------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
China, U.S. OK military exchanges
Mining no threat to Kakadu: World Heritage Committee
Securing our flank in Europe
The Day After Next
Norilsk reactor put out of use
Group: Entire Kursk Will Be Lifted
Attorney for accused spy says data wasn't secret
Russia Deploys Strategic Bombers Near Alaska
Chernobyl's Last Reactor Starts Up for Final Weeks
Disposal Dilemma Ridding Site of Nerve Gas Canisters Sparks Debate
Cleanup of 'Bomblets' in Colorado Refuge Expected Soon
ComEd offers land deal for fee hike
Today In History
The NY Times' Deep Throat
Lee: Tapes Went in Trash
FBI combs dump for Los Alamos tapes
Nuclear Missile Facility Burns Down
Nuclear-fuel removal to begin at Hanford
William J. Clinton and history
UNLV scientists OK controversial site for nuclear waste storage

MILITARY
Roadside Bomb Found in Colombia Before Visit by U.S. Senator and Ambassador
Minn. Dem. Criticizes Colombia Plan
Fox seeks change north of border
At a Crucial Juncture, Iraqi Officials Cut Off Oil Exports
Russian Rocket Launches U.S. Satellite
Campaign launched against UN court
UN asks Guinea-Bissau junta to yield
UN sends envoy to Congo
Retirees to the rescue
Army, Colo. Agree on Nerve Gas Plan
Navy Plans Disarmament of Cole
Navy Estimate To Repair Cole: $240M
Pentagon Makes Further Cut in Anthrax Vaccination Program

OTHER
Today In History
Environmental Defense
American's Trial in Russia Nears End
Behind Spy Trial in Moscow: A Superfast Torpedo
C.I.A. Shuts Down Chat Room

ACTIVISTS
Cranston on crusade against nuclear weapons
Demonstrators colorful, peaceful and purposeful
Trade protest anniversary turns ugly
SUZUKI BOYCOTT ACTION ALERT
Indonesia rally goes off peacefully
CONVENTION CENTER PROTESTERS SEEK VOUCHERS FOR HOMELESS


-------- NUCLEAR

China, U.S. OK military exchanges

InfoBeat News
Fri, 01 Dec 2000 07:22:07 MST
By CHARLES HUTZLER Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405209814

BEIJING (AP) - China and the United States tentatively agreed Thursday to more exchanges between their militaries, helping bring a semblance of stability to often rocky ties between the distrustful defense establishments.

Two days of talks between U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Walter Slocombe and a raft of Chinese generals exhibited the wavering dynamics that now characterize overall relations. China's pledge last week not to help Pakistan, Iran and others build nuclear-capable missiles brightened the atmosphere, Slocombe said.

At the same time, a recent Chinese defense policy paper - discussed in the talks - directly and indirectly singled out the United States and its military alliances in the region as a threat to China.

Slocombe said he told the Chinese such remarks are ``unhelpful.''

He later told reporters: ``There's no question that the United States and China have real differences about issues, and that some of those are quite important differences. There's a difference between that and regarding each other as enemies.''

He told the Chinese that U.S. military alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia and others provide the region with stability for economic growth.

Still Slocombe said his meetings with Gen. Chi Haotian, the defense minister, Gen. Xiong Guangkai, deputy chief of the Chinese military's general staff, and others produced ``tangible results.''

Both sides mapped out plans, subject to final approval, for more high-level visits between their militaries next year, China's participation in international defense forums and possible discussions on the military's role in disaster relief, Slocombe said.

``They're very modest and gradual steps. The military-to-military relationship is clearly going to grow, if at all, gradually,'' Slocombe said.

China also gave a positive but limited review of the talks. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said ``the consultations have increased understanding and trust.''

The sober assessments underscored how realistic both governments are about military cooperation after years of fitful ties. Relations opened in the 1980s were stopped after China crushed the Tiananmen Square democracy demonstrations in 1989. They began a slow crawl back three years ago but were scuttled by the U.S. bombing of China's embassy in Yugoslavia in May 1999.

In patching up differences, both sides have tried to focus on areas of agreement and lessen the chances for conflict. In his meetings, Slocombe said they touched on both - discussing ways to support better relations between the Koreas and differences over Taiwan and proposed U.S. anti-missile defenses.

Both sides even compared notes on the different receptions North Korea gave Defense Minister Chi and U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, on separate but overlapping visits last month, Slocombe said. He declined to elaborate.

-------- australia

Mining no threat to Kakadu: World Heritage Committee

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Fri, 1 Dec 2000 11:15 AEDT
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/weekly/newsnat-1dec2000-34.htm

The new Australian chair of the World Heritage Committee says the organisation is confident uranium mining poses no significant threat to the natural values of Kakadu National Park.

The committee has ordered further talks between the Federal Government and traditional owners on the potential threat to the cultural values of the site.

However it has ruled out listing Kakadu as a world heritage site in danger.

Chairman Peter King says after careful consideration the World Heritage Committee is confident it has adopted the right approach.

"The committee adopted in a unanimous way the path forward and investigated very thoroughly the risks and threats that may, or were alleged to have been created by the mine and the proposed mine and took the view that these were not as alleged," he said.

-------- europe

Securing our flank in Europe

December 1, 2000
Walter Jajko
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/commentary-2000121134216.htm

Last week, the European Union decided to form a rapid reaction force to intervene in crises. No matter that the Europeans don't have the will and wherewithal to replace NATO. The Russians immediately invited themselves to join in. No matter that the Russians have little left to offer after Chechnya. Clearly, the Russian initiative is a move to split Europe from the United States and to weaken NATO.

Last week too, the Europeans met in yet another donors' conference to advance the prosperity and stability of the Balkans. They agreed to business as usual, namely indecisive intervention and insufficient assistance to address the Balkans' real problems.

Both events pose the same basic security questions - questions that have gone unanswered since the end of the Cold War. What is the EU-NATO relationship? Will NATO include all of Europe? Should Russia be a European power? Will the United States remain a European power? On all these questions, during the past decade United States' policies toward Europe and Russia have been characterized by episodic inattention, ineptitude, irresolution and self-delusion, as have Western European policies toward Eastern Europe and Russia.

A foundation of America's superpower status is that it is a European power, indeed the pre-eminent European power. America's position as a European power has rested on its special relationship with Great Britain. Yet, both the United States and the United Kingdom have marginalized that relationship on the most important European issues, thereby endangering its existence. The key issue they have not addressed is the EU's Common Defense and Foreign Policy and the formation of a European army, the logic of which is U.S. withdrawal from Europe. Another key issue that neither the U.S. nor the Europeans have addressed is the relationship of British and French nuclear forces to the EU.

The past decade has made it patently obvious that the security of Europe is not divisible and the U.S. is indispensable to that security. Yet, the U.S. has lost interest in the expansion of NATO, thereby allowing a Zwischeneuropa (Between Europe) to emerge, an in-between zone of conflicted nationalities, disdainful Western patronage, and resentful Russian troublemaking.

Yugoslavia characterizes the U.S. and European failure to complete and capitalize on the victory in the Cold War. The breakup of Yugoslavia was natural, inevitable and desirable. It could have been managed without wars. It is a scandal that after the sacrifice of Word War II the U.S. permitted easily preventable wars in Europe.

The most egregious example of self-deluding disinterest is the continuation of half measures toward Yugoslavia. Elections are to be held soon in Kosovo and Serbia. Serbia could have been won for the West a decade ago by a combination of overt and covert measures. Instead, former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic has survived, losing position but not power. Bosnia and Kosovo are exactly where they were when their conflicts began. Montenegro has taken all but the formal step of secession. Macedonia is in danger of disintegration. Romania's and Bulgaria's economic, and thus political, progress are penned behind Western policies toward Serbia. Yet the U.S. and Europe continue to march halfheartedly in slow step. It is obvious and certain that, so long as the border of Europe is not secured, conflict will continue in Eastern Europe, the Russians will meddle in its troubles, and the U.S. will be forced to police the area.

Although Russia no longer is a great power, it continues to be a troublemaker. Everywhere, the Russians reflexively oppose the United States, in continuity from the Soviets. They have milked vast amounts of money from the U.S. taxpayer. They have staged a kangaroo court show trial of an American businessman to ensure their people perceive the U.S. as an enemy. They have played upon France's great power pretensions and the European socialist parties' prejudices against the U.S. on many issues, but especially missile defense. Russia's armed forces are weak, but the Russians are conducting active measures against the Baltic States, undermining Ukraine's independence, unsettling Romanian territory in Moldava, meddling in Serbia, keeping troops in the Transcaucasus, subverting the "Stans" [such as Kazakstan] in the "near abroad," supporting Saddam, and transferring nuclear arms technology and conventional weapons to Iran and China. Russia's aims are clear: resuscitate its empire, nullify NATO, eject the U.S. from Europe, limit U.S. access to the Middle East, abet U.S.-Chinese hostility, and thereby reduce the United States from its superpower status.

In this new century, the main threat to the United States is China's emergence as a great power with interests, ambitions and entitlement expectations inimical to U.S. security. China too wants to reduce the U.S. superpower status. China is taking lessons from the skill and success of U.S. policy in Europe, where the U.S. is supposed to be paramount. It is past time that the U.S. became serious and secured its flank in Europe so that it can turn its undivided effort to the China problem.

Walter Jajko, a retired Air Force general and former assistant to the defense secretary, is a professor at the Institute of World Politics.[p]

-------- israel

The Day After Next

Jerusalem Post
Friday, December 1 2000 01:39 4 Kislev 5761
By Arieh O'Sullivan
http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2000/11/30/Features/Features.16602.html

(November 31) - Even before the outbreak of the current unrest, the IDF began introducing changes to meet threats of the future - from intelligent land mines to smart robotic drones.

As Israel Air Force gunships hovering last month above Palestinian targets fired smart bombs with surgical precision into selected windows, doorways and chambers, the world was given an unprecedented glimpse of the way in which the country's miltary is bracing for the wars of the future.

With night-vision equipped drones already supplying intelligence around the clock, and with balloon-lofted thermal cameras giving it a "big brother" advantage, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is already well into a new era of warfare, despite the low-tech picture of the present conflict.

Twenty-first-century wars will be fought on deadly, fire-saturated battlefields where the level of casualties will be on a scale we have yet to witness. Soldiers and civilians alike will be literally ripped apart by nasty weapons such as acoustic cannons; they will be blinded by ray guns or stung to death by killer bees. Ports will become clogged with super alga, which spreads thickly in a matter of hours.

Rubber will become so brittle it will shatter off the tires of army vehicles like icicles. Engines won't spark. Glass will be rendered opaque by laser guns.

Robotic warfare will become science fact - not science fiction. There will be so many sensors and cameras that war will be fought with a "God's-eye" view. The battleground will replace massed troops and armor with networks of intelligent mines and drones that can perform reconnaissance. Remotely fired missiles may become the main instrument for destroying enemy targets. Legions of hackers will try to bring down banks, stock markets and civilian infrastructure with computer viruses.

And it doesn't matter how strong their divisions are - future armies will have an even harder time preventing their civilians from being annihilated by a variety of surface-to-surface missiles carrying a deadly collection of chemical, biological and perhaps nuclear warheads.

Israel is part and parcel of all this transition.

On the 12th floor of the towering building inside the Kirya defense compound in Tel Aviv, military minds are at work planning for the "day after next," the IDF's euphemism for its own version of long-range planning.

The IDF of the future will be similar to the American military, where rapid advances in science and technology are ushering in nothing less than a Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA). But unlike its American counterpart, which appears to be in search of the technological "silver bullet," the IDF is fully aware that while advances in science and technology will continue to change the nature and the conduct of warfare, it is not fascinated by them.

To paraphrase Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, the IDF keeps its irons in the forge to make sure that as it tries to develop a way to wage war with kinder, smarter, gentler weapons, it is wary of an opponent coming along and cutting off its head.

"The IDF wants to totally reorganize itself, but we can't be caught with our pants down," says a top IDF thinker.

The Americans are taking very long glimpses into the future to build their "army after next." The IDF is not so ambitious.

