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

-------- china

China To Use UN Forum To Oppose Missile Shield

Inside China Today
Aug 31, 2000
http://www.insidechina.com/news.php3?id=194765§ion=default

BEIJING, -- (Reuters) Chinese President Jiang Zemin will use a speech at the United Nations next week to stress Beijing's opposition to a U.S missile shield plan, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Thursday.

"There are still certain countries which seek so-called absolute security for themselves and are speeding up the development and deployment of advanced anti-missile systems," the official said of Jiang's September 7 UN speech.

He was referring to U.S. proposals to build a theater missile defense (TMD) system in Asia and national missile defense (NMD) system to protect the United States from ballistic missiles from hostile states.

Jiang would probably repeat at the UN Millennium Summit in New York China's frequent charge that the United States was driven by "Cold War thinking" in its proposal to build missile umbrellas, the official said.

The proposed systems would "seriously undermine the positive trend in international disarmament efforts", the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

Jiang would probably also drive home Beijing strident opposition to the U.S. plans in his bilateral meetings with he leaders of Japan, Russian and South Korea on the summit sidelines, the official said.

Chinese parliamentary chief Li Peng slammed the U.S. proposals in talks on Tuesday with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the official China Daily reported on Thursday.

The United States wants to have a missile defense system in place by 2005 to shoot down a limited number of missiles from hostile states such as North Korea and Iran.

But Russia and China bitterly oppose the plan, yet to be given the go-ahead, fearing that a U.S. missile defense system could rapidly evolve to threaten their nuclear missile arsenals.

Beijing fears the TMD system proposed by Washington for its troops and allies in Asia would be used to shelter Taiwan from mainland missiles, removing the threat of attack that is China's main means of deterring the island from declaring independence.

European allies of the United States worry about the nuclear arms control fallout from any U.S. break with the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty between Washington and Moscow.

---

HONG KONG ECONOMIC TIMES

Inside China Today
Local Press Digest - Hong Kong - Aug 31
Aug 31, 2000
Reuters
WEN WEI PO

HONG KONG, Experts say mainland China may be forced to develop nuclear weaponry as the US has broken the world's strategic balance with plans for new weapon systems.

-------- iraq

U.N. Arms Inspectors Back Down Security Council Members Urge Agency Not to Confront Iraq

Washington Post
Thursday, August 31, 2000; Page A25
By Colum Lynch Special to The Washington Post
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/2000-08/31/347l-083100-idx.html

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 30-To avoid a confrontation with Baghdad at an inopportune time, the United States and other permanent members of the Security Council have persuaded the chairman of a new U.N. arms agency to cancel his planned announcement that weapons inspectors are ready to return to Iraq.

The move follows repeated statements by the Iraqi government that it will never submit to inspections by the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC).

Diplomats said U.S., Russian, Chinese and French members of a panel that oversees UNMOVIC advised its chairman, Hans Blix of Sweden, to drop a conclusion from a draft report that 44 inspectors have completed training and are "now in a position to start activities in Iraq," including "baseline" inspections of facilities that might be involved in building prohibited weapons.

The final version of the report, released to the council today, says the arms experts "could plan and commence" preliminary tasks to prepare for future inspections.

Given the uncertainty, more than half of the newly trained weapons specialists have been sent back to their home countries. Their names will go on a roster and they may be called up for service in the future.

"The U.S. and Russia agreed that it was not appropriate to give the impression that Mr. Blix and the commission was ready to go back into Iraq," said a Security Council diplomat. "They cautioned that this might create a climate of confrontation at an inappropriate time."

The Security Council's five permanent members--the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain--want to avoid a clash over Iraq policy when their heads of state meet at the United Nations next week during the so-called Millennium Summit of World Leaders, according to diplomats.

A U.S. official also contended that it would be premature to re-launch weapons inspections in Iraq. "They have more work to do," the official said. "While UNMOVIC has finished its first stage of preparation, it's a plain fact that they are not yet ready to launch a full-scale program in Iraq."

Despite the reversal, Blix reported that he would continue preparing for a resumption of on-site inspections. He said a new team of inspectors would be trained in France from Nov. 7 to Dec. 8, and U.N. officials said he was talking with various countries about technical assistance, such as communications equipment and surveillance aircraft.

Under the terms of the 1991 cease-fire that ended the Persian Gulf War, Iraq is prohibited from possessing medium- and long-range missiles or nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

A former inspection agency, known as the U.N. Special Commission, or UNSCOM, pulled its inspectors out of Iraq on the eve of a U.S.-British air campaign in December 1998.

UNMOVIC may face a renewed challenge from Iraq's allies when the council debates the future of inspections during the week of Sept. 11. Russia has told Blix that the participation of some former members of UNSCOM on the new team--particularly two Russian arms experts, Nikita Smidovich and Igor Mitrokhin--would make it difficult for Moscow to press Baghdad to cooperate.

"We warned [Blix] that he should take into account that Iraq might not be satisfied with this decision" allowing former UNSCOM members to serve in UNMOVIC, said Gennadi Gatilov, Russia's deputy representative to the United Nations. He noted that the two inspectors were associated with some of the U.N.'s most aggressive inspections. "We will see how this situation develops in the future, but I personally envisage difficulties," he said.

In an unusual twist, the United States and Britain have defended the Russian inspectors while their own government has pressed Blix to get rid of them or push them into the background. U.S. officials praised the Russians as experienced and professional inspectors with unparalleled knowledge of the Iraqi weapons program.

-------- japan

Asahi Shimbun confirms JCP Fuwa's revelation of Japan-U.S. secret documents on nuclear weapons

Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 17:50:46 +0900
From: JPS <jpspress@twics.com>

TOKYO AUG 31 JPS -- Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan's largest newspapers, on August 30 reported that declassified U.S. documents show the "whole picture of Japan-U.S. secret agreements, under which Japan has turned blind eye to U.S. nuclear weapons on board warships entering ports without prior consultation."

The Asahi report confirms what Japanese Communist Party Chair Tetsuzo Fuwa revealed during March and April during his one-on-one debate with prime ministers in the Diet.

This latest revelation of secret agreements will make it more difficult for Japan's government to continue to deny the existence of such secret agreements.

Fuwa has disclosed a secret agreement in a document called "Record of Discussion" (*) concerning the Japan-U.S. Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security. The agreement was signed on January 6, 1960 by Japan's Foreign Minister Aiichiro Fujiyama and U.S. Ambassador to Japan Douglas MacArthur 2nd.

When Fuwa showed the original text of the "Record of Discussion" and its Japanese translation before the Diet committee, the government insisted that no such document existed and refused to raise the matter with the U.S. government.

Asahi's revelation was based on a document included in the Congressional Briefing Book, a State Department file declassified at the U.S. National Archives, which confirmed that the U.S., since the beginning of bilateral negotiations, had regarded the "Record of Discussion" as an integral part of the treaty agreements.

P.M. Yoshiro Mori on August 30 told the press that there is no secret agreement between Japan and the U.S.

Japan Press Service has published a booklet in its Japan Press Weekly Special Issue in August, titled "Nuclear Deception--Japan-U.S. Secret Agreements."

The full text of the Record of Discussion is as follows:

Treaty of mutual cooperation and security Record of Discussion Tokyo June 1959

1. Reference is made to the draft exchange of notes concerning the implementation of Article VI of the Treaty, the operative part of which reads as follows:

"Major changes in the deployment into Japan of United States armed forces, major changes in their equipment, and the use of facilities and areas in Japan as bases for military combat operations to be undertaken from Japan other than those conducted under Article V of the said Treaty, shall be the subjects of prior consultation with the Government of Japan."

2. The notes were drawn up with the following points being taken into consideration and understood:

A. "Major changes in their equipment" is understood to mean the introduction into Japan of nuclear weapons, including intermediate and long-range missiles as well as the construction of bases for such weapons, and will not, for example, mean the introduction of non-nuclear weapons including short-range missiles without nuclear components.

B. "Military combat operations other than those conducted under Article V" is understood to mean military combat operations that may be initiated from Japan against areas outside Japan.

C. "'Prior consultation' will not be interpreted as affecting present procedures regarding the deployment of United States armed forces and their equipment into Japan and those for the entry of United States military aircraft and the entry into Japanese waters and ports by United States naval vessels, except in the case of major changes in the deployment into Japan of United States armed forces."

D. Nothing in the exchange of notes will be construed as requiring "prior consultation" on the transfer of units of United States armed forces and their equipment from Japan. (end item)

----

Stop U.S. Night Landing Practices

Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 10:20:28 +0900
From: Japan Press Service <jpspress@twics.com>

TOKYO AUG 30 JPS -- Protest actions were organized against the U.S. Navy's Night Landing Practice (NLP) to be held at three U.S. bases in Japan plus Iwojima Islands with aircraft from the Yokosuka-based U.S. carrier Kitty Hawk. Akahata on August 30 reported:

NLPs are scheduled to be held at the U.S. Misawa Air Base (Aomori Pref. September 5-8), the U.S. Atsugi Air Station (Kanagawa Pref. September 5-8 and 18-22), the U.S. Yokota Air Base (Tokyo, September 18-22), and Iwojima Islands (Tokyo's Pacific island, September 15-21).

In Aomori in northeastern Japan, the prefectural government, Misawa City and its assembly requested the central government and the U.S. Forces in Japan to cancel the NLP, saying that the residents can't endure any longer the fear from noise and possible accidents caused by the NLP which will be held from 7:00 a.m. till 10:00 p.m.

In Misawa City, the liaison council of neighborhood associations located below approaches to the U.S. Misawa Air Base made representations to the U.S. Forces in Japan, saying that they can't condone the NLP. They also requested the central government, Aomori Prefecture and Misawa City to take up their demand.

The Peace Committee and other organizations in Hachinohe City in Aomori Prefecture sent a protest telegram to the U.S. Navy Commander in Japan Robert C. Chaplin calling for the NLP to be canceled.

In Tokyo, the liaison council of the Metropolitan Tokyo Government and the governments of cities and towns adjacent to the U.S. Yokota Air Base on August 29 requested the central government and the U.S. Forces to stop the NLP. (end item)

JPS 08-109 JCP Chair gives A-bomb survivors full support for their cause

TOKYO AUG 30 JPS -- In their renewed effort to get the government to revise the criteria for determining atomic bomb survivors as having illness caused by the atomic bombing, the A-bombs survivors organization made representations to the government and political parties on August 29.

At the Japanese Communist Party head office in Tokyo, Nori Tohei of the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bombs Sufferers Organizations (Nihon Hidankyo) was received by JCP Chair Tetsuzo Fuwa.

Nihon Hidankyo's petition took place in the wake of the recent Supreme Court decision which upheld Nagasaki hibakusha Hideko Matsuya's claim that the government certify her as a hibakusha with illness caused by for the atomic bombing who is entitled to special government assistance.

At present, a hibakusha can be certified as having A-bomb diseases based on doses of radiation the hibakusha had at the time of the A-bombing.

The court ruling was taken as a clear signal to the national government about the need to review its assistance policy for A- bomb survivors.

Fuwa said, "A hibakusha who is believed to have effects of the atomic bombing should be certified as having illness caused by the atomic bombing."

Referring to Matsuya's case, Fuwa said, "It is a pity that the government asked for her burden of proof and she had to go through three court rulings to be certified as a hibakusha with A-bomb diseases."

Earlier in the day, Hideko Matsuya accompanied by her lawyers and supporters visited the Health and Welfare Ministry to ask for apology. They also called on the government to cancel all the lawsuit pending between the government and hibakusha and sit at the table for out-of-court settlements.

A ministry official who met Matsuya had no word of apology. The official told Matsuya that the government will decide by October what to do with other lawsuits. He expressed his sympathy for the long struggle Matsuya had to endure but stopped short of making an apology. (end item)

-------- kazakhstan

Kazakhstan to close nuclear power plant next year

Aug 31, 2000
Reuters
From: Ndunlks@aol.com

Kazakhstan will close its nuclear power plant at Mangyshlak in the west of the country next February, the Ministry of Energy, Industry and Trade said on Thursday.

``Work on closing the reactor began in December 1998 and will be completed in February 2001,'' a ministry statement said.

