials later said North Korea was not asking Western nations to provide it with rocket boosters and would be content with an arrangement in which two or three of its satellites were launched each year in other countries.

"It is not a matter of launching from North Korean territory, but from the territory of other countries," Russia's foreign minister, Igor S. Ivanov, said at the recent meeting of eight industrial nations in Okinawa.

The Russians have highlighted the North Korean offer in order to challenge the prime rationale for the American missile defense plan and to debunk the idea that North Korea is a dangerous "rogue state." Clinton administration officials acknowledge that the North Korean offer is potentially very significant, though it needs to be explored further in talks between the two sides.

Little is known about Mr. Kim's travels. It is a matter of public record that he has visited China. He has also said he has gone to Indonesia and other countries, sometimes incognito.

The invitation to visit Vladivostok was made by Mr. Nazdratenko, who accompanied Mr. Putin on his recent trip to Pyongyang, Natalya V. Vstovskaya, a spokeswoman for Mr. Nazdratenko, said in a telephone interview today.

She said that Mr. Kim had accepted the invitation and that the trip was scheduled for the first few days of September. The North Korean consulate in the Primorsky region declined to comment on the visit.

Ms. Vstovskaya said Mr. Nazdratenko had proposed several agricultural projects to Mr. Kim during the Russians' visit to Pyongyang and hoped to encourage new business, including the use of Russian railroads for trade with North Korea. "We want our railroads and ports to work at full capacity so that North Korea's cargo is not going via China but through our territory," she said.

The Russian government has already granted permission for 5,000 North Koreans to work in the timber and construction industries in Primorsky, though the number of workers now is far less.

According to Russian news reports, Mr. Nazdratenko, an autocratic governor who has ridden roughshod over the region's press and political establishment, established a rapport with the North Korean leader. The 52-year-old Mr. Nazdratenko and the 58-year-old Mr. Kim have the same birthday -- Feb. 16. Mr. Nazdratenko, who rarely drinks, later said he had been forced to drink several toasts to placate Mr. Kim.

"I had to drink for the sake of peace at the border,'' he said.

Mr. Nazdratenko later called for expanded ties with North Korea.

"As a result of brainless politics, we literally abandoned this country, and we not only froze relations with it for 10 years, but nearly created an enemy on our borders," the Russian newspaper Konkurent quoted Mr. Nazdratenko as saying. "I am glad that there has been a breakthrough in relations with North Korea and that Putin did it."

-------- u.s.

U.S. Navy Fighter Jet Crashes

July 26, 2000
By The Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Saudi-US-Jet-Crash.html

MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) -- A U.S. Navy fighter jet crashed Wednesday in the Saudi Arabian desert during a routine training exercise, the Bahrain-based U.S. 5th Fleet said in a statement.

The pilot and a navy flight officer ejected to safety from the two-seater F-14 Tomcat, the statement said. It did not name the crew or give the precise location of the crash.

Both men were recovered in good health and have been transported by helicopter to the Taif Air Base in western Saudi Arabia, the statement said.

The jet had taken off from the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, which is currently operating in the Red Sea.

The incident is under investigation, the statement said.

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Cohen Says Missile Defense System Requires Support of Allies

July 26, 2000
By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/global/072600missile-defense.html

WASHINGTON, July 25 -- The proposed national missile defense system cannot succeed unless the United States persuades its NATO allies to drop their opposition, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen said today.

For the anti-missile shield to protect all 50 states, at a potential cost of $60 billion, it must rely on radar stations abroad, Mr. Cohen said, most likely in Britain and in Greenland, which is territory of Denmark.

Just weeks before he is to make a recommendation to President Clinton on whether to proceed with the system, Mr. Cohen said that a top priority must be to persuade NATO allies to embrace the project. But many of the allies have voiced serious concern that the plan could upset the nuclear balance or set off a new global arms race.

"In order to have a technologically effective system, we need to have the support of our allies," Mr. Cohen said. Without x-band radars overseas, he added, "You can't see the missiles coming. Therefore, your interceptors really are not worth very much."

Mr. Cohen's remarks to the Senate Armed Services Committee were his first since the failure on July 8 of a high-speed missile interceptor to deploy properly. Of the three tests of the intercept system carried out so far, this was the second failure for the weapons system, which relies on a high-tech web of targeting radar, homing sensors and communications links.

Mr. Cohen hinted that the two test failures might slow the entire deployment process. The setbacks "called into question the realism" of having a system in place by the target date of 2005, but he said the date should remain a goal for a limited shield of 20 interceptors and the x-band radar.

Virtually all the principal American allies in Europe and Asia oppose the missile defense system. They argue that its efficacy is unproven and that it could undermine the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia, which is a mainstay of global arms control since 1972. These allies also worry that the plan could encourage China and some other nations to beef up their limited long-range arsena