------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Navy to investigate sub collision
Apology sought in submarine crash
Repairs delay survey of sub wreckage
Western firms to modernise Bulgaria Kozloduy N-plant
Uranium shell tests resume
dangers from a dust particle of d.u.
Depleted uranium in weapons causing cancer
Greenpeace says Finnish nuclear waste plans hasty
Israel and U.S. Begin Patriot Missile Exercise
Japanese Pressed for Navy Inquiry
Russia/U.S.: Moscow Disagrees Over Missile Defense
China wants Ottawa's aid in stopping U.S. shield
NATO Talks To Be Difficult
Sub chief declines NTSB inquiry
EPA probes Shattuck over N-waste
Suit Accuses Federal Contractors of Mishandling Cleanup at Nuclear Lab
Suit says INEEL contractors broke laws
Health-risks office steps up commitment to Oak Ridge issues
Utah
Critics raise alarm over plutonium waste transfer

MILITARY
NATO's Expansion Tool
The School Of The American Empire
Myanmar chopper crash kills general
Trial to begin for Canada biker gangs
Iraq Media Threatens Punishment
SADDAM THREATENS RETALIATION AGAINST KUWAIT
Israel and U.S. Begin Patriot Missile Exercise
U.S., Israel in Missile Exercise
Peacekeeping Team Visits Lucane
Belgrade Urges NATO Action As Death Toll Rises
Space Shuttle Landing Postponed
Lasers could one day propel spacecraft
Sub Commander Refuses Questioning
U.S. Navy releases VIP list from sub
Marines Cut Osprey Tests
Iraq Seeks Anti - U.S. Arab Protests; NATO Split
Sub chief declines NTSB inquiry
Nebraska

OTHER
Arizona
Farmers tap wind, solar energy
Maryland
Global warming risks outlined
Microbes may live in Antarctic lake
Scientists call for ocean parks
Giant salamanders lurk in Japan
Scientists study sea lion decline
Report shows global warming risks
Glacier Loss Seen as Clear Sign of Human Role in Global Warming
U.N. study: Global warming is evident now
California
Railroad gene test baffles ethicists
IMF, World Bank Heads in Africa to Listen
Police Gain Control in Brazil's Biggest Jail Riots
Colorado
Thermal imaging search in court
2 Suspects detained in Cole bombing
Bush Dedicates Oklahoma Museum

ACTIVISTS
Get ready for the next International Day of Action!
Korean Police Break Up Worker Occupation of Daewoo Plant
Colombian troops call negotiations
Protesters defy Kashmir curfew
Cops break up protest in Malaysia
Daewoo workers clash with police
Hamas activist dies
Turkish police arrest 40 in protest
Refugees protest camp conditions
Police raid Daewoo plant in S. Korea
Sign petition to UNCSD:

-
-------- NUCLEAR

Navy to investigate sub collision

2/19/2001
Infobeat News
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=5vo780if5hptp

HONOLULU (AP) - Japanese family members examined videotape of the sunken ship Ehime Maru sitting upright on the ocean floor as a top U.S. Navy official announced a high-level investigation into why a U.S. submarine surfaced directly underneath it, leaving nine of their relatives missing. The videotape, taken by robot submersibles, shows the exterior of the fishing vessel seemingly in pristine condition, with no signs of the nine men and boys who have been missing since Feb. 9 when the USS Greeneville collided with the ship during an emergency surfacing drill. Damage to the bottom of the boat was not visible because of the downward angle of the video, taken 2,033 feet below the ocean surface, a Coast Guard spokesman Saturday.

Relatives have demanded answers as to why the 360-foot nuclear-powered submarine stationed two civilians at key controls during the emergency drill. As the 6,900-ton submarine surfaced, its rudder superstructure knifed through the hull of the 500-ton Ehime Maru, which sank within minutes.

Twenty-six survivors were plucked from the waters near Pearl Harbor. The remaining nine crew and passengers are missing and presumed dead.

----

Apology sought in submarine crash

UWAJIMA, Japan (AP) - Tatsuyoshi Mizuguchi most likely will never again exchange a hug with his missing son. But the distraught father wants to see his 17-year-old son just one more time. So he wants recovery of the fishing boat his son was on when it was rammed by a U.S. Navy submarine in maneuvers over a week ago. "I believe my son is trapped inside," Mizuguchi said Sunday, his lips trembling as he tried to hold back tears.

The USS Greeneville, a U.S. Navy submarine practicing a quick surfacing maneuver, on Feb. 9 smashed into the Ehime Maru, a Japanese ship carrying high school students from Ehime prefecture on a fisheries training mission, sinking it. Twenty-six people on board were rescued. Nine are still missing, including Mizuguchi's son and three other high school students.

Late Saturday, Navy officials said that a remote-controlled deep-diving vehicle had located the wreckage of the 190-foot Japanese vessel, sitting nearly upright 2,033 feet underwater. It remained unclear whether victims' bodies were inside.

During a Honolulu news conference Saturday charged with tears and anger, family members of the missing demanded the United States recover the ship.

Anger in Japan over the accident has not waned, and newspapers were highly critical of the U.S. military's handling of the mishap.

-----

Repairs delay survey of sub wreckage

HONOLULU (AP) - The Navy's efforts to scan the wreckage of a Japanese ship sunk by a U.S. submarine were set back Sunday when a deep-sea robot was removed from the sea for repairs. The Navy is using the robot to evaluate the feasibility of raising the 190-foot Ehime Maru, which sank minutes after the USS Greeneville surfaced underneath it Feb. 9. Late Saturday, crew members using the robot noticed a tear in the tether used to raise and lower it. Navy officials said a separate sonar device, which was being towed through the ocean depths scanning for debris near the shipwreck, still was in use. They said the video-equipped robot could be ready to use Monday.

Families of nine men and teen-age boys missing since the sinking are pressing the Navy to recover any bodies that may be entombed in the Ehime Maru, even if that means conducting what experts say would be a monumental and unprecedented salvage of the entire ship. Videotape taken by the robot since Friday showed the exterior of the ship seemingly in pristine condition, but the Coast Guard said the full extent of damage had not been determined. The Navy said the deep-sea robots may be too big to enter the wreckage to retrieve any bodies from it.

The commercial fishing training vessel was headed toward fishing grounds 300 miles southeast of Oahu when the USS Greeneville collided with it during an emergency rapid-ascent drill.

Twenty-six people were rescued, but there have been no signs of the nine missing during a continuing Coast Guard search.

------- bulgaria

Western firms to modernise Bulgaria Kozloduy N-plant

February 19, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=9840&newsDate=19-Feb-2001

SOFIA - A consortium of European firms signed a $235.5 million deal with Bulgaria's nuclear power plant at Kozloduy to modernise its two 1,000-megawatt reactors, a senior government official said on Friday.

Bulgaria's State Energy Agency chairman Ivan Shilyashki told Reuters there were two upgrading projects, one worth 199.5 million euro ($182.5 million) and another $53 million.

Both would be performed by Germany's Siemens AG, France's Framatome and Russia's Atomenergoexport.

On Wednesday another deal, worth $76 million, was signed with US Westinghouse Electric Company also to upgrade the two reactors.

Funds for the projects were granted last year when the European Commission signed a 212.5 million euro loan, Russia's Export-Import Bank Rosexim provided a $80 million loan and USCitibank extended $77 million.

The Kozloduy plant, which has also four 440-megawatt reactors, provides almost half of the country's electricity.

Bulgaria, which is in talks on joining the European Union, had agreed to close the two oldest 440-megawatt reactors by 2003, earlier than initially planned.

A final decision on the closure of the other two 440-megawatt units is due to be taken by the end of 2002 but Sofia hopes to upgrade them and run them to the end of their projected life.

-------- depleted uranium

Uranium shell tests resume
There are concerns over depleted uranium shells

Monday, 19 February, 2001
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/scotland/newsid_1177000/1177862.stm

New tests of depleted uranium weapons are scheduled to begin at the Dundrennan military range near Kirkcudbright this week.

It follows an earlier decision by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to press ahead with the tests, despite opposition.

Local people near the facility want the tests stopped amid growing fears about the health risks posed by the shells.

But the MoD insists that the environmental contamination caused by the shells is negligible and there is no known risk to public health.

Thousands of depleted uranium tipped shells have been test fired from the Dundrennan range into the Solway Firth in the past 20 years.

Public health risk

Public concern at the testing has grown in recent years following allegations about a possible link between exposure to depleted uranium and cases of cancer among British troops who served in the peacekeeping force in the Balkans.

Nato warplanes dropped 10,000 rounds of depleted uranium ammunition in Bosnia in 1994 and 1995.

Soldiers from several countries, including Britain, Italy, Portugal and France, have fallen ill with what has been dubbed Balkan Syndrome.

The allegations have prompted villagers in Dundrennan, who have previously accepted the MoD's assurances, to call for an end to the testing.

They say the programme should be halted while question marks remain about the risks posed to public health.

-------

dangers from a dust particle of d.u.