The United States will give $3.8 million for the closure. Washington is already helping Kazakhstan, which has given up its nuclear arsenal, to resolve non-proliferation issues and to protect nuclear installations.

Kazakhstan closed its Semipalatinsk nuclear weapons testing ground in July, bringing to an end nearly 40 years of nuclear testing at the site.

The Mangyshlak power station was built to provide power for a plant producing drinking water from sea water for the city of Aktau on the Caspian and for a number of large industrial enterprises in the region.

The water plant will receive electricity from thermal power plants now under construction.

-------- mongolia

Pressing a case for antinuclear status

Philadelphia Inquirer
Thursday, August 31, 2000
By Steve Goldstein, Philadelphia INQUIRER WASHINGTON BUREAU
http://web.philly.com/content/inquirer/2000/08/31/national/MONGOL31.htm?template=aprint.htm
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/083100-01.htm

NEW YORK - How can remote, underdeveloped, peaceful Mongolia (population, 2.6 million) pose a threat to the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France (population, 1.5 billion)?

The answer is a lesson in why diplomats are never out of work.

Mongolia's ambassador to the United Nations has launched a campaign that is both quixotic and compelling - especially for other small nations interested in taking on the global giants.

He is trying to win a guarantee from the five permanent members of the Security Council that Mongolia can be the world's first individual nation designated as a nuclear-weapons-free zone.

The issue may be discussed during next week's U.N. Millennium Summit, an unprecedented gathering expected to draw more than 150 heads of state and government to a three-day convocation on the challenges of the 21st century.

Formal recognition of Mongolia as a nuclear-weapons-free zone would mean not only a prohibition on basing nukes on its territory, but also that no weapons could be shipped through the country, and they might even be barred from its airspace.

The leader of the push, Mongolia's ambassador, Enkhsaikhan Jargalsaikhany, has already made a name for himself here - and he's forced his colleagues to learn how to pronounce it.

In his nearly four-year tenure, Enkhsaikhan has served as vice president of the General Assembly, chairman of its legal committee, and chairman of the 30-nation group of Landlocked Developing Countries.

He has been the lead representative in developing "principles of negotiation" that protect the rights of smaller nations from being bulldozed by larger, more powerful countries.

In 1998, Enkhsaikhan - Mongolians traditionally use only a single name - scored his most impressive success when the General Assembly adopted a resolution giving Mongolia nuclear-weapon-free status.

Now, he wants the five permanent Security Council members to endorse the same status.

Fresh from a trip to Geneva to meet with the five, Enkhsaikhan remained hopeful. He said, however, that he had encountered deep-seated concern that a Mongolian zone would encourage other countries to apply, and thus limit freedom of movement for the nuclear powers.

"They [the P-5] are worried about setting what they called a dangerous precedent," Enkhsaikhan said during an interview at the Mongolian mission on the Upper East Side.

What could be dangerous about banning nuclear weapons?

Bracketed by Russia and China, Mongolia is only a decade removed from its 70-year domination by the Soviet Communist empire.

Until 1992, when the last Russian troops left Mongolia's territory, Soviet nuclear weapons were based at a site about 20 miles from the capital, Ulan Bator, and in the southern part of the country, near the border. The devices were trained on Beijing. China, in turn, targeted these bases with its weapons.

Although Mongolia's first freely elected president declared Mongolia a nuclear-weapons-free zone, the country set about trying to gain international recognition for this status. The first step was the General Assembly resolution.

Mongolia would be the first single state to win such a designation. There are multination nuclear-weapons-free zones currently in Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America.

If Mongolia sets a precedent for a single state, then other nations such as New Zealand, Canada and Nepal might seek the same designation.

"We support the U.N. resolution and, in light of Mongolia's unique geographical situation, we've taken the further step of negotiating a formal statement from the P-5 that follows up on the resolution," a U.S. official said yesterday.

The statement should be forthcoming in the next few weeks, the official said. He conceded that it would not go quite as far in providing security assurances as the Mongolians would have liked.

Amin Tarzi, a nuclear specialist with the Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, Calif., said the nuclear powers were worried this designation would hurt their defense capabilities. New Zealand, for instance, already bars nuclear-powered ships from its harbors.

"I don't think the Mongolians will get their wish of official implementation of this resolution," said Tarzi. "The P-5 countries are saying it's a wonderful idea. But privately they are worried about the precedent."

Enkhsaikhan said Mongolia needed the security provisions that a nuclear-weapons-free zone would offer. It is a landlocked country, with access to the sea only through Russia and China.

"We have good relations with Russia and China," he said, "but that doesn't mean we're problem-free."

Enkhsaikhan has lived with these problems his entire life. His father, Bayar, was ambassador to China and established Mongolia's mission to the United Nations in 1962, where his 12-year-old son first learned English.

After returning to Mongolia, Enkhsaikhan was dispatched to Moscow's elite diplomacy school, the Institute for International Relations, and later earned his doctorate in international law.

Despite his youth, Enkhsaikhan became the second-ranking official at the Mongolian Embassy in Moscow in 1988. Three years later, he played a bit part in a historic drama, the attempted coup against the Gorbachev government.

On the second day of the coup, Enkhsaikhan was contacted by some of his old schoolmates, aides to then-Russian Federation President Boris N. Yeltsin, who was leading the anti-coup forces. The aides asked for his help and fax machines in sending out translations of Yeltsin's decrees to Asian nations to demonstrate that the government forces were still in charge.

The coup failed two days later.

Shortly after he arrived in New York in 1997 as ambassador, Enkhsaikhan began drawing the attention of his colleagues. Speaking seven languages doesn't hurt.

He soon won appointment as chairman of the legal committee, which considers reports from U.N. bodies dealing with such issues as terrorism or international legal affairs, then adopts resolutions that are recommended to the General Assembly for approval.

"He was an excellent chairman. He has a very nice personality and he was very good at getting people to reach consensus," said Manuel Rama Montaldo, the deputy secretary of the committee.

Enkhsaikhan eventually spearheaded the drafting of principles of negotiation, which declare that all states are equal, and that no undue pressure should be used by large nations against the less powerful.

"He was very active and effective in negotiating that document," said Rama Montaldo, noting the difficulty of getting the General Assembly to support any resolution.

Enkhsaikhan performed an even more impressive diplomatic feat when he persuaded New York City officials to stage a Festival in Mongolia in Central Park this summer. The event drew more than 25,000 visitors.

And he has even learned a bit about the Manhattan real-estate market.

"Recently, I was offered $8 million for this building, which my father purchased in the 1960s for $220,000," said Enkhsaikhan.

He declined the offer. "I'm sure the value is only going to go up," he said with a smile.

Steve Goldstein's e-mail address is slgoldstein@krwashington.com Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.

-------- russia

Associated Press
September 01, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-Putins-Enemies.html

---

Richardson Visits Russia

Associated Press
August 31, 2000 Filed at 2:01 p.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-BRF-Russia-US-Energy.html

MOSCOW (AP) -- U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson discussed U.S.-Russian nuclear cooperation during a visit Thursday to the Primorye region in the Far East, home to Russia's rusting Pacific Fleet.

Richardson was to meet with top government and naval officials during his two-day visit to Vladivostok on the Sea of Japan. He was scheduled to attend a commissioning ceremony Friday marking the completion of work to upgrade security for nuclear materials being stored at two naval sites.

Russia has had to decommission hundreds of vessels for lack of funds, raising worries about proper removal and storage of nuclear materials.

On Saturday, Richardson is expected on Sakhalin Island, where he is to visit an oil platform.

Richardson on Wednesday visited a military conversion project in the central Russian city of Sarov and promised $13 million to accelerate the transformation of the town's nuclear weapons production facility into a civilian technology park.

---

Energy Secretary Visits Russia

Associated Press
August 31, 2000 Filed at 2:32 a.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-US-Nuclear-Cities.html

MOSCOW (AP) -- U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson visited a flagship Russian military conversion project and promised $13 million to accelerate the transformation of a nuclear weapons production facility into a civilian technology park.

On the first day of a four-day tour of Russia, Richardson attended a ceremony Wednesday inaugurating the Avangard Technopark on the premises of a nuclear weapons design facility in Sarov, which was the closed city of Arzamas-16 in Soviet times.

The park has carved out 10 acres from the nuclear complex in Sarov, one of 10 such cities that the U.S. Energy Department is helping to turn over to civilian enterprises. Ten buildings in Avangard's Weapons Design Facility complex have been earmarked for civilian use.

``Clearly, their welcoming me to this forbidden site is a positive development and an encouraging sign for U.S.-Russian relations,'' Richardson said.

``Our non-proliferation programs are working and must continue, as it is in America's best interest to help Russia convert these massive Cold War-era facilities into non-weapons work.''

Richardson inaugurated a computer center in Sarov last October. A firm producing kidney dialysis equipment, to be operated by Fresenius Medical, has moved into one of the other buildings. Richardson said that an automotive parts manufacturing plant was to take over another.

Credit Suisse First Boston announced Wednesday that it would establish a banking software center in the Avangard facility. The center will employ former weapons scientists.

Conversion work has begun in three of Russia's 10 closed nuclear cities, and U.S. officials are hoping to accelerate it. Officials in Sarov, Russia's equivalent of the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory in New Mexico, said Wednesday that the Avangard facility will no longer be assembling or disassembling nuclear weapons by 2003.

---

U.S. and Russia Open a Nuclear Swords-to-Plowshares Project

New York Times
August 31, 2000
By MICHAEL WINES
http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/083100us-russia-nuclear.html

MOSCOW -- American and Russian officials dedicated a 10-acre industrial park on Wednesday at what was until recently a nuclear-weapons factory east of Moscow. It was the second step in a joint project that American experts hope will provide jobs for up to 4,000 Russian weapons scientists and workers.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson attended the ceremony, in the once-closed nuclear city of Sarov, several hundred miles east of Moscow. The stop was part of a weeklong sweep through Russia and other former Soviet states in which Richardson is promoting programs to curb the spread of nuclear materials and technology.

The United States will contribute $4.5 million next year to help prepare buildings at the Sarov site for private businesses, and hopes to spend $8.5 million more on other programs there in 2001, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. Richardson said the first tenant at the new Sarov Technopark at Avangard, as the site is called, would be a German-American venture to make kidney-dialysis machines and supplies.

A Michigan company also is studying prospects for manufacturing auto parts in the park, he said.

Richardson toured the remaining operating section of the top-secret Avangard weapons plant, which is now devoted to dismantling nuclear arms. In an interview, he said his tour, the first by an U.S. official, was evidence that "despite American-Russian relations suffering a few glitches, in the area of transparency of nuclear weapons there has been quite a bit of progress."

Military cooperation between Russia and the United States has cooled considerably since NATO's air war against one of the Kremlin's closest European allies, Yugoslavia, last spring.

"This is a breakthrough in securing Russian nuclear materials and persuading Russian scientists to stay home and not sell their expertise to rogue states," Richardson said.

About 3,500 people worked at the Avangard plant. The kidney-dialysis venture should employ about 200, and 100 more work at a second Russian-American project, a computing center at which scientists and programmers turn their expertise to commercial ventures.

Officials said that Credit Suisse First Boston has awarded a contract to the center to develop electronic-banking and e-commerce software. Motorola Corp. also is considering employing the computing center for software projects, officials said.

The computing center already conducts research for the petroleum industry and in high-energy physics, among other programs.

The Energy Department's Nuclear Cities Initiative has targeted Sarov and nine other weapons centers for programs to retrain employees for commercial work, primarily to prevent rogue states from buying Russian nuclear expertise.

The 3-year-old conversion program is under way so far in only two cities. But U.S. officials said on Wednesday that the effort at Sarov has succeeded well enough to allow Russian officials to move up by two years, to 2003 from 2005, the timetable for closing the entire weapons plant, the oldest of four that manufactured nuclear bombs for the Soviet Union.

-------- ukraine

Ukraine Region Declared Disaster

Associated Press
August 31, 2000 Filed at 12:38 p.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Ukraine-Illness.html

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- President Leonid Kuchma on Thursday declared four southern Ukrainian villages an ecological disaster zone, following an outbreak of a mysterious illness some have blamed on leaks of Soviet-era rocket fuel.