"You ask me to look 20 years to the future. I can't tell you what will be in 24 hours," one senior officer jokes. "We live in a reality that can swing from peace to war overnight."

Still, it is their job to think 10 to 20 years ahead, to try to map out what the IDF should look like then, and plan a way of making it a reality.

The air force, for example, is to expand its role in the future by incorporating more precision-guided weapons and smart drones. One drone already in service is the "Harpy," which is able to fly 500 kilometers and hover over a battlefield until it finds a target, usually a radar site. In many ways, robotic drones such as the LOCAAS (Low Cost Autonomous Attack System) being developed by the USAF are taking man out of the loop. These mini, unmanned combat air vehicles will be dropped by jets, travel in "wolf packs" and identify and attack targets on their own. They are even being designed to communicate with each other about target status.

The IAF's biggest challenge over the next decade will be its effort to strike at the nations which have no border with Israel and yet are likely to pose an existential threat to it, like Iran, Iraq and Libya.

"With a push of a button, you will be able to get involved in the next war," says one senior air force commander.

This means the IDF will have to seriously extend its long arm - and it requires more than just purchasing top-of-the-line jets like the F-15 I, F-16 I or later, the F-22. Until now, the IAF has been facing two-and-a-half fronts (Syria, Egypt and Lebanon), all within about 300 kilometers of home base.

But against far-off enemies the rate of sorties is diminished, intelligence gathering is restricted and electronic warfare is more vulnerable. The IAF always had the privilege of operating over protected skies while biting away at enemy air space.

"We always operated in our backyard. Now we are learning anew how to deal with distant ranges," says another senior air force officer.

According to foreign reports, Israel, for instance, is seeking cruise missiles from the US, but could deploy its own versions in the future.

In the future, the IAF will have to invest in more airborne warning systems, and better intelligence and communication links. If it is to attack targets in Iran, which is over 1,500 kilometers away, it needs to rebuild and reorganize its command, communication, control and intelligence capabilities.

Outer space is perceived as the next frontier. A month ago, the IAF's procurement department established a space branch to set up the military's space command.

As a military moving into the new millennium, the IDF is at an historical turning point. In some ways, the mighty, armored-based divisions with which it entered this century are the remnants of its attempt to mirror the vast armies and incredible conventional-fighting machines of the previous century.

According to foreign reports, it is stuck with around 4,000 tanks, the majority of which will not likely see a day on the modern battlefield, fossils of the conventional war machine (see box on page 14.)

Paradoxically, IDFChief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Shaul Mofaz's most energetic reformation in the army is focused just on this area. The Ground Forces Command was recently upgraded to the Ground Forces Services, which consolidated not only training, but also equipping any infantry, artillery force or armored unit which fires a weapon.

As of last year, the IDF became the first army in the world to have a fully digitalized division, in which all forces are linked to computer, surprising even the Americans who have been working on it for years.

Equipped with the Gil anti-tank rocket, IDF paratrooper and infantry brigades are already one step into the future. Soldiers are being issued light body armor, goggles against lasers and advanced night-vision equipment. The IDF is protecting its troops from lasers not because it expects the Arab armies to have such capabilities, but due to the proliferation of range finders which can harm vision.

All soldiers are to be equipped with personnel radio gear and the IDF plans even to link the scopes on their weapons together so the image of one soldier can be relayed to all the others in the unit.

In the future, the IDF hopes to deploy a sort of "flying saucer," or hovercraft that will transport ammunition on the battlefield and retrieve casualties. On the drawing boards are a host of UAVs (Unmanned Air Vehicles), which field commanders will release like pigeons to get a view of the enemy.

As for the weapon in the hands of the infantry soldier, the IDF does not believe that it will radically change from the gunpowder cartridge and grenade launcher it uses today. However, the US has just earmarked $95 million to come up with the next-generation infantry weapon.

Instead of going to war on armored personnel carriers, the soldiers of tomorrow will move on Humvees (from the acronym HMMWV, High Mobility Multi-Purpose Wheeled Vehicles). The IDF is planning to purchase 1,500 reconnaissance vehicles this year at a total cost of $80 million. The wide-bodied Hummer A-2 jeeps are meant to replace the aging fleet of IDF vehicles and serve as a reconnaissance jeep, ambulance and armored personnel carrier.

Battle-field medical treatment is also undergoing a revolution.

In the Yom Kippur War, half of all wounded soldiers either died or were severely maimed. Now the IDF plans to mobilize field surgery teams and accelerate evacuation methods in order to increase its soldiers' survival rates. Not only is it striving for such odds on moral grounds, but the IDF, like every army, knows that the willingness on the part of soldiers to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country is made easier if they know that someone has worked on widening the distance between heroism and death.

The IDF's multiple rocket launchers will have rockets which can be adjusted in flight to make sure they hit on the first round.

Weapons are being developed for a stand-off approach to the enemy. They have increased ranges so there is less of a chance of what the IDF refers to as "the meeting." Israel's aim is to prevent the meeting of military masses.

"The overall trend in warfare is to fight at a distance," says one IDF officer involved in planning.

According to a senior officer responsible for planning the IDF of the future, the army is trying to revise many of the quasi-amateur attributes of a "people's army" and lay the groundwork for a more professional force required to fight modern warfare.

"The army will become more professional, but we will need at least another generation before it becomes a total volunteer force," says the senior officer.

Even now there are calls to give conscripted soldiers minimum wages.

"We take for granted that the funds we will have at our disposal will be less and less," says another senior IDF officer. "[The people of] this country want instant gratification; if they see peace coming, they want to stop the defense budget and use the money for other important things like education, health and infrastructure. But we have to try to convince the nation that we will need a strong army for many, many years to come - a generation, at least - and that you can only keep the peace through a strong army. Peace doesn't mean we can sit back and fold our arms and say, 'OK, we no longer have to invest in the IDF.'"

One of the unchanging foundations of the country's defense doctrine is that Israel is a few against the many. While it can't maintain a permanent large army and always has to rely on a reserve backbone, the reservists in the future will only be called up for training. The army realizes that using them for routine security is a luxury it can't afford - (technology will replace them along some borders) - and the willingness of civilians to serve is on a fast slope downward.

Furthermore, the army believes that women will play a greater role in the defense forces. Unlike in other Western countries, where the impetus for this came from pressures for sexual equality, in this country, it came from a genuine realization that the military has much to gain from women.

"We know now that we aren't using women to their full potential. Women pilots are a gimmick. What we'll see is more women in technical positions, in light combat units and support roles," says the planning officer.

Service time for all conscripts will be shorter, their places being taken by a paid volunteer force whose combatants will sign on for a year at a time. The IDF is already pushing to dump its policing role on other bodies. There is also a growing impetus among planners to get rid of the national missions the army performs, like settlement, immigrant absorption and entertainment.

The IDF believes that the next war will last for three weeks, followed by attrition. This will be accompanied by a sub-war of suicide bombers, katyushas and attacks abroad.

Eitan Ben-Eliyahu, former IAF commander, says the doctrine of taking the battle to the enemy is no longer completely valid.

"You capture territory and you immediately get into problems. You are inside the hostile population and all the problems that entails. That is what happened in the past," Ben-Eliyahu said in a lecture at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

One senior commander on the General Staff said that the traditional dictum that an enemy could be defeated only by destroying its army and capturing its land is being reconsidered. Technology is being developed that will destroy the enemy without capturing its land.

Finally, Israel's nuclear policy of ambiguity is likely to be challenged once a country in the region, most probably Iran, gets the bomb.

Some foreign reports say the deployment of Israel's German-built and -financed Dolphin submarines are specifically designed to meet this need. They are reportedly equipped with four 25.5-inch diameter torpedo tubes that could be used to launch a long-range nuclear-capable submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM).

According to these reports, the submarines may be capable of carrying nuclear-armed Popeye Turbo cruise missiles.

Of course, the way the country defends itself depends on how much it is willing to spend on it. It can't afford to maintain its current battle order, but the smaller army that it builds, combined with the synergy of better communications, intelligence and accuracy will have a firepower that dwarfs earlier eras. Today, one jet can damage a whole brigade; in the future, it could equal a division.

The IDF of the future will be smaller. But the army is loath to shut down functions that took so long to build. It will most likely maintain some divisions on a skeleton level.

OC Ground Forces Services Maj.-Gen. Moshe Ivry-Sukenik says closing down units does not necessarily save money.

"Closing units is easy to do and done very quickly. With one decision, you can disperse equipment and personnel in a month. However, in the past year, we learned that the expected profits from shutting down functions in the IDF did not come about," Sukenik says.

The fourth generation of Israelis is coming of age with the IDF of the future.

"I grew up the son of Holocaust survivors and I was instilled with the sense that the 'Nazis' are coming to kill us," says one senior IDF officer. "My kids are the generation of 1973 and saw what it meant to be threatened. But their kids? I don't know what their threats will be. It could come from afar. It could come from within. What I do know is that we will still need an army, a people's army."

THE FUTURE OF THE TANK

Three Merkava tanks were knocked out by Fagot missiles in Lebanon. In fact, the deadly and relatively cheap anti-tank guided missiles might make the tank in its present format somewhat obsolete.

With increasing urbanization, the tanks' role in the future is put into question. It is the best weapon in wide-open deserts like the Sinai, or even on the rocky terrain of the Golan Heights and the Jordanian desert plateau. But leading the stampede into the cities, it can become a trap.

Present anti-tank technology (air attacks, laser- and wire-guided missiles, etc.) has made it too cheap and easy to kill those million-dollar tanks.

On the drawing board is a sort of computer-controlled, missile-swatting shield that will swing around the tank and hit incoming rockets before they strike the tank. Tanks will have periscopes, or even their own balloon-lofted surveillance camera for over the horizon views, not to mention links to UAVs (Unmanned Air Vehicles).

The tank of the future will perhaps be armed with a laser instead of a gun. And in the future, tank crews will be reduced until, some say, they will be unmanned remote control killing devices.

There are some who say the tank is an anachronism of the last century and that the time has come for it to pass out of history.

But not the IDF.

OC Armored Corps Brig.-Gen. Udi Shani is a strong proponent for the tank. "For Israel's reality, the tank is still the decisive factor," Shani says. "Firstly, our wars are existential and we must quickly transfer the battle to the other side. Secondly, we have to do this pretty fast because we don't have much stamina and desire to conduct a long war.

"Besides," he adds, "we don't have a substitute for the tank at the moment."

One of the most amazing aspects of the IDF's Armored Corps is the pace of its growth. In the War of Independence, there were only a handful of tanks; today there are thousands.

According to The Middle East Military Balance, Israel has 3,895 tanks of various types. Critics say that's too many and there is no scenario in which even a small number of them will be used.

But Shani says in defense that Israel has to be prepared for large-scale conventional warfare, despite the fact that the IDF hasn't fought a major war in 27 years.

After years of difficulties purchasing tanks, Israel designed its own, the Merkava.

"We have a multi-year plan to procure the Merkava IV. It is the jewel in the crown. There is no doubt that the latest model is the most modern tank. It is a totally different tank than the Merkava III. Many changes have been introduced; first and foremost, its protection is unlike any other in the world in its concept and type," says Shani, refusing to elaborate.

"The fire-control systems are the fruit of Israeli defense industries and are some of the best in the world," he adds. "It is quicker and more accurate and deadly and makes the first shell hit its target."

-------- russia

Norilsk reactor put out of use
The world's north-most nuclear reactor in north-western Siberia belongs to history.

Igor Kudrik, 1999-10-27 12:00
http://www.bellona.no/imaker?sub=1&id=12208

Spent fuel from the north-most nuclear reactor in Norilsk, north-western Siberia, was shipped to Murmansk last month and then further down to Mayak reprocessing plant in South Urals.

The reactor was operated by Norilsk Mining Combine since 1966 and is situated four kilometres from the city of Norilsk. The reactor is said to have been used to define the quality of the ore, mined by the combine, by irradiating it and conducting spectrometer analysis. The reactor became obsolete when the combine - a biggest Russian ore exporter - bought up-to-date spectrometers abroad.