Mon, 19 Feb 2001
Bruno Vitale
Reply-to: du-list@yahoogroups.com

a simple calculation on the decay of a dust "speck" of 1 mg (1/1000 g) of U[238], to show that even a "speck" can be very dangerous

(with a density of about 20 g/cm3, this "speck" has a volume of about 1/20 mm3, a very small dot that could infiltrate everywhere)

- 238 g of U[238] contain 6.1023 molecules (in this case, atoms) of U[238]; and so, 1 mg of U[238] contains ~ 3.1018 atoms

- the life-time of U[238] is t = 4.5 . 109 y ~ 1.4 . 1017 s

as dN(t) = -k N(t) dt, N(t) = N(0) e-kt, N(t) = 0.5 N(0), we get ln 0.5 = -k t, which leads to k ~ 5.10-18 therefore, the number of radioactive decays per second inside a "speck" of 1 mg of U[238] is of the order of DN ~ 1.5 . 10 decay/s = 15 decay/s

(caution: due to the low energy of the emitted radiation, a large part of this radiation could be reabsorbed inside the "speck" and have no external effects; much will depend on the geometry of the "speck": the most favourable case is when it is spherical, the worse when it is flattened to a dot)

this is only the beginning, of course, of the radioactive chain started by the U[238] and that goes to Th[234] and then to Pa [234] and then to U[234] (of very long lifetime) through the local emission of two electrons

it seems to me, therefore, that it is a bit silly to talk only of the average, background (low) radioactivity due to U[238]; the local, microscopic effects of a very tiny "speck" (for instance, inside a tissue or a cell) could be extremely aggressive

-------

Depleted uranium in weapons causing cancer
Iraqi doctors blame Desert Storm shells for deformed babies

Monday 19 February 2001
Edmonton Journal
Don Thomas
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/city/stories/010219/5083470.html

Canada should join Italy, Germany and other NATO partners in determining the health effects of depleted uranium used in munitions, says a prominent critic of defence issues.

There's strong evidence that airborne particles of the radioactive metal used in concrete and armour-piercing bullets and cannon shells has mutagenic and cancer-causing properties when inhaled, says Scott Taylor.

Taylor is editor and publisher of the Ottawa-based Esprit de Corps magazine. He was in Edmonton Saturday to publicize a new book on the Kosovo conflict, Inat: Images of Serbia and the Kosovo conflict.

National Defence officials have repeatedly insisted that depleted uranium has no health effects. It claims that testing of 107 soldiers who served in the Gulf war showed no evidence of medical problems.

Munitions containing depleted uranium were used extensively by U.S. and British forces in the Desert Storm war in Iraq a decade ago. And after initial denials, the British and Americans have also admitted to its use in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Depleted uranium is used in armour-piercing rounds because it is dense and able to penetrate tanks. When it enters the tank, it burns, incinerating the tank crew. It's also used in some tanks' armour plating.

Iraqi doctors blame the hundreds of deformed babies born in southern Iraq since Desert Storm on depleted uranium particles inhaled by civilians.

Taylor last year visited Basra in southern Iraq where such weapons were used most heavily. He toured a "rogues' gallery" of deformed babies whose parents had supposedly been exposed to vapours of exploded shells containing depleted uranium.

"There's hundreds and hundreds of photographs that absolutely turn your stomach. It's kids with two heads, babies born with no skin, organs on the outside. And almost every one of these kids died," he said.

Italy has blamed depleted uranium for the death of eight of its peacekeepers who served in the Balkans. It has joined Germany, Greece and Norway in calling for a moratorium in its use in munitions.

"The World Health Organization has been (in Iraq), did one quick test and said we need a massive international survey on this issue right now. The one blocking it is the U.S.," he said.

"If Canada and the Americans are going to be serious about this, the first place they should be testing is Basra, Iraq, where they've got leukemia that is at least 10 times what it was 10 years ago.

"This is the only urban centre that was exposed to a massive amounts of depleted uranium when the retreating Iraqis were hit by the coalition forces. If you're going to find any sort of link, it's going to be there."

As Germany and other European peacekeeper nations question the use of depleted uranium, "I think it's up to Canadians to push our government to either get on the bandwagon or lead the charge," Taylor said.

-------- finland

Greenpeace says Finnish nuclear waste plans hasty

February 19, 2001
Story by Laura Vinha
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=9842&newsDate=19-Feb-2001

HELSINKI - Greenpeace urged Finland on Friday not to go ahead with a proposal to build Western Europe's first permanent deep underground nuclear waste dump until more information was available.

The international environmental watchdog said it was too early to know whether burial was the best way to dispose of nuclear waste, and the decision on what to do with it should be left for future generations to make when they had the necessary information.

"Future generations will have to decide what should be done when they have all the information," Helen Wallace, a Greenpeace nuclear expert told a news conference after briefing Finnish parliamentarians.

"We think it is better to pass on the responsibility to deal with nuclear waste than to pass on the problem of a leaking waste site," she said.

The government decided in December to support in principle plans by nuclear waste group Posiva Oy - a unit of Nuclear group Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) and Fortum power group - to build underground research facilities in Olkiluoto, on the west coast of Finland.

Parliament must still endorse the decision.

If Posiva gets the go-ahead it plans to begin research excavations and then to start building a final radioactive waste treatment plant in 2010. The final plant will require further approval from government.

The site would house waste from Finland's four existing nuclear reactors. TVO filed an application in November to build a fifth reactor, contrary to the general European shift towards non-nuclear power.

Wallace said parliamentarians risked making hasty, unsound choices.

The construction work required for the planned tests would disturb base rock, hurt chances of future above-ground testing, and meddle with underground water flows in ways which are still insufficiently understood, she said.

"More research is needed before any excavation takes place," she said. Existing rock laboratories should instead be used along with non-destructive research methods such as ultrasound mapping and computer models.

Wallace said that trying to find a final dumping site would hinder the search for other solutions, and the focus of research would shift to the technicalities of deep underground dumping.

Officials at Posiva were not immediately available for comment. The firm said on its website that while the long-term safety of disposed waste could not be verified by experiments, it could be proved by experimental research and simulations.

-------- israel

Israel and U.S. Begin Patriot Missile Exercise

February 19, 2001
Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/19/world/19WIRE-MISS.html

JERUSALEM, Feb. 19 - Israeli and U.S. troops began a joint military exercise on Monday to test Patriot missiles, used to intercept Iraqi Scud missiles in the 1991 Gulf War, an Israeli army spokeswoman said.

The wargames in the Israeli desert began three days after U.S. and British fighter planes attacked military installations near the Iraqi capital Baghdad, sending jitters through Israel, which endured Iraqi missile attacks during the war a decade ago.

The Israeli army insisted the exercise was pre-planned and had nothing to do with the recent U.S.-British strikes.

"The exercise has been planned for over a year and is part of routine U.S.-Israel training designed to validate interoperability of air defence systems," the army said in a statement.

Israel has said it is taking seriously Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's threats to retaliate for the air strikes -- even though it considers there to be no immediate danger.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met security officials on Sunday to discuss developments in Iraq. His office said in a statement that Israel would keep a close eye on the situation, but "there is no need to take any sort of special measures."

Washington sent Patriot missiles to Israel during the 1991 Gulf War with Iraq, but they failed to halt most of the 39 Iraqi Scud missiles fired at Israel, most of which damaged neighbourhoods in and around Tel Aviv.

-------- japan

Japanese Pressed for Navy Inquiry

Monday, February 19, 2001
Washington Post
By Thomas E. Ricks
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23486-2001Feb18?language=printer

The Navy's decision to hold a rare public inquiry into the actions of officers commanding the USS Greeneville was influenced by increasing Japanese pressure on U.S. officials to hold someone accountable after the submarine rammed a fishing trawler carrying high school students on a training voyage off the coast of Hawaii 10 days ago, military officials said yesterday.

The inquiry, to be held at the Navy base at Pearl Harbor, promises to be one of the most dramatic military legal proceedings in years and stands in sharp contrast to several other recent U.S. military examinations of commanders' actions.

Over the past week, the Navy has come under intensifying criticism for the Feb. 9 accident, for first not disclosing that civilians were at two of the submarine's three key controls when the accident occurred, and then for not disclosing the names of the civilians for several more days.

Two of those civilians issued a statement of regret yesterday. "We very deeply regret the loss of life resulting from the accident and extend our most sincere sympathy and heartfelt aloha to the survivors of the accident and to the families and friends who have missing loved ones," said Michael and Susan Nolan of Honolulu.

Another couple who had been aboard the Greeneville, Jay and Carol Brehmer of Overland Park, Kan., said, "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those killed in this tragedy."

During a weekend conference call among officials from the Pentagon, State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, Adm. Dennis Blair, the commander of all U.S. military forces in the Pacific, said that from now on, he -- not the Navy -- would set policy for handling the Greeneville incident, a military official said. Blair said that henceforth U.S. policy would be "transparent and open," the official added.

Underscoring that change in approach, the Navy yesterday showed relatives of the nine missing people from the trawler a 35-minute videotape of the wreck taken by a deep-diving robot.

