NUCLEAR
Feds To Probe Uranium Trade
U.S. discovers uranium being channeled from Ukraine
Russia, Iran expand military ties
U.S. Watches Russian, Iran Armament
Russia, Iran open new chapter of military cooperation
Moscow in Unofficial Contacts With New U.S. Administration over NMD
Russian Discusses Arms Sales in Iran
To Bush on Russia: Forward, Not Back
IRAN: RUSSIAN ARMS SALES
Louis Leprince-Ringuet, French Physicist, Dies at 99
Caffeine and radiation
Clinton Statement on North Korea
Clinton won't go to North Korea, leaves further progress to Bush
Koreas Open Economic Talks
Clinton Won't Visit North Korea
Clinton Says He Will Not Visit N. Korea
Clinton Rules Out Visit to North Korea
No N. Korea trip for Clinton
Russian Warns Bush on Anti-Missile Shield
Moscow Warns Against Missile Shield
Russian Navy Returning to Atlantic
Repaired Ukraine reactor restarted
Bush's Pentagon Pick Is Missile-Shield Savvy
Bush Will Face Money Questions on U.S. Military
Schools, Not Shields
New Fuel Improves Proliferation Resistance Of Research Reactors
Killer Once Employed at MY
Radiation pills to be given to Perry neighbors
Officials respond to layoff questions
Former ORNL employee shares story of her dismissal
Officials respond to layoff questions
Rumsfeld Returns to Pentagon
Text of Bush's Press Conference
Bush Nominates Rumsfeld As Defense Secretary
Bush Names Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense
Bush names Rumsfeld as defense secretary
Bush Chooses Cold War Veteran As Defense Chief
Donald Rumsfeld Bio
MILITARY
Cuba, China Sign Military Cooperation Protocol
U.S., S. Korea OK troops rules
Russia says arms sales to Iran are legal
FRANCE: MITTERRAND STAYS IN JAIL
Mitterrand's son to stay in jail
Colombia gunmen abduct 8 people
Bush Could Get Tougher on Venezuela's Leader
Drug Aid at Home
FCC Slaps Anti-Drug TV Shows
Downey Pleads Innocent to Drug Charges
Nebraska
A Time to Plant Mines, a Time to Make Amends
Suu Kyi property court date set
Russian navy returning to Atlantic
Tsiklon 3 Booster Fails, Six Satellites Lost
Russia Loses Contact With Satellites After Launch
Russia Loses Six Satellites
Deadline awaits Clinton on world criminal court
Developing Nations Want UN Libya Sanctions Lifted
THE CLINTON LEGACY
Hawaii
WWII veterans sail 4,250 miles
OTHER
A Pact Against Oil Company Abuses
Metro Briefing
An Everglades Airport
States
Cyanide spill forces evacuation
Nassau Officer Held Liable in a Death Had a Record
S. Korean Police Break Up Protest
Cop's dummy partner not deductible
Arkansas
Police storm women's prison
Ex-Defense Secretary Seems to Be Bush Choice for C.I.A.
Peru Uses Internet to Hunt Former Spy Chief
Clinton signs intelligence budget
Germany arrests 4 terror suspects
ACTIVISTS
No Pardon for Peltier
Ohio
KOREAN BANK SIT-IN
Pacifica Foundation Locks WBAI Station Manager Out of Office
Herman Feshbach, Theorized on Nuclei of Atoms, Dies at 83
Having a ball
Israelis protest at Holy site
Czech TV programs halted by protest
Palme Prize awarded to U.S. lawyer
Report: Laid off Chinese protest
-------- NUCLEAR
Feds To Probe Uranium Trade
Associated Press
December 28, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Uranium-Trade.html
http://www.ohio.com/bj/news/ohio/docs/012582.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal government is investigating whether European companies are dumping cheap enriched uranium illegally onto the U.S. market.
The Commerce Department released a memo Thursday that it intends to scrutinize sales of low enriched uranium from France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
At issue is whether fair market forces or illegal, unfair competition has led U.S. nuclear power plants to increase oversees purchases of enriched uranium.
U.S. Enrichment Corp., which operates government-owned enrichment plants in Piketon, Ohio, and Paducah, Ky., filed a trade complaint this month that prompted the investigation.
It alleged Eurodif SA, controlled by the French government, and Urenco Ltd., a British-Dutch-German consortium, were pricing enriched uranium below their cost of production and, in the case of Eurodif, below prices charged in its home market. Both are illegal under U.S. law.
``We are pleased that the department has chosen to initiate an investigation. We believe we have presented a strong, compelling case that Eurodif and Urenco continue to dump enriched uranium into the U.S. market,'' USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle said Thursday.
USEC Inc., the only American producer of enriched uranium, sells finished uranium and acts as the middleman for sales of uranium recycled from former Soviet warheads, a program designed to keep bomb-grade uranium from terrorists.
Both the Commerce Department and the U.S. International Trade Commission are investigating the allegations.
The Commerce Department will determine whether dumping has taken place. The commission is investigating claims of material injury resulting from any unfairly traded imports. If both agencies make a finding against the companies, punitive trade duties could be imposed.
----
U.S. discovers uranium being channeled from Ukraine to Iraq, Iran
World Tribune
Thursday, December 28, 2000
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
http://www.worldtribune.com/Archive-2000/ss-nuclear-12-28.html
LONDON - The United States is trying to block the flow of uranium from Ukraine to Iraq and Iran, a prominent Arab daily said.
The London-based A-Sharq Al Awsat daily reported on Wednesday that the United States is monitoring what the newspaper termed a channel of uranium and plutonium from Ukraine to Iraq and Iran. The flow of the nuclear material is said to be passing through Bulgaria and Turkey.
The newspaper said the United States was informed of the channel after the arrest by Bulgarian authorities of a Turkish national identified as Hani Yukazan. Yukazan was said to have been in possession of nuclear equipment when he was arrested on May 29, Middle East Newsline reported.
Later, the suspect was said to have provided details of the flow of uranium from Ukraine through Bulgaria and to Iraq.
A Bulgarian source told the newspaper that weapons grade material produced in Russia was found by custom authorities.
The United States and Bulgaria have been cooperating in stopping the flow of uranium, plutonium and other nuclear material from the former Soviet Union through eastern and central Europe. The newspaper said Washington has sent experts from top U.S. laboratories to examine the seized material in Bulgaria.
The flow of uranium through Bulgaria was a leading topic on the agenda of CIA director George Tenet during his visit to Sofia in August. The CIA has warned that Iraq, in the absence of United Nations inspectors, is believed to have resumed its nuclear weapons and missile programs.
For their part, Bulgarian officials have acknowledged that the country is being used as a route for the flow of uranium to Middle East countries.
---
Russia, Iran expand military ties
'New phase' of cooperation likely to anger Washington
MSNBC
12/28/00
http://www.msnbc.com/news/508283.asp?cp1=1
TEHRAN, Iran, Dec. 28 - Iran and Russia said on Thursday they had agreed on broad military cooperation and declared that a 1995 Russia-U.S. deal that prevented Moscow from selling conventional arms to Iran was effectively dead. The announcement was likely to anger Washington, which has put pressure on Russia not to sell arms to the Islamic republic.
"IT WAS agreed that a new phase of military and technical cooperation would begin between the two sides," Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev told journalists at a joint news conference with his Iranian counterpart Ali Shamkhani.
The ministers said that the deal made in 1995 between Russia and the United States, in which Russia had agreed not to sell conventional arms to Iran, was no longer a factor.
"The 1995 agreement has been buried by history," Shamkhani said as a tired-looking Sergeyev looked on. "It has been proven today that independent countries will choose their partners without taking into account extraneous issues."
Russia alarmed Washington by announcing last month that it was abandoning the 1995 pledge not to sell tanks and other battlefield weapons to Iran. Washington, which accuses Tehran of sponsoring terrorism, is trying to persuade Moscow to change its mind and has threatened economic sanctions.
The United States and other countries also have raised concerns that Russia's construction of a nuclear power plant in Iran could give it access to materials and knowledge for making nuclear weapons. Both Moscow and Tehran have denied the claim.
Shamkhani said Iran and Russia shared a common security viewpoint because of NATO expansion, the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan and increased Western influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia.
He said those issues had caused the two sides to "develop and deepen long-term security and Defense cooperation," including the training of Iranian military officers in the Russian federation.
But Iran and Russia did not discuss sales of specific military hardware during Sergeyev's three-day visit, the first by a Russian Defense minister since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, Shamkhani said.
"The general agreement is to cooperate in all defensive issues because of the common understanding between the two countries. Against such a background, there was no need to discuss specific items."
HOMEGROWN MISSILE TECHNOLOGY
Shamkhani said Iran's missile capabilities were totally dependent on domestically produced hardware, technology and know-how.
"Our domestic potential and capabilities are strong compared to the technology of eastern Europe," he said. "We do not need foreign assistance in developing missile technology."
Shamkhani said it was Iran's natural right to enter space and Iran was developing a non-military missile, the Shahab-4, to carry satellites into orbit.
"You will learn of its success the day we test-fire it," he said. "Just as you learnt of the success of the Shahab-3 (intermediate range ballistic missile) when it was test fired.
"We are producing solid fuel (for missile propulsion) in Iran," Shamkhani told Reuters after the news conference. "We are producing the raw materials for solid fuel ourselves."
"In the Defense sector, we are determined to elevate Iran to the position it deserves. We will make every effort to do so."
---
U.S. Watches Russian, Iran Armament
Associated Press
December 28, 2000 Filed at 7:14 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-US-Russia-Iran.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States is disturbed by reports that Russia is prepared to sell Iran missiles, submarines and other equipment, the State Department said Thursday.
``It's not sufficient for Russia to simply call this type of equipment quote `defensive,''' spokesman Philip Reeker said. ``Some of the equipment reportedly being discussed between the Russian defense minister and his Iranian counterpart would pose a serious threat'' to security interests of the United States and others.
Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev and Iranian Adm. Ali Shamkhani said in Tehran as they signed several agreements that a new chapter in military cooperation had been opened between their countries.
Russia alarmed Washington by announcing last month that it was abandoning a 1995 pledge not to sell tanks and other battlefield weapons to Iran. Washington, which accuses Tehran of sponsoring terrorism, is trying to persuade Moscow to change its mind and has threatened economic sanctions.
On Wednesday, Sergeyev said Russia will abide by international agreements on arms sales to Iran, an apparent reference to international nuclear and other nonproliferation agreements. The Russian government has said it will not supply hardware capable of creating or delivering weapons of mass destruction.
Reeker said the United States will continue to watch closely the evolving military relationship between Russia and Iran and is ready to impose sanctions if it were to determine Russia is making unacceptable weapons sales to Iran.
He said the United States would continue talks with Russia aimed at keeping in place a freeze on certain Russian military sales to Iran as agreed earlier this month by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.
---
Russia, Iran open new chapter of military cooperation
CNN
December 28, 2000
http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/12/28/iran.russia.ap/index.html
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- The visit of Russia's defense minister to Iran opened a new chapter of military cooperation between the two countries and led to several agreements, he and his Iranian counterpart said here Thursday.
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/maps/iran.tehran.jpg
Russia's Igor Sergeyev said the agreements included training Iranian army officers in Russia, and the "exchange of information about the military structures, military doctrine and general threats to both countries."
Iran's Rear Adm. Ali Shamkhani said Iran and Russia had reached a "historic" point.
"The two countries have made concrete decisions to expand and deepen all kinds of military, security and defense relations on the long term," Shamkhani said. "This will guarantee peace and stability to the region."
Sergeyev, the first Russian defense minister to visit Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, held talks with senior Iranian political and military officials, including President Mohammed Khatami and Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi. Khatami described the visit of the military delegation as "an important landmark" in relations between the two countries.
The Russian official discussed among, other things, the situation in Afghanistan and security issues in the region.
Both countries are opposed to the Taliban, the Muslim fundamentalist militia that controls 95 percent of Afghanistan, which borders both countries.
The visit came amid American pressure on Russia not to sell arms to the Islamic republic.