About 400 residents of the villages near Mykolaiv, 320 miles south of the capital Kiev, have been reported sick since July 4, but only a few new cases were registered this week, Health Minister Vitaliy Moskalenko said.

Health officials were checking nearly 6,000 residents of nearby villages for signs of the illness, a chemical poisoning that causes skin rashes and affects the liver and pancreas, he told a state investigative commission.

Tests conducted in the troubled area found high concentrations of nitrates in 57 percent of drinking water supplied through a pipe system, 98 percent of water from wells and every tenth food product checked, Moskalenko said in comments cited by the Interfax news agency.

Officials said Ukraine would appeal to the World Health Organization and foreign governments to help it deal with the emergency.

The government, meanwhile, appeared split on what caused the illness, with some officials blaming rocket fuel and others denying the possibility.

In the region is a base holding solid-fuel SS-24 nuclear missiles, which are to be dismantled in 2001. It once housed other Soviet missiles powered by liquid fuel.

Health experts have said the area's soil and water contained substances that are usually produced by decomposing rocket fuel, but Kuchma's spokesman Oleksandr Martynenko insisted on Wednesday that rocket fuel could not be blamed. Instead, he suggested that the illness could have resulted from high amounts of nitrates in the soil.

But the head of the government commission, deputy premier Mykola Zhulynskyi, said missile silos in the area had remained open after liquid-fuel rockets were dismantled there in the late 1970s. Fuel spills could have occurred during the missiles' dismantling, he said.

Ukraine inherited 46 SS-24 and 130 SS-19 nuclear missiles following the 1991 Soviet collapse. Kiev has since surrendered all its nuclear warheads to Russia and eliminated the last SS-19 missile in 1999.

Most of the SS-24s along with missile silos remain to be destroyed under a disarmament plan running through 2001.

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

Utilities Can Seek Damages for Waste

Associated Press
August 31, 2000 Filed at 7:34 p.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/a/AP-Nuclear-Waste.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that four electric utilities may seek millions of dollars in damages from the government for the Energy Department's failure to accept highly radioactive waste from their nuclear power plants.

The decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit dealt a blow to government attempts to negotiate out-of-court settlements with scores of utilities over the waste issue.

The Energy Department has acknowledged it is contractually obligated to accept the waste, but has argued that it missed a January 1998 deadline because there is no place to put the used reactor fuel now kept at reactor sites.

MaryAnne Sullivan, the Energy Department's general counsel, said no decision has been made on whether to appeal the ruling. ``We will be discussing our litigation options with the Department of Justice in the coming weeks,'' she said in a statement.

It was not clear how the ruling will affect other utility cases, or if it will affect them at all. Still, lawyers for the utilities called the ruling a major victory.

``This is a clear affirmation that the government is liable for breaching these contracts and has to pay damages to these utilities and the damages are going to be huge,'' said Jerry Stouck, an attorney for the three utilities involved in the litigation.

The court rejected the government's argument that relief was available through the administrative process and concluded the utilities have authority to seek civil damages from the Court of Federal Claims.

``Failure to perform a contractual duty when it is due is a breach of the contract,'' the appeals court found in the case involving Maine Yankee Atomic Power Co., Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power Co., and the Yankee Atomic Electric Co.

The utilities own three reactors in New England that have been shut down, but tons of used reactor fuel remain on site.

The court in a separate ruling found that Northern States Power Co., in Minnesota also could seek damages through the Court of Federal Claims, citing the same reasoning as in the Yankee case.

It's unclear how much in damages the utilities may get.

Stouck said that the three Yankee companies are seeking a total of about $300 million. Northern States Power is seeking ``in excess of $1 billion,'' according to court filings.

``It means these utilities are going to get a chance to prove their damages. ... It's a major victory,'' said Alex Tomaszczuk, an attorney for Northern States Power.

About a dozen utilities, including those involved in the two cases before the appeals court, have sought damages in filings with the claims court over the failure of the government to take used reactor fuel.

It was unclear Thursday how the appeals court decision will affect these other cases or some of the other utilities that want the government to accept some 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel building up at reactors in 31 states.

``We remain persuaded that the quickest and most efficient ways to get relief to those utilities that are incurring costs as result of our delay in accepting spent nuclear fuel is direct negotiations between individual utilities and the department,'' said Sullivan, the government attorney.

She said this was made clear by a recent settlement agreement between the Energy Department and PECO Energy Co. over the disposal of reactor waste at its Peach Bottom nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.

-------- iowa

USA Today
08/31/00
http://usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Iowa

Middletown - Researchers got a break in tracking down nuclear weapons employees who worked at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant from 1943 to 1975. Index cards found at the plant's current contractor contain information on as many as 60,000 workers. The Department of Energy is trying to determine what hazardous materials the workers may have been exposed to and whether any suffered lifelong illnesses.

-------- new mexico

Treatment of Wen Ho Lee Questioned

Associated Press
August 31, 2000 Filed at 4:46 p.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Scientist-Academies.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The leaders of three of the nation's most prestigious scientific organizations are taking issue with the treatment of fired Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee.

``Although we make no claim as to his innocence or guilt, he appears to be a victim of unjust treatment,'' the three said in an open letter Thursday to Attorney General Janet Reno.

The letter was signed by Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences; William A. Wulf, president of the National Academy of Engineering and Kenneth I. Shine, president of the Institute of Medicine.

The three organizations are independent research groups chartered by Congress to provide scientific advice to government.

The Taiwan-born Lee is waiting to learn if the government will appeal a judge's order that he be freed on $1 million bail.

Lee, 60, has been jailed since his arrest Dec. 10 on 59 counts alleging he transferred restricted data about nuclear weapons to unsecure computers and tape at the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

The three scientists said in their letter to Reno that they were making their concerns public because previous inquiries about Lee's treatment had been responded to only by a form letter.

``We are concerned that inaccurate and detrimental testimony by government officials resulted in Dr. Lee needlessly spending eight months in prison under harsh and questionable conditions of confinement,'' the scientists wrote.

In their earlier letters the three had asked about Lee family complaints that Lee was being held in solitary confinement, that restraints had been used on him and that contact with family was restricted.

In their letter to Reno the scientists contended that ``the handling of this case reflects poorly on the U.S. justice system.''

``The concerns that we have expressed and the questions that we have posed in our letters are identical to those our Committee on Human Rights regularly poses to foreign governments, some of which have had the courtesy to respond. Surely we cannot expect less from our own government.''

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge James Parker ordered the government to disclose documents that could help him determine whether Lee was a target of selective prosecution and ethnic profiling.

U.S. Attorney George Stamboulidis said an area of concern if Lee is freed on bail is the unrestricted communication allowed between Lee and his wife, Sylvia, in their home.

``Here, national security is at stake,'' Stamboulidis said, complaining that the judge's proposed conditions were not strict enough to protect government secrets.

Parker's proposed release conditions included limits on communication, travel, home visits and required removal of all electronic communication devices except for one telephone line from Lee's home. Lee would have to remain under electronic monitoring except when being driven by his lawyers to court or the lab to work on his defense. His mail also would be inspected.

---

Appeals court orders scientist held for now

USA Today
09/01/00- Updated 08:04 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsfri05.htm

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - An appeals court halted the release of jailed Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee on Friday, acting even before government prosecutors requested a delay, a justice department spokeswoman said.

U.S. District Judge James Parker, who last week ordered Lee's release on $1 million bail, was critical of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals' decision.

He said the court likely wouldn't have ordered the last-minute delay if it had seen the government's information that he's spent the past three months reviewing.

The appeals court's brief order read: ''Release of (Lee) is stayed pending further order of this court.'' Justice Department spokeswoman Carole Florman said the court acted on its own before the government had a chance to ask for a stay.

Defense attorneys were angered that the timing of the stay left them no chance to respond. They filed a petition Friday asking the 10th Circuit to reconsider.

''Dr. Lee has spent more than eight months shackled in solitary confinement because the prosecution misled Judge Parker (and this court) about the significance of the information at issue and the nature of Dr. Lee's conduct. He should not spend a single day more in prison,'' the petition said.

Defense attorney John Cline told Parker, ''This isn't the way the judicial system is supposed to work. It just isn't.''

Parker raised the possibility of bail last week when he held that the information presented by the government ''no longer has the requisite clarity and persuasive character necessary'' to keep Lee in jail. He ruled after an FBI agent whose testimony last December was a key in denying bail acknowledged that some of his testimony was incorrect.

Parker expressed concern that the 10th Circuit judges don't have easy access to all the materials he has reviewed since taking the case in June.

''I don't know how you're going to get all the classified information to the 10th Circuit quickly,'' he told prosecutors Friday.

Lee, 60, is accused of downloading restricted data about nuclear weapons to unsecure computers and tapes at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has been jailed since December awaiting trial, which is now scheduled Nov. 6. If convicted of all 59 counts, Lee could face life in prison.

The prosecution, which filed a motion to halt Lee's bail Friday, has contended there are no acceptable terms of release as long as seven computer tapes remained unaccounted for.

FBI agents searched Lee's home Thursday for any additional evidence, including any evidence of those tapes. The defense insists the tapes were destroyed; the prosecution insists on proof.

Lee attorney Nancy Hollander, who kept watch during the search, said she knew of nothing seized from the house. The FBI agents put a video surveillance camera in the Lee's backyard and attached tracking the their cars.

On Thursday, affidavits were unsealed saying two former counterintelligence chiefs believe Lee was singled out for prosecution because of his race, as the Taiwan-born scientist's supporters claim. Prosecutors deny the allegation.

The counterintelligence chiefs' statements were submitted by the defense to support its petition for disclosure of a huge volume of documents that it says shows a pattern of racial profiling in the Energy Department.

Parker has not decided whether to turn the materials over to the defense.

Charles Washington, who led the Energy Department's counterintelligence branch for several years in the 1990s, said he knows of other employees who eluded prosecution for more serious offenses. He said his agency routinely handles infractions like Lee's by merely counseling violators.

''I have concluded that if Dr. Lee had not been initially targeted because of his race ... he may very well have been treated administratively like others who had allegedly mishandled classified information,'' he said in the affidavit.

Robert Vrooman, former head of security at the lab, said Lee became the focus of an investigation to the exclusion of other potential suspects who fit a profile based on access to certain nuclear warhead information and travel to China. Others with those characteristics were not pursued, he said.

''It is my opinion,'' he said in the statement, ''that the failure to look at the rest of the population is because Lee is ethnic Chinese.''

---

FBI agents search Wen Ho Lee's home

USA Today
08/31/00- Updated 07:07 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsthu07.htm

WHITE ROCK, N.M. (AP) - FBI agents searched the home of Wen Ho Lee on Thursday as the former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist accused of security breaches waited in jail for his Friday release on bail.

''It's going to be a long day,'' FBI Special Agent Doug Beldon said. Numerous agents were searching Lee's White Rock home and weren't expected to finish until noon Friday, the time set by the judge for Lee's release after more than eight months behind bars.

U.S. District Judge James Parker on Tuesday proposed what he described as ''highly restrictive terms'' for Lee's release, including a search of the home, and ordered prosecution and defense attorneys to negotiate the final conditions.

The final conditions were not released, but the judge's proposal included limits on communication, travel, home visits and required removal of all electronic communication devices except for one telephone line. Lee would have to remain under electronic monitoring except when being driven by his lawyers to court or to work on his defense. His mail also could be inspected. Lee's neighbors are to serve as his custodians during his release.

Parker said Lee should be freed by Friday on $1 million bail, barring an appeal by the government. An appeal could delay Lee's release, but there was no word on any such filing by Thursday afternoon.

Lee has been jailed since Dec. 10 on charges involving the alleged transfer of restricted data about nuclear weapons to unsecure computers and tape at the lab.

On Thursday, the area around Lee's home was cordoned off by police cars and cones. About 10 people were going in and out of the home, some carrying clipboards.

''We don't expect them to find anything in this house,'' said one of Lee's attorneys, Nancy Hollander of Albuquerque.