Courts of inquiry usually are held only to examine the most serious incidents -- the sinking of the USS Maine in Havana harbor in 1898, the actions of top officers before the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, and the North Korean seizure of the USS Pueblo in 1968. The last such major Navy inquiry followed a 1992 accident in which the USS Saratoga mistakenly fired two deadly missiles into a nearby Turkish destroyer during an exercise in the Mediterranean Sea.

Military experts are deeply divided over the question of whether the U.S. armed services in recent years have abandoned the tradition of holding commanders rigidly accountable for errors that occur "on their watch." And among those that believe the rules of accountability have changed, there is further disagreement over whether that represents a laudable move toward fairness or a worrisome erosion of discipline.

Adm. Thomas Fargo, the Pacific Fleet commander, said Saturday that he decided on the court of inquiry in part because it offered "a forum for public disclosure." Unlike less formal proceedings, it will have subpoena power and will take sworn statements that can be scrutinized by outsiders.

The three admirals running the inquiry "will provide a full and open accounting to both the American and the Japanese people," Fargo said. The court of inquiry could decide on a range of fates for the sub's skipper, Cmdr. Scott Waddle, and members of his crew. Depending on the evidence presented about the actions of the captain and his crew, they could order courts-martial on criminal charges, or pursue lesser administrative punishments, or could find no reason for further action.

The inquiry is expected to proceed fairly swiftly, probably calling no more than about 20 witnesses, a Pentagon official said yesterday. "The Navy doesn't want this to dribble on with endless stories," said another official.

It probably first will hear testimony from Rear Adm. Charles Griffiths Jr., to review the basic conclusions of the initial Navy investigation he conducted over the last week. Then it is expected to call Waddle; his executive officer, Lt. Cmdr. Gerald K. Pfeifer; and the young officer who was "officer of the deck" at the time of the incident, Lt. j.g. Michael J. Coen.

"The key question will be: Why didn't you know the boat was there?" the Pentagon official said. To determine the answer, the inquiry is likely to focus on the periscope surveys of the surface conducted before the Greeneville submerged to execute its rapid ascent drill, called an "emergency main ballast blow."

According to retired submariners, Waddle and other crew members are likely to be examined on the rigor of the periscope survey, and specifically on whether Waddle ordered the submarine to get sufficiently near the surface so that his periscope could peer over the wave tops. The officers' testimony on the thoroughness of the periscope survey can be checked against the deck log's record of what depth the sub was at when it was conducted, as well as how long it spent at that depth.

In addition, the court of inquiry is expected to look into why the sub's sonar operators failed to detect the presence of the Japanese boat and then ask for a follow-up periscope sweep, officials said. The qualifications and training of the operators will come under examination then, they said. In addition, the court of inquiry might ask whether the "climate of command" created by Waddle made sailors feel they could speak up if they believed they had information that might contradict him.

How the three admirals rule may go a long way toward shaping public views of military justice system.

"It does seem that there has been a departure in recent years from past standards of responsibility and accountability," said retired Adm. Henry H. Mauz Jr., a former commander of the Atlantic Fleet. "There does seem to be a pattern of excusing individuals in command from the hard reality of what happened on their watch."

Others interviewed pointed to case after case in which people were abused, injured or killed, and no one has been jailed or fired, and sometimes not punished at all. They cited an array of recent examples:

• After the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 U.S. troops and injured hundreds of others, no one was punished, and the Air Force got in a public squabble with Defense Secretary William S. Cohen when Cohen declined to approve the promotion of the brigadier general who had been in command.

• In February 1998, a Marine EA-6B jet sliced through the cables of a gondola ski lift in the Italian mountains, killing 20 people. The pilot was acquitted of manslaughter but convicted of a lesser charge of obstruction of justice.

• A battalion of the 82nd Airborne was found in an internal Army investigation to have beaten, threatened and abused civilians in Kosovo while on duty there from September 1999 through March 2000. One sergeant in the unit was convicted of raping and murdering an 11-year-old ethnic Albanian girl. Some junior members of the unit were reprimanded, yet the Army says the battalion's commander, Lt. Col. Michael D. Ellerbe, remains on track for a plum assignment at the Army War College.

• The Pentagon decided last month that blame for security lapses that preceded last October's bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, in which 17 sailors died, would be shared collectively and that no individuals would be punished.

"I am troubled by the apparent lack of accountability in our government leadership in recent years, both civilian and military," said retired Marine Lt. Gen. Paul Van Riper. "There always seems to be a rationale for why someone isn't called to task."

The U.S. military seems especially reluctant to punish personnel who accidentally kill foreigners, said Bruce Vandervort, the editor of the Journal of Military History. He worried that this "stems from the kind of arrogance that seems to be inseparable from 'superpower' status, whether you are talking about Britain in the 19th century or the USA in the 20th or 21st century."

The "erosion of command responsibility" is worrisome but not all bad, concluded retired Marine Brig. Gen. Edwin H. Simmons: "It was once harsh and arbitrary, now it has softened."

To be sure, not everyone thinks that military accountability has slackened. Several officers pointed out that the "zero defects" mentality, in which any mistake can end a career, is a persistent problem in the military. "Micromanagement is an issue in all the services now," said retired Army Lt. Gen. Terry Scott, now the director of national security programs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Others noted that the old system of finding someone to blame, whether or not he was guilty, lacked fairness. Nowadays, "We try not to scapegoat," said one senior military lawyer. "When someone is to blame, the military tends to hold them accountable. But we are in a dangerous business and accidents do happen."

Most of all, officers argued that the civilian world doesn't understand just how devastating it can be to have a promising military career ended prematurely. Several current and former Navy officers said they believe that even if Waddle is cleared of negligence, he will never command another Navy submarine.

"Civilians do not see removal from command, denial of further advancement, or anything short of criminal punishment as acceptable, yet for the professional to see a promising career ended, that's devastating in its own way," argued retired Army Col. Leonard Fullenkamp, an expert in military history.

-------- missile defense

Russia/U.S.: Moscow Disagrees Over Missile Defense -- Part 2

01/02/19
Radio Free Europe
By Jeremy Bransten
http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2001/02/19022001115337.asp

Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan first proposed developing a space-based nuclear shield in the 1980s. The shield -- consisting of high-tech radars and lasers -- was to have been purely defensive in nature. The system would intercept and destroy long-range missiles fired at the United States and its allies before those missiles had a chance to reach their target. The "Star Wars" plan, as it was dubbed, got a cold reception in Moscow. Soviet officials argued the United States could launch a first-strike nuclear attack and subsequently use the shield to protect itself from nuclear retaliation, undercutting the deterrent of "mutually assured destruction." The issue is again at the forefront of the U.S.-Russia relationship.

In the second part of his four-part series, RFE/RL correspondent Jeremy Bransten examines the issue.

Prague, 19 February 2001 (RFE/RL) -- Much has changed since Ronald Reagan first floated his "Star Wars" plan. The demise of the Soviet Union in 1991 robbed Moscow of its superpower status, leaving Washington without a major adversary. But the idea of a missile defense shield has found a champion in U.S. President George W. Bush, who has vowed to push for its deployment.

The Bush administration argues the ranks of nuclear nations may soon swell to include "rogue" states such as North Korea and Iraq. In its new incarnation, Washington's proposed national missile defense system would be aimed at intercepting long-range ballistic missiles launched by those states.

Once again, the United States argues, the shield would be purely defensive and add to global security. As Secretary of State Colin Powell argued in Washington this month:

"We think it is, at the end of the day, stabilizing. It is part of an overall deterrent system and it will strengthen deterrence."

Moscow remains opposed to the project. At a recent European security conference in Munich, the secretary of the Russian Security Council, Sergei Ivanov, argued that deployment of the U.S. missile defense system would mean an end to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, known as ABM, between Washington and Moscow -- leading to a new arms race. Russia considers the ABM treaty, which places limits on both countries on developing anti-missile systems, as the cornerstone of arms-control agreements.

Ivanov says:

"These plans, first of all, undermine the fundamentals of global strategic stability. Deployment of the Anti-Missile Defense [system], by definition, would make the ABM treaty senseless. And destruction of the ABM Treaty -- and we are quite positive about it -- will result in annihilation of the whole structure of strategic stability and create prerequisites for a new arms race, including the one in outer space."

The Bush administration says the ABM treaty needs to be amended, but it has launched a major public relations effort to convince Russia it has nothing to fear from national missile defense. Washington's European allies will also need convincing.

How serious are the divisions and to what degree will Washington's determination to pursue this project alter its relations with its European allies and, above all, Russia?

Stephen Blank, an expert on arms, says that in one sense, Russia is reaping the fruits of its missile proliferation:

"The Russians have no one to blame but themselves. They're the ones running around selling nuclear technology and know-how to all these states. They've sold it to Iran, they've sold it to Iraq. They probably gave it to North Korea. They've given it to China. They've given assistance to India. What did they think would happen?"