In June 1998, the reactor core containing 71 fuel assemblies was removed and placed into an on-site storage pool. The fuel loaded for the first and last time in 1966 was only slightly irradiated what proves that the reactor has been hardly in use during its 33-year lifetime. Fuel enrichment was not higher than 10 percent.

In September this year, a team from Murmansk Shipping Company, the operator the nuclear powered icebreakers fleet, arrived at Norilsk to ship the fuel away. The nuclear cargo was loaded into TUK-19 type transport casks, designed to accommodate fuel from research reactors, put on truck and transported to Dudinka seaport. There the containers were placed onboard Kandalaksha dry cargo ship that headed to Murmansk. In Murmansk the containers were transferred to railway cars built to transport spent fuel, derived from research reactors, that proceeded to Mayak reprocessing plant in South Urals.

The future of the reactor vessel itself remains uncertain. No plans regarding its further use or decommissioning have been announced so far.

----

Group: Entire Kursk Will Be Lifted

Associated Press
December 1, 2000 Filed at 12:00 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-Nuclear-Submarine.html

MOSCOW (AP) -- The head of a group raising money to raise the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk said Friday the entire vessel should be lifted from the seafloor to avoid any potential environmental threat from its nuclear reactors and weapons.

``Nothing will be left at the bottom of the sea,'' said Rio D. Praaning, secretary-general of the international Kursk Foundation. ``We are there to assist with only one issue in mind, and that is the environment.''

The Kursk's forward section, which was destroyed by the explosions that sank the submarine in the Barents Sea on Aug. 12, killing all 118 people aboard, might be cut from the rest of the ship, but then both will be brought to the surface, he said.

Praaning said it could be dangerous to leave part of the submarine on the sea floor. ``The radical solution is to leave nothing there. All the other solutions sooner or later will be incomplete,'' he said.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov said Thursday that the Kursk's nuclear reactors were shut down and would remain safe for at least 10 years. But he said the ship should be lifted to avert any potential danger to the area's rich codfish grounds.

Some Russian media have said the vessel could break up while being brought to the surface. Some reports have also criticized the high cost of the salvage operation, tentatively scheduled for next summer, and questioned whether the West would share the expense. Klebanov said the operation would cost about $80 million.

Praaning, who is Dutch and heads the foundation based in Brussels, Belgium, said the West would be eager to help.

``There is an international feeling that such problems should be dealt with on an international scale,'' he said.

The Norwegian arm of Halliburton, a Dallas-based company that organized the recovery of the bodies of some of the Kursk's crewmen, is studying the feasibility of raising the vessel, along with Dutch companies Smit International and Heerema and Russia's Rubin design bureau.

---

Attorney for accused spy says data wasn't secret

Seattle Times
Nation & World : Friday, December 01, 2000
By David Hoffman The Washington Post
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=edmond02&date=20001201

MOSCOW - Lawyers for Edmond Pope yesterday concluded their defense against espionage charges by disclosing that Kazakhstan sold to China 40 of the high-speed torpedoes for which Pope is accused of buying secret blueprints. The lawyers claimed the torpedo data is now available in several countries outside of Russia, was not secret and that Pope should be acquitted.

Pope, 54, a retired U.S. naval intelligence officer and Pennsylvania businessman, has been on trial behind closed doors for seven weeks on charges of spying after buying reports about the super-fast Shkval underwater missile. Pope has denied he was spying and said he only sought open information.

Lawyers Pavel Astakhov and Andrei Andrusenko, in their closing arguments, quoted from a letter that Russia's foreign intelligence service had included in the court proceedings. According to the letter, the service said "it possesses information that in 1998 Kazakhstan supplied 40 domestically produced Shkval torpedoes to China that had been produced at Kazakhstan factories remaining after the collapse of the Soviet Union."

The Shkval is an 8.2-meter-long, 2,700-kilo super-fast underwater rocket developed in Soviet times to carry a nuclear warhead in a last-ditch attack on an aircraft carrier or battleship. Not particularly accurate, it has been of interest to other countries because of its high velocity through the water. Further details about China's purchase of the rocket were not available.

The Russian technology behind the torpedo is "not unique," Andrusenko argued, and "a whole number of foreign and sovereign states" now have the technology. Factories to assemble the torpedo are located in Kazakhstan, Kirgizia and Ukraine, and a Ukraine facility has a "complete volume of data" on the torpedo, except for the warhead, Andrusenko said.

He called it "absurd" to accuse Pope of acquiring secrets when the Region Design Bureau that built the torpedo advertised it as an export weapon as recently as last year. The defense also introduced a letter from a group of scientists who said the basic technology behind the rocket engine is contained in a Russian patent.

Pope was arrested in April after purchasing design materials about the torpedo from a Russian scientist, Anatoly Babkin, who was also arrested but later had his charges suspended for health reasons. Pope's case has become an irritant in U.S.-Russian relations; President Clinton asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to free Pope but Putin said he would not interfere in the court proceedings. A swap might come after the verdict if Pope is convicted. Pope's family has said he was suffering from bone cancer that was in remission but they fear for his health while in prison. Astakhov said the maximum sentence of 20 years "will mean a death sentence for Pope. Even representatives from the prosecution said they feel sorry for him because he is obviously suffering." Pope has doubled over in pain twice during the trial, but Russian prison doctors said he was fit for trial and Judge Nina Barkova refused to allow outside doctors to examine Pope.

Astakhov, in an unusual move, read his final statement in verse, telling reporters afterward he had appealed to Barkova, who is trying the case without a jury, to "open your eyes, tune in your ears and speak the truth from your lips. There is one truth. He is not guilty."

Pope is to make his personal appeal to the court next Wednesday.

--------

Russia Deploys Strategic Bombers Near Alaska

Yahoo News
World News
Friday December 1 11:17 AM ET
By Martin Nesirky
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001201/wl/russia_usa_dc_4.html

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's Defense Ministry said on Friday it had deployed nuclear-capable ``Bear'' bombers to bases opposite Alaska for training that may include probing flights toward North America now fuel is available again.

The Pentagon (news - web sites) said on Thursday it expected the planes to test air defenses soon by flying up through the Bering Straits and close to Alaska. It would closely monitor the flights, common during the Cold War but rare since.

``Yes, they have arrived there, they are there,'' a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman said by telephone, referring to the Bears. ``But this is planned training.''

Washington declined to say whether it had moved in air defense planes but Canada said on Friday it had deployed three CF-18 fighter jets to a base in the northwestern Arctic on Wednesday to counter possible probing Russian flights.

The propeller-driven Tu-95 bombers were first used in the 1950s but have been modified down the years and are still a vital part of Russia's nuclear ``triad'' that deploys atomic weapons on land, in submarines and aboard aircraft.

The ministry's daily newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda (news - web sites), said the air force would be introducing ``new elements'' into its training, including preparing for when new cruise missiles are introduced.

December 1 is the start of the training year in the armed forces, a year in which cuts will start to bite as the Kremlin tries to create a slimmer but more effective military machine.

The AVN military news agency said one theme of training would be dealing with the hypothetical use of nuclear weapons.

Russian military officials have made clear the country is in no position to fight a large-scale conventional war. The latest military doctrine reserves the right of a nuclear first strike.

Moscow has also said strategic aircraft would be an inexpensive and available response to a U.S. anti-missile shield, if it is deployed.

Russian Bears Awaken

The ministry spokesman confirmed five planes were temporarily operating out of Anadyr and Tiksi in Russia's bleak and remote far northeast. Interfax news agency reported two more were deployed at Vorkuta in Russia's Arctic northwest.

Asked whether the lumbering strategic bombers in the far east would test U.S. defenses, the spokesman said: ``I can't say anything about Alaska but there will obviously be flights in that direction.''

``They will decide on the spot whether to fly toward Alaska or not. It will be decided by the pilots,'' he added.

The Russian air force's press service declined to comment, saying it was not allowed to speak to foreign correspondents.

``They represent no threat whatsoever to the American continent,'' AVN quoted an air force official as saying.

The Tu-95 bombers regularly flew toward Alaska -- and Britain -- during the Cold War to see how quickly the West could deploy fighters to respond. The plane is known as the ``Bear'' in NATO (news - web sites) parlance and can carry bombs or cruise missiles.

The practice of regularly testing defenses tailed off in the 1990s, partly because of better relations and partly because of fuel shortages in the cash-starved armed forces. The first such flights in a decade were last year, and the air force said it was putting renewed emphasis on long-range strategic aviation.

Moscow recently made much of an incident in which Russian reconnaissance planes buzzed the U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, but the U.S. Navy denies it was caught off-guard.

AVN quoted a senior commander as saying new Tu-95 crews were now being trained in unfamiliar surroundings. In recent years, Russian strategic crews have rarely had more than a dozen flying hours a year compared with many times that for NATO pilots.

``One of the reasons for resuming flights from these bases is that fuel supplies have been resumed,'' AVN said. ``Long-range aviation commanders are taking advantage of this.''

-------- ukraine

Chernobyl's Last Reactor Starts Up for Final Weeks

Reuters
December 1, 2000 Filed at 1:22 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-ukraine.html

KIEV (Reuters) - The last functioning reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine was re-started on Friday, two weeks before the plant is due to be closed forever.

Reactor number three at Chernobyl, site of the world's worst civil atomic disaster in 1986, shut down automatically on Monday when bad weather downed power lines and tripped the station's automatic safety systems.

Chernobyl said in a statement that the reactor was started up at 3:09 p.m. (1309 GMT) and its power output to the national grid was gradually being increased.

The station is due to be shut down for good on December 15 and some experts had questioned whether engineers would bother re-starting the reactor, even though Ukraine depends on it for around five percent of its electricity.

Western countries have pledged to fund the completion of two nuclear reactors elsewhere to replace Chernobyl's lost capacity.

But the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has not yet made a final decision on disbursing the loans and some Ukrainian officials have said they will renege on closing down Chernobyl if no cash is found.

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

-------- colorado

Disposal Dilemma Ridding Site of Nerve Gas Canisters Sparks Debate

ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/rockyflats001201.html

DENVER, Dec. 1 - Colorado Gov. Bill Owens is scheduled to meet with top Pentagon officials today over what to do with deadly nerve gas found at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal east of Denver.

Six grapefruit-sized canisters filled with the potentially lethal Sarin gas have been found during cleanup operations at the arsenal over the last month and a half.

The Pentagon has dispatched four-star Army Gen. John Coburn to take charge of the situation.

"Whatever we do, let's first of all be safe for the employees, citizens and our soldiers," Coburn said.

Sarin is a colorless and odorless gas that attacks the central nervous system. It has been used since World War I as a biological weapon, and was used in the infamous Aum Shinrikyo attack that killed 12 people and injured thousands in a Tokyo subway in 1995. Depending on weather conditions, the gas can be lethal at a distance of up to three-quarters of a mile.

Safety Comes First

The canisters, found in a landfill in a restricted area on the property, are estimated to be about 40 years old, Army sources say. Because of their age and contents, the canisters are too unstable to transport to a disposal site in Utah, said army officials. The canisters were found during an ongoing cleanup effort of the arsenal in order to make it into a nature reserve.

Army officials say they have no idea why the canisters have sat out on the ground and in the open. The army has yet to come up with a plan for the destruction of the Cold War relics.

The Army is considering detonating the canisters above ground in the open air, possibly with some sort of vapor containment device.

"We think it's the safest way, the best way, but there's no 100 percent guarantee, and so therefore we want to err on the side of safety in the disposal of the canisters," an official said.

Citizens, Environmentalists Up in Arms

Citizens and envrionmentalists are angry over the recent discovery of the deadly devices.

"I have children, this is disgusting that there's nerve gas this close to where we live," said Anna Johnson, a resident of Commerce City, just five miles away from the arsenal.

Colorado state officials vehemently oppose open air destruction of the gas canisters. U.S. Senator Wayne Allard believes a solution is needed as soon as possible.

"I think the situation is well in hand, but we would like to get it cleaned up as quickly as possible because you don't like to have those kind of things just laying around," he said.

Several environmental groups, including Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, had been involved in the cleanup efforts that are taking place at the government-owned property. According to its Web site, the Arsenal was created in 1942 when the War Board announced that 19,883 acres of prairie and farmland east of Denver had been selected to for a chemical weapons-manufacturing center.