One of Lee's neighbors, Nora Aubert, said: ''I want it to be over. I want them to release him or do something.

---- new york

Inspector General Condemns Nuclear Agency Safety Evaluation
NRC Safety Evaluation at Indian Point 2 Flawed

Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy Project
Aug. 31, 2000
From: "Noel Petrie" <npetrie@citizen.org>

WASHINGTON, D.C. The inspector general of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has released a report condemning the agency's handling of safety problems at the Indian Point 2 nuclear reactor in Buchanan, N.Y., approximately 25 miles from New York City. The failure of both the NRC and the plant's owner, Consolidated Edison, to adequately review information in their possession resulted in the February steam generator tube rupture that released radiation into the environment.

According to the report released today:

The flaw in the steam generator tube that caused the February 2000 accident at Indian Point 2 was nearly 100 percent through the tube wall in 1997.

NRC senior engineers failed to review the documents submitted by Consolidated Edison, including the 1997 steam generator tube inspection report.

The NRC and Consolidated Edison could have identified the flaw and thus avoided the accident if someone with technical expertise had evaluated the 1997 inspection findings.

Despite the fact that the NRC's junior engineer had concerns regarding the steam generator tubes that were not addressed by Consolidated Edison's license amendment request, the NRC failed to ask follow-up questions because a second round of questioning was "frowned upon" by NRC senior management.

"The NRC is in regulatory retreat and has shirked its responsibility to protect the health and safety of the people of New York," said James Riccio, senior policy analyst with Public Citizen's Critical Mass Energy & Environment Program. "The NRC's senior management needs to be held accountable. They are too concerned with allowing nuclear reactors to run, and as a result, safety has been sacrificed."

-------- ohio

Congressman asks Energy Secretary to settle ownership question

Akron Beacon-Journal
Thursday, August 31, 2000
http://www.ohio.com/bj/news/ohio/docs/005122.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rep. Ted Strickland on Thursday asked Energy Secretary Bill Richardson to settle a dispute over who owns the coolant used at southern Ohio's uranium enrichment plant.

Strickland, the Democrat whose district includes the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, has joined the plant's major union in declaring that the valuable refrigerant should be left behind when operations are shut down in 2002.

Strickland and the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers International Union say the Freon-like coolant should be left behind under contract terms requiring the plant to be returned in operating condition.

In a letter sent Thursday, the congressman asked Richardson to agree with that interpretation of the contract.

U.S. Enrichment Corp., which operates the government-owned plant, told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the company owns the coolant.

-------- tennessee

BWX Technologies Wins DOE Contract At Oak Ridge Y-12 Plant

Excite News
August 31, 2000
http://news.excite.com/news/bw/000831/va-mcdermott

LYNCHBURG, Va. (BUSINESS WIRE) - A joint venture led by BWX Technologies, Inc. (BWXT), a subsidiary of McDermott International, Inc. (NYSE:MDR), has been awarded a $2.5 billion contract by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to oversee management and operations at the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

The five-year contract at Y-12 begins November 1, 2000. The BWXT Y-12 team is a joint venture of BWXT and Bechtel National, Inc. (BNI).

"We are very pleased by the confidence DOE has placed in us," said Dr. E. Allen Womack, president of BWXT. "We are committed to providing leadership at Y-12 worthy of the vital role this facility has in the nation's defense."

BWXT, in addition to being the single supplier of nuclear fuel and reactor components to the U.S. Navy, is the sole source of research and test reactor fuel for DOE's National Laboratories, including the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) in Oak Ridge. From its Naval Nuclear Fuel Division in Lynchburg, Virginia, BWXT performs enriched uranium processing and recovery operations comparable to the Oak Ridge Y-12 operations. The company also is active in the management and operation of several other DOE nuclear sites.

McDermott International, Inc. and its subsidiaries manufacture steam-generating equipment, environmental equipment, and products for the U.S. Government. They also provide engineering and construction services for industrial, utility, and hydrocarbon processing facilities, and to the offshore oil and natural gas industry.

Contact: BWXT/Lynchburg Ron Hite, 804/522-5937 or McDermott/New Orleans Pierre DeGruy, 504/587-6451 (Media Relations) Don Washington, 504/587-4080 (Investor Relations) http://www.mcdermott.com

----

McDermott Gets Five-Year, $2.5 Billion Contract to Run Weapons Plant

Excite News
August 31, 2000
http://news.excite.com/news/dj/000831/20000831-000839

OAK RIDGE, Tenn. -(Dow Jones)- The Department of Energy has awarded a $2.5 billion, five-year contract to BWX Technologies Inc., a unit of McDermott International Inc., and Bechtel National Inc. to manage and operate the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant.

The decision came only three days after the agency announced it was seeking a record $1 million fine against current Y-12 manager Lockheed Martin Corp.'s (LMT) Lockheed Martin Energy Systems for a series of safety violations leading up to a chemical explosion in December.

McDermott's (MDR) BWX team will assume full responsiblity of the plant on Nov. 1, the Associated Press reported.

Y-12's primary mission is making parts for the MX missile system and storing highly enriched uranium for the nation's nuclear weapons complex. The plant employs about 4,000 workers and has a budget of $500 million a year.

Lockheed Martin, which has managed the plant since 1984, was cited by the Energy Department Monday for a Dec. 8 chemical explosion that injured 11 workers. The contractor also was sanctioned for improper handling of nuclear materials and other safety violations that led to a government-ordered "stand down" of the plant on Nov. 5.

The Energy Department noted some problems were identified by the Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board as early as 1994, but that penalties were deferred then because of the contractor's promises to make improvements.

Lockheed spokeswoman Dianne Knippel told the Associated Press Monday that company officials didn't think the fine would hurt the company's chances of getting a new Y-12 contract.

In April, Lockheed Martin lost a similar $2.5 billion, five-year contract to the University of Tennessee and Battelle Memorial Institute Inc. to manage the 4,500-employee Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the AP reported. The lab had also been run by Lockheed Martin or its corporate predecessors since 1984.

-------- washington

Sharp discord at hearing greets plan to restart Hanford test reactor

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Thursday, August 31, 2000
By LISA STIFFLER SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER
mailto:lisastiffler@seattle-pi.com
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/local/flux31.shtml

There was no common ground at a public hearing last night over restarting a Hanford Nuclear Reservation reactor.

The room at the Washington State Convention & Trade Center was virtually divided between those who favor exploring alternative forms of energy and producing priceless isotopes for cancer treatment and those opposed to starting the reactor and creating more radioactive waste on the contaminated site.

Each side accused the other of lying, highlighting the confusion surrounding the issue.

This was the third of four recent public hearings in the Pacific Northwest hosted by the Department of Energy.

Built in the 1970s, the Fast Flux Test Facility, or FFTF, was used by researchers to produce radioisotopes for medical use, to test nuclear materials and to study reactor safety.

The Department of Energy shut down the facility in 1993. Last year, it began looking at the idea of using the facility for civilian research and for developing and producing isotopes.

The agency is considering six options:

It could keep the reactor on standby, which would cost about $50 million a year. It could permanently shut down the reactor, which would cost $281 million. It could open it with existing facilities for about $320 million plus $15 million annually. It could spend more than $382 million to restart the reactor and then spend an additional $82 million a year to operate it. Or it could spend $1.5 billion on a new accelerator -- another source of isotope production -- or $700 million on a new reactor.

A decision will be made in December.

During last night's forum, Nick Licata, a Seattle city councilman, raised concerns about transporting plutonium through the Puget Sound region and chastised the Department of Energy for an incomplete environmental impact statement on restarting the reactor.

Suzanne Heaston, a regional representative for Republican Sen. Slade Gorton, read a letter in which Gorton said he supports restarting the facility.

"Developments are thwarted and treatments are suppressed because our country lacks the production capability . . . of life-saving isotopes that are necessary to conduct research and treat our (cancer) patients," Gorton said in the statement.

Isotope production, however, is only one of the reasons the Energy Department wants to restart the reactor. The agency also wants to produce plutonium-238 for space missions and to conduct nuclear research.

In a report released in April, a subcommittee studying whether to restart the reactor found that "production of radioisotopes on the FFTF is not justified as a primary mission," said Richard Reba, a University of Chicago professor who chaired the committee.

He said cancer research is a project that has been promoted by the facility for years, but that there is no data to support this use.

"It's all theoretical as far as we can tell," Reba said.

Henry Kramer, also a member of the subcommittee examining isotope use, said there is already a surplus of isotopes currently used for medical treatment.

Some have proposed that the Hanford reactor could be used to make new isotopes for research. Kramer, who used to conduct nuclear medicine research, said he wouldn't embark on a project for which there was only one supplier of a unique isotope.

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

On Crucial Nuclear Shield Work, It's Military vs. Diplomats

International Herald Tribune
Paris, Thursday, August 31, 2000
By Steven Lee Myers New York Times Service
http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/THU/FPAGE/missile.2.html

WASHINGTON - The Defense Department and the State Department are sharply divided over how far work on a limited missile-defense system could proceed before the United States would be required to give formal notice to Moscow that Washington was moving to violate a crucial arms-control treaty.

Officials in the Pentagon and State Department said that disagreement within the administration was a primary reason for Defense Secretary William Cohen's delay in making a recommendation to President Bill Clinton this month on whether to proceed.

The debate has focused on the point at which construction of the missile system, which involves elaborate radar installations, would violate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, which lies at the heart of the arms controls built up over the Cold War.

The Russians have steadfastly refused any changes in the treaty to permit elaborate new radar installations, fearing that these would open the door to a larger system that would undermine the value of Russia's nuclear force.

Officials from the agencies said Mr. Cohen was wrong when he told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month that administration lawyers had reached a consensus.

Mr. Cohen said then there was agreement that building a radar station on an Aleutian island could continue until 2002 before the United States would violate the treaty.

That represents just one of three interpretations drafted by administration lawyers, the officials said. But senior policymakers at the State Department and the National Security Council are strongly opposed, the officials added.

The opponents contend that this interpretation would be overly aggressive and unilateral and would surely anger the Russians and U.S. allies in Europe.

A spokesman for the Pentagon, Rear Admiral Craig Quigley, said Mr. Cohen and his aides declined to discuss his Senate testimony. Mr. Cohen is the administration's leading advocate of building missile defenses.

Aides to President Clinton declined to discuss the internal debate but confirmed that officials were considering several options and that Mr. Cohen's statement last month did not reflect a consensus view.

''It is true that there are a number of options available to the president,'' said P.J. Crowley, a National Security Council spokesman.

The question of when the United States would violate the treaty is a pivotal one that Mr. Clinton has to answer before approving even limited steps to begin building a radar station on Shemya Island, at the western edge of the Aleutians. The Russians would be certain to object to the United States and to American allies.

Washington officials' interpretations vary on when in the construction process the treaty violation would occur.

Mr. Cohen is widely expected to make a recommendation to Mr. Clinton in a few weeks on how to proceed. But the officials said the legal questions could delay a decision to move ahead.

The division is so sharp that Mr. Clinton may be forced to choose among conflicting advice, if he decides to move ahead at all.

''This is really squishy business,'' a senior military officer said. ''Smart lawyers can disagree.''

Under the Pentagon timetable, the first contracts for the Shemya radar work, as well as a site for the missile interceptors, would have to be awarded this year so that work could begin next spring and a working system could be in place within the goal of 2005. Intelligence officials have warned that the United States could face a threat by then from some countries, including North Korea.

There is universal agreement that building the radar would amount to a violation of the treaty. The administration had hoped to negotiate amendments with the Russians that would permit the limited system now being developed, but Moscow has refused.

Officials previously said that Mr. Clinton would decide this summer whether to deploy a system. But with the Russians objecting, the officials have since signaled that Mr. Clinton simply planned to decide whether to move ahead with an initial development. He would leave a final decision to deploy - and thereby break the treaty - to the next administration.

That is why the legal interpretations have become so important, because each interpretation sets a different moment when Mr. Clinton must, as the treaty requires, give the Russians six months of notice about American intent to withdraw from the anti-missile restrictions.

At the White House's request, lawyers from the State Department and the Pentagon have drafted the three legal interpretations of the treaty that, in their view, would allow some work to begin without breaking the treaty.