Blank acknowledges that much of Europe is against any form of U.S. national missile defense. France opposes it. Sweden, which is not a NATO member but currently presides over the EU, has called on Washington to halt the program. Germany was initially lukewarm to the idea but now appears to be more supportive, regarding it as purely an American decision.

Blank says opposition from America's allies should be expected and will gradually be overcome.

"The fact is the Europeans are going to criticize the United States a lot of times, no matter what it does. And that's in a sense part of the price of being the leader of the alliance. Now the facts are, however, that if such a system can work -- and we're talking now either theater missile defense or national missile defense -- it will be available to Europe."

The term "national" missile defense initially rankled European sensibilities, prompting the question of whether America would leave its allies to fight rogue states on their own, while the U.S. remained safe behind its missile shield. Over the past two weeks, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has taken pains to stress that Europe would be included in any working system.

But how Washington will mollify Russia remains to be seen.

Andrei Piontkowsky, head of the Moscow-based Center for Strategic Studies, says that despite the Kremlin's increasingly shrill language, Russia has little to fear from national missile defense and Russian officials privately acknowledge that.

"Russia's response capability today amounts to 1,000 warheads, which Moscow can unleash in response to a hit on the territory of the United States. The maximum which the proposed national missile defense system could counteract -- at least over the n ext 15 to 20 years -- would be 20 to 50 warheads. So the only change is that Russia's response capability will go down to 950 warheads from 1,000. That's no significant difference whatsoever."

Piontkowsky says Europe's vocal opposition to the U.S. plan -- which began last year after a series of missile tests conducted under the Clinton administration -- has encouraged Moscow in recent weeks to strengthen its attacks, in an attempt to split the NATO alliance over the issue:

"Last summer, Moscow was inclined to compromise. But at the time, Europe began to raise protests regarding national missile defense -- especially Germany -- and this played into the hands of the opponents of compromise. Moscow once again got the illusion of being able to exploit trans-Atlantic differences in NATO."

But according to Piontkowsky, this strategy cannot work over the long term. German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer emphasized that point during a visit to Moscow last week, when he stressed that although Germany may have its differences with the United States, it remains a loyal NATO member and will not act as an intermediary between Moscow and Washington. Piontkowsky says Russia will have to negotiate a compromise with the United States, but this may take some time.

"Our diplomats have painted themselves into a corner. People are beginning to understand that modifying the ABM treaty would be more advantageous for Russia than renouncing all agreements. But they have repeated this threat so often that a reasonable compromise would look like a loss of face."

Beyond the politics of missile defense is the practical issue of whether such a system can actually work. Professor Blank explains:

"The tests that were carried out under the Clinton administration failed. What is clear is that you can do missile defense and that it works at the theater level. The Israelis have proved it. If you look at the "Arrow," which is the Israeli system -- built with our help as well -- it works as a theater missile defense. There's no doubt that it works and it's already operational."

Russian President Vladimir Putin recently suggested some form of regional security arrangement for Europe as a counter-proposal to missile defense.

Last week, a senior Russian general said Moscow would soon be ready with details of a plan for what it called a compact and inexpensive missile shield for Europe.

Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, the head of the Defense Ministry's international cooperation department, said Moscow's proposal would easily beat Washington's plan, which he says would drain Europe financially. Ivashov provided few details, but he described it as mobile, non-strategic anti-missile force.

Retired U.S. diplomat James Goodby, who served as Bill Clinton's chief negotiator for nuclear security and dismantlement, tells RFE/RL that any Russian counter-proposal may provide an opportunity for the U.S. to strike a deal on a more limited form of theater missile defense.

"Putin's talked about [a Russian shield]. Nothing's very clear in what he's said about what he's thinking, but I think it's an opening that ought to be exploited. [I] think that may indeed be the way you phase in any kind of system anyway, with something Russia is fully participating in and has some advantages for all parties."

Otherwise, Goodby says, a new arms race -- despite the fact that it would be ruinous for Russia and totally unnecessary from a military standpoint -- might indeed restart.

Russia's loss of superpower status means it holds few cards in the missile defense debate. Much will depend on its ability to compromise and Washington's willingness to accommodate.

-------

China wants Ottawa's aid in stopping U.S. shield
Proposed missile defence plan reveals 'Cold-War psyche,' Chinese official says

Monday, February 19, 2001
JEFF SALLOT
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

VANCOUVER -- China is joining a growing list of countries looking for Canadian support to sideline the U.S. national missile defence plan.

Sha Zukang, China's chief nuclear disarmament negotiator, is in Ottawa today for meetings with federal officials, hoping to persuade Canada to speak out against President George W. Bush's high-tech plans for a system of interceptor rockets to shoot incoming ballistic missiles out of the sky, a scheme China and many others fear could set off a new nuclear arms race.

"I hate national missile defence," Mr. Sha told an international gathering of arms control experts in Vancouver. "It comes from some kind of Cold-War psyche in America. People are searching for some kind of enemy, and maybe it can be China."

Officials from Russia, France and other European countries are also looking to Canada to use its special political and military relationship with the United States to convince the Bush administration that national missile defence (NMD) is an unrealistic dream that could become a global nightmare, unravelling decades of arms control agreements.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who would face strong domestic political opposition if he were to allow the United States to build NMD radar sites in the U.K., as Washington proposes, also will be in Ottawa this week to discuss missile defence.

Mr. Blair meets with Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, then heads to Washington to meet with Mr. Bush.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has expressed concern about NMD and, on a recent visit to Canada, got Mr. Chrétien to agree that the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which outlaws the kind of antimissile system Mr. Bush vows to deploy, is a "cornerstone of strategic stability."

The U.S. government has launched a diplomatic charm offensive of its own. It hopes that Ottawa will at least mute any opposition, if not actually give the NMD a maple leaf seal of approval.

U.S. government sources say the No. 1 priority of the U.S. embassy in Ottawa in coming months will be to try to get Canada on board with NMD.

Unlike the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney, which said no thanks to a similar "Star Wars" plan when it was proposed by the United States in the mid-1980s, Mr. Chrétien is sending out mixed signals about what Canada thinks about NMD.

He seemed to back the necessity of maintaining the ABM treaty after meeting with Mr. Putin but appeared less convinced of the pact's value after visiting Mr. Bush earlier this month. It has even looked at times as if he's waiting and listening.

China's position is not ambiguous. Mr. Sha said NMD is a thinly disguised plot to acquire overwhelming military superiority so that Washington can intimidate others.

Canada's importance in the international debate was evident Friday at the private consultations convened in Vancouver by Lloyd Axworthy, the former foreign affairs minister and an opponent of NMD and the earlier "Star Wars."

Mr. Axworthy, now head of the Liu Centre for the Study of Global Issues at the University of British Columbia, assembled arms control experts from the Chinese government and think tanks in Russia, the United States, Canada, India and Denmark for a one-day brainstorming session. The British and French governments sent diplomatic observers. Mr. Sha was the most animated in his opposition to NMD.

But most of the other experts seemed to agree that NMD wouldn't really work. A determined foe, terrorist group or so-called rogue state, could find other means to attack the United States, including flying low-level cruise missiles under the missile shield, or sailing a cargo ship into a major U.S. port with a bomb aboard.

Even some of the proponents of NMD acknowledge it would not be able to guarantee shooting down all incoming missiles in an all-out attack by a foe with a large arsenal.

So if NMD can't really eliminate the threats from terrorists or rogue states such as North Korea, Iraq or Iran -- the supposed rationale for the system -- the Chinese have to ask what is it the Americans are really up to, Mr. Sha said. Chinese leaders believe the uneasy answer is that hard-liners in Washington want to make China the new Cold War enemy.

"We don't like the idea, to put it mildly," Mr. Sha said, his face turning red. China has, at most, 24 nuclear warheads. The United States has thousands. China would have to respond by improving its nuclear arsenal.

A Chinese buildup could result in a "cascade of consequences" in Asia, Gloria Duffy, who was a senior official in the U.S. Department of Defence in former president Bill Clinton's administration, told the Vancouver group. China's foe, India, would feel the need to increase its tiny nuclear arsenal, with India's rival, Pakistan, another of the new nuclear powers, responding in kind, she said.

Ms. Duffy and William Perry, the former U.S. defence secretary, will present a briefing paper later this month for Bush national security officials on NMD urging caution.

Ms. Duffy and Mr. Perry say that even if the enormous technical problems of building an NMD system can be solved, deployment might have unintended consequences for the United Stats -- such as setting off an Asian arms race and stimulating the type of proliferation of weapons technology that was the primary concern of NMD proponents.

Mr. Axworthy said he is sensitive to U.S. concerns about terrorist threats and proliferation of weapons. He said the way to deal with the U.S. drive to deploy a destabilizing NMD system is to take the underlying concerns about U.S. vulnerability to homeland attack seriously and work from there.

The way to counter the pro-NMD lobby is to deal directly with the North Korean, Iranian and other regimes to make them less threatening, he said. This was one of the reasons he was so keen last year to open a high-level dialogue with North Korea, which led to full diplomatic relations.