ABCNEWS' Steve Walsh and ABCNEWS.com's Melanie Axelrod contributed to this report.

---

Cleanup of 'Bomblets' in Colorado Refuge Expected Soon

New York Times
December 1, 2000
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/01/national/01BOMB.html

COMMERCE CITY, Colo., Nov. 30 - Cleaning up a section of the old Rocky Mountain Arsenal last month, munitions experts stumbled upon a UXO, Army lingo for unexploded ordnance.

Since then, five more have turned up, drawing the Army, federal lawmakers and the State of Colorado into a protracted debate over how to dispose of them. The weapons were found close to a part of the arsenal that Congress designated in 1992 as a wildlife refuge, an area that draws thousands of visitors each year to see the coyotes, deer, bald eagles and other creatures that live there.

These particular UXO's contain sarin, a potentially lethal liquid that was developed in the 1950's as part of the nation's chemical warfare program and made headlines in 1995 when a Japanese sect released it in the subway system, killing 12 people and injuring 5,000.

The discovery of the sarin bomblets, as they are called, not only frightened home and business owners who live within a few miles of the old arsenal, which occupied 27 square miles northeast of Denver, it also promoted a flurry of letters from Gov. Bill Owens of Colorado, Senator Wayne Allard and Representative Diana DeGette of Denver to Defense Secretary William S. Cohen and senior Army staff, demanding help in the disposal. In a second letter to Mr. Cohen this month, Governor Owens threatened to sue unless the Army proposed a safe and effective means to neutralize the bomblets.

Today, the letters drew some action. Two Army generals met at the arsenal with Mr. Allard to review five methods of neutralizing the bomblets that the generals said they intended to present to Mr. Owens on Friday.

"The situation is well in hand," Gen. John G. Coburn, commander of the Army Materiel Command, said at a news conference with Mr. Allard. "We would like to get this cleaned up as soon as possible. We don't like having these things lying around."

General Coburn said all five methods, which he declined to discuss, were safe and expedient, although with a weapons site, he cautioned, "I don't think you can ever guarantee that any area would be completely clear."

Mr. Allard gave his blessing to the Army proposals, saying, "I'm convinced they are using the best practical science available" to neutralize the bomblets.

Mr. Owens said in an interview that he believed his discussions with the generals would produce a satisfactory approach. "I don't think we're very far apart on this," he said. "Sometimes bureaucracy gets in the way, but all the things I've asked for, one way or another, the Army has agreed to."

Sarin bomblets were designed to be used in groups of 368, launched and released from an Honest John missile. Once set free, they were designed to spin fast enough to set off a charge, exploding the canister upon impact and releasing the gas. They were never used in actual warfare. Experts in chemical weapons say just a tiny amount can cause death within seconds.

As a strategic weapon in World War II and later in the cold war, sarin was one of several chemical weapons produced at the arsenal, which opened in 1942, six months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The arsenal also made mustard gas, chlorine and napalm - some of which was used in the bombing of Tokyo - and pesticides.

Weapons production at the arsenal ceased in the early 1970's, after which it was closed and cleanup began. In 1983, officials found leftover chemical weapons and disposed of them. But it was only after scientists took another look at the debris in October that they spotted the six bomblets. Even though the area was always off-limits to the public, officials at the arsenal closed the refuge to outsiders as a precaution. It is expected to remain closed for months until the officials say the area is safe.

With the possibility that more sarin bomblets - or other decaying weapons - may be hidden below the surface of the scrap heap, elected officials began pressing the Army to propose a method of disposal that meets with state approval. The Army cannot do anything until state officials approve permits.

Governor Owens said one of his requests of the generals would be that the Army conduct "an extensive search and survey" to find all remaining weapons on the site.

Meanwhile, cleanup efforts at the arsenal are expected to continue for another decade or so. When federal officials signed an agreement in 1996 calling for a comprehensive cleanup, 31 areas on the arsenal grounds were identified for special attention. So far, only seven have been completed, and five of the remaining 24 are suspected of containing UXO's.

-------- illinois

ComEd offers land deal for fee hike

Chicago Sun-Times
December 1, 2000
BY TAMMY WILLIAMSON BUSINESS REPORTER
http://www.suntimes.com/output/business/comed01.html

Commonwealth Edison on Wednesday offered to give the State of Illinois the land on which its Zion nuclear plant sits and another nuclear plant site in exchange for permission to collect $121 million annually from ComEd customers over the next six years to pay for shutting down nuclear plants.

The payment from Illinois ratepayers would be made although the ComEd plant is no longer generating electricity.

ComEd sent the Illinois Commerce Commission a letter on the proposal Wednesday, the latest development in negotiations over how ComEd collects money to pay for what's called decommissioning, the process of taking a nuclear plant out of commission and restoring the land on which it sits.

"We're happy to do this," said Don Kirchhoffner, spokesman for Exelon Corp., ComEd's parent company, because once nuclear plants outlive their usefulness, they must be dismantled and cleaned up. "If this will expedite the approval of our proposal . . . so be it. It's reasonable."

The proposal drew fire from the politically influential Environmental Law & Policy Center, based in Chicago.

"Why should northern Illinois consumers continue to pay for ComEd nuclear costs in order to subsidize electricity for customers out-of-state?" said Howard Learner, executive director of the policy center.

The idea to create state parks out of former nuclear plants was proffered by Commissioner Ruth Kretschmer during a recent ICC meeting. The offer, never suggested before, startled utility watchers. One observer said the idea appeared to "come out of the clear blue sky."

"Attorneys for the commission will be looking at this letter to see what it means, and the commission will discuss it," said spokeswoman ICC Beth Bosch.

The commission will have to determine whether it has the legal authority to agree to such a deal, and accept land on behalf of the state, one of several objections that was raised Thursday by the Citizens Utility Board, a watchdog group.

"The value of this offer is highly questionable," said Rob Kelter, CUB's attorney, in a letter to the commission. Kelter also criticized the proposal because "ComEd is not in fact willing to `donate' land" because its donation is contingent upon a deal on decommissioning fees, with consequences for ratepayers. CUB has opposed the ComEd plan.

ComEd collects money continually from electric customers for decommissioning purposes. Residential customers pay about 65 cents per month, which is added automatically to their bills. If ComEd gets permission to step up its collections, customers would pay an extra 27 cents per month, for a total of 92 cents.

ComEd has argued that in the long run, upping fee collections for six years--with no more charges to customers after that--would be cheaper for electric consumers because the company could invest the $726 million it would collect to pay for future decommissioning costs, Kirchhoffner said.

The alternative: "Otherwise, we would continue to petition [the ICC] to collect until 2027 because that's when we estimate we would have enough money to decommission all these plants," he said. Illinois has six nuclear plants, including the Zion plant, which was shut down in 1998.

The other plant to be donated has yet to be determined, he said.

ComEd wants to transfer its nuclear plants to another part of the new holding company, Exelon Corp., which was created last month when ComEd merged with Peco Energy of Philadelphia, so that both company's nuclear plants are operated by one division of the company, and they can sell power competitively.

If it transfers the operation of the plants to the new, unregulated division, the move would deprive ComEd of ratepayer money that would have been used for decommissioning.

---

Today In History

Associated Press
December 1, 2000

Today is Saturday, Dec. 2, the 337th day of 2000. There are 29 day left in the year.

On this date:

In 1942, a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction was demonstrated for the first time at the University of Chicago.

-------- new mexico

The NY Times' Deep Throat
How Chris Cox misused his committee to destroy Wen Ho Lee

Orange County Weekly
Vol. 6 No. 13 December 1 - 7, 2000
by R. Scott Moxley
http://www.ocweekly.com/ink/01/13/press-moxley.shtml

With the November publication of "Rush to Judgment," the American Journalism Review (AJR) has neatly wrapped up the mainstream media's investigation of its role in the China spy scandal. AJR reporter Lucinda Fleeson focused primarily on the March 1999 New York Times bombshell: Chinese agents, the Times asserted, were swiping nuclear secrets from U.S. laboratories with at least tacit permission from an evil, campaign-contribution-hungry President Bill Clinton. You might recall that congressional Republicans-who had exhausted their Monicagate, Filegate, Travelgate and Whitewater probes-jumped on the spy story with adolescent vigor, offering the public apocalyptic scenarios.

"We're going to milk this for all it is worth," one Republican staffer predicted in the early days of the scandal.

The milking was left mostly to Orange County's own Representative Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach) and Washington Representative Norm Dicks (a Democrat), both of whom then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich chose to head the spy investigation. Playing to network TV cameras in the summer of 1999, Cox donned his most sincere and alarmed expression and said that the espionage had undoubtedly placed every American city under threat of a Chinese nuclear-missile shower.

But little Johnny in Des Moines can stop gazing at the sky in morbid apprehension. Though Cox gained international acclaim overnight for his accusations, there was a problem with the ambitious congressman's spy tale: it was untrue. At best, it was innocent if idiotic conjecture; at worst, it was part of an unconscionable campaign by Republicans to destroy a president. At best, it was racist; at worst, the campaign drove two nuclear powers closer to war.

The respected AJR didn't mince words in its verdict. Fleeson, a veteran reporter, concluded that none of the major points of the Times' first story-a story pipelined to the Times exclusively by unnamed Republican sources-was true. Wen Ho Lee is now free. The accused Taiwan-born American scientist who once faced life imprisonment on 59 federal spy charges procured his freedom by giving federal prosecutors a face-saving guilty plea on a single count of mishandling lab information.

Readers of the Weekly were not shocked by the outcome. In "Cox, Dicks, No Balls" (Cover Story, June 7, 1999), we noted that the Cox Report, as it had become known, was little more than "lowbrow theater" with the editorial integrity of a tits-heavy Hard Copy episode. Conservatives ridiculed our story as alternative-media propaganda. But 15 months later, the Times-ostensibly America's most trustworthy news source-reluctantly published a lengthy retraction.

"The Times' coverage of this case," the paper's editors wrote on Sept. 26, might have "stimulated a political frenzy amounting to a witch hunt."

But the Times' apology, besides being arrogant, is incomplete. A thorough reckoning would answer a critical question: Who was the paper's deep throat?

AJR offers no answer, and the Times has not revealed its source. Protecting whistle blowers is a tenet of almost religious faith among journalists; some have gone to jail rather than name names. But in this unusual instance, the source deliberately misled gullible reporters and might have put an innocent man in prison.

The Times is unlikely to reveal its source, but all signs point to a Republican on Cox's committee.

Two months before Cox published his committee's 700-page "secret" report, someone was leaking details of the committee's proceedings to the Times-someone who would benefit from the suggestion that the Clinton administration had aided and abetted Chinese spying at Los Alamos. That points to the committee's Republican members. Among those Republicans, Cox had the most to gain from the spy charges. Already angling for the job of speaker, Cox was also looking toward the VP slot on the Republicans' 2000 presidential ticket. The words "Cox Report" were his credentials.

There's monumental irony in the fact that the House committee appointed to investigate holes in U.S. weapons labs was itself porous; that information spilling out of what were ostensibly secret meetings of a committee with Cox's name on it ended up on the front pages of The New York Times; and that, as AJR noted, "cutthroat competition" led to the rapid reproduction of the spy charges in other newspapers, doing maximum damage to Clinton and Wen Ho Lee.

But most significantly, Cox never investigated the leaks. Indeed, Cox used the claim of secrecy to fan the flames of suspicion, arguing in public, at least, that confidentiality prohibited him from revealing even more damaging, "stark" and "grave" facts in classified portions of the Cox Report.

Cox did not respond to several requests for an interview. But when asked in May 1999 about the leaks on ABC's This Week, the Newport Beach congressman offered an amazing piece of illogic. "Well," he said, "the leaks, I'm very unhappy about [them]. And the leaks are coming rather obviously, I think, from the administration."

To believe that, you'd have to believe that the Clinton administration was trying to kill itself-and would choose New York Times reporter Jeff Gerth to do it. How much sense does that make? Gerth spent much of the past several years in a vain attempt to bring Clinton down over the Whitewater scandal.