Russia alarmed Washington by announcing last month that it was abandoning a 1995 pledge not to sell tanks and other battlefield weapons to Iran. Washington, which accuses Tehran of sponsoring terrorism, is trying to persuade Moscow to change its mind and has threatened economic sanctions.
On Wednesday, Sergeyev said his country will abide by international agreements concerning arms sales to Iran, an apparent reference to international nuclear and other nonproliferation agreements. The Russian government has said it will not supply any hardware capable of creating or delivering weapons of mass destruction.
The United States and other countries also have raised concerns that Russia's construction of a nuclear power plant in Iran could give it access to materials and knowledge that could be used in making nuclear weapons. Both Moscow and Tehran have denied the claim.
Sergeyev also visited the Organization of Aerospace Industry of Iran, where he focused on learning about Iran's missile systems. He was to leave Iran late Thursday after a visit to Iran's Planes Industries factory in the central city of Isfahan.
Iran, which has declared itself self-sufficient in missiles production, has built and tested several missiles, including the Shahab-3, which has a range of 1,300 kilometers (810 miles). Washington denounced a July test of the Shahab-3, which it said could reach Israel or U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.
Iran also has built its own tanks, armored personnel carriers and a fighter plane.
---
Moscow in Unofficial Contacts With New U.S. Administration over NMD
Russia Today
Dec 28, 2000
http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=238174§ion=default
MOSCOW -- (Agence France Presse) Moscow said Wednesday it has begun unofficial contacts with the incoming U.S. administration on Washington's contested plans to deploy a national missile defense (NMD) system, the Interfax news agency reported.
Foreign ministry chief spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said that Russia was "open to dialogue" about strategic stability issues, but insisted that it would not drop its opposition to the NMD scheme.
"Russia's... attitude towards NMD is perfectly clear: such a system is clearly probihited by the ABM Treaty and therefore would destroy it and the entire system of nuclear disarmament treaties," he said.
Moscow has so far rejected Washington's proposal to amend the cornerstone 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty to allow for the construction of the 60-billion-dollar defense system, which would fend off threats from so-called "rogue states" Iran, Iraq and North Korea.
Colin Powell, nominated as the new U.S. secretary of state under Republican President-elect George Bush, has spoken out in favor of deploying the NMD.
Moscow warns that abandoning ABM would trigger a new arms race, and has threatened in response to tear up the START-I and START-II nuclear disarmament deals.
The foreign ministry spokesman recalled that Moscow had proposed a "radical" reduction of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals to less than 1,500 warheads each.
"We hope to begin concrete discussions on our proposals and the U.S. counter-proposals at negotiations with the new U.S. administration in the near future," said Yakovenko.
Analysts have suggested that cash-strapped Russia, which finds it hard to maintain its costly and aging nuclear arsenal, might agree to amend the ABM treaty in return for slashing warhead levels.
---
Russian Discusses Arms Sales in Iran
Washington Post
Thursday, December 28, 2000; Page A16
Associated Press
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57271-2000Dec27?language=printer
TEHRAN -- Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeyev said his country will abide by international agreements concerning arms sales to Iran but added that these do not preclude some arms deals, the Iranian state news agency reported.
Making the first visit by a Russian defense minister to Iran since the Islamic revolution of 1979, Sergeyev met with Iranian military officials and said the two countries' positions on arms deals are close, the agency said.
Sergeyev met later with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, who described the visit as "an important landmark" in relations between the two countries, the news service said. The United States has vigorously opposed any Russian arms sales to Iran.
---
To Bush on Russia: Forward, Not Back
New York Times
December 28, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/28/opinion/L28RUS.html
To the Editor:
Re "A New Look at Russia" (Week in Review, Dec. 24):
As an American working with Russians to build a civil society and a market economy, I feel offended by President-elect George W. Bush's focus on cold-war security issues as the means to work with Russia.
Reversing President Clinton's focus on Russian civil society and market reform will not result in what Condoleezza Rice, Mr. Bush's choice for national security adviser, calls her hope for "a more realistic and a more fruitful relationship with Russia." The open discussions on security were possible because of the intensive contact with all sectors of Russian society.
Treating Russia as part of Europe in the State Department, abrogating the Antiballistic Missile Treaty and rattling sabers over missile defense systems will only create impossible conditions for a market economy, increased trade and the protection of civil liberties and human rights in Russia.
SARAH TISCH Washington, Dec. 24, 2000 The writer is an economic development adviser.
---
New York Times
December 28, 2000
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/28/world/28BRIE.html?pagewanted=all
MIDDLE EAST
IRAN: RUSSIAN ARMS SALES Russia's defense minister tried to allay American concerns over the Kremlin's latest plans to sell arms to Iran, saying during a visit to Tehran that the sales would not break international accords or work "to the prejudice of any third country." American officials have warned against transferring nuclear or advanced missile technology to Iran; Russia says it would sell only defensive arms. Michael Wines (NYT)
-------- france
Louis Leprince-Ringuet, French Physicist, Dies at 99
New York Times
December 28, 2000
By WOLFGANG SAXON
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/28/world/28RING.html
Prof. Louis Leprince-Ringuet, a French nuclear physicist who was the first to spot evidence of a new type of subatomic particle, died Saturday at his home in Paris, just three months shy of his 100th birthday.
Professor Leprince-Ringuet was one of the world's leading researchers in particle physics and cosmic rays, high-energy particles that slam into the earth from outer space. An experimental physicist, he worked to puzzle out what cosmic rays are made of - primarily protons, electrons and the nuclei of light atoms - and to unlock the many mysteries those rays hold to this day.
In 1944 he and another French physicist, Michel l'Héritier, published an article describing evidence of a new subatomic particle mixed with the cosmic rays. The particle that they observed was too heavy to be an electron, but too light to be a proton or neutron, the usual building blocks of matter. It is likely that the particle was what was later called a meson.
Like the proton and neutron (the constituents of atomic nuclei) mesons are made of smaller building blocks known as quarks. But protons and neutrons each contain three quarks; mesons contain only two.
Professor Leprince-Ringuet wrote enthusiastically about his research high up in the Swiss Alps. An English version of his book "Cosmic Rays," which was published in 1950, was described in The New York Times Book Review as "an informal, readable account of one of the most important fields of modern physics."
He wrote several more books about celebrated inventors, discoveries of the 20th century, the atom and human society as well as the phenomenon of electricity. In the 1950's he also helped draft a system of symbols for the various particles known to strike the earth.
Professor Leprince-Ringuet, who was born in Alès, France, and studied engineering, worked in telecommunications and at an X-ray laboratory in Paris before being named a professor of physics at the École Polytechnique in 1936. Early in his career he knew or worked with scientists like Marie Curie and Albert Einstein.
He later headed the nuclear physics department at the Collège de France and served on the French Atomic Energy Commission and CERN, the European Center for Nuclear Research. He was a member of the French Academy and the Academy of Sciences, and a past president of the French Physics Society.
His wife, the former Jelanne Motte, died 10 years ago. They had seven children.
President Jacques Chirac said of his death: "Our country has lost one of its greatest minds." Others noted how much he had looked forward to reaching 100.
-------- india / pakistan
Caffeine and radiation
Four-minute warning
Thu, 28 Dec 2000 10:40:17 -0800
Rob Edwards
DRINKING COFFEE could protect people from radioactivity, according to scientists in India who have found that mice given caffeine survive otherwise lethal doses of radiation.
A team from the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Bombay injected 471 mice with varying amounts of caffeine and then exposed them to 7.5 grays of gamma radiation--usually a lethal dose. But 25 days later, 70 per cent of the mice given 80 milligrams of caffeine per kilogram of body weight one hour before radiation exposure were still alive. By contrast, all 196 of the mice not given caffeine and exposed to the same dose of radiation had died.
Higher doses of caffeine--100 milligrams per kilogram--also led to the majority of the mice surviving over the same period, as did administering the drug just half an hour before irradiation. But all those given a lower dose of 50 milligrams per kilogram died, along with mice that were only injected with caffeine after they had been irradiated.
Kachadpillill C. George, who led the research, points to earlier studies which suggest that caffeine--1,3,7-trimethylxanthine--reacts with the hydroxyl radicals produced when cells are irradiated. This, he says, could prevent the radicals from damaging cells and shutting down vital bodily functions, such as the production of blood cells in bone marrow. Bone marrow failure was the main cause of death among the irradiated mice.
George suggests that a better understanding of the protection offered by caffeine might lead to improvements in the way that radiation is used to treat cancer. His study is published in the latest Journal of Radiological Protection (vol 19, p 171).
Other scientists are cautious about interpreting George's results, however. Peter O'Neill, a radiation researcher from the Medical Research Council's Radiation and Genome Stability Unit at Harwell in Oxfordshire, agrees that caffeine reacts with hydroxyl radicals. "But it may require very high concentrations in order to protect cells from these radicals," he says.
A cup of fresh coffee typically contains between 80 and 100 milligrams of caffeine while instant coffee contains slightly less, according to Audrey Baker of the European Coffee Science Information Centre in Oxfordshire. A person weighing 70 kilograms might therefore need to drink at least 100 cups to receive the same dose as the mice. However, George believes that smaller amounts of caffeine might protect people from lower doses of radiation than those used in his experiment.
George is aware of the difficulty of extrapolating his data from mice to humans. "But at the same time," he says, "it does suggest that coffee might have some beneficial effects in protecting against radiation."
From New Scientist, 26 June 1999
-------- korea
Clinton Statement on North Korea
US Newswire
28 Dec 12:42
http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/1228-110.html
Clinton Statement: North Korea
To: National Desk
Contact: White House Press Office, 202-347-2770
WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 -- The following statement was released today by the White House:
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT
For several years, we have been working with our East Asian allies to improve relations with North Korea in a way that strengthens peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. We have made substantial progress, including the 1994 Agreed Framework, which froze North Korea's production of plutonium for nuclear weapons under ongoing international inspections, and the 1999 moratorium on long-range missile tests. I believe new opportunities are opening for progress toward greater stability and peace on the Korean Peninsula. However, I have determined that there is not enough time while I am President to prepare the way for an agreement with North Korea that advances our national interest and provides the basis for a trip by me to Pyongyang. Let me emphasize that I believe this process of engagement with North Korea, in coordination with South Korea and Japan, holds great promise and that the United States should continue to build on the progress we have made.
Our policy toward North Korea has been based on a strong framework developed at my request by former Secretary of Defense William Perry and carried out by Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Special Advisor Wendy Sherman. We have coordinated each step forward with our allies, the Republic of Korea and Japan. The engagement policy of President Kim Dae Jung and his personal leadership have spurred this process and earned the World's admiration. Taken together, our efforts have reduced tensions on the Korean Peninsula, improved prospects for enduring peace and stability in the region, and opened an opportunity to substantially reduce, if not eliminate, the threat posed by North Korean missile development and exports.
This past October, when DPRK Chairman Kim Jong Il invited me to visit his country, and later when Secretary Albright traveled to Pyongyang, Chairman Kim put forward a serious proposal concerning his missile program. Since then, we have discussed with North Korea proposals to eliminate its missile export program as well as to halt further missile development. While there is insufficient time for me to complete the work at hand, there is sufficient promise to continue this effort. The United States has a clear national interest in seeing it through.
---
Clinton won't go to North Korea, leaves further progress to Bush
Fort Worth Star Telegram
Updated: Thursday, Dec. 28, 2000 at 17:00 CST
By Larry Margasak Associated Press
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/doc/1047/1:POLITICS43A/1:POLITICS43A1228100.html
WASHINGTON -- President Clinton will not travel to North Korea before the end of his term, leaving further progress in establishing an accord with the communist nation to his successor, George W. Bush.
"I believe the next administration will be able to consummate this agreement," Clinton said. "I expect visits back and forth. I think a lot of things will happen" that will "make the world a much safer place."
Clinton said at a news conference that there is not enough time left in his presidency -- just three weeks -- to prepare and execute the trip "in an appropriate manner."
The United States has been seeking an agreement to curb North Korean missile production and development.