"If you force proponents [of NMD] to say there is no longer a rogue state problem it will be clear that they are going after China, and I don't think Canadians would buy that as a rationale at all," Mr. Axworthy said.

The debate over NMD is intense, involves life-and-death issues, but is being conducted out of sight, behind closed doors in defence and foreign ministries, Mr. Axworthy said.

Unlike Mr. Axworthy's successful international campaign to get a treaty banning land mines, the peace and disarmament groups "don't have a poster child with a missile in the forehead." The issues are complicated and abstract, and take strange twists.

There are risks that the Americans might retaliate in some way if Canada were to lead a high-profile charge against NMD, Mr. Axworthy said. But the Bush administration would come to realize retaliation is self-defeating because Canada and the United States must co-operate in so many fields.

-------- russia

NATO Talks To Be Difficult

February 19, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-NATO.html

MOSCOW (AP) -- By playing host to NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson this week, Moscow is signaling its desire to ease a tug-of-war with the alliance.

But talks are sure to be difficult: Russia saw NATO's 1999 decision to bring Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic into the alliance as a direct threat to its security, and has warned that granting membership to three former Soviet republics in the Baltic region -- Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania -- would be going too far.

Robertson's packed two-day visit, which began late Monday, is timed for the reopening of NATO's information office in Moscow, which Russia shut down in spring 1999 in protest of the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia.

He also has a broad agenda for talks with Russian officials, including peacekeeping efforts, Russia's military doctrine, the alliance's strategic concept and arms control.

But his toughest task will be to calm Russia's alarm over NATO's eastward expansion.

On arrival at Moscow's Vnukovo airport, Robertson said he had ``a packet of proposals of the North Atlantic alliance on matters of strategic stability and, in particular, on ABM,'' the Interfax news agency reported.

The United States' proposal to build a national missile-defense system, which goes against the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, is one of the most serious points of tension between Washington and Moscow.

Russia and NATO ``are building very firm relations which will allow us to avoid the crisis situations springing up in the world today,'' Robertson said, according to Interfax.

``The fact that a few new countries may join the NATO alliance would in no way upset existing balances or threaten any good relationship that exists between NATO and Russia,'' Robertson said before heading to Moscow, according to ITAR-Tass news agency.

The Baltics have lobbied hard to join the Western alliance ever since they regained independence following the Soviet collapse in 1991. While individual members such as the United States have supported their ambition, the alliance as a whole has not yet made any firm commitment.

Russian military officials have pointed out that the alliance's thrust into the Baltics would bring its forces within 100 miles of St. Petersburg, allowing NATO jets to reach vital sites in western Russia within minutes. Moscow has threatened to retaliate with a military buildup, although it has avoided specifics.

NATO's plans have stoked anti-Western feelings among the Russian elite and the broad public, and analysts have warned that further expansion could feed authoritarian trends in Russia's home policy and push it toward global isolation.

``The worst outcome of that would be the rise of secret services that would seek to turn Russia into a fortress besieged by the enemy,'' said Sergei Markov, the head of the Institute of Political Studies. ``NATO is not going to listen to Russian complaints, but it wants to show respect and avoid excessive humiliation of Moscow.''

President Vladimir Putin said last year that Russia might itself bid for NATO membership in the future -- and his proposal met a cool response in NATO headquarters in Brussels. NATO's refusal to even entertain the possibility was evidence, Putin claimed, of the alliance's anti-Russian tilt.

Putin has also suggested that Russia and NATO countries deploy a joint anti-missile system that could be an alternative to the U.S. national missile defense plans, which Moscow sharply opposes. The proposal has been largely viewed as a Russian attempt to drive a wedge between the United States and European NATO members.

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

Sub chief declines NTSB inquiry

02/19/2001
USA Today
By Martin Kasindorf
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-02-19-subchief.htm

HONOLULU - The National Transportation Safety Board said Monday that Cmdr. Scott Waddle, the USS Greeneville's commander, has declined to be interviewed for its investigation into the submarine's collision with a Japanese fishing vessel .

NTSB investigators met with Cmdr. Scott Waddle over the weekend when he told them his lawyer recommended he only respond to written questions from the NTSB for the time being and only about search and rescue efforts, NTSB spokesman Ted Lopatkiewiscz said.

Waddle's information could be crucial to the NTSB effort to determine how the USS Greeneville failed to detect the 190-foot Ehime Maru before it conducted an emergency rapid-ascent drill nine miles south of Diamond Head on Feb. 9.

The Ehime Maru, a commercial fishing training vessel, was headed toward fishing grounds 300 miles southeast of Oahu when the Greeneville crashed into it. The submarine tore through the hull of the ship, sinking it within minutes. The vessel was found by underwater probes Friday night in 2,000 feet of water.

The ship was on a two-month training trip with students from a Japanese high school. Twenty-six people were rescued but nine have not been found - three crewmen, two teachers and four students.

The Navy announced Saturday it would conduct a court of inquiry - its highest-level administrative investigation - to focus on the actions of the Greeneville's three top officers: Waddle; its executive officer, Lt. Cmdr. Gerald K. Pfeifer, and the officer of the deck, Lt. j.g. Michael J. Coen.

Three admirals will oversee the hearing, which could lead to courts-martial, said Adm. Thomas Fargo, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet. The board is scheduled to convene Thursday.

The hearing is expected to examine the presence of 16 civilian guests on the submarine, two of whom, supervised by crew members, were at key controls when the Greeneville made its rapid ascent. One pulled the levers that initiated the drill.

On Monday, the Navy and Coast Guard continued the search for the nine missing.

"At this point, it's going to go on indefinitely," said Coast Guard spokesman Eric Hedaa. "We have no plans to discontinue the search."

A deep-sea robot was also combing the ocean floor to evaluate the feasibility of raising the 500-ton Ehime Maru. Japanese officials and families of the missing are pressing the United States to salvage the ship if that is the only way to recover bodies that may be entombed in its hull.

The Navy, meanwhile, isn't promising to raise the Ehime Maru. "The U.S. Navy has never raised a vessel of this size, so it is an immense task ," said Lt. Cmdr. Jane Campbell, a Navy spokeswoman.

The Navy continued preparations for the public trial scheduled at the Trial Services Building on the Pearl Harbor naval base. TV networks from the United States and Japan are "clamoring" for televised proceedings, but that probably will not be allowed, said Lt. Philip Rosi, a Pacific Fleet spokesman. Military guidelines say cameras are not allowed in courtrooms.

Still, to soothe Japanese sensibilities, the Navy had P-3C Orion planes fly over the waters off Oahu and the Coast Guard cutter Kittiwake continued its search for nine people aboard the ship who have been missing since the collision Feb. 9.

Japanese officials in Hawaii said that some family members have asked the Japanese consulate to get them seats at the court of inquiry, and the Navy has said it will try to accommodate them.

Also, they want an apology, preferably from Waddle. Other Navy officers have visited the family members at a hotel here and have apologized, but the families still want to hear from Waddle, a spokesman for the families said.

Contributing: Wire reports.

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

-------- colorado

EPA probes Shattuck over N-waste

Feb. 19, 2001
Denver Post
By Mike Soraghan
mailto:msoraghan@denverpost.com
http://www.denverpost.com/news/news0219.htm

WASHINGTON - The Environmental Protection Agency's national ombudsman is delving into the Shattuck Chemical Co.'s handling of materials it received from the nation's nuclear weapons plants.

And that inquiry might play into a ripening debate over where the waste stored at the Denver site will be sent, since rules for handling waste from weapons sites are more stringent than those for cleaning up the mine tailings more commonly associated with the site.

Shattuck is the Superfund site in south Denver where the EPA originally decided to leave radioactive waste on-site. Dirt contaminated with radium, uranium and heavy metals was mixed with coal ash and concrete and entombed as a giant mound, alarming those living in the surrounding neighborhood of Overland Park.

After an investigation by EPA ombudsman Robert Martin, the EPA reversed its decision and has agreed to move the waste offsite.

The EPA is currently drafting plans for how to move the Shattuck waste. The design is to be done in May, and the removal is to begin this summer.

But there is an ongoing debate over whether it should be taken to Envirocare, a facility in Utah licensed to handle radioactive waste, or a former mine on Colorado's Western Slope run by Umetco, a Union Carbide subsidiary. Umetco is able to accept "naturally occurring radioactive materials" such as mine tailings.

It is well known that Shattuck was contaminated with mine tailings. But the material from nuclear weapons plants is a lesserknown part of the Shattuck saga. In documents on the Shattuck cleanup, EPA officials have said they did not know what kind of materials were being processed at Shattuck during the 1960s.

But during that time, the owners of the site had a Radioactive Materials License from the Atomic Energy Commission to process natural and depleted uranium at the site.

The owners of the plant got the license in 1955, and the processing continued until the plant closed in 1986. By then, the AEC had become the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The plant got depleted uranium from Department of Energy nuclear weapons plants in Paducah, Ky., and Oakridge, Tenn., according to testimony in ombudsman hearings in Denver in 1999.