Though his accusations smeared the good reputations of countless Asian-American scientists and nearly got an innocent man fried in the electric chair, Cox has not mustered the courage to apologize. To admit wrongdoing now might jeopardize his odds-on chances of taking a cabinet position-maybe U.S. attorney general-under a new Bush administration.

And though Cox-who during the 1980s was chief corporate counsel to Orange County's biggest convicted swindler-might replace Janet Reno as the nation's top law-enforcement officer, don't expect the mainstream media to hold him accountable. With rare exceptions (Robert Scheer of the Los Angeles Times in particular), no daily journalist has bothered to document the Cox Committee's role in the Wen Ho Lee scandal. Not even AJR was willing to expose his critical role in manipulating The New York Times and other news sources.

Once again, Cox-who because of his cunning is scarier than former Orange County Congressman Bob Dornan-has evaded responsibility. As far as the American public knows, the USC graduate and corporate lawyer who avoided Vietnam combat is an unblemished patriotic hero. It was U.S. News & World Report that printed and never corrected the following preposterous caption with its sensational June 1999 espionage coverage: "Playing it straight. Chris Cox and his colleagues tried hard."

--------

Lee: Tapes Went in Trash

Washington Post
Friday, December 1, 2000; Page A02
By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7115-2000Nov30.html

Former Los Alamos physicist Wen Ho Lee has told investigators that he threw portable tapes containing nuclear secrets into a trash bin outside the weapons laboratory in January 1999, shortly after his security clearance was revoked.

Under recent questioning by the FBI, government sources said, the 60-year-old Taiwanese American scientist has steadfastly maintained that he made the tapes in 1993, 1994 and 1997 only to preserve data in case of a computer failure.

Lee also has asserted that no one else knew of his actions and that he never removed the pocket-sized tapes from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the sources said.

On Sept. 13, prosecutors dropped 58 of 59 felony counts against Lee, and a federal judge sentenced him to the nine months he had already served in jail while awaiting trial. In return for his freedom, he promised to cooperate with the government's effort to determine what happened to the cassette tapes, which contained test data and design information on U.S. nuclear weapons.

Although Lee first told the FBI in September that he had disposed of the tapes in the trash bin, the bureau waited until this week to begin searching the landfill where the laboratory dumps its garbage.

One official familiar with the investigation said the FBI "had been planning this dig for months but did not rush into it, because he was vague and nonspecific about what he had done."

For example, another source said, Lee admitted that he had made copies of the missing tapes, "but he couldn't remember how many."

Under the plea bargain, the government is allowed to question Lee under oath for up to 10 days. Eight days of questioning have been completed, and the final two days are to take place before Dec. 15.

After that, the government can give Lee a polygraph exam. If the two sides fail to agree on a neutral person to administer the lie detector test, a federal judge will pick one.

"Lee has repeatedly showed deception [on polygraphs] in the past," said one government official, adding: "The truth on this may never be known."

Lee's lawyers maintain that he passed two previous polygraph exams and failed one under highly adversarial circumstances.

Lee initially was the prime suspect in an espionage investigation that began in 1996 after allegations that China had gained secret data about the newest U.S. nuclear warhead, the W-88. When he returned from a trip to Taiwan and was questioned by Energy Department investigators in December 1998, he admitted for the first time that he had been asked about classified subjects during a private meeting with Chinese scientists in a Beijing hotel.

After that disclosure, Lee was barred from his office in the lab's X Division on Dec. 23, 1998. On that night and the next night, Christmas Eve, he made the first of 17 attempts to re-enter the secure area to collect his personal items, Lee has told his questioners.

According to earlier court testimony, he was successful twice, entering once by closely following someone into the facility, and another time when a colleague, who was unaware that Lee's clearance had been removed, let him in.

At about the same time, Lee erased classified files he had transferred to unclassified computers and removed secret data from three tapes that were later found in his office.

In March 1999, Lee was fired for security violations. After his lab computer was reviewed and a search of his house turned up a notebook detailing what was on the tapes, he became the subject of a new FBI investigation. In December 1999, he was indicted, arrested and jailed.

But he denied passing secrets to any foreign government and was never charged with espionage. His detention in solitary confinement drew increasing criticism, particularly from Asian American groups, who argued that he was singled out because of his ethnicity.

Lee recently sold his story to television and is writing a book about his experiences. Supporters are planning a 61st birthday celebration for him on Dec. 21.

--------

FBI combs dump for Los Alamos tapes

InfoBeat News
Fri, 01 Dec 2000 07:22:07 MST
By RICHARD BENKE Associated Press Writer

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Scientist Wen Ho Lee says he discarded 17 computer tapes full of nuclear weapons data at Los Alamos National Laboratory, according to a source familiar with the case.

FBI agents are combing the muddy, snowy Los Alamos County landfill where lab trash is buried, saying the search could last weeks.

Agents won't confirm they're looking for the discarded tapes in the landfill, but if the pocket-sized computer cartridges Lee downloaded in the lab's top-secret X Division were thrown into the trash, the 50-acre dump is a likely place where they ended up.

Agents have said for months that they want to find the tapes Lee swore he destroyed.

A source familiar with the case, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Lee said he disposed of the tapes in a Dumpster inside the X Division fence in January 1999.

Lee has been undergoing closed debriefings in which he promised, as a condition of a plea agreement that won his release in September, to tell agents what happened to the tapes. The source would provide no details of Lee's disclosures.

The landfill search began while the debriefings were under way. An amended plea agreement filed in early November extends the debriefing period into mid-December.

The disposal of the tape cartridges happened just days after Lee's security clearance was revoked, according to a timetable provided last summer by federal prosecutors. They said Lee repeatedly sought access to the division after his access card was deactivated and that he gained access three times, including once in January 1999 when a fellow lab employee let him in. Assistant U.S. Attorney George Stamboulidis, who prosecuted Lee, declined to comment.

Stacy Cohen, a spokeswoman for the Lee family, has declined to comment on the landfill search.

The San Jose Mercury News reported Wednesday that Lee told agents in secret debriefing sessions that he tossed the tapes into the trash in January 1999 and that they never otherwise left the lab. The newspaper did not elaborate on its sources.

Lee lost his security clearance in December 1998. Prosecutors have alleged he sought access to the X Division 16 times between Dec. 23, 1998, and Feb. 23, 1999 _ including 3:31 a.m. Christmas Eve 1998.

FBI agent Doug Beldon said ``numerous'' agents and evidence technicians expect to rake through piles of dirt and trash at the landfill daily ``for quite some time.''

The search team wears white protective clothing. The workers use bulldozers to move mounds of garbage and hand rakes to comb the debris.

Lee, jailed without bail Dec. 10, 1999, was freed Sept. 13 after pleading guilty to one count of downloading restricted data to tape. Fifty-eight counts were dropped.

Lee has sworn he never passed any secrets to any unauthorized person, and the government never charged him with espionage.

The FBI initially said it was looking for seven tape cartridges and had already found three others.

At the time of his release, Lee told investigators he also made copies of those 10 tapes but had destroyed the copies as well, FBI and Justice Department officials have said.

If anyone found the tape cartridges _ and if restricted nuclear weapons data were still encoded on them _ there are several computer companies that might be able to recover such data.

-------- north dakota

Nuclear Missile Facility Burns Down

Washington Post
Friday, December 1, 2000; Page A13
Reuters
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8831-2000Dec1?language=printer

MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, N.D., Nov. 30 -- Fire destroyed an Army nuclear missile support facility in North Dakota today, forcing 13 workers to flee and two missile crew members to seal themselves in a protective chamber underground, Army officials said.

No one was injured because of the fire, which broke out about 5 a.m., and the 10 Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles in the area were "safe and secure," according to Sgt. Tabetha Cohen.

The missiles were being monitored by the two-member underground crew, who closed their "blast doors" and continued their duties in a self-contained operation as the fire raged.

"This is a facility built to protect people from nuclear blasts and radiation, so it has food and water and air and other things they need in there to survive for a considerable length of time," Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said.

The one-story, missile-alert facility that burned down provided sleeping and eating quarters as well as equipment storage for missile maintenance workers.

The fire apparently began in a room containing diesel fuel, but investigators have not yet determined how the fire ignited, Cohen said.

-------- washington

Nuclear-fuel removal to begin at Hanford

Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Friday, December 1, 2000
By LINDA ASHTON THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/local/hanf011.shtml

YAKIMA -- Contractors at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation expect to start removing spent nuclear fuel from the leaky K Basins, just 400 yards from the Columbia River, next week, the U.S. Department of Energy announced Thursday.

"It's a top priority because it's so close to the river and also a priority because the basins are very old, essentially past their usable life," said Doug Sherwood, Hanford project manager for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Also, "roughly a third of the radioactivity at Hanford is in those basins," he said.

The K Basins are two decaying indoor pools filled with 2,300 tons of corroded, irradiated fuel.

The Energy Department was doing a final readiness review for the K Basins project Thursday. Once it's complete, contractor Fluor Hanford will make any changes needed, and the goal is to start moving the fuel by the middle of next week, said Erik Olds, a department spokesman in Richland.

Under the Tri-Party Agreement, a legal document setting deadlines for cleanup work at Hanford, the transfer of the spent fuel was supposed to begin Thursday.

Sherwood said he's not bothered by the minimal delay.

"From my perspective, it's really more important for this project to get off the ground and start moving, and continue to move, fuel until they get the job done," Sherwood said.

Olds said crews have been working 24 hours a day, including through the Thanksgiving weekend, to prepare to start moving fuel.

The effort expended to get the project going timely was recognized by the EPA, Sherwood said.

"They don't need a slap in the face from a regulator today," he said.

The legal deadline to finish moving the fuel is July 31, 2004.

"With the installation and testing of a state-of-the-art fuel moving system, we are soundly positioned to embark on a process that will see 2,100 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel moved safely away from the Columbia River," said Keith Klein, the Department of Energy's Hanford manager.

Olds said six baskets of fuel are loaded and sitting under water ready to go. The canisters will be moved to a vacuum drying facility, where moisture is removed and replaced with inert helium gas.

Then the containers will be moved to the canister storage building in the 200 West Area, in the central part of the 560-square-mile reservation.

The fuel would be stored at Hanford until a national repository site is built, possibly at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.

The spent fuel canisters represent about 80 percent of the nation's inventory of irradiated nuclear fuel left over from Cold War weapons production.

Last year, the Energy Department fined Fluor $330,000 for work quality problems on the project, but the required improvements were made to the government's satisfaction by December 1999.

-------- us nuc politics

William J. Clinton and history

USA Today
12/01/00- Updated 08:53 AM ET
By Stanley I. Kutler
http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/columnists/clinton/clinton4.htm

From John Doe & Mary Roe, The United States: A textbook in American History, published in 3001.

"William Jefferson Clinton became the first elected, impeached president. The Republican-dominated House of Representatives impeached him on two counts on virtually a straight-party vote in December 1998. After a month-long trial, the Senate acquitted him in February 1999 and failed to secure even a majority of votes for conviction. Clinton's large job approval ratings, despite widespread personal criticism, undoubtedly made the Senate wary of removing him.

"Many Senate Republicans sensed the sham of the proceeding. Republican leader Sen. Ted Stevens voted guilty on one count as a courtesy to the House managers. But Stevens had no illusions. For him, the world remained a dangerous place, and he bluntly said he would not vote to remove the president if he knew his vote would be decisive to the outcome. With remarkable candor, he said Clinton had 'not brought that level of danger to the nation which ... is necessary to justify such an action.' Stevens correctly gauged the national mood; this trial simply was not serious."

Thus a textbook in American history a century from now (assuming we are using textbooks) will discuss the Clinton impeachment and trial. That would equal the space given to President Johnson's impeachment and trial in 1868; history notoriously squeezes facts and events. While the shame and folly of impeachment eventually will be the most enduring mark of Clinton's presidency, contemporary historians will focus on other issues for now. Certainly, historians must note Clinton's enormous appeal to "diversity."