In an earlier statement, the president explained that there would have to be progress toward an agreement "that advances our national interest" before he made such a trip.
The president insisted he had made a "lot of progress" with North Korea. "I expect the next administration to build on it," he said.
Clinton said he had talked extensively with Bush about North Korea and the Republican president-elect did not influence his decision not to make the trip.
"We had a very, very good talk about it, and he did not discourage it at all," Clinton said. "It would not be fair to put that on him."
Clinton said he briefed Bush on his administration's efforts with North Korea and there were also other high-level discussions with Colin Powell, Bush's nominee for secretary of state, and his designated national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice.
Clinton said that with the leadership of South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and the success of talks with the North Koreans on the nuclear issue, further progress can be made.
The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Il, invited Clinton in October and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright traveled to the communist nation for talks with Kim.
The president said Kim "put forward a serious proposal concerning his missile program. Since then, we have discussed with North Korea proposals to eliminate its missile export program as well as to halt further missile development."
Clinton said engagement with North Korea, in coordination with South Korea and Japan, "holds great promise and that the United States should continue to build on the progress we have made."
He also praised the engagement policy of South Korea's president.
Clinton said he told Bush "that further progress could be made and that it might just have to be something that was done when he became president."
Distributed by The Associated Press (AP)
---
Koreas Open Economic Talks
Associated Press
December 28, 2000 Filed at 2:38 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Koreas-Economic-Talks.html
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- South Korea and electricity-starved North Korea opened three days of talks in the North's capital Thursday on ways of boosting economic cooperation.
The talks, the first high-level government dialogue between the sides to focus solely on economic matters, came as South Korean officials said Thursday that 307 North Koreans defected to the South this year, more than double the 148 who fled the hunger-stricken Communist state last year.
The isolated Stalinist North's food shortages are so severe that its own government has admitted that at least 220,000 people have died of hunger since 1995.
South Korean Vice Finance and Economy Minister Lee Jung-jae and his aides arrived in Pyongyang on Wednesday for the talks. The North Korean delegation was led by Pak Chang Ryon, vice chairman of the national planning committee.
In the opening session, North Korea proposed that the first topic should be its earlier request for 500,000 kilowatts of electricity from South Korea, South Korean pool reports said. South Korean officials in Seoul said the meeting is unlikely to reach agreement on the request.
North Korea's energy shortage is believed to be severe. Power failures are common even in Pyongyang, and travelers have reported seeing public buildings and homes without heating and electricity in winter.
In 1994, a U.S.-led consortium agreed to build nuclear reactors in North Korea in exchange for the North's freezing its suspect nuclear weapons program. Completion of the first light-water reactor had been scheduled for 2003, but delays have pushed back the date by several years.
Other items on the agenda in Pyongyang include reconnecting a cross-border railway, building an industrial complex in the North close to the border with South Korea and jointly erecting a dam on a river shared by the Koreas to prevent flooding, pool reports said.
Meanwhile, North Korea failed to respond to a South Korean proposal to hold a military dialogue Thursday at the border village of Panmunjom.
After a third round of working-level military talks last week, Seoul had proposed holding another round to discuss cooperation for building the railway and a four-lane highway across the sides' heavily fortified border. The North gave no explanation for its failure to respond.
In earlier talks, the two Koreas discussed safeguards to prevent accidental clashes between their two militaries, which have maintained an uneasy truce since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.
The Korean border has been tightly sealed since the war. There is no regular means of cross-border travel or communication for ordinary Korean citizens on opposite sides of the divide.
---
Clinton Won't Visit North Korea
New York Times
December 28, 2000 Filed at 6:12 p.m. ET
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Clinton-North-Korea.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ending more than two months of suspense, President Clinton said Thursday he will not make a presidential visit to North Korea and is looking to his successor for progress in curbing the communist country's missile program.
Clinton told reporters at the White House he informed President-elect George W. Bush that he would not make the trip, which would have been a historic first, because in his three remaining weeks he lacked the time ``to make it right.''
In a statement, Clinton also noted ``sufficient promise'' in the talks his administration has held with Pyongyang on development and export of missiles to continue the effort. ``The United States has a clear national interest in seeing it through,'' he said.
``I believe the next administration will be able to consummate this agreement,'' Clinton said. ``I expect visits back and forth. I think a lot of things will happen'' that will ``make the world a much safer place.''
North Korea has been a focus of Clinton's foreign policy. In 1994, the two sides negotiated an agreement to freeze North Korea's nuclear program in exchange for safer reactors and energy supplies from the United States, Japan and South Korea.
Last week, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who visited Pyongyang in October, cited a ``genuine possibility'' that North Korea would agree to limit its production and export of missiles and missile technology.
One reason the United States is considering construction of an anti-missile shield was unease over North Korea's missile strength. Clinton deferred to Bush a decision on whether to begin activities toward deployment of the defense system. The next president favors a far more extensive and expensive program than the Clinton administration envisioned.
The president said he has made a ``lot of progress'' with North Korea. ``I expect the next administration to build on it,'' he said.
Clinton said he has talked extensively with Bush about North Korea, and the Republican president-elect did not influence Clinton's decision not to make the trip.
``We had a very, very good talk about it, and he did not discourage it at all,'' Clinton said. ``It would not be fair to put that on him.''
Clinton said North Korean leader Kim Jong Il ``put forward a serious proposal concerning his missile program,'' and the United States had discussed with Pyongyang proposals to eliminate the export program and halt further missile development.
Richard Solomon, a former chief of the State Department's Asia bureau, said the administration ``deserves real credit for advancing the process of opening contact with North Korea in close coordination with our ally in the South (Korea) and other key regional players like Japan.''
Solomon, president of the U.S. Institute for Peace, said North Korea apparently was not prepared to agree to the kind of restraints on missile exports that would have justified a presidential trip.
``From that perspective, the president deserves credit for his restraint as well as for the administration's progress in advancing a North-South dialogue'' in Korea, Solomon said in an interview.
At the Heritage Foundation, Larry Wortzel, director of the research group's Asia program, said two conditions should be met before a U.S. president should visit North Korea.
Kim Jong Il should go to Seoul to reciprocate South Korean President's Kim Dae-jung's visit to Pyongyang, and the state of war should be ended on the Korean peninsula, Wortzel said.
``The president has had a tendency to take discussion and form as a substitute for real substance, and he was falling into that trap here,'' Wortzel said in an interview. ``The North Koreans are very good at that stuff.''
Peter Rodman, director of national security studies at the Nixon Center, said the incoming Bush administration has ``very different policy views'' on North Korea, ``and that ought to inhibit the outgoing administration from dramatic initiatives'' like a presidential trip to North Korea.
The Republican position has been much more skeptical of North Korea and generally critical of the Clinton adminstration's policy in the past, Rodman said in an interview.
---
Clinton Says He Will Not Visit N. Korea
Yahoo News
Top Stories News
Thursday December 28 4:39 PM ET
By Deborah Charles
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001228/ts/korea_usa_dc_7.html
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/world/28WIRE-KOREA.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Clinton (news - web sites) said on Thursday he had decided not to visit North Korea (news - web sites) before leaving office on Jan. 20 because there was not enough time to prepare for a useful agreement between the two countries.
``I believe new opportunities are opening for progress toward greater stability and peace on the Korean peninsula,'' Clinton said in a statement.
``However, I have determined that there is not enough time while I am president to prepare the way for an agreement with North Korea that advances our national interest and provides the basis for a trip by me to Pyongyang.''
Madeleine Albright (news - web sites) made the first visit by a U.S. secretary of state to communist North Korea in October.
Clinton had since expressed an interest in becoming the first U.S. president to travel to the Stalinist state, hoping to seal a deal under which Pyongyang would stop producing and selling ballistic missiles in exchange for foreign assistance in launching satellites.
One of the world's most isolated countries, North Korea has opened up somewhat since South Korean (news - web sites) President Kim Dae-jung (news - web sites) took office in February 1998 and embarked on his ``sunshine policy'' of engagement with the North.
Clinton said he had great hopes of continued improvement in the U.S. relationship with North Korea.
``Let me emphasize that I believe this process of engagement with North Korea, in coordination with South Korea and Japan, holds great promise and that the United States should continue to build on the progress we have made,'' Clinton said.
Bush Played No Role In Decision
In a news conference later, Clinton said President-elect George W. Bush (news - web sites) did not have any influence on his decision.
Clinton said he briefed Bush during a meeting earlier this month on what his administration was doing to improve ties with North Korea.
``But I also told him that I wouldn't take the trip unless I thought that I had time to organize it and devote the time to it to make it right,'' Clinton said.
``... I was convinced that because of the leadership of President Kim in South Korea and because of the very good talks that we have had with the North Koreans and the success we've had now for six years on the nuclear issue, that further progress could be made, and that it might just have to be something that was done when he became president,'' he said.
Under a 1994 agreement, North Korea agreed to freeze a nuclear program suspected of developing atomic weapons in exchange for two light water reactors and free supplies of heavy fuel oil.
Some Republican congressional leaders had warned Clinton against pushing ahead with the trip in the final weeks of his administration. During the presidential campaign, some Bush aides also had expressed concern over a rushed trip.
When asked at a separate news conference if he supported Clinton's decision, Bush said: ``On all matters between now and the inauguration, the country must speak with the one voice. The president made the decision he thought was important.''
Clinton said the United States has coordinated each step forward in North Korea with South Korea and Japan.
``Taken together, our efforts have reduced tensions on the Korean peninsula, improved prospects for enduring peace and stability in the region, and opened an opportunity to substantially reduce, if not eliminate, the threat posed by North Korean missile development and exports,'' the president said.
Clinton said the United States had a ``clear national interest'' in following up on talks to halt further missile development in North Korea.
---
Clinton Rules Out Visit to North Korea
New York Times
December 28, 2000
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/28/world/28CND-KOREA.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 - President Clinton said today that he had decided not to visit North Korea before the end of his term next month because he lacked sufficient time to put together a deal ending the country's nuclear missile program.
While Mr. Clinton said he made the decision after evaluating progress in last-minute talks with the secretive North Korean government, and not because of any pressure from the incoming Bush administration, Mr. Clinton's efforts to strike a last-minute deal with the North Korean government was clearly a source of tension with Mr. Bush and his aides.
Mr. Bush's advisers and Republicans in Congress had warned against tying their hands with an agreement that Mr. Bush would be left to execute - and it was unclear whether the new administration would even honor an agreement. But Mr. Clinton's decision today could well indicate a long pause in an intense effort to bring North Korea out of the family of rogue states. It could take a year or more, some White House officials and members of Congress say, before the new Administration has reassessed the new relationship with the North.
North Korea did offer to cease exports of missiles and related technologies, and there was discussion of freezing the development of new missiles, a senior Administration official said today. But the talks hung up on questions of verification and whether to destroy existing missile stocks, the official said.
"We've made a lot of progress with the North Koreans," Mr. Clinton said. "But I concluded that I did not have sufficient time to put the trip together and to execute the trip in an appropriate manner in the days remaining.
---
No N. Korea trip for Clinton
USA Today
12/28/00- Updated 06:23 PM ET
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncsthu04.htm
WASHINGTON - President Clinton, focusing his remaining days in office on trying to reach a Middle East peace agreement, has decided not to make a historic visit to North Korea. "We've made a lot of progress with the North Koreans," Clinton told a news conference Thursday. "But I concluded that I did not have sufficient time to put the trip together and to execute the trip in an appropriate manner in the days remaining."
A senior White House official, explaining the decision before the official announcement, said the time devoted to the Middle East had been a factor as well as the prolonged hiatus in deciding the result of the presidential election. The Clinton administration wanted to brief its successor before going ahead with such a controversial trip, the official said.
At his news conference, Clinton said he had spoken to President-elect Bush on the negotiations to limit North Korea's missile program and Bush "did not discourage" a trip.
According to U.S. officials, much progress was made toward an agreement during Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's trip to North Korea in October - the highest level visit by an American to the former U.S. foe - as well as subsequent talks in Malaysia between experts from the two sides.