Depleted uranium is a byproduct of enriched uranium and has had the isotope used to make weapons removed. It is often used in armorpiercing bullets and has been discussed as a possible cause of "Gulf War syndrome," but scientists have not discovered any conclusive link to the ailments of veterans.

Shattuck lawyer John Faught stressed that the uranium Shattuck received, "has nothing to do with nuclear armaments; it has to do with specialty products."

During the 1999 hearings, two different accounts emerged as to how carefully Shattuck handled the uranium.

John Taylor, who worked at the Shattuck plant in 1972 and 1973 as operator of the uranium site, said there was evidence that uranium had been burned in a device with an open chimney. He also said uranium was disposed of in pits that allowed it to dissipate into the ground and blow around the surrounding neighborhood.

Former Shattuck vice president Tom Millensifer testified that waste from processing the depleted uranium from the plants was not hazardous or radioactive. He said the company briefly tried to process the uranium bullet shavings but quit after finding the process created too much smoke.

Martin is questioning whether the original Shattuck cleanup followed Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules for cleaning up sites with licenses to handle radioactive materials.

The EPA and Shattuck say the site was cleaned up according to NRC rules. In a letter to the EPA, Shattuck official Robert H. Oliver said buildings where uranium processing occurred were decontaminated under NRC guidelines in 1987, with the radioactive materials and residues sent to Nuclear Engineering Co., a licensed disposal facility in Beatty, Nev. Later, as part of the Superfund cleanup under the EPA, the buildings were demolished and the radiation-tainted building materials shipped to Nevada.

"We think we followed the rules," said Barry Levene, director of the Superfund program for the EPA region including Colorado. "We don't understand what it is that he's interested in." But Hugh Kaufman, who investigated the Shattuck cleanup for Martin, said that leaves out what happened to the uranium that was left in pits on the site.

"So the information we have is that it's still in the ground under that mound, so it hasn't been tested," Kaufman said. "We cannot decide what were going to do with the Shattuck waste until we get to the bottom of exactly what's there, and that work still has not been done." Kaufman said that if the site wasn't properly "decommissioned" under NRC rules, it could force the upcoming removal of waste from the Shattuck site to be much more detailed and expensive. Each batch would have to be "fingerprinted" and taken to a licensed facility.

-------- idaho

Suit Accuses Federal Contractors of Mishandling Cleanup at Nuclear Lab

February 19, 2001
New York Times
By JO THOMAS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/19/national/19IDAH.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/doc/1047/1:POLITICS22C/1:POLITICS22C0219101.html

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho - Buried in underground tanks and dumped into trenches at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory northwest of here is a witches' brew of deadly chemicals and radioactive waste left over from the cold war. It includes enough plutonium debris from the Rocky Flats weapons plant in Colorado to build hundreds of nuclear bombs.

This laboratory, more than half the size of Rhode Island, has built and tested civilian and military nuclear reactors for 52 years. Because of its residues and stored wastes, it was designated a Superfund site in 1989, and the government started trying to clean it up. Now two men who audited that effort say in a federal lawsuit that government contractors who were paid hundreds of millions of dollars made the contamination worse. When the auditors complained, they said, they were harassed until they resigned.

The auditors said the contractors deliberately bypassed safety measures, turned off monitors and alarms, falsified documents, did not report spills, dumped hazardous wastes on the ground and illegally sent waste from a pit contaminated with plutonium to a public landfill.

Those contentions shed a different light on what state and federal officials told the public about the contractors' problems at the site. And in internal documents, federal officials shared some of the auditors' concerns.

Officials at the Idaho Division of Environmental Quality announced in May 1999 that the United States Energy Department, as the site owner, would pay $504,000 in fines and costs for mishandling dangerous waste. The division, and Energy Department officials, said at the time that the violations resulted from oversights or from problems created before the contractors took over.

"Things happen," Mike Gregory, the hazardous waste enforcement coordinator for the state, said in an interview. "Someone gets lazy. Or they think they're doing right."

But in 1998, an internal Energy Department review said the contractor that oversaw the lab and ran the cleanup at that time, Lockheed Martin Idaho Technologies, had not established "an underlying culture of rigor, discipline and sustaining leadership" on environmental, safety and health issues.

That review, signed by John M. Wilcynski, manager of the Energy Department's Idaho Operations Office, said that three major accidents, including the deaths of two workers, had occurred. He recommended that the contract be put out for bid.

Jim Fetig, a spokesman for the Lockheed Martin Corporation, based in Bethesda, Md., said that there might have been environmental missteps in Idaho, but that none were intentional.

"I don't think for a second that there was an ethos of nonconcern about environmental issues," Mr. Fetig said.

Waste was stored improperly in some cases, he said, but it was hard to find out what old storage tanks contained. "They are still trying to get a handle on what's in those tanks and what to do with it," Mr. Fetig said. "There was a lot of bad stuff out there and only so much money. A contractor can only do what the Department of Energy approves."

Lockheed Martin did not seek to renew its contract in Idaho, but still manages two research facilities for the Energy Department, the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque and the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory in Schenectady, N.Y.

Besides Lockheed Martin, which ran the site from October 1994 through September 1999, the lawsuit names EG&G Idaho Inc., the contractor that ran the site from 1976 to 1994, and the Westinghouse Idaho Nuclear Company, which ran the Idaho Chemical Processing plant from 1989 to 1994. The plant stored and reprocessed nuclear waste from reactors around the world.

Mark J. Meagher, a Denver lawyer representing Westinghouse, said the company denied all the charges. Edward W. Pike, an Idaho Falls lawyer representing EG&G, declined to comment on the case.

Also named is Coleman Research, a Lockheed Martin subcontractor that employed the auditors, Neil Mock and Scott Lebow. William Goodrich, a lawyer for Coleman, said the company did not retaliate against the men for their complaints.

The lawsuit is being brought under a federal law that allows individuals who contend that contractors committed fraud to sue on the government's behalf and recover 25 percent to 30 percent of any judgment. The suit was filed in 1996 in United States District Court in Pocatello, Idaho, but was kept under seal until the government decided three years ago not to join it.

The Energy Department considers the Idaho laboratory, now managed by BWXT Idaho, a consortium led by Bechtel Inc., essential to the future of nuclear power, both civilian and military. The laboratory has also been named to lead development of new cleanup technologies.

The auditors arrived at the laboratory in the early 1990's. Mr. Lebow was a senior environmental, safety and quality regulatory compliance specialist. Mr. Mock was a senior scientist.

They said that they were told that employees of Westinghouse and Lockheed Martin had turned off spill alarms on 300,000-gallon tanks containing liquid high-level radioactive waste, and that no one responded to two spills they saw in 1995.

They said Lockheed Martin tried to flush out four other storage tanks EG&G had described as empty. When the tanks were found to contain corrosives contaminated by mercury at a rate nine times the reportable level, Lockheed Martin continued flushing the contaminated water - 2.4 million pounds in all - into a pond for absorption into the soil and for evaporation.

Brad Bugger, a spokesman for the Department of Energy in Idaho, said that the mercury spill was an example of bad management but that it posed no additional risk to the environment because "only a couple of ounces of mercury" were involved.

Mr. Mock and Mr. Lebow charge that from 1995 to 1998 Lockheed Martin employees occasionally disabled or disconnected the monitoring devices on smokestacks at a plant where high-level radioactive waste was processed, to conceal excess emissions of iodine-131, a radioactive isotope that is readily absorbed by the human body. They say this happened at the laboratory's Nuclear Technology and Environmental Complex, formerly known as the Idaho Chemical Processing Plant.

In 1995, they said, monitors were also disabled at the laboratory's Waste Experimental Reduction Facility, which burned radioactive paper, clothing, plastic and garbage. That incinerator was closed last October after citizens threatened to sue Idaho officials, who denied it a hazardous waste permit.

When Lockheed Martin managers were told in writing about the disabling of the air pollution monitors, the auditors say, the company told staff members not to report these acts to the authorities. Lockheed Martin denies this.

Boxes of soil contaminated with hazardous waste, improperly labeled as low-level waste, were sent illegally to a disposal site in Utah in 1996, Mr. Mock and Mr. Lebow say, and a Lockheed Martin subcontractor, Lockheed Martin Advanced Environmental Systems, illegally disposed of waste from Pit 9, which contains plutonium and other radioactive substances, in the Bonneville County landfill.

This month, Gary Johnson, the assistant inspector general of the Environmental Protection Agency, said he would look into questions about the laboratory raised by local environmental organizations concerned about airborne emissions. Another local organization has warned of dangers to the Snake River Aquifer, which is the water supply for 20 percent of Idaho's population.

-------

Suit says INEEL contractors broke laws
Recently released documents allege crimes, coverups

01/02/19
Idaho Statesman
Associated Press
http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/daily/20010219/LocalNews/82514.shtml

IDAHO FALLS -- In the early 1990s, Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory contractors hired Neil Mock and Scott Lebow to uncover environmental problems that could get the companies in trouble.

There were plenty to find, like thousands of unidentified and possibly radioactive lab samples hidden across the site. Electrical parts contaminated with toxic chemicals were stashed in refrigerators.