Toni Morrison, the distinguished Nobel Literature Laureate, bluntly declared Clinton to be the nation's first black president. Clinton's style, his measured cadence reminiscent of the pulpit and the bitter assaults on him have endeared him to African-Americans. Clinton also appealed to other faces in the mosaic of diversity: women, Latinos, gays, Asian-Americans, the disabled. Whoever inherits these constituencies from Clinton will be even further enriched as they grow in size and influence.

Clinton's 1992 campaign famously focused on the economy. The nation floundered through recession and problems lingering from the transition of an industrialized economy. Since 1993, however, prosperity and material well-being are everywhere apparent, and all to Clinton's advantage. He has been a worthy manager, one who made good use of such creditable allies as Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin. The moment also was ripe. When Clinton took office, the economy had started its upswing, but a combination of declining interest rates, the abundance of venture capital and innovative entrepreneurs made it possible for the nation to grasp and channel the explosion of technology into widening affluence. Clinton's high job approval largely reflected his management of the economy.

The Republican takeover of Congress in 1994 surely was a major political setback. Newt Gingrich and his allies swept to power and labeled the president "irrelevant." But Clinton seized the moment, and with extraordinary political finesse, he foiled the opposition, which fumed that he had stolen their programs. Clinton undoubtedly will be associated with such old-line Republican principles as welfare reform and fiscal responsibility, but he made them his own when Republicans tried to undo his balanced budget.

It is doubtful that he could have carried through such policies with a traditional Democratic congressional majority. The familiar pattern of gridlock marked much of Clinton's dealings with Congress; consequently, Social Security and health policy require reforms that await new leadership and new measures.

Clinton's managerial skills served him well in foreign policy. The United States continued to assist in international peacekeeping operations, but few new initiatives got off the ground. After months of vacillation, Clinton sent American troops as part of an international force to stop the violence in Bosnia and later in Kosovo. Iraqi relations largely remain unresolved and unsettled, just where they were when George Bush left office. Clinton made a determined effort to settle the seemingly intractable Middle East dispute between Arabs and Israelis, but at the end of his term, peace again seemed remote. Clinton skillfully guided American international economic policies into the new wave of globalization. Sadly, the Senate failed to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

The president's increasing involvement in international affairs is freighted with irony. As America's first post-Cold War president, foreign policy held little attraction for him at the outset. But like other presidents before him, he found sanctuary abroad. At the end of his tenure, he became the first American president to visit Vietnam in more than 30 years. The symbolism of reconciliation was apparent and powerful; but like the moth to the flame, Clinton played to American domestic politics as he very publicly involved himself with American MIA recoveries but offered little recognition of the 300,000 Vietnam MIAs.

In the end, historians must consider the impact of Clinton's enemies. Ross Perot's very well-financed third-party candidacy insured Clinton's 1992 victory, but for some, the split vote cast a pall over his legitimacy. From the outset he was subjected to the most extraordinary personal assaults, including allegations of dealing drugs while serving as governor of Arkansas; draft-dodging and his opposition to the Vietnam War; cheating on his wife; and wrongdoing in relation to something called Whitewater, a matter beyond the comprehension of mere mortals save for the unlikely duo of The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. The accusations became joint marital property as his wife shared the assaults, even being sinisterly portrayed as the mistress of a presidential aide who committed suicide - but who those "in the know" were sure had been murdered. The accumulated poison undoubtedly contributed to Clinton's eventual impeachment.

To their enemies, the Clintons symbolized all that was wrong in American life, all that was to be detested. The Clintons sprang from the anti-war activism and revolts against authority of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The reaction has taken the form of an ongoing political and cultural civil war. The civil rights revolution, the uproar over the war in Vietnam, Watergate, feminism, abortion and diversity - to name a few - inflicted deep wounds in American society. The wounds festered and have left deep, lasting scars on America.

Clinton became the focus of that anger. He epitomized the baby-boomer, draft-resister, pot-smoker (non-inhaling) champion of diversity, and he aroused a visceral sense of outrage and hate. He fueled a politics of resentment. For the alienated and disaffected, Clinton and his wife embodied all they despised in American life - taxes, government, labor unions, diversity and affirmative action goals, women in power, blacks, gays, pot. Talk radio thrived on the Clintons, who provided a subject for gossip and calumny befitting any celebrity.

The fantastic outcome of the presidential election of 2000 surely tells us that our divisions remain and our civil war continues.

Stanley I. Kutler is the author of The Wars of Watergate and editor of Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes.

-------- us nuc waste

UNLV scientists OK controversial site for nuclear waste storage

Excite News
December 1, 2000
By Geoffrey Radcliffe The Rebel Yell U. Nevada-Las Vegas
http://news.excite.com/news/uw/001201/tech-20

(U-WIRE) LAS VEGAS -- Nevada grows closer to becoming a dump for the nation's nuclear waste after University of Nevada-Las Vegas scientists recently announced their support of the U.S. Department of Energy's finding that Yucca Mountain will be a safe repository.

The planned dump was on hold until scientists could determine if super hot ground water had penetrated Yucca Mountain in the last 1.5 million years. Such water leaking into the waste site could corrode the containers holding the waste and increase the danger of nuclear waste leakage.

UNLV researchers Jean Cline and Nicholas Wilson found that there has been no geothermal water in Yucca Mountain as far back as 2 million years.

Even though this study backs the DOE findings, Nevada politicians will continue the fight to keep nuclear waste out of Nevada.

"I disagree with UNLV scientist findings," Congresswoman Shelley Berkley said.

"There are still many other problems with the proposed test site and I will continue to do everything in my power to keep the nuclear waste out of Nevada," she said.

Berkley continued by stating gaming and tourism is Nevada's economic engine, which would be ruined by a nuclear spill.

Berkley favors the plan to divert funds from Yucca Mountain construction to research into transmutation, a technology that would significantly reduce the potency of nuclear waste.

Transmutation is still in a research phase, but Berkley feels that with the proper funding Nevada can use transmutation to prevent waste from coming here.

The $1.4 million study into the geothermal water was conducted with the oversight of the DOE. The final results should be published in April after more rock samples are dated.

While the latest study does not help Nevada argue that Yucca Mountain is a flawed site, Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects Director Bob Loux said the battle to prevent the burial of the highly radioactive waste there will continue.

"There are other scientific issues under investigation that may raise serious questions about the mountain's stability," Loux said, according to the Las Vegas Sun.

-------- MILITARY

-------- colombia

Roadside Bomb Found in Colombia Before Visit by U.S. Senator and Ambassador

Associated Press
December 1, 2000
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Colombia-US-Senator-Bomb.html

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- Police discovered a roadside bomb outside a town hours before a U.S. senator and U.S. ambassador were to visit, authorities said Friday.

But there were conflicting reports on whether Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., and U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson were the targets of the bomb and as to exactly where the bomb was found.

A police commander said two shrapnel-wrapped land mines were found on the road from the airport to the town of Barrancabermeja. However, local journalists who witnessed the device being dismantled said it was found in a neighborhood far from the highway. It was not immediately possible to reconcile the two reports.

Police Col. Jose Miguel Villar said it appeared to be an assassination attempt. But the national police later said in a statement that the bomb ``had no relation to the visit of the American commission.''

In Washington, State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said it was not an assassination attempt on the Wellstone-Patterson party and implied that the party never came within a mile of the area where the device was found.

``There was not -- I repeat, not -- an assassination attempt made against Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota and our ambassador to Colombia, Anne Patterson,'' Reeker said.

A State Department official added that it is not unusual for such devices to be found in Barrancabermeja, which has a reputation for violence.

Hours before the two U.S. officials flew into Barrancabermeja on Thursday, police discovered the explosive device alongside the road leading from the airport to the town and arrested a suspected member of the rebel National Liberation Army, or ELN, Villar said.

The suspect, Bernardo Alvarez Duarte, was refusing to talk, police said, and it was not immediately clear how some authorities had concluded the U.S. delegation was not a target.

The land mines each carried a 6 1/2-pound explosive charge, were attached to cables and a detonator and were ready to be set off, Villar said in a phone interview from Barrancabermeja, 155 miles north of Bogota, the capital.

``If the bomb had gone off, it could have caused immense damage,'' Villar said. ``It would have spread shrapnel over a wide area and could have taken out 10 or 15 people.''

Many residents of Barrancabermeja had known the U.S. delegation was going to arrive. But security forces had kept confidential plans to transfer the party from the airport to the town by helicopter. Even if the bombs had exploded, the delegation would not have gone anywhere near them.

Villar said the Americans were probably the target, but could not absolutely confirm it.

Washington supports the Colombian military in its fight against the ELN and a bigger rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. However, the ELN is seeking peace concessions from the Colombian government, and an attack on senior U.S. officials would probably put those concessions out of reach.

Barrancabermeja is the most violent town in Colombia, with almost 500 politically related murders this year alone, according to human rights activists. Right-wing paramilitary squads and rebels have been preying on the townspeople and fighting for control of the region.

Wellstone, a second-term senator and a member of the foreign relations committee, arrived in Colombia on Tuesday night and left on Friday. He visited Barrancabermeja to lend support to human rights activists there.

---

Minn. Dem. Criticizes Colombia Plan

USA Today
12/01/00- Updated 05:23 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsfri03.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - Paul Wellstone has been an outspoken opponent of the $1.3 billion Colombian anti-drug aid package, fearing it could worsen Colombia's guerrilla war and drag the United States into the four-decade old conflict.

''I have some concerns about whether counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency have become merged,'' Wellstone, D-Minn., said in an interview with The Associated Press late last week.

Wellstone got a firsthand look at Colombia's problems Thursday, visiting Barrancabermeja, the country's deadliest town. Hours before he and U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson arrived, police discovered two shrapnel-wrapped land mines alongside the road leading from the airport.

Colombian police and Wellstone's office say they don't believe Wellstone and Patterson were the targets.

''I knew yesterday that we had to be careful,'' Wellstone said Friday on arrival at Miami International Airport, en route to Minnesota.

Most of the Colombian aid package is for helicopters and other military equipment to help Colombian security forces fight guerrillas who partly finance their insurgency by protecting coca fields and cocaine laboratories. U.S. officials have insisted they will not get involved in the guerrilla war.

Wellstone has tried unsuccessfully to have Congress shift funds from Colombian military aid into domestic drug treatment programs.

''He was the only one out there - or at least the loudest out there - who was worried about the effect it would have in getting the United States into the conflict, the effect on the peace process and whether it would affect drug policy at all,'' said Adam Isacson of the Center for International Policy, which opposes the aid plan.

After the aid package was signed by President Clinton in July, Wellstone continued to be outspoken on Colombia, criticizing the administration for waiving human rights conditions that could have blocked the aid and opposing Republican efforts to add another $99 million to the package.

''Paul Wellstone has been a staunch ally of human rights in Colombia,'' said Andrew Miller of Amnesty International. ''He's been instrumental in raising human rights concerns and attempting to shift the debate away from eradication efforts toward addressing the demand for drugs here in the U.S.''

In the AP interview, Wellstone said he intended to examine the human rights situation in Colombia and the relationship between the Colombian military and rightist paramilitary forces, which are accused of widespread rights abuses.

Wellstone said he believes that ''constructive pressure'' on President Andres Pastrana will accelerate the process of separating the two forces.

''The human rights violations ranging from torture to murder to massacres has gone down on the military side but is up on the paramilitary side,'' he said.

-------- drug war

Fox seeks change north of border

InfoBeat News
Fri, 01 Dec 2000 07:22:07 MST
By TRACI CARL Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405209999

MEXICO CITY (AP) _ After toppling more than 70 years of authoritarian, one-party rule in Mexico, it seemed Vicente Fox would be welcomed with open arms north of the border.

Yet Fox, who becomes president Friday, is pushing for more than just change in Mexico. Some of his proposals _ that the United States do more to fight drug trafficking, that Mexican workers eventually be able to move freely across the border _ have put some in Washington on the defensive.

The former Coca-Cola executive, whose inauguration marks the first handover of power to another party in Mexico's history, hasn't been shy since his July 2 victory shocked and excited the world. He immediately began preaching his vision of a modern, efficient Mexico, traveling around the world to seek international support.