But U.S. officials said more work was needed to complete a deal curbing missile development and exports in return for foreign launches of three North Korean satellites. Another series of negotiations would have been required to complete work on verification procedures and on an agreement to reduce the North's existing missile stockpiles, the officials said.
Some Republicans have criticized the negotiations, concerned about possible transfer of militarily useful technology and not trusting a country run by a regime that National Security adviser Samuel Berger called in a recent article for Foreign Affairs "the most perfectly constituted totalitarian society on the planet."
"We have been spared another agreement at least as problemmatical as the nuclear deal," said Henry Sokolski, executive director of the Non-Proliferaiton Policy Education Center. He was referring to a 1994 accord that froze North Korean nuclear weapons development in return for Western energy aid.
Douglas Paal, president of the Asia Pacific Policy Center, said he expects the incoming Republican administration "to take a slightly more patient approach. There was a sense that we were getting ahead" of South Korea, which has sought confidence building measures dealing with conventional weapons to lessen tensions on the world's last Cold War frontier.
Paal and others have suggested that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who hosted South Korean president Kim Dae Jung last summer, should pay a return visit to South Korea before a U.S. president goes to North Korea for the first time.
The Clinton administration has stressed nonproliferaiton in dealing with North Korea, a bankrupt socialist state whose major hard currency earner is weaponry. North Korea is the world's leading exporter of missiles, with clients including Pakistan, Iran and Libya. In 1998, the North Koreans stunned the world by launching a three-stage ballistic missile over Japan, indicating an ability to build a weapon that could strike the continental United States.
U.S. officials briefed Secretary of State designate Colin Powell and incoming National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice on the elements of the agreement two weeks ago.
"I believe that the next administration will be able to consummate this agreement," Clinton said. "And I think it will make the world a much safer place."
-------- russia
Russian Warns Bush on Anti-Missile Shield
International Heralf Tribune
Thursday, December 28, 2000
Reuters
http://www.iht.com/articles/5624.htm
MOSCOW The head of the Russian nuclear rocket force warned Wednesday that Moscow would respond to any unilateral move by the incoming administration of George W. Bush to deploy a national missile defense shield without Russia's consent.
The warning came from General Vladimir Yakovlev, who commands the Strategic Rocket Force.
"I am afraid that if that happens, then positive initiatives will, unfortunately, be lost," the Interfax news agency quoted General Yakovlev as saying. "Then we will simply be forced to speak in a different language and a different tone of voice."
Moscow has steadfastly refused to amend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which bans missile shields, saying it would undermine Russia's own deterrent and provoke a new arms race that would include China.
---
Moscow Warns Against Missile Shield
Washington Post
Thursday, December 28, 2000; Page A16
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A57271-2000Dec27?language=printer
MOSCOW -- Russia would respond to any unilateral move by the incoming U.S. administration to deploy a national missile defense shield without Kremlin acquiescence, the head of the nuclear missile force said.
"I am afraid that if that happens, then positive initiatives will, unfortunately, be lost," the Interfax news agency quoted Gen. Vladimir Yakovlev as saying. "Then we will simply be forced to speak in a different language and a different tone of voice," Yakovlev said.
His comments appeared to be a direct response to assertions by Secretary of State-designate Colin Powell, who has voiced support for a national missile defense. Outgoing President Clinton deferred a decision on deployment of the missile shield, saying his successor should make the choice. Moscow has steadfastly refused to amend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which bans such systems.
---
Russian Navy Returning to Atlantic
Associated Press
December 28, 2000 Filed at 2:08 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-Navy.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- The Russian Navy will return to the world stage next year, sailing to the Atlantic and Indian oceans and the Mediterranean for the first time in years, a top naval official said Thursday.
``It is time for our ships to move away from the pier,'' Russia's Navy commander Adm. Vladimir Kuroyedov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.
The two-month mission will mostly involve surface ships, he said, without providing other details.
The Russian Navy has deteriorated amid money troubles and legal chaos that followed the 1991 Soviet collapse. Government financing has dried up, equipment has been pilfered away or aged beyond repair, and ships are rusting at their moorings.
The troubles have weakened the Navy to the degree it is unable even to combat poachers in Russia's waters, government officials have said.
President Vladimir Putin planned to revive the Navy, and Russian ships were to sail to the Mediterranean following this summer's exercises. But the exercises ended in a disaster when one of Russia's newest and best nuclear submarines, the Kursk, sunk on Aug. 12. All 118 sailors aboard were killed.
Kuroyedov said that Russia needs to streamline its Navy with a 20 percent personnel cut starting next year, getting rid of redundant positions. Many jobs to be eliminated are those that are currently vacant, he said.
-------- ukraine
Repaired Ukraine reactor restarted
InfoBeat News
Morning Coffee Edition - 12/28/2000
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=405561365
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) - A nuclear reactor at Ukraine's Yuzhna atomic power plant was restarted Wednesday after an unexpected shutdown for repairs, nuclear officials said.
Operators restarted the No. 2 reactor, whose leaking steam generator had been under repair since Dec. 7, the state Energoatom nuclear company said.
The plant's No. 1 reactor was halted for several hours following a malfunction in its electrical system and was restarted before dawn Tuesday.
Currently, 11 of 13 nuclear reactors at Ukraine's four atomic power plants are working, Energoatom said.
On Dec. 15, Ukraine permanently shut down the only working reactor at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant following pressure from foreign governments and environmental groups.
Chernobyl was the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster when one of its reactors exploded in1986, sending a radioactive cloud over much of Europe.
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Bush's Pentagon Pick Is Missile-Shield Savvy
Yahoo News
Politics News
Thursday December 28 4:38 PM ET
By Jim Wolf
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001228/pl/rumsfeld_newsmaker_dc_1.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Rumsfeld, who headed the Pentagon (news - web sites) in the traumatic post-Vietnam War years, was poised on Thursday to confront new post-Cold War challenges that play to his strength as an expert on national missile defense and protecting U.S. satellites.
A four-time Republican U.S. congressman from Illinois and one-time American ambassador to NATO (news - web sites), Rumsfeld, 68, served from 1975 to 1977 as President Gerald Ford's defense secretary.
Since then, Rumsfeld has acquired expertise in high-technology, 21st-century issues by heading a bipartisan commission that concluded in 1998 that U.S. intelligence had underestimated missile threats to the United States.
The findings of the congressionally chartered, nine-member Rumsfeld Commission led President Clinton (news - web sites), in his final two years in office, to take the idea of a missile shield more seriously, bowing to long-standing Republican pressure.
Rumsfeld -- who was nominated by President-elect George W. Bush (news - web sites) on Thursday to serve again as defense secretary a quarter century after his first stint in the job -- would bring top-level managerial experience from inside and outside the government to the Pentagon, which already has spent more than $50 billion on development of an anti-missile shield.
If confirmed to the post by the U.S. Senate as expected, one of his first tasks would be to modernize U.S. forces by making them more mobile and swifter within existing budget constraints.
``We've got a great opportunity in America to redefine how wars are fought and won, and therefore how the peace is kept,'' Bush said in nominating Rumsfeld.
New Threats
Rumsfeld said the United States must prepare itself to cope with new threats, including ``information warfare'' or computer-generated attacks on vital systems, defense of space assets such as satellites and the spread of weapons of mass destruction throughout the world.
Rumsfeld also currently heads a congressionally mandated commission that is studying the use of space for national security purposes, including employing space assets to support military operations and protecting U.S. satellites from possible attack.
Clinton deferred to his successor the question of whether to start breaking ground in Alaska to field a limited, land-based anti-missile system by 2005 or 2006. Bush campaigned for the presidency on promises of early deployment of a shield to protect U.S. forces and allies from the threat of missile attack or accidental launch.
Russia steadfastly has refused to amend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, a cornerstone of Cold War strategic stability, which bans such systems. China also strongly rejects any such system.
Rumsfeld served as White House chief of staff for Ford in 1974 and 1975 before becoming the 13th U.S. secretary of defense from 1975 to 1977, the youngest in history, following the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam.
In 1962, at the age of 30, he was elected to the first of his four terms in the House of Representatives as a Republican from the 13th Congressional District of Illinois. Earlier, he attended Princeton University on a scholarship, served in the Navy as an aviator and became an all-Navy wrestling champion, according to his official biography.
In 1969, he resigned from Congress to serve as a top aide to President Richard Nixon and director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. In January 1973, Nixon sent him to Brussels as U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
After stepping down as defense secretary, Rumsfeld became chief executive of G.D. Searle & Co., a pharmaceutical giant, from 1977 to 1985. For the next five years, he worked as an adviser to William Blair & Co., an investment banking firm.
From October 1990 to August 1993, he served as chairman and chief executive of General Instrument Corp., a leader in broadband and digital high-definition television technology.
Since January 1997, Rumsfeld has been board chairman of Gilead Sciences Inc., a Foster City, California-based bio-pharmaceutical company.
He was born on July 9, 1932 and graduated from Princeton in 1954. The Chicago native is married to the former Joyce Pierson of Wilmette, Illinois, and is the father of three.
In 1977, Ford awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.
Ballistic Missile Threat
Rumsfeld made a major impact as head of the blue-ribbon Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, which found a vulnerability to attack sooner than had been suggested by the CIA (news - web sites).
An unclassified, 27-page summary of the panel's report, made public on July 15, 1998, contradicted a 1995 CIA national intelligence estimate that predicted no nation outside of declared nuclear powers would be capable of hitting the contiguous 48 U.S. states and Canada before 2011.
Instead, the Rumsfeld panel of defense and intelligence experts unanimously found that countries such as Iran, North Korea (news - web sites) and, eventually, Iraq could field ballistic missiles with ''little or no warning.''
The CIA at first stood by its 1995 conclusions. In a July 15, 1998, letter to Congress, CIA Director George Tenet said the intelligence community's predictions were ``supported by the available evidence and were well tested'' in an internal review. Since then, the CIA has said it agrees that a missile threat could emerge sooner than it originally had predicted.
Rumsfeld said his panel reached a different conclusion because Tenet had granted it unrestricted access to a range of classified material that was unavailable in its entirety for security reasons to all but the most senior analysts.
The Rumsfeld panel also called into question the ability of U.S. intelligence agencies to detect emerging threats, saying this was ``eroding.''
``Deception and denial efforts are intense and often successful, and U.S. collection and analysis assets are limited,'' the panel's report said. ``Together they create a high risk of continued surprise.''
If confirmed, Rumsfeld also would preside over possible shake-ups in billions of dollars in weapons programs, including the largest -- the proposed Joint Strike Fighter warplane.
---
Bush Will Face Money Questions on U.S. Military
Yahoo News
Politics News
Thursday December 28 3:53 PM ET
By Charles Aldinger
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001228/pl/bush_defense_dc_1.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When George W. Bush (news - web sites) becomes president and commander-in-chief of the U.S. military on Jan. 20, he could quickly find that putting new muscle in an overworked armed force is more easily promised than done.
Analysts say the current $310 billion defense budget will increase under Bush, but it is unlikely he can add perhaps hundreds of billions over the next four years for new arms, more troops and higher pay while giving Americans a tax cut and building a costly, unproven National Missile Defense (NMD).
The military of the world's only remaining superpower has shrunk from 2.1 million a decade ago to 1.4 million today, and the top brass are warning that growing non-combat missions such as Balkans peacekeeping are sapping U.S. readiness to fight two wars at once.
``Even in good financial times, it's going to be tough to get any big increases in military spending while there is peace and no unbeatable enemy on the horizon,'' said former Assistant Defense Secretary Larry Korb, now with the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
Some Pentagon (news - web sites) leaders say that as much as $100 billion extra a year may be needed for the defense budget in order to replace aging Cold War weapons and get the force in trim to carry out the Pentagon's current two-conflict mandate.
Bush campaigned on promises to raise spending on high-tech weapons, give troops better pay and conditions and push an ambitious NMD program to protect the United States and allies from missile attack by ``rogue'' nations, even if it means scrapping the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia.