Workers told auditors about pulling up underground storage tanks with bottoms like Swiss cheese. Sometimes they backfilled dirt over the hazardous oils that spilled onto the desert and did not report the problem.

They also found evidence that someone at the site's in-town research lab had illegally dumped a highly flammable chemical into the Idaho Falls sewer system. They found no evidence that anyone was told.

In a lawsuit first filed in federal District Court in 1996 and fully unsealed last month, the two whistleblowers paint a picture of widespread and sometimes criminal violations of laws. They allege contractors at the INEEL ignored or covered up the problems to save money.

The Post Register in Idaho Falls reports that the Department of Energy has long acknowledged mistakes were made in the early decades of its Cold War operations, when tritium was injected into the aquifer and contaminated garbage was dumped in the desert.

But the 400-page complaint claims INEEL workers continued to illegally dump hazardous materials, turn off air quality monitors and forge records well into the years when safety and environmental laws were in force.

Some claims have been investigated and resulted in fines, but the suit alleges site contractors ignored problems for years.

In some cases, the suit says, the companies tried to hide violations from the Department of Energy and state regulators, telling employees not to answer investigators' questions.

The suit names two Lockheed Martin managers in charge of environmental compliance who reportedly told employees in 1996 not to disclose air pollution violations at the site's radioactive waste incinerator or to create a paper trail.

The complaint also cites at least two occasions in which managers told employees the company could not afford to comply with all environmental laws.

The court documents describe a lunchroom conversation Mock had with Robert Bradley, performance oversight manager for Lockheed Martin, in the mid-1990s.

They say Bradley said he "did not give a (expletive deleted) about the (expletive deleted) regulations" because the contractors "would never take a hit" and complying "did not make good business sense."

The suit against Lockheed Martin, EG&G, Westinghouse and Coleman Research Corp. -- all site contractors or subcontractors during the 1990s -- argues the companies defrauded the government by falsely claiming they complied with environmental laws.

It demands they return money received from the government over a 10-year period, since environmental compliance was a condition of their contracts. The claims could total hundreds of millions of dollars.

The 5-year-old suit was under court seal while the Department of Justice decided whether to join the plaintiffs. The federal law enforcement agency in 1998 opted not to pursue the case, but Mock and Lebow are continuing the fight. They will get a percentage of any money returned to the government.

U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill has dismissed some charges and allegations. He found that in certain cases the contractors had not claimed they were fully meeting environmental laws and therefore had not made false statements.

Lockheed Martin spokesman James Fetig declined Friday to discuss specific allegations but said he expected remaining claims to be dismissed.

"The decision by the Department of Justice not to join the lawsuit after a comprehensive review by the Departments of Energy and Justice demonstrates the baseless nature of the allegations," he said.

Fetig also said the company worked with the Department of Energy and state regulators throughout its tenure to bring environmental problems to light.

Ron King, Department of Energy-Idaho communications director, said Friday he would not comment on whether the contractors fully and promptly disclosed violations, since that is at the heart of the dispute.

Debbie Hill, the plaintiffs' attorney, said it was clear they did not.

"The people who had the on-the-ground knowledge and the basic responsibility for telling both DOE and DEQ were the contractors, and we don't believe that's been done," she said.

-------- tennessee

Health-risks office steps up commitment to Oak Ridge issues

Monday, February 19, 2001
The Oak Ridger
by Paul Parson
http://www.oakridger.com/stories/021901/new_0219010005.html

A federal public health agency involved in hazardous-waste issues has opened up an Oak Ridge field office, and officials hope it will serve as a resource center to community members.

The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry opened the office earlier this month in downtown Oak Ridge. The organization, headquartered in Atlanta, Ga., is part of the Department of Health and Human Services and recently helped to form the Oak Ridge Reservation Health Effects Subcommittee.

"This office was a response to subcommittee member requests," said Bill Murray, an environmental health scientist who is singlehandedly manning the Oak Ridge facility.

Murray worked for several years with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and said he is familiar with the Oak Ridge Reservation.

"ATSDR opened the office to better serve the community surrounding the Oak Ridge Reservation," Murray said. He said the office will eventually serve as a "library" housing documents from the agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among other things.

With its Oak Ridge office open, the agency is gearing up for more work with the Health Effects Subcommittee.

The subcommittee consists of citizens primarily from the Oak Ridge area, including Knoxville and Roane County, who are working with community members and advocacy groups to offer advice and recommendations to several federal agencies regarding health concerns in Oak Ridge. Those concerns include exposure to contaminants from the Department of Energy facilities in Oak Ridge.

"They're off to a great start," said Jack Hanley, an Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry official involved in Oak Ridge activities. "It's a really good committee, with people who are willing to work hard to address and identify issues."

In the coming months, the agency and the subcommittee will be involved in two assessments relating to the health of Oak Ridge residents. They will be receiving assistance from some other organizations including George Washington University.

Hanley said a community-needs assessment will provide a basis for developing and implementing community health education programs that relate to Oak Ridge. He said a public health assessment will entail reviewing information on local hazardous substances and determining whether exposure to them would cause public harm.

"I do think it's necessary," Hanley said of the impending assessments. "Many of the other studies were focused on specific issues. We're going to use the other studies Š to provide an overview of the outstanding exposures. We're not starting a new study."

The Health Effects Subcommittee is scheduled to meet again on March 19 and 20. More information on those meetings is expected to be announced at a later date.

Office hours for the local Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry office are noon to 7 p.m. on Monday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursday and 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday. The office is located at 197 S. Tulane Ave.

For more information, call Murray at 220-0295 or the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at 1-888-422-8737. The agency's Web site is located at www.atsdr.cdc.gov

-------- utah

Utah

01/02/19
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Moab - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has withdrawn support of a plan to temporarily cap radioactive Atlas uranium mill tailings along the Colorado River. Congress approved legislation last year to remove the tailings and transfer control to the Department of Energy. Fish and Wildlife's withdrawal prevents anything from being done at the site before DOE takes it over, said Mike Fliegel of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

-------- us nuc waste

Critics raise alarm over plutonium waste transfer

MONDAY • February 19, 2001
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
http://www.accessatlanta.com/partners/ajc/epaper/editions/monday/news_a3192622f44a60ac00f9.html

Augusta --- Savannah River Site plans to ship its first load of plutonium waste to a New Mexico nuclear repository as early as next month, with eight to 12 shipments by January.

The nuclear weapons site, which straddles the Georgia-South Carolina line, has more than 55,000 barrels of the radioactive metal. The waste will be sent to the Energy Department's Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in southeastern New Mexico, and buried in a mine about 2,100 feet below the desert.

Supporters of the effort call it a milestone in nuclear cleanup, a chance to concentrate some of the nation's radioactive waste where it won't threaten the public. Federal officials also note that none of the 141 waste shipments already sent to the New Mexico site has leaked from trucks.

"Provided it's transported safely and the way that it ought to be, we certainly are glad to get it out of the Savannah River Site and away from the border of our state," said Jim Setser, head of the radiation protection branch of Georgia's Environmental Protection Division. "It certainly doesn't have anywhere near the concern that other types of high-level waste can have."

But critics say the plutonium transfer is risky and useless, needlessly endangering thousands of people who live along I-20 in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas.

''The wastes that are being sent to WIPP are relatively safely stored where they are,'' said Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Maryland and a long-time critic of the shipments.

Over the next 34 years, energy officials hope to send up to 4,300 such shipments to the site from four sites east of the Mississippi River now used for storage.

The waste is hazardous leftovers from nearly four decades of Cold War bomb production --- radioactive tools, rags, clothing and debris exposed to plutonium.

To prepare for the shipments, Westinghouse Waste Isolation Division, which runs the WIPP, has been training emergency workers along the route since 1991.

-------- MILITARY

NATO's Expansion Tool

Monday, February 19, 2001
Washington Post
By Jackson Diehl
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23668-2001Feb18?language=printer

If West European governments are worried by the opening moves of the Bush administration -- and they are -- then imagine the view across the Atlantic these days from the less stable, less secure, less firmly democratic countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

French and German leaders have been worried by Bush's aggressive commitment to deploying a missile defense, even if it means abandoning the anti-ballistic missile treaty with Russia. But for Lithuania and its Baltic neighbors, for whom the most plausible threat comes not from Pyongyang but from Moscow, America's military priorities can appear positively scary, in the sense that they may raise the level of tension between Russia and the West while focusing defensive resources elsewhere.

European Union planners have been irked by opening statements from Washington that disparaged the proposed European defense force and suggested U.S. troop reductions in the Balkans. But for NATO members Poland and Hungary, the transatlantic discussion over structure and resources invokes the disastrous but not far-fetched scenario of American troops pulling out of nearby Bosnia and Kosovo to make way for a European Union command that excludes them.