In the United States, wearing his signature cowboy boots, Fox asked presidential candidates Al Gore and George W. Bush to support expanding the North American Free Trade Agreement into a common market, allowing the free movement of all goods and workers across borders.

Both were lukewarm to the idea, likely in part because it touched on the controversial topics of immigration and NAFTA weeks before the closest U.S. presidential race in 40 years.

``Neither candidate really wanted to go out on a limb on anything like drugs or immigration or NAFTA,'' said Riordan Roett, a Latin American expert at Johns Hopkins University.

Fox was undeterred.

``I will continue to insist on this, and I know I will win the battle,'' he told The Associated Press on Saturday. ``I am going to persuade Bush or Gore, whoever it is. And I am going to persuade the American people.''

Many may not need it. Teresa Buan of Chicago said she doesn't have any problem with opening the Mexican border.

``I think people from Mexico are taking jobs that nobody else here wants,'' she said, sitting on a park bench during a family vacation to San Antonio, Texas.

Reading a book nearby, Luis Lara, an electrician whose great-great-grandparents came to the United States from Mexico, said he hoped Fox could at least improve conditions for those trying to cross the border.

``People lock them in boxcars, take their money and promise them all their dreams,'' he said. ``They are taking advantage of all those people.''

But Fox's persistence _ and his willingness to speak his mind _ may be tough for Washington, which traditionally set the agenda when dealing with the outgoing Institutional Revolutionary Party.

``Vicente does like big ideas. His nature is to be ambitious, and that of course is a good thing. But it could also be an Achilles heel,'' said Delal Baer, a Mexico analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

Sending up more warning flags in Washington was Fox's announcement that Jorge Castaneda, a New York University professor who has often been viewed as anti-American, will serve as foreign secretary.

Fox's brashness has squelched some of Washington's initial enthusiasm about his election, analysts say.

One upcoming battle could be over Mexico's anti-drug certification, the State Department's annual drug-fighting performance evaluation. Mexico's government has long resented the process, saying it is unfair for the United States alone to decide.

Complaints about U.S. policy may become louder under Fox. According to Roett, that may not be all bad.

``Just be prepared for a much more open, and I think more honest, discussion of some of these problems,'' Roett said. ``It will make for a much more interesting, but somewhat rockier relationship than what is has been.''

The biggest adjustment may be in Washington.

``This is a new game, and I think that the United States has got to accept that,'' Roett said.

Still, if Fox can turn things around in Mexico, he may be able to make all the noise he wants.

``The U.S. has always been terrified of Mexico. It's a huge poverty belt with tremendous amounts of problems, corruption,'' said economist Jonathan Heath.

``If the United States sees a president who can seem to start solving these types of problems, it will be in the U.S.'s interests.''

-------- iraq

At a Crucial Juncture, Iraqi Officials Cut Off Oil Exports

New York Times
December 2, 2000
By BARBARA CROSSETTE with NEELA BANERJEE
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/02/world/02BAD-IRAQ.html

UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 1 - Picking an opportune moment, Iraq has abruptly stopped exporting oil, officials here said today.

It is not the first time this year that Iraq has disrupted its oil supply, which provides 4 percent of world consumption, to protest United Nations sanctions. Oil markets were calm in response to the shutdown, which took place late Thursday; the price of crude oil fell $1.80 a barrel in New York, to $32.02.

Still, some market experts said Saddam Hussein might achieve significant effects. "Whatever leverage he has is maximized now," said Lawrence J. Goldstein, president of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation in New York. "Saddam Hussein has been pushing, and the world has been giving way on sanctions."

The Iraqis are testing the resolve of the United States and the Security Council just before an important series of debates on Iraq begins next week, diplomats said, and soon after failing to divert some oil revenues to accounts not controlled by the United Nations.

Baghdad is acting while Americans are preoccupied by the dispute over the presidential election. Some American diplomats said Iraq would make a mistake if it tried to take advantage of the situation.

"If anybody has the impression that the administration isn't paying attention or is losing interest in this complex of issues, they're quite wrong," said James B. Cunningham, deputy American representative at the United Nations, who works on Iraq in the Security Council.

Iraq is pressing ahead to loosen the straitjacket that it has been in for the 10 years since it invaded Kuwait. A resurfacing of divisions among Security Council members and the high oil prices are giving Mr. Hussein an opportunity he has seized.

Iraq has more or less succeeded in opening the skies over Baghdad to renewed air traffic after a disputed but nonetheless observed 10-year ban, and after weeks of discussion, Council members cannot agree how to regulate flights. On Thursday, a plane carrying paying passengers flew from Jordan to Baghdad.

Baghdad also prevailed in its drive to cut the percentage of oil profits, to 25 from 30, that is paid to a fund to compensate victims of the Kuwait invasion, though there is a dispute over how to spend the savings.

Iraq has been cultivating friends around the Middle East and among developing nations, prominently offering help to Palestinians involved in the new violence in Israel. Iraq has been signing trade agreements, entertaining heads of state like President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and sending high-level officials abroad.

Council members most sympathetic to Iraq, particularly China, France and Russia, are renewing efforts to reopen a discussion on a new system to inspect arms put forward a year ago that the Iraqis have repeatedly rejected.

The Council resolution to set up the system considerably broadened the range of purchases Iraq could make without Security Council approval and held out the hope of a suspension of sanctions if the Iraqis cooperated. But Iraq insists that the sanctions end before it lets inspectors return.

Backed by France and Russia, Iraq wants to know exactly at what point sanctions would be suspended if it decided to accept the new plan. Baghdad also wants less United Nations control over money, the issue that led to stopping the oil exports.

-------- space

Russian Rocket Launches U.S. Satellite

Associated Press
December 1, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-Satellite.html

MOSCOW -- A Russian Proton rocket has successfully delivered a U.S. commercial satellite into orbit, the Russian Strategic Missile Forces said Friday.

The Sirius 3 satellite, manufactured by Loral Space and Communications, was launched late Thursday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in the Central Asian nation of Kazakstan. The satellite will provide radio broadcasting in the United States.

U.S. companies routinely use Russian space facilities to launch commercial satellites. The Russian rockets are usually considered reliable and a good bargain compared with European and American competitors.

-------- u.n.

Campaign launched against UN court

InfoBeat News
Fri, 01 Dec 2000 07:22:07 MST
By EDITH M. LEDERER Associated Press Writer
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405210015

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Top Republican lawmakers led by Sen. Jesse Helms have launched a new campaign against the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal, which they say will threaten American sovereignty.

Helms, R-N.C., plans to make passage of a bill barring U.S. cooperation with the court a top priority next year, a spokesman said Wednesday.

House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, spoke out Wednesday in favor of the bill, which Helms introduced earlier this year. It also won backing from a bipartisan group of a dozen former U.S. administration officials from Henry Kissinger to ex-CIA director R. James Woolsey.

``This court will circumscribe the United States' ability to project force ... to defend not only its (global) interests but humanitarian interests as well,'' Helms spokesman Mark Thiessen said.

The International Criminal Court, which supporters predict will start operating in two years, was created to deal with the world's most heinous crimes - genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It would step in only when countries are unwilling or unable to dispense justice themselves.

But since the treaty establishing the court was signed in Rome in July 1998, the United States has been campaigning to exempt U.S. soldiers and government officials from prosecution - so far without success.

The United States objects to the idea that American citizens could be subject to the court's jurisdiction if a crime is committed in a country that had ratified the treaty - even if the United States is not a party. Washington says that would leave U.S. troops and citizens vulnerable to politically motivated prosecutions.

The Helms bill, sponsored by GOP leaders in both houses, would require U.S. personnel to be ``immunized'' from the court's jurisdiction before the United States would participate in any U.N. peacekeeping operations. It would also ban U.S. military assistance to any country that has ratified the treaty, with a waiver for U.S. allies that agree to protect Americans from extradition.

Helms, the conservative chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, plans to make passage of the bill ``one of his top legislative priorities next year,'' Thiessen told a press conference as more than 100 countries met here to continue preparations for establishing the court.

The Clinton administration agrees that the court should not be able to prosecute Americans. But the administration objects to the Helms bill for a variety of reasons, including the unacceptable conditions on U.S. participation in U.N. peacekeeping operations, U.S. Mission spokeswoman Mary Ellen Glynn said.

The Rome treaty has been signed by almost 120 countries and needs 60 ratifications to come into force. It now has 23, and Philippe Kirsch, chairman of the commission preparing for the court's operation, said he expects that ``in two years the court will be in existence.''

Human rights groups and supporters of the court, including many U.S. allies, insist that there are sufficient protections in the treaty and that its rules of operation prevent political prosecutions.

Richard Dicker, associate counsel of Human Rights Watch, said Helms is too late to stop the court anyway.

``The train has left the station and they may not have recognized it in Washington,'' he said. ``If anything, this kind of showmanship and theatricality from the U.S. is only going to intensify governments' desire to ratify'' the treaty.

---

UN asks Guinea-Bissau junta to yield

InfoBeat News
Fri, 01 Dec 2000 07:22:07 MST
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405209750

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The Security Council called on the former military junta that staged a short-lived insurgency last week in Guinea-Bissau to yield to the authority of the elected government in that West African country.

In a consensus statement, the council also lent its strong backing for the government and called for continued international funding to help the country implement a peace deal and recover from a devastating rebellion two years ago.

The statement was adopted at the conclusion of a daylong open debate, chaired by the Dutch Development and Cooperation Minister Eveline Herfkens, on the need for countries just emerging from conflicts to receive continued international support to cement their democracies.

``Post-conflict peace building includes a range of measures intended to prevent a relapse into a cycle of conflict and instability,'' Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the council meeting. He stressed that the measures must address the root causes of conflict _ not just the symptoms.

``In the case of Guinea-Bissau, these causes include weak state institutions, a disgruntled and highly politicized army, endemnic poverty, a crippling debt, and an insecure internal and external environment,'' he said.

Last week, after a dispute with the country's political leaders over military promotions, Brig. Ansumane Mane announced he was ousting the armed forces chief of staff and was taking charge. His insurgency was quashed Thursday by troops loyal to President Kumba Yala.

Guinea-Bissau, a nation of about 1.1 million people that was included in this year's United Nations list of the world's 48 least developed countries, is struggling to recover from the devastating 1998 rebellion that killed more than 2,000 people and ousted President Joao Bernardo Vieira.

That uprising, led by Mane, had broad popular support and led to internationally monitored elections last year.

---

UN sends envoy to Congo

InfoBeat News
Fri, 01 Dec 2000 07:22:07 MST
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405209753

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The United Nations is sending an envoy to assess the impact of Congo's war on its neighbors, the Central African Republic and the Republic of Congo.

Amara Essy, former foreign minister of the Ivory Coast, plans to begin his mission Dec. 2 and will report back to Secretary-General Kofi Annan by Dec. 18, U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said Thursday.

Congo's war has forced tens of thousands of Congolese to flee their homes _ many across the Congo river into Republic of Congo to the west, and in the north, into the Central African Republic.

Eckhard said Essy would look into the ``humanitarian, economic, political, social and security consequences,'' of the Congo war on both countries.

The conflict has drawn in a half-dozen countries, with Angola, Zimbabwe and Namibia backing the government of President Laurent Kabila and Rwanda and Uganda backing the rebels trying to oust Kabila from power.

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

Retirees to the rescue

December 1, 2000
Inside the Ring
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
Notes from the Pentagon.
http://www.washtimes.com/national/inring-200012121838.htm

The Army is so short on helicopter pilots it has sent a memo out to units telling them how to recall retired aviators to active duty and put them back in the cockpit.

"The purpose of this message is to provide policy and implementation guidance for recall to active duty available to retired commissioned and warrant officers who are qualified aviators," states a November memo from Army headquarters. The message, a copy of which we obtained, goes on to explain which ranks will be accepted as long as the person retired no later than Oct. 1, 1995. No one older than 62 need apply.

The aviator shortages come on top of another problem bedeviling Army aviation. Its fleet of attack, scout and transport helicopters is aging rapidly in the mission-crazy 1990s.