That missile defense, bitterly opposed by Moscow and Beijing and causing major concern among European allies, would cost well over $60 billion. Meanwhile, two of the previous three attempts to shoot down test missiles have failed.
Rumsfeld Well Placed
Bush's choice to be the next defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, is well placed to deal with the thorny question of deploying a missile defense.
He headed a bipartisan commission that in mid-1998 concluded that U.S. intelligence had underestimated the missile threat to the United States.
As defense secretary, he will work closely with the rest of a Bush national security team that masterminded the U.S.-led victory in the 1991 Gulf War under the president-elect's father, former President George Bush.
Vice President-elect Dick Cheney (news - web sites) was defense secretary and Secretary of State-designate Colin Powell (news - web sites) was chairman of the military Joint Chiefs of Staff during the war.
Powell told reporters after his nomination as secretary of state was announced that ``we will defend our interests from a position of strength,'' especially against nations that pursue nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
``We will not be afraid of them. We will not be frightened by them. We will meet them. We will match them. We will contend with them,'' he said.
Bush and Cheney won a close election partly on a promise to curb U.S. peacekeeping, humanitarian and other non-combat military deployments and re-hone the force for its traditional tasks of fighting and winning wars.
Bush charged that ``our military has been over-extended, taken for granted and neglected'' in eight years under President Clinton (news - web sites) and Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites).
But the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Army Gen. Henry Shelton, warned in a recent speech that it was ``naive'' to believe that America could stop taking part in peacekeeping and other efforts if America was to retain its global authority and influence as a superpower.
Instead, Shelton and other military leaders have tentatively called for increases in the number of troops -- a move which would greatly boost basic costs in, pay, arms, logistical support and health care.
One major immediate task faced by the new defense secretary will be the Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review, or ``QDR,'' a study undertaken every four years to make sure that strategy and forces are well-matched.
The study, beginning in January, will determine if the current policy of being prepared to win two major wars virtually at once should be retained or modified.
Money Needed
Bush and Cheney promised only $54 billion in total extra funding for the armed forces over the next decade, a figure far short of what many defense experts say is needed.
The spending problems are certain to be complicated by an even split between Bush's Republican Party and opposition Democrats in the Senate and a wafer-thin Republican plurality in the House of Representatives after the November election.
The Texas governor has not openly challenged the ongoing permanent deployment of 100,000 U.S. troops in Europe and 100,000 in the Asia-Pacific, but has vowed to stop using the military for what he calls ``nation-building'' abroad.
Such a reversal, including the president-elect's call for removal of 12,000 U.S. peacekeepers from the troubled Balkans as soon as practical, has raised concerns among NATO (news - web sites) allies about alliance-backed stability in Kosovo and Bosnia.
But Bush has more recently softened that threat, indicating that his national security team will work closely with the allies in both peace and conflict.
Despite promises to quickly improve U.S. fighting readiness, Bush and his team suggested during the campaign that it might be smart to skip the next generation of planned Pentagon weapons -- ranging from warplanes to submarines -- and instead vault ahead to even more futuristic arms.
Bush did not make clear what such a move -- certain to be opposed by military leaders -- would entail.
That could call into question the Pentagon's $200 billion Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, a plan to build up to 3,000 new attack jets for the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and British Royal Navy.
U.S. aerospace giants Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co are fighting to win the JSF contract, which could be awarded as early as next year, but Bush advisers have suggested that his national security team will completely revisit expensive new aircraft programs.
Another planned $40 billion military program currently in trouble is the V-22 tilt-rotor helicopter, built jointly by Boeing and the Bell Helicopter division of Textron Inc.
Two Marine Corps versions of the revolutionary aircraft have crashed this year, killing 23 Marines and causing an indefinite delay in any decision to go forward with initial full-scale production of the swivel-engine aircraft.
---
Schools, Not Shields
New York Times
December 28, 2000
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/28/opinion/L28MIS.html
To the Editor:
Re "The New Push for a Missile Shield" (letters, Dec. 21):
Your letter writers skirt the issue of what an appropriate defense might be for the dangers that confront us today. President-elect George W. Bush could promote his agenda by combining education reform with national defense, since our first line of defense, no matter what the threat, is our young men and women.
We could drop the idea of building a nuclear missile deterrent and instead, offer two years of education to all high school graduates in the field of their choice - reopening military bases as vocational schools and liberal arts institutions.
Understanding common human needs and concerns might defuse religiously motivated terrorist attacks globally and lead to a world at peace.
JOANNA C. ROVELSTAD Key Largo, Fla., Dec. 21, 2000
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- illinois
New Fuel Improves Proliferation Resistance Of Research Reactors
Science Daily
Argonne National Laboratory (http://www.anl.gov)
Date: Posted 12/28/2000
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/12/001228084456.htm
http://www.anl.gov/OPA/frontiers/e4part.html
A new nuclear fuel that will soon allow almost every research reactor in the world to convert to proliferation-resistant fuel is being developed by Argonne's Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactor (RERTR) program.
Approximately 250 nuclear research and test reactors in 57 nations play a vital role in medicine, agriculture and industry. For example, they provide neutrons for cancer therapy, medical isotope production and improved pharmaceuticals. They also produce tracer elements for pollution and waste migration studies. Through neutron radiography, these reactors help diagnose defects in metals and engines; through neutron scattering they assist the development of new magnetic and superconducting materials. The reactors also allow reactor fuels and materials testing, and training for reactor operators and international inspectors. Unfortunately, about half of these reactors are powered by fuels that contain highly enriched uranium; that is, uranium with a uranium-235 content of 20 percent or more that can be directly used to make nuclear weapons.
Argonne's RERTR program is concentrating on developing a new, low-enrichment-uranium (LEU) fuel suitable for almost all the world's research reactors. LEU fuel contains less than 20 percent uranium-235 and provides an isotopic barrier to weapons usability by rogue nations and terrorists. The new fuel is a dispersion of uranium-molybdenum (U-Mo) alloy in aluminum. Argonne is testing it in research reactors in the United States and in Europe.
"By the end of 2005, we expect to qualify a very dense LEU fuel based on uranium-molybdenum alloy," said Armando Travelli, who manages the RERTR program. "This fuel should meet all the main non-proliferation goals of the RERTR program with favorable implications for the reactors' performance and research productivity." This new U-Mo fuel will enable the LEU conversion of reactors that cannot be converted today, he said. It will also ensure better efficiency and performance for all LEU research reactors and will allow the design of more efficient and powerful new advanced LEU research reactors.
The RERTR program plans to qualify the U-Mo dispersion fuel with an intermediate uranium density by the end of 2003. The future of several foreign research reactors that currently use LEU silicide fuel depends on reaching this intermediate goal. In 2006, the United States will no longer accept spent fuel from foreign research reactors. The spent fuel would then be sent to the COGEMA fuel-processing facility in France, but COGEMA does not process silicide fuel. LEU U-Mo fuel is acceptable to COGEMA and, if qualified by 2003, will give the reactor operators sufficient time to gain regulatory approval and to complete irradiation of their current fuel before the 2006 deadline.
The U.S. Department of Energy started the RERTR program in 1978 under Argonne leadership. The department was motivated by concerns that international traffic in highly enriched uranium fuel could provide opportunities for terrorists or rogue nations to divert some of this material to weapons use. Under the RERTR program's guidance, 36 reactors in 22 countries have converted or are converting to RERTR-developed LEU fuel, and 21 new research reactors have been built or planned that use this fuel. In addition, six nations, including the United States, can now fabricate and supply research reactors with LEU fuels developed by the RERTR program, and three more nations are developing this capability.
Editor's Note: The original news release can be found at http://www.anl.gov/OPA/frontiers/e4part.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/12/001228084456.htm
-------- maine
Killer Once Employed at MY
Alleged gunman once worked at Maine Yankee
Thursday, December 28, 2000
Blethen Maine Newspapers
By JOSHUA L. WEINSTEIN,
Portland Press Herald Writer
He is a monster now, a man whose name will be lumped with Klebold and Whitman.
But before Tuesday, before he was accused of killing seven of his colleagues at Edgewater Technology in Wakefield, Mass., Michael McDermott was a fairly normal guy - a U.S. Navy veteran who worked for Maine Yankee in Wiscasset in the 1980s.
"He wasn't necessarily outgoing, but he was a sociable enough, amiable fellow," John Harvey, who was in maintenance for 25 years at the nuclear power plant, said Wednesday. "I can't remember anything negative about him."
John McArdle, a New Hampshire resident, also confirmed McDermott's employment at Maine Yankee. He served with McDermott aboard the USS Narwhal, a submarine, and remembers him well.
"He was an average guy, he was a good sailor, he did his job . . . he was very competent," McArdle said.
"All I can tell you for a fact is, he is an individual who, in an earlier life, was willing to put his life on the line for the rest of the people in the country in the Cold War and go into harm's way and to uphold the Constitution of the country and he did that voluntarily.
"Something has happened to him, and I'm not going to defend what he allegedly did, but the man that I knew and I served with was an upstanding man."
When McArdle left the submarine, his colleagues aboard signed a photograph for him.
"John Henry," McDermott wrote, "good luck in civ land. McDermott." Civ stands for civilian.
McArdle last saw McDermott in 1987, when McDermott was working for Maine Yankee.
McArdle was working for Yankee Atomic Electric Co.'s Nuclear Services Division, and was in Maine as a consultant to Maine Yankee.
He was at the company's office in Augusta one day when he saw McDermott.
"He said, 'Hey, John Henry, how are you?' " recalled McArdle. The two reminisced for a while and McDermott explained that he was working for Maine Yankee.
About 10 years later, in 1997, McDermott posted a notice on a Web site for the Narwhal, remembering the encounter:
"I ran into John Henry McArdle about ten years ago," he wrote. "I was working at Maine Yankee and I think he was with Yankee Atomic (?) . . . I do research and development for Duracell Batteries now. . . .Well, I came back to the land of my youth and married a childhood friend. Lasted three and a half years before she split."
Eric Howes, a spokesman for Maine Yankee, said a Michael McDermott worked at the plant from 1982 to 1988 as an auxiliary power plant operator. He said plant officials could not confirm that it was the McDermott accused of the murders.
But McArdle is certain it's the same person.
He remembered him from the submarine and remembered him from the encounter in Augusta. He also remembers McDermott's nickname - "Mucko."
"It's sad," McArdle said. "I hear people saying they ought to kill him . . . If this had been somebody else I did not have a personal knowledge of, I'd probably be saying the same thing. But I go back to knowing something happened to this guy.
"Something happened, and sadly . . . the results of this are seven people that aren't coming home again."
-------- ohio
Radiation pills to be given to Perry neighbors
Cleveland Plains Dealer
Thursday, December 28, 2000
By SUSAN JAFFE PLAIN DEALER REPORTER
http://www.cleveland.com:80/news/index.ssf?/news/pd/cc28pill.html
The federal government has a little something for the 200,000 people in Ohio who live within 10 miles of a nuclear power plant.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees the nuclear power industry, will provide communities near nuclear plants across the country with potassium iodide pills next year. The pills protect against some effects of an accidental radiation release.
The offer reverses a 1999 decision in which the NRC said it supported public use of the tablets but could not afford them. This time, the five-member commission has earmarked $400,000 to buy them and is requiring local governments to consider the pills in their nuclear accident response plans.
In Ohio, the pills would go to people in Lake, Ashtabula and Geauga counties near the Perry nuclear power plant, residents who live near the Davis-Besse plant in= Ottawa County and those in Columbiana County near the Beaver Valley plant in western Pennsylvania. All three plants are operated by FirstEnergy Corp.
Potassium iodide can prevent the thyroid from absorbing radioactive iodine, one of dozens of radioactive gases that can be released in an accident. It must be taken within four hours of exposure and loses its effect after eight hours.
Lake County Health Commissioner Joel Lucia welcomed the renewed offer. He said the Lake County Health District would distribute the pills if the state health department also helps out.
Lake and Ottawa counties already provide the pills for police, firefighters and other emergency workers as well as for people who cannot be evacuated easily, such as nursing-home residents and prisoners.