In his appearance before the Armed Services Committee on July 2, Mr. Cohen said that administration lawyers had reached a consensus that the United States would not violate the treaty until workers laid down rails that would support the radar itself at the station.

---

U.S. Envoy Defends Proposed Space Defense System

Yahoo News
Thursday August 31 8:04 AM ET updated 3:42 PM ET Aug 31
By Stephanie Nebehay
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000831/pl/arms_space_dc_1.html
http://www.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space/08/31/arms.usa.space.reut/index.html

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday defended the national missile defense (NMD) system being considered by President Clinton, saying it would be a ``far cry from the 'weaponization' of outer space.''

U.S. disarmament ambassador Robert Gray told the U.N. Conference on Disarmament in a speech that the proposed anti-missile shield was not directed at Russia or China, but rather intended to protect the United States from a limited ballistic attack by certain hostile states.

Defense Secretary William Cohen is to make his recommendation shortly to President Clinton on whether to proceed with building an anti-missile radar in Alaska.

Both China and Russia bitterly oppose the $60 billion system, which they say would shatter the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. They fear that the shield, to be deployed by 2005, could also rapidly evolve to threaten their nuclear arsenals.

But Gray told the 66-state body in Geneva: ``A system capable of defending against a large-scale attack with sophisticated weapons would be both qualitatively and quantitatively different from that which the U.S. is considering.''

North Korea And Iran

U.S. officials say the system would be geared to shoot down missiles from ``rogue'' states such as North Korea and Iran.

The U.S. envoy said the weapons, interceptors, launchers and radar being considered for the shield were terrestrial, not space-based. Satellites would be used only to provide early warning and data on missile threats. ''This is a far cry from the 'weaponization' of outer space,'' Gray declared. ``There is no arms race in outer space -- rather, there is unprecedented cooperation.''

He added: ``Satellites belonging to a number of countries here, including those strongly supporting outer space negotiations, already orbit the earth by the dozens, providing various types of data for military purposes to ships, aircraft and ground forces worldwide. Should we prohibit these, too?''

The United States and Russia have been discussing how to ''preserve and strengthen'' the ABM, according to Grey. The 1972 pact bans either country from having a national missile defense.

``During these discussions, the United States has proposed modifications to the treaty that would permit the deployment of the initial NMD systems. The United States remains firmly committed to these bilateral discussions,'' the U.S. envoy said.

Arms Control Talks

The latest round of confidential talks between senior U.S. and Russian arms control negotiations on a START-3 treaty and related ABM issues took place in Geneva two weeks ago.

``The U.S. remains committed to the arms control and disarmament process and sees no contradiction between that process and pursuit of a limited NMD system,'' Gray said.

``The ABM treaty is an integral part of our mutual efforts with the Russian Federation to reduce offensive nuclear arms.''

Diplomats say that the United States is the lone member of the world's only multilateral arms control negotiating body to oppose formal negotiations on preventing an arms race in space.

Gray reiterated that the U.S. delegation could agree to their establishment of a committee to ``discuss'' outer space issues.

But he accused other states of using a lack of consensus on outer space as a pretext to stall negotiations to halt production of nuclear bomb-making fissile material -- plutonium and highly-enriched uranium -- widely seen as the next step in global nuclear disarmament. U.S. officials in Geneva named the states as Russia, China and Pakistan.

---

U.S. Seeks To Allay Nuclear Fears

Excite News
August 31, 2000
ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS, Associated Press Writer
http://news.excite.com/news/ap/000831/17/disarmament

GENEVA (AP) - The United States said on Thursday that its planned missile defense shield is not directed against China or Russia, and denied that it will set off an arms race in space.

Ambassador Robert T. Grey, head of the U.S. delegation to the 66-nation Conference on Disarmament, told the grouping the defense system being considered would defend the United States against "certain countries of concern."

U.S. officials have said such nations include North Korea and Iraq.

Grey said concerns about the proposed missile defense shield were keeping the conference from tackling more pressing concerns such as the need to ban fissionable materials - plutonium and enriched uranium - that are used to make nuclear weapons.

"There is no arms race in outer space," he said.

Grey said U.S. consideration of a limited missile defense system has nothing to do with an arms race in outer space.

"It would use satellites only to provide early warning and data on threat missiles," Grey said. "This is a far cry from the 'weaponization' of outer space."

Gray said the United States remains committed to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, even though it wants to make changes in it.

The United States has been trying to persuade Russia to amend the ABM treaty to permit deployment of a shield against limited missile launches by "rogue" nations.

The Russians have been reluctant to change the ABM treaty on grounds that it is a keystone of the global effort to reduce the risk of nuclear war.

---

U.S. Seeks To Allay Nuclear Fears

Associated Press
August 31, 2000 Filed at 5:46 p.m. EDT
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Disarmament.html

GENEVA (AP) -- The United States said on Thursday that its planned missile defense shield is not directed against China or Russia, and denied that it will set off an arms race in space.

Ambassador Robert T. Grey, head of the U.S. delegation to the 66-nation Conference on Disarmament, told the grouping the defense system being considered would defend the United States against ``certain countries of concern.''

U.S. officials have said such nations include North Korea and Iraq.

Grey said concerns about the proposed missile defense shield were keeping the conference from tackling more pressing concerns such as the need to ban fissionable materials -- plutonium and enriched uranium -- that are used to make nuclear weapons.

``There is no arms race in outer space,'' he said.

Grey said U.S. consideration of a limited missile defense system has nothing to do with an arms race in outer space.

``It would use satellites only to provide early warning and data on threat missiles,'' Grey said. ``This is a far cry from the 'weaponization' of outer space.''

Gray said the United States remains committed to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, even though it wants to make changes in it.

The United States has been trying to persuade Russia to amend the ABM treaty to permit deployment of a shield against limited missile launches by ``rogue'' nations.

The Russians have been reluctant to change the ABM treaty on grounds that it is a keystone of the global effort to reduce the risk of nuclear war.

---

Clinton defers missile defense decision

USA Today
09/01/00
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsfri01.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Clinton, saying he lacks ''absolute confidence'' in existing technology, announced Friday he would leave to his successor a decision on whether to deploy a national missile defense system.

In a speech at Georgetown University, Clinton said he would not authorize the Pentagon to award contracts to begin building a new high-powered radar in the Aleutian Islands. By putting off this initial step, Clinton effectively pushed the decision on finishing the project into the next presidency.

''We should use this time to ensure that NMD (national missile defense), if deployed, would actually enhance our overall national security,'' Clinton said.

Clinton said it is still possible for the system to be operational by 2006 or 2007. It was initially targeted for completion in 2005.

Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee, has been noncommittal on whether there should be a national missile defense, saying he supported continued development work. Gore's Republican opponent, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, has said he would push hard for a missile defense even more robust than the one currently on the drawing board.

The decision not to authorize the radar in the Aleutians came in the face of strong objections from Russia and reservations among many Democrats in Congress. The radar is an essential element of the missile defense system because it would track incoming warheads.

Work on the project will go forward with additional testing of a ''kill vehicle'' to destroy warheads in flight and development of other key components, including a new booster rocket.

In his speech, Clinton said he was not assured that the United States has ''enough confidence in the technology'' to move forward with the project now. He asked Defense Secretary William Cohen to ''continue a robust program of testing'' to make sure the system will work properly.

''A national missile defense, if deployed, should be part of a larger strategy to preserve and enhance the peace, strength and security we now enjoy, and to build an even safer world,'' Clinton said. ''I have tried to maximize the ability of the next president to pursue that strategy.''

Clinton said his decision gives the United States time to work with the Russians to overcome their opposition to the system, and to court the support of U.S. allies.

''The United States and Russia still have nuclear arsenals that can devastate each other, and this is still a period of transition in our relationship,'' Clinton said. ''Therefore, for them, as well as for us, maintaining strategic stability increases trust and confidence on both sides; it reduces the risk of confrontation; it makes it possible to build an even better partnership, and an even safer world.''

Awarding the contracts this fall would have allowed the radar construction to begin next spring - a timetable that, on paper at least, would have kept the missile defense project on track to completion by 2005.

By putting off the initial step, Clinton in effect has pushed back the 2005 target date by at least one year.

In previous public comments on missile defense, Clinton had never given a clear signal of what course he would take. In a May 31 news conference he seemed to indicate that missile defense was justified by a growing threat, not from Russia or China but from so-called ''rogue states'' like North Korea.

''Is there a threat which is new and different? The answer to that, it seems to me, is plainly, yes, there is, and there will be one.''

The proposed national missile defense, projected to cost about $60 billion, is designed to protect all 50 states against attack by a limited number of long-range ballistic missiles from North Korea or the Middle East. It is a scaled-down version of the global missile defense pursued during the Reagan administration that came to be known as Star Wars for its focus space-based lasers and other exotic weaponry.

In weighing his decision, Clinton faced conflicting pressures. Republicans in Congress have pushed hard for years for a national missile defense, and last year they gained passage of a law requiring the Pentagon to deploy such a system as soon as ''technologically feasible.'' The anti-missile testing program, however, has suffered numerous technological setbacks, including a failed flight test in July.

Clinton based his decision on recommendations from Cohen, who is perhaps the administration's strongest proponent of national missile defense, as well as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and the president's national security adviser, Sandy Berger. Cohen had not publicly discussed his recommendation, but he had indicated recently that he saw reason to consider whether going forward now might put undue pressure on Clinton's successor to affirm or reverse the decision.

Putting off the start of construction of the X-band radar on Shemya Island in the Aleutians gives the Clinton administration and its successor more time to negotiate a deal on the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. The 1972 treaty prohibits a national defense against ballistic missiles, and the administration has tried unsuccessfully to persuade Moscow to amend the treaty to allow a limited defensive system.

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A New U.S. Nuclear Weapon?

Center for Defense Information
The Weekly Defense Monitor, August 31, 2000
by: Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll, Jr. USN (Ret.), Vice President ecarroll@cdi.org

A number of sources are now generating arguments in favor of the United States developing a new low-yield nuclear weapon with earth penetrating capability. As always in nuclear matters, there is more going on in the Pentagon, Congress, White House, and U.S. nuclear laboratories than is revealed in this rather bland proposal for one new nuclear weapon design. An extract from a commentary which appeared in the Los Angeles Times on July 14 provides some context.

"The U.S. Senate is preparing to take a major step to abandon all pretense that U.S. nuclear forces exist only to deter war. An amendment to the pending Defense Authorization Act for 2001 would lead to the development of a new nuclear weapon designed expressly for fighting."

The new weapon is to be a low-yield device with earth penetration capability, intended to destroy deeply buried bunkers. Paul Robinson, Director of Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM, which would build the device, is a strong advocate of it. Robinson apparently favors a new, low-yield device because U.S. leaders presumably would be more ready to employ smaller weapons than to use the larger city- and silo-busting high-yield weapons in our current arsenal. He considers large weapons "self-deterring."

Not only is the Senate's action a throw-back to those unlamented days of preparing to prevail in nuclear war, but it also is a flagrant repudiation of a solemn pledge the United States made in May at the Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York. We joined with Britain, France, China and Russia in a commitment to accomplish the total elimination of nuclear arsenals leading to nuclear disarmament.

Regrettably, this action is merely one more blatant signal that the United States is determined to pursue nuclear dominance indefinitely through enhanced readiness to fight a nuclear war. Additional preparations include the decision to resume production of tritium and plutonium pits for thermonuclear weapons, continued subcritical explosive testing in Nevada, and rejection of Russian proposals to reduce nuclear numbers 75% below START II levels. The thinking behind all of this was revealed by then Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre when he said in March: "Nuclear weapons are still the foundation of a superpower...and that will never change."

It is the conflict between the true believers in U.S. nuclear supremacy and America's obligation to work for nuclear disarmament that should stimulate resistance to producing a new, "more usable" nuclear weapon. The low yield strategy must be blocked or our nation will affirm its adherence to a nuclear warfighting doctrine and thereby weaken the entire global non-proliferation regime. A new weapon design would also strengthen the voices of those in our nuclear laboratories who continue to agitate for resumption of explosive nuclear testing.