"If people are not convinced that Army aviation is in a crisis, the memo is evidence of the exodus of Army aviators from active duty service over the last few years," said one pilot, who asked not to be named. "They can't wait to get out and find another job. The ones that are staying, I dare say, would by a large percentage jump ship if they were offered a competitive salary."

The Army had no immediate comment yesterday.

Pentagon vote woes

The Pentagon inspector general is investigating problems with military absentee ballots following the Democrats' concerted effort in Florida to nullify hundreds of military votes - most cast for Gov. George W. Bush.

One place under scrutiny is the Department of Defense Federal Voting Assistance Program, which for many years was run by a senior Pentagon civilian. The office now is directed by Polli Brunelli. She declined to comment last week.

Every four years coinciding with presidential elections, the office issues a half-inch-thick manual that explains the requirements for military service members to vote in every state and U.S. territory. It also gives instructions to each of the military commands' voting officers to help them assist military voters.

We are told by Pentagon officials that overseas ballots lacking a postmark (and thus verification they were mailed before an election) is not a new mistake. It should have been addressed by the voting office sooner, the officials said.

"It appears that either there may not have been any such after-action dialogue with the states and territories or that this office failed their military customers in some other way," said one official. "This could and should be considered negligent."

Word is that the senior civilian who headed the Voting Office retired and that his deputy took over and "had problems" running the office.

"This seems to be a gross failure by the DoD to support the nation's sons and daughters who volunteer to go around the world to maintain our freedom," our informant said. "They should not be allowed to minimize this or to say it is a failure of the system and not of any particular person or office."

Democratic lawyers in Florida succeeded in nullifying scores of military ballots, some of which lacked a stamped postmark. Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said this week the problem may stem from the fact that ballots are sent postage-free and thus do not get stamped.

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen has ordered the inspector general to evaluate the entire overseas balloting system and make recommendations to improve it.

Missile defense office

The Clinton administration's aversion to missile defense has been reported extensively in this column.

During the early part of the administration, the White House clashed repeatedly with the Pentagon over efforts by arms controllers to limit emerging U.S. missile defenses in talks with the Russians aimed at expanding the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Then, despite growing missile threats, President Clinton in September rejected deployment of a national missile defense against long-range missile strikes. He based his decision on developmental problems and opposition from Russia and China.

Now, in the administration's final days, the Pentagon realized it needs a dedicated missile defense policy office, prompting numerous backers of the efforts to question what took so long.

John Harvey, a deputy assistant defense secretary, announced the new Office of Missile Defense Policy in a Nov. 3 memo. "Over the past several years," he wrote, "policy issues relating to missile defense have been a significant and increasing focus of activity within the Department of Defense, including in [office of the undersecretary of defense for policy]. This trend will continue with ongoing development and potential deployment of a national missile defense, together with increased interaction on missile defenses with NATO and Asian allies, Russia and other countries."

The new office, the memo says, will focus on "policy oversight, approval and coordination of matters related to missile defense in support of presidential guidance, national security policies and departmental policies, directives and relevant military plans." The new director is Peppi DeBiaso, currently in the office of strategy and threat reduction.

Disclosure of the memorandum led one U.S. government official, a critic of Clinton administration missile defense policies, to note: "It took them eight years to finally make up their minds, but I'm glad policy on missile defense will now be made in the Pentagon instead of in the Kremlin."

Women in combat

The Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services (DACOWITS) riled up Navy submariners last year. The Pentagon advisory group proposed the silent service break the all-male barrier by letting women officers serve on ballistic missile subs. The submarine community saw the recommendation as a foot-in-the-door maneuver to eventually open all submarines to women.

Now, the latest "working copy" of a pending DACOWITS report calls on the services to justify the department's ban on women in land combat.

The committee wants documents on how the policy is being enforced, any studies on women operating in a combat environment and "interpretation of the rule, especially as to how decisions are made to exclude women from positions and units."

DACOWITS, a group of civilians of both sexes, adds:

"U.S. military missions conducted throughout the world demonstrate that women have been exposed to hostile fire and to a high probability of direct physical contact with hostile force personnel while performing their duties. The direct ground combat exclusion rule impacts/restricts the career and promotional opportunities for women and could negatively impact readiness by precluding the services' use of qualified personnel.

"DACOWITS needs to be informed and to evaluate whether the direct ground combat exclusion rule and its current implementation remains compatible, consistent and appropriate to the strategies, the exigencies and needs of the U.S. military."

• Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough are syndicated columnists. Gertz can be reached at 202/636-3274 or by e-mail at gertz@twtmail.com. Scarborough can be reached at 202/636-3208 or by e-mail at scarbo@twtmail.com.

----

Army, Colo. Agree on Nerve Gas Plan

Associated Press
December 1, 2000 Filed at 10:37 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nerve-Gas.html

DENVER (AP) -- State and Army officials agreed Friday on a plan to destroy six ``bomblets,'' at least half containing deadly sarin nerve gas, that were found in a scrap metal heap at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal.

The plan calls for the canisters to be taken to a vapor-tight building that would have to be constructed at the 27-square-mile arsenal northeast of Denver. The bomblets would be placed in an oven-sized chamber inside the building, then cracked open with a small explosive charge. The nerve gas would then be neutralized with a caustic chemical.

``We believe that this provides the highest level of assurances that these bomblets will be disposed of as safely and as quickly as possible,'' Gov. Bill Owens said Friday.

He said the process could take five to seven weeks.

The first of the grapefruit-size bomblets was found by workers removing industrial waste from a scrap pile on Oct. 16. So far, three of the M-139 bomblets have been confirmed to contain sarin, the same chemical used in a Tokyo subway attack in 1995 that killed 12 people.

The arsenal is being converted into a wildlife refuge, but during the Cold War, sarin was manufactured there. The bomblets were designed to be carried in a battlefield tactical missile in clusters of 368. Each bomblet holds 1.3 pounds of sarin, designed to kill everyone within 900 feet.

Owens said at least one of the bomblets found had a serial number that identified it as a test model. He said the Army told him all the production bomblets had been accounted for.

The state and the Army have been at odds about the handling of the bomblets. Owens complained to Defense Secretary William Cohen, prompting a meeting Friday between the governor and Gen. John Coburn, commander of the Army Material Command.

Owens said state health and environmental experts would meet with Army officials next week to ensure the plan is sound. He said the Army also agreed to extensively search the area where the bomblets were found.

Residents living nearby have questioned whether the Army knows what other dangers might be buried there.

``I'll take their word they're going to do the best they, can but sooner or later something else will turn up. It always has,'' said Jeff Kanost, who has lived near the site since 1978.

---

Navy Plans Disarmament of Cole

Salt Lake Tribune
Friday, December 1, 2000
BY RENI WINTER KNIGHT RIDDER NEWS SERVICE
http://www.sltrib.com/12012000/nation_w/49522.htm

BILOXI, Miss. -- The expected arrival of the damaged USS Cole at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss., is only weeks away, but Navy and Ingalls officials are still tight-lipped about the ship's location and the date of its arrival.

Before the Cole is ready for extensive repairs to its hull that was damaged in an Oct. 12 terrorist attack in Aden, Yemen, it has to be disarmed and any spoiled food has to be removed. But officials won't say when or where it's going to happen.

"The time line is still being discussed as it moves on to Pascagoula, and I have not even seen that time line," said Mike Zitko, public affairs officer for the Navy Supervisor of Shipbuilding Conversion and Repair in Pascagoula. "We're discussing the time line, the rules of what's going on after the arrival, and a communication plan -- how we are going to communicate to the media and the public."

The plan at one time was for the ship to go to New Jersey for disarmament, said Den Knecht, vice president of industrial relations for Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula.

"The Navy hasn't announced a change," he said. "At this point, we know it's coming sometime in December, but we don't know when that's going to be. We won't start on the repairs until after we get back from the holidays Jan. 8."

The Navy has made no secret about the weapons that are on the Cole, which was battle-ready when it was attacked during a refueling stop. The weapons are listed on the Navy's USS Cole Web site.

The ship, an Arleigh Burke-class Aegis guided missile destroyer, is armed with nine weapons systems, including the MK-41 Vertical Launching System naval surface missile launcher. The MK-41 has multiple simultaneous war-fighting capabilities, including anti-air, anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare, ship self-defense and strike warfare.

The Cole also is fitted with the fully automatic .54-caliber MK-45 surface gun system, MK-46 and MK-50 torpedoes designed to attack high performance submarines, and the MK-15 Phalanx Close-In Weapons System, a quick-response, rapid-fire 20 mm gun system that gives Navy ships a defense against anti-ship missiles.

Representatives of Lockheed Martin, manufacturer of the MK-41 and other missile systems on the ship, won't say whether the Navy has asked for its assistance in removing them for the repairs.

"If we do help, we wouldn't be allowed to talk about it. That would be the responsibility of our customer," said James Fetig, Lockheed Martin media-relations director.

The ship's mess hall took the brunt of the explosion, which blasted a gaping hole in the hull. It is unclear exactly how much food remains aboard the ship and how much was spoiled as a result of the explosion or during the period immediately afterward, and before the ship's power had been restored.

Speculation about dangerous amounts of spoiled food harboring bacteria that could pose a health hazard is probably unfounded, said Lt. Jane Alexander, of the Navy office of public affairs at the Pentagon.

---

Navy Estimate To Repair Cole: $240M

Associated Press
December 1, 2000 Filed at 5:22 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Cole-Repairs.html
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsfri06.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Navy now believes it will cost about $240 million to repair and refit the USS Cole, the guided missile destroyer damaged by a terrorist bomb in Yemen on Oct. 12, killing 17 sailors.

A Navy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Friday that Congress has been informed that repair of the holed midsection of the Cole will cost $150 million to $170 million, and associated costs such as replacing damaged weapons, equipment and supplies will add another $70 million.

Shortly after the attack the Navy told Congress it thought repair costs would run about $150 million. It did not offer an estimate then of the cost to replace equipment and weapons.

The Cole cost about $1 billion when it was built in 1995.

The Cole, which stayed afloat in Aden harbor after the attack but was unable to move on its own, is being transported back to the United States aboard a Norwegian-owned heavy-lift ship, the Blue Marlin. Officials said the ship is to arrive at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss., in about 10 days. The repair work at Ingalls should take about one year.

The FBI is investigating who was behind the attack, and the Navy is looking into the conduct of the ship's crew and officers.

---

Pentagon Makes Further Cut in Anthrax Vaccination Program

New York Times
December 1, 2000
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/01/politics/01ANTH.html

WASHINGTON, Nov. 30 - For the second time in five months, the Pentagon is scaling back its troubled plan to inoculate all military personnel against anthrax because of dwindling supplies of the vaccine, senior military officials said today.

William S. Cohen, the secretary of defense, announced in late 1997 that all 2.4 million active and reserve military personnel would be vaccinated against the disease by 2003.

But in July, Mr. Cohen limited vaccinations to those most at risk to attack, in South Korea and the Middle East, because much of the nation's vaccine stockpile was found to have lost its potency.

Now the military will vaccinate only personnel in the Persian Gulf region because of continuing production delays at the nation's sole licensed plant for the vaccine.

Iraq and North Korea are believed to have stockpiles of anthrax that can be used in weapons. But Pentagon officials said today that they believed that the risk of an attack was greater in the Persian Gulf region.

"Given that Saddam Hussein has used chemical weapons in the past against Iran and against the Kurdish minority in his own country, we assess the risks to be greater in Iraq than we do right now in the Korean Peninsula," said Kenneth Bacon, the assistant secretary of defense for public information.

Nearly half a million military personnel have received full or partial immunization against anthrax since Mr. Cohen issued his 1997 order. Six vaccinations over 18 months are required to provide full protection.

Mr. Bacon said that the military had about 60,000 doses of the vaccine left, aside from an emergency stockpile. He said that the Pentagon would continue to administer about 5,000 doses a month, down from 17,000.

Anthrax bacteria usually afflict animals, especially sheep and cattle. But biological weapons disseminating the dry, odorless, tasteless anthrax spores can kill a victim in just days.

Since its inception, the program has been plagued by problems. At least 200 military personnel have refused the vaccine out of concerns about its safety. The refusals have caused some members of Congress to call for