NRC spokesman Jan Strasma said there might not be enough pills to fill requests from localities near all 103 operating nuclear power facilities. He said only a few states currently provide tablets to the public.
The NRC first recommended the pills after the 1979 Three Mile Island accident. But, nothing happened until NRC staff attorney Peter Crane, acting as a private citizen, petitioned the agency in 1995 to take action.
From Richard Goldizen's front yard, he can see the steam wafting from the massive cooling tower of the Perry nuclear power plant in Lake County.
"If they do have a pill and it would help, I would take it," said Goldizen, who lives about five miles from the power plant. "But I don't think anything catastrophic will happen."
Connie Kline, a Lake County environmentalist, was relieved to hear the NRC had found the money to buy the drug.
"Our country is one of the few with nuclear power that has not made it available," she said.
State health officials said they hadn't decided how to get the pills to the public. Initial plans in 1998, before the NRC withdrew its offer, recommended the pills be distributed at reception centers after people were evacuated from areas around the Perry plant.
Ottawa County Health Commissioner Nancy Osborn was concerned about how to pay for the distribution and public information effort. The funds are not in her 2001 budget, she said.
It's not in the NRC budget either. NRC spokesman Victor Dricks said the commission allocated money only for buying the pills.
FirstEnergy spokesman Todd Schneider said the possibility of an accident at the plants was slim.
If the drug is needed one day, Bob Archer, Lake County's emergency-management director, and other officials cautioned that it only protects one organ and only blocks iodine.
"It's not a magic pill."
-------- tennessee
Officials respond to layoff questions
Thu, 28 Dec 2000 16:22:10 EST
http://www.oakridger.com/
by Paul Parson OakRidger staff
A lot of issues and questions have been raised about the recent layoffs at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and officials this morning responded to some of those.
Several ORNL workers who received involuntary severance notices have voiced dissatisfaction about getting only three days' notice before losing their jobs. They were notified by UT-Battelle, which manages the lab for the Department of Energy, on Nov. 28, and their last day of work was Dec. 1.
"DOE was advised by UT-Battelle management of their plans to adhere to the Dec. 1 schedule," DOE spokesman Steven Wyatt said. "This is completely within ORNL's management responsibility and did not violate any DOE regulations. While the notice to individual employees was limited, ORNL employees affected by the layoff were provided with 60 days of pay in lieu of a longer-term notice."
The Oak Ridger has been told by several current and former ORNL employees that a letter was sent by Leah Dever, manager of the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Operations office, to UT-Battelle stating that no layoffs should occur prior to the Nov. 7 presidential election.
Wyatt said no such letter was sent.
UT-Battelle and ORNL officials were contacted by The Oak Ridger about these questions and accusations that a lot of "older" lab workers were targeted for dismissal. ORNL spokesman Billy Stair issued the following response to The Oak Ridger's inquiries:
"The reduction in force was announced last summer as a way of making the lab's research programs more competitive," Stair stated. "When hundreds of employees are involved, the process takes time. We could not implement involuntary reductions until we knew the number of voluntary reductions. Salaries and other decisions could not be finalized until we knew the financial impact of the voluntary and involuntary reductions. Working with DOE, we took great care to make sure the reductions were as fair as possible to employees and did not affect ongoing research projects."
---
Former ORNL employee shares story of her dismissal
December 28, 2000
by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff
http://www.oakridger.com/
Janet Westbrook says she's dissatisfied with how the recent involuntary layoffs at Oak Ridge National Laboratory were handled.
"It was cold and cruel," she said Wednesday afternoon. "The sudden notice, then you're out. Most of the people I've talked to felt hurt."
Westbrook, 50, who spent the past 11 years as a radiological engineer at ORNL, found out on Nov. 28 that her job had been eliminated. She was one of 92 lab employees to receive an involuntary severance notice informing them that their last day of work would be Dec. 1 -- three days later.
Jobs were found for 27 of those employees, and six people who were supposed to get notices were saved when funding for their work was obtained. However, Westbrook, an Oak Ridge resident, is among the 65 laid-off ORNL employees who were not so lucky. She still has no job.
Westbrook's story began in September when UT-Battelle, the company that manages ORNL for the Department of Energy, announced it planned to reduce the facility's operating costs by $20 million for the current fiscal year. In order to accomplish this, layoffs would be necessary.
Initially, ORNL workers were given an opportunity to apply for voluntary departures from the lab. Westbrook said she did not apply because she didn't think she would be laid off due to her qualifications and the need for her type of work. Among the duties Westbrook performed were radiological analyses and reviews for design or modification of radiological facilities.
A total of 212 people out of the 315 who applied for voluntary departures were approved, but it wasn't enough to accomplish UT-Battelle's cost-cutting objective. So company officials began looking at involuntary departures.
"Naturally everybody wondered who it would be," she said.
And on Nov. 28, a Tuesday, employees found out. That's when lab officials began issuing the 92 involuntary severance notices.
Westbrook said she was told to report to her division director's office, where she was issued a piece of paper.
"It was not pink, but I recognized it was my pink slip," she said.
"I asked three times why I was chosen," she said, adding that she was told, "It was not performance-based, but resource-driven."
It was a less-than-satisfying answer, Westbrook maintains.
Westbrook said she asked for something in writing describing the elimination process, but got nothing. She said she was told she could find information about it on ORNL's internal Web site.
Westbrook said if people had known they might be let go, then they could have chosen to take a voluntary departure. She said no one in her department, the Office of Radiation Protection, was given any indication of their fate until Nov. 28.
"It was demoralizing," she said.
Westbrook said she was shocked, and so were many others, by the people who were let go.
"It seems to me that the layoffs were the older, more experienced people," she said.
But now, with her days at ORNL behind her, life goes on for Westbrook. She said she will get about five months' worth of income, including severance pay, from her former job. And she is also currently looking for a job.
With confidence in her voice, Westbrook said, "I feel very optimistic," when asked if she believes she'll find another job.
---
Officials respond to layoff questions
December 28, 2000
by Paul Parson OakRidger staff
http://www.oakridger.com/
A lot of issues and questions have been raised about the recent layoffs at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and officials this morning responded to some of those.
Several ORNL workers who received involuntary severance notices have voiced dissatisfaction about getting only three days' notice before losing their jobs. They were notified by UT-Battelle, which manages the lab for the Department of Energy, on Nov. 28, and their last day of work was Dec. 1.
"DOE was advised by UT-Battelle management of their plans to adhere to the Dec. 1 schedule," DOE spokesman Steven Wyatt said. "This is completely within ORNL's management responsibility and did not violate any DOE regulations. While the notice to individual employees was limited, ORNL employees affected by the layoff were provided with 60 days of pay in lieu of a longer-term notice."
The Oak Ridger has been told by several current and former ORNL employees that a letter was sent by Leah Dever, manager of the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Operations office, to UT-Battelle stating that no layoffs should occur prior to the Nov. 7 presidential election.
Wyatt said no such letter was sent.
UT-Battelle and ORNL officials were contacted by The Oak Ridger about these questions and accusations that a lot of "older" lab workers were targeted for dismissal. ORNL spokesman Billy Stair issued the following response to The Oak Ridger's inquiries:
"The reduction in force was announced last summer as a way of making the lab's research programs more competitive," Stair stated. "When hundreds of employees are involved, the process takes time. We could not implement involuntary reductions until we knew the number of voluntary reductions. Salaries and other decisions could not be finalized until we knew the financial impact of the voluntary and involuntary reductions. Working with DOE, we took great care to make sure the reductions were as fair as possible to employees and did not affect ongoing research projects."
-------- us nuc politics
Rumsfeld Returns to Pentagon
Associated Press
December 28, 2000 Filed at 8:10 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/politics/AP-Bush-Rumsfeld-Profile.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A quarter-century ago, when Donald Rumsfeld became the nation's youngest defense secretary, the times were much different for the U.S. military. Bloody images from the Vietnam War were fresh in American minds, and the armed forces stood guard against an easily identifiable enemy: the Soviet Union.
In the years since, new threats of global terrorism and missile attack from emerging powers have not eluded Rumsfeld, President-elect Bush's choice to lead the Pentagon again.
He headed a commission in 1998 that warned of the new missile threat. He has spoken out on the Chinese military threat. He was disturbed about how the United States involved its military in Yugoslavia. He warned of the spread of chemical weapons but opposed a chemical weapons treaty that the Senate ratified.
Frank Carlucci, the last secretary of defense in the Reagan administration and a college wrestling teammate of Rumsfeld, said Americans need not fear that they're getting a retread.
``Talent is talent, and this guy's got it,'' Carlucci said in an interview Thursday. ``If you look at his career, he's been a successful congressman, he ran the poverty program, he was a chief of staff to the president (Gerald Ford), the ambassador to NATO, the secretary of defense, and he ran two major companies.
``This is not somebody who can't adjust. He's a quick study.''
Rumsfeld's introduction to the military began after his graduation from Princeton University. He joined the post-Korean War Navy in 1954, served as a naval aviator until 1957 and became the All-Navy wrestling champion.
His first term in Congress, at age 30, began in 1962. He resigned in 1969 to join the administration of President Nixon, the first of four presidents he has served largely in military or economic capacities.
Rumsfeld was the nation's 13th defense secretary, from 1975 to 1977. When he took over the Pentagon for President Ford, he was the youngest to serve in that position at age 43.
Henry Kissinger, secretary of state while Rumsfeld was at the Pentagon, has kept up with his old Cabinet colleague, now 68. Kissinger said in an interview that Rumsfeld can ``adopt strategic doctrine to a new situation. It's something he is qualified to do.''
Both Kissinger and Carlucci said Rumsfeld not only would shape the military to meet today's threats but would build a consensus to do it.
They cited the 1998 report of the Rumsfeld Commission on emerging powers' missile threats. The former defense secretary won unanimous agreement from a diverse group of nine commissioners.
The report concluded a missile attack against targets in the United States could be mounted with ``little or no warning'' and challenged previous intelligence estimates about the severity of the threat. The commission recommended a full review of U.S. analyses and policies regarding the ballistic missile threat.
``The major implication of our conclusions is that warning time is reduced,'' Rumsfeld said. He foresaw ``little or no warning'' of threats ``from several emerging powers.''
It was no surprise to Carlucci that Rumsfeld would lead a commission that ignored conventional intelligence wisdom, and he predicted his friend of more than 40 years would be his own man at the Pentagon.
``Don Rumsfeld is not a figurehead,'' Carlucci said. ``He's got a forceful personality. He's not somebody who is shy. He's not someone who is ego-driven, either.''
Initial congressional reaction to Rumsfeld's selection, from both parties, was positive. Carl Levin, D-Mich., ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called him ``a strong choice.'' Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., said the nation was ``fortunate that this experienced, tested, tough-minded old hand'' was returning.
When the United States became engaged against Yugoslavia, Rumsfeld worried that ``we seem to have drifted into this, and I worry about a gradualist approach. ... I think we certainly learned in Vietnam that gradualism does not work.'' In Yugoslavia, however, NATO won solely with an air campaign.
In congressional testimony in 1997, Rumsfeld said that while proliferation of weapons of mass destruction was a tremendous threat, the chemical weapons treaty then before the Senate was flawed and should be rejected. President Clinton went all-out and won Senate ratification, 74-26.
Rumsfeld said that as a former member of the House, he recalled ``the difficulty of finding oneself in the position of opposing a position that is strongly supported by a president.''
John Robson, deputy secretary of the Treasury under former President Bush, said Rumsfeld, a high school classmate, ``will speak his views, whether he agrees with somebody else's views or not.''
As for Rumsfeld's return to his old job, Robson said, ``He's kept himself very much up to date with national security issues. He's not out of touch.''
---
Text of Bush's Press Conference
New York Times
December 28, 2000
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/28/politics/28BUSH-TEXT.html?pagewanted=all
The following is the text of President-elect George W. Bush's press conference today.
BUSH: Good afternoon. Thank you for coming today.
Today it is my honor to announce that I'm submitting the name of Donald Rumsfeld to be secretary of defense.