In short, design and production of a new warfighting weapon would weaken every element of restraint embodied in current restrictions on U.S. nuclear programs. At the same time, coupled with U.S. failure to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and plans to deploy a National Missile Defense system, it would send a clear signal to the world that America is actively preparing for nuclear war. This signal might well ignite a new nuclear arms race and end non-proliferation efforts globally. Far from increasing national security, a new weapon would imperil the safety of all Americans.

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Low-Yield Nuke Bombs Endorsed

Tuesday, August 15, 2000
By Ian Hoffman Journal Staff Writer
http://www.abqjournal.com/scitech/101181scitech08-15-00.htm

New and precise, low-yield nuclear weapons - perhaps built on designs so simple and rugged they don't require testing - could aid the United States in attacking a range of modern targets, a U.S. weapons executive says.

Los Alamos' chief weaponeer, Stephen M. Younger, envisions a flexible U.S. strategic arsenal of conventional and nuclear weapons of low and high yields. He suggests in a recent paper that accurate, low-yield nuclear weapons could be better suited to attacking buried, concrete bunkers and mobile missiles than today's U.S. arsenal of silo-busting weapons.

A rogue nation threatening biological or chemical attack against the United States or its allies might view a massive, ballistic missile attack "as overkill and hence not a realistic threat."

"Such a reliance on high-yield strategic weapons could lead to 'self-deterrence,' a limitation on strategic options and consequently a lessening of the stabilizing effect of nuclear weapons," Younger writes in "Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century," a paper invited by the Pentagon's ranking defense scientist.

Critics say Younger's proposals are the latest in a persistent lobbying campaign by some nuclear weaponeers for work on new bombs and warheads, theoretically made usable by limited damage and radioactive fallout.

"This is all premised on the notion that you can cross the nuclear threshold if you don't make too much of a mess," said physicist Frank von Hippel, a Princeton University professor of public and international affairs.

"This isn't deterrence," von Hippel said. "This is trying to use these things."

That alarms disarmament advocates.

"Right now there is a global norm against use of nuclear weapons," said Greg Mello, head of the Los Alamos Study Group in Santa Fe. "To use a nuclear weapon would martyr the enemy, give cover to (nuclear) proliferants and open us to attack by weapons of mass destruction."

Younger declined interview requests but said through a spokesman that he intended his paper to provoke a discussion of the role of nuclear weapons.

The Persian Gulf War and fear of Saddam Hussein's biological and chemical arsenals fueled a round of low-yield weapons research in the early 1990s, but the effort collided with a moratorium on nuclear testing and lackluster political support. Congress added an extra barrier in 1994 by forbidding engineering work on nuclear weapons detonating at less than the equivalent of 5,000 tons of TNT. Younger's paper coincides with a recent push by conservative lawmakers to bend and perhaps break that six-year prohibition.

A proposed Senate defense bill would overrule legal objections at the U.S. Department of Energy, based on the 1994 law, to research into nuclear weapons to attack hardened command or weapons bunkers buried under hundreds of feet of rock. Colorado Republican Wayne Allard sponsored a provision calling on the Energy and Defense departments to report those targets and ways to destroy them by July.

Thick-walled concrete bunkers and weapons factories buried under mountains, as suspected in Russia and Libya, could be immune even to high-yield nuclear weapons, says Younger, Los Alamos' associate lab director for nuclear weapons.

An array of other targets could be vulnerable to simple but high-precision nuclear weapons exploding at five kilotons - roughly a third the power of the Hiroshima bomb - or less, he says.

Current weapons could be modified to reduce their yield or tailor their radiation effects, for example, to destroy electronics or biological agents, Younger says, but those changes could be expensive and require nuclear testing.

Younger suggests that fielding precision low-yield weapons could be less expensive and easier than trying to maintain the full, current arsenal of sophisticated, high-yield weapons at a time when weapons designers are leaving the nation's weapons labs.

"We could use gun-assembled or other simple, rugged designs that might be maintained with high confidence without nuclear testing," Younger wrote. "Such designs would require a significantly smaller industrial plant for their maintenance than our current forces. ... Finally, simpler weapons might be maintained with higher confidence for longer periods by a weapons staff that has little or no direct experience with nuclear testing."

Los Alamos' Hiroshima bomb, Little Boy, was a gun-assembled design. A charge of high explosive blasts two chunks of enriched uranium together to create a runaway chain reaction. Scientists were so sure of its operation that the Little Boy model was never tested before it became the first nuclear weapon used in war.

Most weapons designers who exploded their handiwork before a 1992 end to U.S. nuclear testing are expected to retire in the next 20 years.

Younger's ideas "express the ongoing crisis of legitimacy that the laboratory suffers," Mello said. "There is a fairly desperate attempt to stay in nuclear-weapons work, to be legitimate and attractive to new hires."

Younger argues that the time to open the debate on the future of U.S. strategic forces is now, given the typical 10-year or greater delay in fielding new weapons technologies.

"The time is right for a fundamental rethinking of the role of nuclear weapons in national security," he writes. "Prudent thought given to the role of nuclear weapons in the 21st century will reap handsome dividends for the national security of the United States and the stability of the whole world."

Arms-control advocates wince at Younger's ideas but say the debate is overdue.

"It would be great if this was a first word in a discussion of what nuclear weapons are really for," von Hippel said.

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Mini-Nukes: A Threat to Global Security

8/16/00
FCNL News
http://www.fcnl.org/issues/arm/sup/min_threat800.htm

Deeply-buried in the Senate-passed version of the FY 2001 defense authorization bill (S 2549), is a short section (Sec. 1018) that calls for the Departments of Defense and Energy to conduct a study. Sound innocuous? Read on.

Sec. 1018, introduced by Sens. Warner (VA) and Allard (CO), calls for a study on "the defeat of hardened and deeply buried targets" and includes "any limited research and development that may be necessary to conduct such assessment." The targets include underground bunkers. The kind of weapon that could burrow into the ground to destroy such a bunker would likely contain low-yield nuclear warheads. These weapons are known as mini-nukes.

Although Sec. 1018 does not explicitly mention nuclear weapons, the fact that it calls for Dept. of Energy (DOE) involvement is significant. The DOE does research on nuclear, but not conventional weapons. Officials at U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories have, for several years, argued in favor of the development of low-yield nuclear warheads. They argue that the U.S. needs a weapon which can, on the one hand, destroy a bunker built into solid rock, a hundred yards or more underground, but which will, on the other hand, spare populated areas located near the bunker.

Sec. 1018 would overturn mini-nuke ban

In 1993, former Rep. Furse (OR) and Rep. Spratt (SC) succeeded in attaching to the FY94 defense authorization bill a provision that prohibits nuclear laboratories from conducting research and development work that could lead to a precision, low-yield nuclear weapon. This provision has, thus, blocked the development of mini-nukes.

The Warner-Allard provision in the FY01 defense authorization bill would not explicitly override the Furse-Spratt provision, but it would take the first step in that direction. If the proposed study were to conclude that mini-nukes were feasible, the next step would be to authorize their development.

Mini-nukes could restart the nuclear arms race

Since mini-nukes would be a new nuclear weapon, testing would be necessary. If the U.S. were to break the global moratorium on nuclear test explosions, the moratorium would collapse. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) would almost certainly dissolve. Other nuclear powers would begin nuclear testing. Pressures from non-nuclear countries could spell the end of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The world could, once again, find itself at the brink of nuclear holocaust.

Is this just alarmist hype? We do not think so.

The proponents of mini-nukes argue that such weapons are needed in order to destroy the weapons of mass destruction stockpiled by Saddam Hussein. Proponents believe that mini-nukes will, thus, help to increase the United States' and global security.

We believe that they are missing the bigger picture. The first line of defense against nuclear weapons, for the U.S. and the world, is the fabric of non-proliferation and test ban agreements that the international community has been weaving. Any strategy that destroys those international agreements will increase, not reduce, nuclear dangers.

Can mini-nukes be derailed?

The Senate passed the FY01 defense authorization bill with the mini-nukes proposal on July 13. However, the House-passed version of the FY01 defense authorization bill does not contain this provision. Thus, it will be up to the conference committee to decide whether to retain or drop the Warner-Allard provision. The conference committee, composed of senior members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, will be meeting in September. The final version of the FY01 defense authorization bill will then go back to the House and Senate for approval.

You Can Help

Please contact your members of Congress before September 5. If they are members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, urge them to delete the Warner-Allard provision (Section 1018, "Report on the Defeat of Hardened and Deeply Buried Targets") from the final conference report. If your members are not on the Armed Services Committees, ask them to convey your message to committee members. (Committee members may be found here on FCNL's web site and in the FCNL Washington Newsletter Directory for the 106th Congress, published in May 1999.)

Use FCNL's web site to make letter-writing easier. Start with the sample letter to members of Congress posted in our Legislative Action Center, personalize the language, then send your message as an email directly from our site or print it out and mail it.

This article was originally published in the July/August 2000 FCNL Washington Newsletter.

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8/16/00

Warner-Allard Provision: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001, S. 2549 [As adopted by the Senate Armed Services Committee]

http://www.fcnl.org/issues/arm/sup/min_sec1018.htm

SEC. 1018. Report on the Defeat of Hardened and Deeply Buried Targets.

(a) STUDY- The Secretary of Defense shall, in conjunction with the Secretary of Energy, conduct a study relating to the defeat of hardened and deeply buried targets. Under the study, the Secretaries shall--

(1) review the requirements and current and future plans for hardened and deeply buried targets and agent defeat weapons concepts and activities;

(2) determine if those plans adequately address all requirements;

(3) identify potential future hardened and deeply buried targets and other related targets;

(4) determine what resources and research and development efforts are needed to defeat the targets identified under paragraph (3) as well as other agent defeat requirements;

(5) assess both current and future options to defeat hardened and deeply buried targets as well as agent defeat weapons concepts, including any limited research and development that may be necessary to conduct such assessment; and

(6) determine the capability and cost of each option.

(b) REPORT- The Secretary of Defense shall submit to the congressional defense committees a report on the results of the study required by subsection (a) not later than July 1, 2001.

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001 Report [To Accompany S. 2549], Senate Report 106-292

Study and report on hardened and deeply buried targets (sec. 1018)

The committee recommends a provision that would require the Secretaries of Defense and Energy to assess requirements and options for defeating hardened and deeply buried targets. The provision would expressly authorize the Department of Energy (DOE) to conduct any limited research and development that may be necessary to complete such assessments.

The committee notes that a recent legal interpretation of existing law raised questions regarding whether DOE could participate in or otherwise support certain Department of Defense (DOD) studies and options assessments for defeating hardened and deeply buried targets. This provision removes any uncertainty and expressly allows DOE to assist the DOD with a review of these targets and the options for defeating such targets. The committee believes that DOE should provide information and all other assistance required to help DOD make informed decisions on whether: (1) to proceed with a new method of defeating hardened and deeply buried targets and; (2) to seek any necessary modifications to existing law.

The committee is concerned that the ability to defeat hardened and deeply buried targets will continue to be a significant challenge for the foreseeable future.

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We Are Taking a Detour From Deterrence

By Eugene J. Carroll Jr
Friday, July 14, 2000
Los Angeles Times

http://www.cdi.org/issues/proliferation/carroll71400.html The U.S. Senate is preparing to take a major step to abandon all pretense that U.S. nuclear forces exist only to deter war. An amendment to the pending Defense Authorization Act for 2001 would lead to the development of a new nuclear weapon designed expressly for fighting.

The new weapon is to be a low-yield device with earth penetration capability, intended to destroy deeply buried bunkers. Paul Robinson, director of Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., which would build the device, is a strong advocate of it. Robinson apparently favors a new, low-yield device because U.S. leaders presumably would be more ready to employ smaller weapons than to use the larger city- and silo-busting high-yield weapons in our current arsenal. He considers large weapons "self-deterring."

This thinking is an eerie throwback to the days of the Cold War, when weapon designers provided the U.S. military with an array of explosives to "prevail" in a survivable limited nuclear war. Among the 70,000 U.S. nuclear weapons produced during the Cold War were suitcase bombs, neutron bombs, torpedoes, depth charges, artillery shells, air-to-air missiles and anti-tank rockets. The laboratories were like nuclear ice cream factories, churning out the flavor of the day to meet the latest craving of the customers.