There's no question in my mind that his record of service to the country is extraordinary. Former chief of staff, CEO, former secretary of defense, this is a man who has got great judgment, he has got strong vision, and he's going to be a great secretary of defense, again.
Our mission for the next four years will be to build a durable peace. This will require strong alliances, expanding trade, advancing our ideals and interests with a clear and consistent diplomacy. With General Powell serving as the secretary of state, that mission is in very good hands.
But the foundation of peace is to have a military ready to keep the peace, ready for every danger, equal to every challenge.
Today, American armed forces have an irreplaceable role in our world. They give confidence to our allies, they deter the aggression of our enemies.
I've set three goals for our nation's defense. One is to strengthen the bond of trust between the American president and those who wear our nation's uniform. Secondly is defend our people and allies against missiles and terror. And thirdly is to begin creating a military prepared for the dangers of a new century.
Strengthen the bond of trust between the president and the military, rebuilding morale, it means never forgetting that ours is a military of volunteers. Whether someone is in the active forces or Reserves or Guard, they're their at their own choosing, and we must honor that service by better pay, better training and clear missions with attainable goals.
We hope to never send our troops into combat. But if deterrence were to fail, we must send them fully prepared and equipped for the dangers that they will face.
Secondly, to defend our forces and allies and our own country from the threat of missile attack or accidental launch, we must develop a missile defense system.
I was most impressed by the chairman of the national commission's ballistic missile threats work. That chairman was Don Rumsfeld. I felt he did an extraordinary job with a delicate assignment. He brought people together to understand the realities of the modern world.
In picking Don Rumsfeld, we'll have a person who is thoughtful and considerate and wise on the subject of missile defense.
And, finally, we must work to change our military to meet the threats of a new century. Effective military power is increasingly defined not by size or mass but by mobility and swiftness. Influence is measure in information. Safety is gained in stealth.
We've got a great opportunity in America to redefine how wars are fought and won, and therefore how the peace is kept. Our nation is positioned well to use technologies to redefine the military. And so one of Secretary Rumsfeld's first tasks will be to challenge the status quo inside the Pentagon, to develop a strategy necessary to have a force equipped for warfare of the 21st century.
It's going to take a lot of cooperation and close work with the Congress. Both of us pledge to do just that.
And so, it is my honor to bring forth a man who will be an integral part of a national security team that I'm confident will serve America's interests well, a good man, an honorable man, Mr. Don Rumsfeld.
RUMSFELD: Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.
Good afternoon, President-elect Bush and Dick Cheney. I thank you for those very generous words and for your confidence in asking me to return to public service, which I'm delighted to do.
I look forward to serving our country again and, under your leadership, working with the very fine national security team you are assembling, my former associate and colleague Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Condi Rice, and your director of central intelligence, whoever that may be.
And I guess we can confirm today, Mr. President-elect, that it's not me.
I've admired your leadership in Texas. I have valued our discussions on defense issues over the many months. I have studied carefully your address and blue print for defense that you outlined at the Citadel, and I support it enthusiastically.
In your address there, you called for America's capabilities to be designed to meet the challenges of the 21st century. It is clearly not a time at the Pentagon for presiding or calibrating modestly. Rather, we are in a new national security environment. We do need to be arranged to deal with the new threats, not the old ones, as you point out, with information warfare, missile defense, terrorism, defense of our space assets and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction throughout the world.
History teaches us that weakness is provocative. The task you have outlined is to fashion deterrence and defense capabilities, so that our country will be able to successfully contribute to peace and stability in the world.
I look forward to building a team at the Defense Department that, as you mentioned, can help to develop bipartisan support for the many tasks ahead. It's a great institution, the Defense Department, with a proud heritage, and with enormously talented and courageous people. I look forward to serving with them again and, under your leadership, serving with you and your team.
Sir, I thank you.
Q: Mr. President-elect, much has been made about how long it took you to make this decision. I wonder if you could comment on that and also tell us whether you have a target for completing your Cabinet.
BUSH: I thought I moved pretty quickly. I can't remember the exact date the election was finally certified, but... (LAUGHTER)
... I know it was 35 days or 36 days after it was supposed to have ended.
But I felt like we're making pretty good progress. And I hope to have the Cabinet completed at the end of the first week of January. Don't hold me to it, though.
Q: Mr. President-elect, during the campaign, you spoke a lot about military -- the decline in military morale and readiness. But since the election, you've focused on education and tax relief. So what priority will you give rebuilding the military in your first 100 days?
And, perhaps, Secretary-designate Rumsfeld?
BUSH: Well, first, in my budget, I can assure you, there's going to be a military pay raise greater than the pay raise which was enacted a year ago.
And secondly, I've always believed that we're going to have a selling job to do on Congress as to how to modernize the military. BUSH: And that requires, first and foremost, a top-to-bottom -- a bottom-to-top review of what exists today and what the military ought to look like tomorrow. And that's going to be one of Don Rumsfeld's first jobs.
As to missile defense, there's a selling job to do there as well. But a good place to start is the report that he put out, which is a compelling argument of the need for the United States to develop a missile defense system that will work.
And so, Patsy, part of our job is to make sure the budget is right for the military. But part of our job in the executive branch is to provide a blueprint for change, a strategy, and then go to the Hill and sell it. I'll work with Don and Dick to do just that.
Russert.
Q: I yield to Norah.
BUSH: We've just made history.
Norah?
Most thoughtful of you. Please take note of the generosity of spirit here, a senior correspondent such as Russert lateraling a question to one of his colleagues.
Yes, ma'am?
Q: I'll yield then back to Tim.
BUSH: If that's the case, this press conference is over.
Q: I wonder, President-elect, and also the secretary can address, what kind of influence Powell and Vice President-elect Cheney will then have over the Pentagon, given certainly his experience and Powell's stature?
BUSH: Well, I think little, because I picked a strong leader who is willing to listen to others but is a decisive leader.
Secondly, inherent in your question is the arrangement that's going to be, you know, inside the national security apparatus of the White House.
I think that those who follow American diplomacy and politics understand that I've assembled a team of very strong, smart people. And I look forward to hearing their advice.
One of the things that's really important for the American people to understand is, I'll be getting some of the best counsel possible. And so, you bet, General Powell's a strong figure and Dick Cheney's no shrinking violet ... but neither is Don Rumsfeld, nor Condi Rice. I view the four as being able to complement each other.
There's going to be disagreements. I hope there is disagreement, because I know that disagreement will be based upon solid thought. And what you need to know is that if there is disagreement, I'll be prepared to make the decision necessary for the good of the country.
Q: Mr. Bush, you talked about the need for missile defense, the pay raise, where's all this money going to come from?
BUSH: Well, the pay raise is $1 billion, John. And I think it's easily attainable in the budget.
The missile defense, there is money being spent now on missile defense. But one of the things Secretary Rumsfeld will do is to work with our OMB director to make sure that the missile defense receives the priority we think it must receive in future Pentagon budgets.
Q: Would you push the Palestinians and Israelis, at this point, to conclude a peace treaty? Or would you allow the status quo? And do you favor this Clinton plan, which in effect calls for a de facto division of Jerusalem?
BUSH: We have one president, and we'll have one president, and the current president is President Clinton. And our nation must speak with one voice, and therefore, his is the voice that needs to speak.
Having said that, I will tell you, I'm impressed by these efforts to bring the folks together. Obviously, we hope it works. We hope it works.
Q: Do you believe that the majority of the American people think that it is appropriate that your nominee for attorney general be asked, quote, "tough questions" by Vermont's Senator Leahy, who voted to condone what Judge Susan Webber Wright ruled was lying under oath and obstruction of justice?
BUSH: I suspect all my nominees will get tough questions, including Don Rumsfeld. But the good news is that they can all answer the question.
And I am confident that, when it's all said and done, the Senate will give our folks good hearings, and I'm confident they'll be confirmed. And I stand by my choices and will all the way through the process, because I made them for certain reasons, starting with the fact that these good Americans can do the job and do it well.
Q: Mr. President-elect, are you having trouble getting a Democrat to join your administration?
BUSH: That's an interesting question.
I'm not having any trouble getting Democrats to return my phone calls.
Q: That's a different question, sir.
BUSH: Yes, it was, but the same answer.
You know, we've talked to some Democrats. I've talked to Democrats about their willingness to work with us in Congress. I've talked to some Democrats about whether or not there may be an interest of leaving their current positions, and most people want to stay in place.
I think that it's pretty well known that John Breaux and I had an early conversation. I never offered him a Cabinet position, but I did talk generically about his interests. And I said in Austin, Texas -- I don't know if you were there or not -- but when John was there, I said, you know, he wants to stay in the Senate, which I think is good news, in many ways, because he's a person with whom I can work. As I told him down there, the only thing that separates John and me is the Sabine River, at least the way we think.
Q: Mr. President-elect, President Clinton announced just a while ago that he's not going to North Korea. First, do you support his decision, given the current situation in the country, the missile program? And secondly, what will be the biggest difference between the Bush administration's policy for East Asia -- Japan, China and the Korean Peninsula -- and the Clinton administration's East Asia policy, of which you have been quite critical?
BUSH: On this matter, on all matters between now and the inauguration, the country must speak with the one voice. The president made the decision he thought was important.
Secondly, let me get sworn in first.
BUSH: And if there are differences, they'll become apparent as a result of what we do and how we act.
STAFF: Final question.
Q: While your appointments to the Cabinet have been moving along publicly at pretty good pace, what's going on with preparation of your budget? And, you know, behind the scenes, there are a whole lot of other projects that you need to do ...
BUSH: Absolutely.
Q: ... in short order. So how do you feel that process is coming along? Will things come in on time? Do you expect to tinker with it later? What's the status of that?
BUSH: I think we're making pretty darn good progress on the budget. As a matter of fact, Ari can brief you afterwards. But I believe the White House said that we'll have the budget -- Mr. Cogan, who is handling our budget transition, will be giving a look at the current -- what?
Q: The OMB budget?
BUSH: Yes, the OMB budget.
Feel like we're making very good progress there. It's a very legitimate question. Mitch Daniels is who I've designated to be the OMB director. Mitch feels confident that our budget will be ready on time.
As to the deputy secretaries and assistant secretaries and legal counsels for all the departments, again, we feel like we're making pretty darn good progress, but it's hard to move quickly until we get the secretaries named. And, obviously, we've been somewhat delayed in that as a result of the election taking a little longer than most people anticipated it would.
But let me just put it to you this way: On inauguration day, we'll be ready to assume our respective offices.
I want to thank you all. I hope everybody has a good new year. And by the way, see you in the morning.
Q: Who with?
BUSH: I'm not supposed to say anything, I'm sorry.
I'm learning the discipline. I'm learning life within the bubble.
Yes?
Q: Can we ask Mr. Rumsfeld one more question about what it'd be like coming back again as secretary of defense.
BUSH: Sure, absolutely.
RUMSFELD: Well, I won't know that until I make my calls up on Capitol Hill, to the Senate, and go through the confirmation process.
But I have been doing a number of things with respect to national security and foreign policies issues in the intervening years, and I look forward to it. I really do. It's a fine institution and a wonderful group of people. Thank you.
Q: Mr. Rumsfeld, are you going to take another look at gays in the military?
RUMSFELD: I tell you, this has all happened very rapidly, and I intend to sit down and go through the confirmation process and think about a host of things. That is not an issue that President-elect Bush has discussed in his pronouncements on defense, and certainly, the priorities are in other areas for me.
Q: Has he discussed it with you in your conversations?
RUMSFELD: Pardon me?
Q: Do you regard the missile threat as real, and where do they come from?
RUMSFELD: I'm sorry, I couldn't understand.
Q: Do you regard, sir, the missile threats for which (inaudible) have designed as real or potential? Because the Russians, for instance, say that there is no threat, at this point, to America.
RUMSFELD: There's no question but that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the delivery systems for them is extensive across the world. There is no question but that a number of nations are supplying other nations with elements that they need and assisting them in bypassing the normal period of years it would take them to develop these capabilities.
And I consider that, myself, to be a real threat.
And it exists among other threats: Terrorism is a threat, cruise missiles are threats, information warfare is a threat. There's vulnerability to space assets. There are any number of things that need to be addressed. But in answer to your question, certainly it's a real threat.
Q: Is the Star Wars program in need of reinvigoration? Has the Clinton administration...
STAFF: Thank you. Thank you.
---
Bush Nominates Rumsfeld As Defense Secretary
Yahoo News
Politics News
Thursday December 28 3:06 PM ET
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001228/pl/bush_leadall_dc_46.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect George W. Bush on Thursday nominated Donald Rumsfeld, a veteran Washington hand who served as defense secretary under President Gerald Ford, as his new defense secretary.
Bush, working to fill the top tier of his administration before being sworn in as the 43rd U.S. president on Jan. 20, called Rumsfeld's government and corporate service ''extraordinary.''
``This is a man who has got great judgement. He's got strong vision. He's going to be a great secretary of defense,'' Bush said at a news conference at his transition headquarters just hours after arriving back from a brief vacation in Florida.
Rumsfeld, 68, served as White House chief of staff for Ford in 1974 and 1975 before becoming the 13th U.S. secretary of defense, the youngest in history, from 1975 to 1977, following the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam.
With Rumsfeld's nomination, Bush has chosen eight of those he expects to have in his Cabinet, a group he said would be politically and ethnically diverse. There are 14 statutory Cabinet members, but every president can elevate any number of agencies to that level during his term. All of them must be confirmed by the Senate.
Aides said they expected Bush to make additional personnel announcements on Friday before returning to Texas to celebrate the New Year at his ranch.
Bush said he hoped to have his Cabinet appointments done by the end of the first week of January, adding with a laugh that he didn't want to be held to that deadline.
The president-elect later added, ``Let me just put it to you this way: On Inauguration Day, we will be ready to assume our respective offices.''
Rumsfeld's selection as defense secretary came as a surprise to most observers. He had been tipped as a possible choice to head the Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) and other names, former Indiana senator Dan Coats among them, has been circulating as possibilities to run the Pentagon (news - web sites).
Rumsfeld said he looked forward to a second tour of duty as Pentagon chief.
``I have been doing a number of things with respect to national security and foreign policy issues in the intervening years and I look forward to it, I really do,'' Rumsfeld said. ''It's a fine institution and a wonderful group of people.''
Rumsfeld was elected to the first of four terms in Congress as a Republican from the 13th District of Illinois at the age of 30 in 1962. Earlier, he attended Princeton University on a scholarship, served in the Navy as an aviator and became an all Navy wrestling champion, according to his official biography.
In 1969, he resigned from Congress to serve as a top aide to Richard Nixon and director of the Office of Economic Opportunity. In January 1973, Nixon sent him to Brussels as U.S. ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
After stepping down as defense secretary, Rumsfeld became chief executive of G.D. Searle & Co., a pharmaceutical giant, from 1977 to 1985. For the next five years, he worked as an adviser to William Blair & Co, an investment banking firm.
From October 1990 to August 1993, he served as chairman and chief executive of General Instrument Corp., a leader in broadband and digital high-definition television technology.
Since January 1997, Rumsfeld, a Chicago native and father of three, has been board chairman of Gilead Sciences Inc., a Foster City, CA., bio-pharmaceutical company.
But Rumsfeld made his biggest waves as head of the blue-ribbon Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States, which found a vulnerability to attack sooner than the CIA (news - web sites) had suggested.
An unclassified, 27-page summary of the panel's report, made public on July 15, 1998, contradicted a 1995 national intelligence estimate that predicted no nation outside of declared nuclear powers would be capable of hitting the contiguous 48 states and Canada before 2011.
Instead, the Rumsfeld panel of defense and intelligence experts unanimously found that countries such as Iran, North Korea (news - web sites) and, eventually, Iraq, could field ballistic missiles with ``little or no warning.''
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Bush Names Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense
New York Times
December 28, 2000
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/28/politics/28CND-BUSH.html
WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 - President-elect George W. Bush today picked Donald H. Rumsfeld, who was Secretary of Defense a quarter-century ago, to the same post in his new administration.
Mr. Rumsfeld, 68, a former Republican Congressman from Illinois and a representative to NATO, was praised by Mr. Bush as a man of "great judgment and strong vision."
"He's going to be a great secretary of defense - again," Mr. Bush said.
Mr. Rumsfeld, who also headed the Pentagon from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald R. Ford, said, "I look forward to serving our country again."
Mr. Rumsfeld heaped praise on the Defense Department as "a great institution. . .with a proud heritage."
But Mr. Bush said he wanted Mr. Rumsfeld to "challenge the status quo" at the Pentagon, a bureaucratic giant which has often been slow to change, sometimes because of resistance from generals and admirals, other times because of pure inertia.
Mr. Rumsfeld said he would put missile defense, information technology and anti-terrorism high on his priorities.
The prospective defense head is seasoned in government, having served in Congress from 1963 to 1969. Under President Richard M. Nixon, he was head of the Office of Economic Opportunity, then directed the Cost of Living Council.
Mr. Rumsfeld headed a bipartisan commission that in mid-1998 concluded that American intelligence officials had been far too relaxed about missile threats and noted that other nations could use shortcuts to develop such a weapon. Critics complained that panel's mandate was politically skewed to promote the case for antimissile defenses.
Mr. Bush said he hoped to round out his Cabinet appointments by the end of next week.
Returning to the Pentagon will be a double homecoming for Mr. Rumsfeld, in a sense. When he served under Mr. Ford, he was well acquainted with Dick Cheney, then Mr. Ford's chief of staff, now about to be the Vice President. Mr. Rumsfeld also served as Mr. Ford's chief of staff.
But by any measure, Mr. Rumsfeld, who has been in private business in recent years, will be returning to a Defense Department - assuming he is confirmed by the Senate - that will have vastly different concerns.
When he served under President Ford, the Soviet Union and the Cold War will geopolitical realties. Today, they are history, shunted aside on the worry list by terrorists and third-world dictators. In Mr. Rumsfeld's first tenure, the American defeat in Vietnam was a fresh memory, and the draft had ended only a few years before. Today, there are more women in the armed forces than ever before, and the services have had to become more friendly to lure young people into the ranks.
Mr. Rumsfeld had been mentioned as a possible Director of Central Intelligence. He turned that speculation into a joke today, deadpanning that he looked forward to serving with Mr. Bush's C.I.A. chief, "whoever that may be."
Amid laughter, Mr. Rumsfeld said, "I can confirm that it's not me."
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Bush names Rumsfeld as defense secretary
USA Today
12/28/00- Updated 05:58 PM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/vote2000/bush114.htm
WASHINGTON (AP) - President-elect Bush chose Donald Rumsfeld to be his secretary of defense, unexpectedly summoning a veteran of four Republican administrations back to the Pentagon post he held a generation ago. Bush said Rumsfeld will be ''a great secretary of defense - again.''
Bush's announcement that he will nominate Rumsfeld, 68, came after days of speculation that the top defense job would go to former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats, or to one of two former aides to Vice President-elect Dick Cheney.
Instead, it went to a man who once was Cheney's White House boss. With the Rumsfeld selection, Bush said he has a team of ''very strong, smart people'' to deal with national defense and diplomacy in the Cabinet and the White House. He said Secretary of State-designate Colin Powell, national security adviser Condeleezza Rice, Rumsfeld and Cheney - also a former defense secretary - will provide him some of the best counsel a president could get.
''General Powell's a strong figure and Dick Cheney's no shrinking violet,'' Bush said, ''but neither is Don Rumsfeld nor Condi Rice.'' He said he knows there will be disagreements among them and when there is, ''I'll be prepared to make the decision necessary for the good of the country.''
Bush said he would have another announcement on Friday. Republican sources said that would include the nomination of Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson to be secretary of Health and Human Services.
At a separate transition briefing, spokesman Ari Fleischer announced his own appointment, saying Bush had chosen him to be White House press secretary. The Thompson choice is as expected as Rumsfeld's was surprising. Rumsfeld himself joked about the speculation that he was headed for the Central Intelligence Agency, saying he looked forward to working with the new director there, ''whoever that may be.''
Rumsfeld was the youngest secretary of defense when President Gerald R. Ford named him to the job at 43, late in 1975. He spent 14 months at the Pentagon. He had been Ford's White House chief of staff; Cheney, who had been his deputy, succeeded Rumsfeld in that position.
A Thompson nomination on Friday would leave Bush five Cabinet posts to fill, at the departments of Education, Energy, Interior, Labor, Transportation and Veterans Affairs.
Bush told a news conference after the Rumsfeld announcement that he felt he was making good progress, given the five weeks of uncertainty that followed the contested Nov. 7 election. ''And I hope to have the Cabinet completed at the end of the first week in January,'' he said. ''Don't hold me to it, though.''
But he did guarantee that ''on Inauguration Day, we'll be ready to assume our respective offices.'' That's Jan. 20.
After his hairbreadth victory over Al Gore for the White House, Bush indicated he would have Democrats in his administration, but there are none so far. ''I'm not having any trouble getting Democrats to return my phone calls,'' he said. But he clearly is having trouble getting them to join his Republican administration. ''I've talked to some Democrats about whether or not there may be an interest of leaving their current positions, and most people want to stay in place,'' he said.
Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, calling Rumsfeld ''a solid choice, a good choice'' for the Pentagon, said he shouldn't be on ''any speculative list'' about the Bush Cabinet because he is staying in Congress. His name had been mentioned for Veterans Affairs.
Rumsfeld was an Illinois congressman from 1963 until 1969, when he joined the Nixon administration, later serving as ambassador to NATO, then as President Ford's chief of staff. Since leaving the government in 1975, he has been a business executive and adviser to presidents, most recently as chairman of a commission on the threat posed to the United States by ballistic missiles.
So Bush said that in Rumsfeld, he will have a man ''wise on the subject of missile defense,'' one of his declared goals.
''To defend our forces and allies and our own country from the threat of missile attack or accidental launch, we must develop a missile defense system,'' he said. President Clinton delayed a firm decision on proceeding with one, over allied, Russian and Chinese objections.
Bush said he also intends to ''strengthen the bond of trust'' between the White House and the men and women of the military, and that a pay raise for them will be in his first budget.
The president-elect said one of Rumsfeld's first tasks ''will be to challenge the status quo inside the Pentagon, to develop a strategy necessary to have a force equipped for warfare of the 21st Century.''
Bush said Rumsfeld's record of service is an extraordinary one.
''Former chief of staff, CEO, former secretary of defense, this is a man who has got great judgment, he has got strong vision, and he's going to be a great secretary of defense - again,'' Bush said.
Answering questions after the announcement:
Bush declined to discuss Middle East peace efforts, saying only that he is impressed with Clinton's efforts for a settlement between Israel and the Palestinians and ''we hope it works.'' He said the United States must speak with one voice and that is Clinton's so long as he is president.
The president-elect said he expected tough Senate questioning of all his Cabinet nominees, not only Attorney General-designate John Ashcroft, who has drawn sharp Democratic criticism.
Bush avoided discussing North Korea and Asia policy. Clinton announced earlier Thursday that he would not travel North Korea before leaving office. ''Let me get sworn in first,'' he said.
Rumsfeld sidestepped the question of changing the don't ask-don't tell policy on gays in the military, an issue that stirred trouble for Clinton when he took office in 1993. He said it was not an issue Bush had discussed and ''certainly, the priorities are in other areas for me.''
Bush flew to Washington for the Rumsfeld announcement and other transition work after a two-day golf and fishing break with his parents and brothers in Boca Grande, Fla.
''Load 'em up,'' he said as he strode out of his vacation inn at dawn on Thursday to head for the airport and the flight north.
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Bush Chooses Cold War Veteran As Defense Chief
Yahoo News
Top Stories News
Thursday December 28 5:02 PM ET
By Randall Mikkelsen
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001228/ts/bush_leadall_dc_91.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect George W. Bu