Not only is the Senate's action a throwback to those unlamented days of preparing to prevail in nuclear war, but it also is a flagrant repudiation of a solemn pledge the United States made in May at the Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York. We joined with Britain, France, China and Russia in a commitment to accomplish the total elimination of nuclear arsenals, leading to nuclear disarmament.

Nothing could be more contrary to that commitment than a congressional order to develop a new, more usable nuclear weapon. Regrettably, this action is merely one more blatant signal that the United States is determined to pursue nuclear dominance indefinitely through enhanced readiness to fight a nuclear war. Additional preparations include the decision to resume production of tritium and plutonium pits for thermonuclear weapons, continued subcritical explosive testing in Nevada and rejection of Russian proposals to reduce nuclear numbers 75% below START II levels. The thinking behind all of this was revealed by then-Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre when he said in March: "Nuclear weapons are still the foundation of a superpower . . . and that will never change."

All of these actions are supportive of President Clinton's signing in 1997 of a directive whose overarching principle was that nuclear weapons would remain the cornerstone of U.S. security indefinitely. Far from emphasizing deterrence, the document reasserted the need for all three arms of the U.S. triad of nuclear forces--intercontinental ballistic missiles, sea-launched ballistic missiles and long-range strategic bombers. It declared the U.S. right to make first use of nuclear weapons and to target not only Russia and China but also any prospective nuclear states that might threaten U.S. interests in the future.

Authoritative sources subsequently have revealed that the U.S. has expanded the list of worldwide targets planned for destruction under the new doctrine. In short, with plans for new nuclear weapons, Congress is joining the White House in putting into place all of the elements of a war-fighting strategy. There is no way a deterrent strategy can justify or rationalize developing new nuclear weapons to make them more usable for fighting purposes. This is the ultimate antithesis of deterrence and a total abrogation of the legal and moral obligation of the U.S. to work for the elimination of all nuclear weapons.

Retired Navy Rear Admiral Eugene J. Carroll Jr. Is Vice President of the Center for Defense Information in Washington.

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The Warner-Allard FY01 Defense Authorization Provision:
Mini-Nukes and the Nuclear Test Moratorium July 2000

7/27/00
http://www.fcnl.org/issues/arm/sup/tesban_mininuke.htm

Senators Warner (VA) and Allard (CO) placed an apparently innocuous research and study provision (Section 1018) in the Senate defense authorization bill (S2549), which calls for the Defense and Energy Departments to conduct a study on "the defeat of hardened and deeply buried targets...including any limited research and development that may be necessary to conduct such assessment." This refers to weapons that are able to burrow deep into the ground to destroy buried targets such as bunkers. These weapons would likely contain low-yield nuclear warheads, or "mini-nukes."

While the provision does not specifically mention nuclear weapons, the Energy Department develops only nuclear, not conventional weapons. For several years, officials at the nuclear weapons labs have argued for new low-yield nuclear warheads, or "mini-nukes." Developing this new weapon will require resumption of U.S. nuclear testing. The Washington Post, "Senate Bill Requires Study of New Nuclear Weapon," (Monday, June 12, page A2 - see over) puts Senators Warner and Allard on record that their purpose in passing Section 1018 is to override the 1993 law, the Furse-Spratt provision of the FY94 defense authorization bill, that prohibits nuclear laboratories from all research and development which could lead to a precision, low-yield nuclear weapon.

Senators Warner and Allard portray their effort for new low-yield, bunker-busting nuclear weapon as necessary for national security. This new U.S. nuclear weapon, they say, would enable the Pentagon to go deep into Saddam Hussein's bunkers to wipe out nuclear or other weapons of destruction. Others like him would be vulnerable too. With their tunnel vision focused only on a new weapon, the senators miss the bigger and more important picture. Their provision, if it leads to resumed nuclear testing, would destroy our first line of defense against weapons of mass destruction - non-proliferation and test ban agreements. In that case, their "mini-nuke" would not reduce the nuclear danger; it could actually increase the risk.

If the United States breaks the global moratorium on nuclear test explosions to develop new nuclear weapons, the moratorium will collapse. With the collapse of the moratorium, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty would almost certainly dissolve. Other nuclear powers will also resume nuclear testing. Some non-nuclear powers will feel emboldened to join them. Senators Warner and Allard's provision would have started up the engines for a new and probably more dangerous nuclear weapons arms race. No one will be the winner at that finish line.

What you can do:

This issue will be decided in a House-Senate conference committee. The House version of the bill does not have similar language. Contact your senators and representative and urge them to oppose the retention of this provision in the final version of the bill. This is an especially important message for members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees. Contact: Capitol Switchboard, (202)244-3121. Senator XX, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC 20510; Representative XX, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC 20515.

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$9 Billion for What?

BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS,
July/August 2000,
by Jeff Shaw
From: Stephen Kobasa <skobasa@pop.snet.net>

On April 28, the Alaska, the first of four Ohio-class nuclear submarines slated for a controversial missile system upgrade, sliced its way through the waters of Hood Canal on its way to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Washington state. The sub was greeted by protesters objecting to the plan to modify four subs to carry Trident II (D-5) missiles, which are larger, more powerful, and more expensive than Trident Is. The Bangor Naval Submarine Base, the subs' home port, will also have to be modified.

The protesters questioned the wisdom of starting a multi-billion dollar upgrade immediately after Russia's mid-April ratification of the START II treaty. That treaty requires the United States to substantially shrink its warhead totals by 2007, and brings the logic of the upgrade into serious question.

It's elementary

Brian Watson of the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, the anti-nuclear group leading the protest, said the issue is "simple mathematics" because the United States already possesses more nuclear warheads than the arms accord will allow. Even though the START II deadline is seven years away, he said, the United States ought to be moving toward the treaty guidelines now.

The U.S. Navy already deploys more warheads aboard submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) than will be allowed under START II. The 24 Trident II missiles aboard each of the 10 Trident submarines stationed at Kings Bay, Georgia, carry up to eight W76 or W88 warheads each, for a total of 1,920 warheads. The eight submarines based at Bangor carry an additional 1,536 W76 warheads aboard 192 Trident I missiles, bringing the total to 3,456 warheads. Under START II, the United States would be required to reduce its total inventory of SLBM warheads to 2,160 by the end of 2003, and then to no more than 1,750 by the end of 2007, roughly half of current levels.

When the Bush administration signed START II in 1993, it planned to reduce the Trident fleet to just those 10 submarines carrying Trident IIs, but the number was raised to 14 after the Pentagon's 1994 "Nuclear Posture Review." Current plans call for the four oldest subs, out of 18 total, to be decommissioned, with the Alaska, the Henry M. Jackson, the Alabama, and the Nevada set to receive D-5 upgrades.

But if the United States is ever to comply with START II, all the warheads scheduled to be installed in the four subs will have to be retired. And since the accord's obligations kick in on December 31, 2007, the deadline makes this missile system upgrade little more than an expensive warhead "rental."

The price tag

How expensive? After purchasing the missiles themselves, the price tag will crack $9 billion. On the other hand, if the United States were to decommission eight subs instead of four--which would be in line with the 10-boat fleet proposed by the Bush administration--the navy would save more than $14 billion over the next 20 years, according to Bob Aldridge, a former Trident engineer.

Kevin Stephens, a Bangor Submarine Group public affairs officer, disagrees. He claims that the dollar figures associated with the upgrade are misleading. "Even though it's a big up-front cost, it will be cheaper over the long run to have one weapons system."

He explained that all 10 vessels in the Kings Bay fleet are outfitted with the newer Trident II, while the Bangor-based Pacific fleet is home to eight vessels with the Trident I. Stephens said that having two separate missiles results in redundant purchases and added expenses.

"If you don't make the conversion, you're going to have to be training for two different sets of skills," he added. "But when you have a commonality in the kinds of weapons systems, you can have commonality in terms of training."

But do different training procedures really cost $9 billion? That is how much upgrading these four submarines will cost in the short term, and the cost of operating the ships instead of retiring them will inflate the bill further over the long term.

First, there's the $3.86 billion cost of modernizing the four subs to handle the larger missiles, an 18-month process for each. Then add another $462 million to refuel the subs' reactors, which will be done during the Trident II overhaul, and the cost comes to about $4.32 billion.

Then there's the $173 million needed to upgrade Bangor's facilities for the new weapons system--including funds for establishing a missile-processing capability at the Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific, outfitting a training program, and supporting construction projects. Not including shipyard costs, that puts the project at about $4.5 billion.

Now add the missiles

Most cost estimates that have appeared in the media--which have estimated the project at $5 billion based on the preceding numbers--don't include the missiles themselves.

Each Trident II missile costs $40.9 million, and the navy plans to purchase 106 of them by the end of 2005 for a cool $4.3 billion. That brings the total near the $9 billion level. And, as Aldridge is quick to point out, that doesn't include projects for which no costs have been specified.

Among those projects are extensive modifications and additions to five key buildings, which should boost the total upgrade cost substantially.

If the United States went with the Bush administration's initial plan to retire these subs, an additional $6 billion in operating costs could be saved over the next 20 years, Aldridge estimates. Cancelling the upgrade, he concludes, would not only help bring the United States in line with START II--it would save taxpayers a great deal of money.

Jobs, jobs, jobs

Usually when such a whopping expenditure is presented to the public, it's sold as an opportunity to create more jobs. That's particularly true in places like Kitsap County where the navy is the region's leading employer by a wide margin.

However, although the Trident II project may mean new, more complex work for existing employees at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, it doesn't require new workers.

Instead, current shipyard personnel will stop their work deactivating submarines and will be charged with upgrading the four Tridents. Shipyard public affairs officer Mary Anne Mascianica admitted this when she said that the existing work force of about 7,850 employees will perform the upgrade largely on its own, taking minimal assistance from outside contract workers. The Trident II conversion, she said, "will not create additional jobs" at the shipyard.

Re-enter the activists

In addition to public demonstrations and leafletting actions, activists from Ground Zero have waged a fervent campaign against the upgrade, including acts of civil disobedience. In 1998 and 1999, groups of activists were arrested and charged for blocking roads into Bangor with their bodies. In both cases they were acquitted.

And it was the cost issue that prompted members of the group to demonstrate against the Alaska's arrival on April 28. But even if the upgrade didn't carry such a high cost, they say, long-term economic stability in the region shouldn't be based on the Trident system.

"We have to honestly assess the effectiveness of pouring billions of dollars into the defense budget every year. That's not the kind of product you want to base economic stability on," Ground Zero's Watson said.

The Alaska demonstration was not as dramatic as other Ground Zero protests, where many individuals have risked arrest. Instead, the event focused on representing the issue visually with a paper maché replica of a missile, which activists hit with sticks until it "exploded" in a flurry of monopoly money. The group then "flushed" the money down a gold-painted toilet.

More demonstrations are planned, including attempts to block the trucks that will carry nuclear warheads into Bangor. The Kitsap County prosecuting attorney has already announced he will no longer pursue charges against the protesters because past juries appear unwilling to convict them.

Does Ground Zero expect to stop the upgrade?

"Realistically, no," said activist Brian Sorensen. "I just want the word to get out that not everybody is following the lemmings off the cliff."

-------- MILITARY (by country)

Israel eyes Iraq after report of U.S. alert

USA Today
09/01/00- Updated 11:03 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsfri02.htm

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ehud Barak said Friday he saw no reason for concern that Iraq might attack Israel with missiles during the coming months but said the government was monitoring the situation.

Barak was responding to a report that the U.S. military put a Patriot antimissile battery on alert for a possible deployment to Israel because of concerns that Iraq might decide to strike during the U.S. presidential campaign.

The Washington Post said the unit on alert is the 69th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, based near Frankfurt, Germany.

Barak said he did not believe Israel needed extra Patriot batteries.

''We are following everything that is going on. We are ready for any development,'' he said. ''I am not sure that we need to be concerned now, and I am not sure that the Patriot missile battery needs to be bothered.''

In Germany, Lt. Cmdr. Dave Lee, a spokesman at the U.S. European Command, said that certain units ''are in a heightened state of alert in response to potential future operations.'' He did not elaborate.

Israel has two Patriot batteries, originally posted here during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel. The Patriots, originally designed as antiaircraft missiles, had limited success in downing the incoming missiles.

Israeli Transport Minister Amnon Lipkin-Shahak, who was the army chief of staff until 1998, said Friday he did not know about warnings of an Iraqi attack. ''If there are even scraps of information like that in the hands of the Americans, serious American information, we will find out about it,'' Shahak said.

However, the danger of an Iraqi attack cannot be discounted, said Efraim Inbar, an analyst with the Begin-Sadat Strategic Studies Institute at Bar Ilan University outside Tel Aviv. Inbar said Iraqi ruler Saddam Hussein is unpredictable and has an account to settle with the United States.

Iraq might be motivated by the presidential campaign, Inbar said. ''They (the Iraqi leaders) have long memories,'' Inbar said, and might want to harm the chances of Republican candidate George W. Bush by ''reminding the people that his father was a failure.''

President George Bush directed the U.S.-led coalition's military strike against Saddam in 1991 but stopped short of deposing the Iraqi ruler.

Though Saddam has been trying to persuade the world that U.N. sanctions imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War should be lifted, he has sought confrontations with the United States from time to time.

Since the end of the war, there have been several alerts about possible Iraqi attacks on Israel, sending citizens rushing to distribution centers to update their army-issue gas masks and chemical warfare antidotes. No unusual activity was reported at the centers Friday.

In partnership with the United States, Israel is developing a more advanced antimissile system, called the Arrow. The Arrow is designed to intercept incoming ballistic missiles in the stratosphere, far from their targets. The first battery was turned over to the Israeli air force in March.

Another test launch of the Arrow system is expected in the coming days, the Israeli military said.

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South America's Presidents Hold First-Ever Summit

Yahoo News
Thursday August 31
By Mary Milliken
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20000831/wl/latam_summit_dc_3.html

BRASILIA (Reuters) - South American presidents began assembling in Brazil's futuristic capital on Thursday for a first-ever summit aimed at putting the continent's disparate countries on more similar economic and political paths.

The ``Declaration of Brasilia,'' to be signed Friday by 12 presidents, should include a pledge to adhere to democracy in a region where threats of military coups and unclean elections loom.

And while no concrete deals on trade and integration are expected, Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso hopes to lay a cornerstone to unite the region's two trade blocs into a single free-trade zone with 340 million consumers.

The closed-door summit also promises much debate on Colombia's launch of a U.S.-backed, $7.5 billion offensive on drugs and rebels after three decades of bloody civil war.

``Plan Colombia'' was in South America's spotlight on Wednesday as President Clinton made a one-day visit to the Andean nation. He assured Colombians that the $1.3 billion aid for the package did not constitute ``Yankee imperialism'' or a new Vietnam.

But neighboring countries Brazil, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela say they are concerned about an escalation of violence as the U.S. bolsters Colombia's military might.

``This could generate a medium-intensity conflict in all of the northern part of South America, not affecting just Colombia,'' Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told reporters in Brasilia on Thursday.

Counterweight To U.S. Dominance

Chavez is one of the most outspoken supporters of a stronger and independent South America, capable of ironing out its own trouble spots and providing a counterweight to U.S. domination in regional trade talks.

On Wednesday, Chavez said the region would be ``wiped off the map'' if it did not unite before the creation in 2005 of an Americas free-trade area, an endeavor led by the United States.

But it is Brazil, as the region's largest country and one of the world's top emerging economies, that is spearheading the drive toward South American unity after 50 years of lukewarm regional commitments.

Cardoso wants to build a 10-country-strong trade bloc out of Mercosur in the south and the Andean Pact in the north. Mercosur comprises Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay and associate members Bolivia and Chile, while the Andean Pact countries are Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. Guyana and Suriname do not belong to either bloc.

In spite of disputes stemming from Brazil's 1999 currency devaluation and Argentina's recession, Mercosur has evolved in five years into the world's third largest trade bloc behind the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), formed by the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

The Andean Pact, however, has made little headway in its 31-year-history and its members' economies are the least developed in the region.

``We have to unite to open the possibility that our block...can have a greater chance of selling our products,'' Ecuadorean President Gustavo Noboa told Reuters.

But even with a firm commitment to join the northern and southern countries in free trade, the movement of goods through the region still faces daunting geographical obstacles.

The presidents will also make space in their tight agenda to discuss how they can finance the roads, bridges and energy lines to carry products and services over the Andes and through the Amazon forest to their neighbors.

-------- australia

Australian Action Reopens Dispute on Human Rights Monitors

New York Times
August 31, 2000
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/083100australia-rights.html

UNITED NATIONS -- A decision by Australia to limit its cooperation with the United Nations on human rights reporting has reopened a debate about whether international monitors are sometimes harder on democracies than on closed societies.

Some democracies, aware that information is more accessible and independent advocacy groups are more influential in their countries, are wary of the monitoring.

In Australia, a campaign has been building for months to curb access to United Nations monitors after reports came out critical of the government's judicial treatment of Aborigines and foreigners who seek asylum.

Politicians from Prime Minister John Howard's conservative Liberal Party have been particularly angry over criticisms from the United Nations Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination that relate to mandatory sentencing laws in Australia. The committee found that they fell hardest on Aborigines, some of them children.

On Tuesday, Australia said that it would demand that United Nations monitors produce compelling reasons to visit Australia before granting permissions for fact-finding trips. The government also said it would reject requests from the United Nations to stay the deportation of unsuccessful asylum seekers.

Mr. Howard told Parliament today that the decision to reduce cooperation did not amount to "a turning away by Australia from the principles of the United Nations."

"But it does represent a determination by this government to ensure that matters affecting Australia are resolved by Australians within Australia," he said.

United Nations human rights activities are fragmented. The office of the high commissioner for human rights is less than a decade old.

An older group, the Human Rights Commission, is a body of government representatives that meets annually to hear reports from monitors assigned to specific countries or issues and may censure governments.

Then there are treaty committees set up to monitor individual covenants against torture, on children's rights, on eliminating discrimination against women, on eliminating racial discrimination and on civil and political rights. Those are expert panels whose candidates are nominated by governments and elected by nations that have signed the relevant treaties or covenants.

Only countries that have signed the treaties are required to submit reports for scrutiny, leaving some countries known for abuses free of monitoring. Other signing nations submit perfunctory or late reports or ignore the requirement altogether.

Australia has been a strong supporter of the treaties and has submitted regular reports. The Australian decision to restrict cooperation was a shock for many rights groups. "For the Australians, who have done so much to build the international human rights system and the treaty system, to say this is a particularly sad moment," said Felice Gaer, director of the Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights and a member of the United Nations committee against torture.

Of the 25 core treaties that Secretary General Kofi Annan has asked governments to sign or ratify next week at a summit meeting in New York, "13 of them are human rights treaties," Ms. Gaer said.

"What kind of a message does this send to the rest of the world about the importance of global norms?"

Australia's decision reflects opinions shared by some Americans who oppose what they see as a growing tendency toward international scrutiny. John Bolton of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, a former assistant secretary of state in the Bush administration, said his objections were constitutional.

"What Australia has done is a triumph for democracy," he said in an interview. "Within a constitutional system of representative government, you're allowed to struggle for policy outcomes. In a democracy, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. What Australia is objecting to is the idea that a losing side in a democratic country can ask for a lifeline to a U.N. agency."

Speaking to Parliament today in Canberra, Mr. Howard contended that Australia, which has signed all the main human rights treaties, was under greater scrutiny than the United States and as much as Britain.

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Latin summit briefing

Washington Times
August 31, 2000
Embassy Row James Morrison
News and dispatches from the diplomatic corridor.
http://208.246.212.80/world/embassy-2000831222610.htm

Brazilian Ambassador Rubens A. Barbosa holds a 9 a.m. news conference tomorrow at the National Press Club to discuss the first summit of South American presidents.

The two-day summit, which begins today in Brazil, is designed to strengthen democracy, expand trade and combat drug trafficking and other crimes.

To contact James Morrison, call 202/636-3297, fax 202/832-7278 or e-mail morris@twtmail.com

-------- britain

British accused of Rambo-style military tactics

FROM SAM KILEY IN FREETOWN AND MICHAEL EVANS, DEFENCE EDITOR,
London Times,
August 31, 2000
http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/2000/08/31/timfgnafr02002.html

Journey into captivity THE United Nations commander in Sierra Leone accused the British Army yesterday of running "Rambo" operations in the country, saying that the 11 soldiers captured by gunmen had been driving in a no-go area.

As efforts to secure the release of the men began to bear fruit last night, with the release of five of the 11 soldiers of The Royal Irish Regiment, Brigadier General Mohammed Garba, the Nigerian acting UN commander, contradicted the British military's version of events leading up to the men's capture by the militia group.

The Ministry of Defence says that the soldiers, based in Benguema, were engaged on a routine visit last Friday to the Jordanian peacekeeping battalion at Masiaka, and were captured on the way back by the West Side Boys militant group.

General Garba said, however, that he did not believe that the British team, which was led by a major and included a captain and several non-commissioned officers, was engaged in routine "liaison" with the Jordanians.

"They use the word 'liaison' when they go out on their own patrols to do their own thing. We have complained about this for months - these Rambo movements," the Nigerian veteran said.

General Garba added that the captured men had been "travelling in an area way beyond the limits of their training mandate with the Sierra Leone Army".

Backing General Garba's report, Brigadier General Ahmed Sirhan, commander of the 2,000-strong Jordanian contingent, said that the British team had dropped in to his men's base at Masiaka unannounced. "There was no co-ordinated visit with the British, we didn't know they were coming and it was by chance that they stopped by."

According to General Sirhan, the British unit had initially driven through Masiaka and gone about eight miles further on, as far as Rokee Bridge on the road to Port Loko, the scene of heavy fighting between Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels and Sierra Leone's Army at the end of last week.

He said they turned back and headed for Masiaka once again, where they stopped in on the Jordanians, who invited them for a brief lunch. The British team, travelling in three Land Rovers, one of which was mounted with a 50mm heavy machinegun, stayed for about only 20 minutes and then set off back towards Benguema.

"But when they reached Lyar Junction about four miles from Masiaka, where there is a Jordanian checkpoint, instead of continuing down the highway as expected, they suddenly turned right and headed [down a track] towards the Occra Hills," General Sirhan said. "Everyone in Sierra Leone knows that you don't go into the Occra Hills because this is where the West Side Boys are based in three or four villages. It is a dangerous area."

Lieutenant Commander Tony Cramp, spokesman for the British Forces in Sierra Leone, said that it remained a mystery why the British team left the main road in an area known to be infested with the militia group.

The disagreements over their movements have soured relations between the UN and British forces in Sierra Leone. "We've had several incidents over the past few months in which the British have not told us what they have been doing and our soldiers have come across them," General Garba said.

The MoD said: "Regarding liaison visits, there is no obligation for the British training team to notify UN units in advance. We would not notify the UN headquarters in Freetown of routine liaison visits."

An MoD spokesman added: "Whether we would contact UN units in advance would depend on the local circumstances and on the relationship with that unit."

Rebels who took hundreds of UN peacekeepers hostage earlier this year returned seven UN armoured troop carriers yesterday in a ceremony a UN military official described as a "turning point". The vehicles were handed over by representatives of the RUF.

-------- china

China's President Talks To '60 Minutes'
Disagrees On Democracy Suggests U.S. Bombed Belgrade's Embassy On Purpose
Watch Sunday Sept. 3 at 7 p.m. ET/PT

CBS News
60 Minutes
Aug. 31, 2000
http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0%2C1597%2C229619-412%2C00.shtml

(CBS) On the eve of his visit to the United States, China's president, Jiang Zemin, sat down for a rare interview with Mike Wallace.

In a wide-ranging and surprisingly frank interview, Jiang talked about many topics, including relations between the United States and China, Tiananmen Square and American morals.

The two met recently inside the presidential compound in the seaside resort of Beidaihe, in what Chinese officials say is th