Politicians in Washington and Paris may see the centrifugal forces tugging at the transatlantic relationship as endurable, and maybe inevitable. But for Europe's former Soviet bloc side, they could soon become the elements of a geopolitical crisis. Russian President Vladimir Putin is working aggressively to re-establish Moscow's political dominion over countries such as Georgia and Ukraine, and its ability to sway decisions in capitals as far away as Vienna. Meanwhile, the transatlantic tensions that the Bush administration has inherited, and at least initially heightened, suggest an alliance too focused on debates over weapons in space to consider the corners of Europe; or even worse, split into American and European Union camps that exclude the Central and East Europeans.

Will half of Europe be left to choose between an uncertain partnership with the West and a slide back toward Moscow? That may well depend on how the Bush administration handles the third major issue on its security agenda with Europe, the one it hasn't been talking much about: NATO expansion. Nine Central and Eastern European countries, including three former Soviet republics, three former Warsaw Pact states and three Balkan countries, are hoping for invitations to join NATO at a summit next year in Prague.

Letting the NATO candidates in would decisively expand the Western alliance -- and the U.S. leadership that comes with it -- across Europe, while consolidating the free politics and free markets under construction in countries from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania in the north to Romania, Slovakia and Bulgaria in the center and south, and Macedonia, Slovenia and Albania in the Balkans. Keeping them out would effectively invite a resurgence of Russian influence in the region, along with the authoritarian politics and anti-American foreign policy currently ascendant in Moscow.

Putin's Russia will surely resist another NATO expansion more aggressively than Boris Yeltsin opposed the 1997 admission of Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. But unlike missile defense, which Putin is also trying to block, NATO expansion has one big advantage: The Bush administration and Europe broadly seem to agree about it. "This is one of the few major constructive things on the Atlantic alliance agenda" that is likely to be unifying and not divisive, says former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, a leading advocate of expansion.

Though they may be uneasy about U.S. domination of NATO, European governments like NATO expansion because it is a way of growing the continent's democratic zone of stability without expanding the European Union, a far more cumbersome process that requires much greater sacrifices from both existing and new members. The disagreements boil down to the choice and sequencing of new members: Most governments agree about Slovenia and Slovakia, for example, but some have questions about the Baltic states because their status as former Soviet republics may inspire greater ire in Moscow.

Then there are the Pentagon's problems, articulated by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at a recent defense conference in Munich: The generals don't want political considerations to drive the admission of countries whose armies are not actually capable of joining NATO's operations. There are also the neo-isolationists in Congress, who will demand to know why U.S. soldiers may, in theory at least, be committed to the defense of capitals such as Ljubljana and Bratislava.

Perhaps it is those domestic considerations that have caused the Bush team to soft-pedal NATO expansion so far. Still, the administration has repeatedly said that strengthening the Atlantic alliance is one of its top priorities -- and the other policies it is pushing, even if successful in the long run, are unlikely to do that soon. "The fact is that President Bush will have to present a positive agenda for NATO sometime in the first half of this year," says Polish Ambassador Przemyslaw Grudzinski, whose government is pushing hard for new members. "There are not too many tools available for strengthening the alliance." Expansion is certainly one of them.

The writer is a deputy editor of the editorial page.

-------

The School Of The American Empire

Monday, 19 February 2001
By Mumia Abu-Jamal,
M A. #495 Column Written 2/10/2001
http://www.MumiaBook.com

It is virtually impossible for anyone to consider the horrific violence that has taken place in Central and Latin America, without accounting for the hideous roots of that violence, that grow and thrive in America.

For decades, the bloody flood from murders, massacres, rapes, torture and carnage, created a trail that could be traced to the doorsteps of a U.S. military training institution known as the School of the Americas, in Fort Benning, Georgia. Human rights activists have held increasingly swelling demonstrations at the SOA, and have dubbed it the "School of Assassins."

For years the Pentagon dismissed such criticism, and defended the SOA as an elite international training academy for "counter-insurgency," or, more obliquely, for "teaching democracy."

The graduates of SOA, however, constituted a kind of rogue's gallery of military despots and dictators, like Bolivia's Gen. Hugo Banzer Suárez, who brutally suppressed progressive church workers and striking tin miners; like Guatemalan dictator Gen. Romeo Lucas García (1978-82), whose rule saw over 5,000 political killings and about 25,000 civilians murdered by the Guatemalan army; and Gen. Juan Rafael Bustillo, of El Salvador, former air force chief, who, according to a U.N. report of 1993, both planned and then covered up the massacre of six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her daughter, for starters.

If you mention a massacre, the chances are great that the men who either ordered or committed the deed were SOA grads. The El Mozote, El Junquillo, Las Hojas, and San Sebastian Massacres were all the work of SOA-trained "death squads." When four U.S. churchwomen were raped and murdered, when Archbishop Oscar Romero was assassinated, when union members were killed, it was SOA grads who led in the carnage. U.S.-trained and armed SOA people have been involved in so many military coups that in Latin America the school is known as the escuela de golpes-coup school.

Recently, the Defense Deptartment, stung by decades of negative publicity, officially "closed" SOA, only to immediately reopen it under the name Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Co-operation (WHISC). Although not as catchy as SOA, WHISC promises to play the same game, by another name. Shortly after the Jesuit murders, U.S.-trained Salvadoran troops surrounded the office of the Catholic archdiocese, and shouted, "Ignacio Ellacuría and Ignacio Martin-Baró have already fallen and we will continue murdering communists! Ellacuría and Martin-Baró were two Jesuit priests involved in Christian base communities, where the poor learned literacy, history and how to organize for human rights in the midst of monstrous repression.

Martin-Baró was a brilliant liberation theologist and psychologist, who, like the revolutionary Frantz Fanon, chose the side of the oppressed rather than the rich and powerful oppressors.

For this he was targeted by the U.S.-trained terrorists of the SOA, and it is for men and women like him, who seek an end to economic and social oppression, that imperial training camps, like SOA/WHISC exist.

Its name has changed, but the game remains the same.

-------- burma/myanmar

Myanmar chopper crash kills general

2/19/2001
InfoBeat News
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=5vo780if5hptp

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) - One of the most powerful generals in Myanmar's military junta was killed Monday in a helicopter crash that left 14 others missing, the government said. A Cabinet minister and seven junta officials appeared to be among the missing. The military helicopter carrying 22 officials and seven crew members crashed into the Salween river in southeastern Myanmar. Lt. Gen. Tin Oo, 67, and the rest of his party were going to Pa-an, about 100 miles southeast of the capital of Yangon, to inspect a bridge.

Myanmar Television, quoting a government statement, said the Russian-made MI-17 helicopter went down after going through "a sudden patch of bad weather." The broadcast statement said that, in addition to Tin Oo, an unidentified military officer was also killed, and that 13 others survived. It gave no other details.

A veteran of campaigns against ethnic and communist insurgents, Tin Oo had often threatened in public to "annihilate" opponents of the regime. Tin Oo's death is not likely to affect the junta's relations with the opposition, led by Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been campaigning for democracy in this Southeast Asian nation since 1988.

-------- drug war

Trial to begin for Canada biker gangs

2/19/2001
Infobeat News
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=5vo780if5hptp

QUEBEC (AP) - Thirteen men accused of turning their Hells Angels motorcycle gang into a mafia-like network that dealt drugs throughout Quebec province go on trial this week in Canada's biggest crackdown on organized crime. Jury selection begins Monday. The defendants face charges of drug-trafficking, kidnapping and assault. Conviction for involvement in organized crime carries a penalty of up to 14 years in prison.

Police say drug trade turf wars between the Hells Angels and a rival group, the Rock Machine, are blamed for at least 158 murders, 169 attempted murders and the disappearances of 16 others. The case already has cost $6,700 in security.

At a hearing last month, the defendants were led into court with their hands cuffed and seated at a prisoner's dock surrounded by Plexiglas. The dock faced away from the witness stand to keep the defendants from intimidating those who will be testifying against them.

On Thursday, a judge hearing a separate case convicted four members of the Rock Machine biker gang and acquitted four others of similar charges under the federal anti-gang laws.

Quebec Superior Court Judge Jean-Claude Beaulieu already has rejected a defense challenge to the constitutionality of the anti-gang laws, adopted in 1997.

The police believe Hells Angels has about 80 members in six Quebec chapters and the Bandidos some 30 members in two chapters.

-------- iraq

Iraq Media Threatens Punishment

February 19, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq.html
http://us.f23.mail.yahoo.com/ym/login?.rand=1vmuabp6c1qvg

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraqi media on Monday threatened to punish Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, saying they helped U.S. and British airstrikes against sites around Baghdad last week.

Some 11,000 Iraqis marched Monday in the capital, some burning American, British and Israeli flags and carrying banners declaring ``aggression will not scare us and sanctions will not harm us'' -- the latest in daily rallies since Friday's attack.

In Kuwait, the foreign minister brushed off the suggestions of retaliation in Iraq's state-run newspapers. ``They have the right to ... say what they want,'' Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah told reporters in the Persian Gulf emirate. ``But Kuwait is protected by its people, its friends, its Arab brothers and its allies.''

The indirect threat came in Monday's edition of Al-Thawra, the newspaper of Iraq's ruling Baath Party.

``Must Iraq forgive Saudi Arabia and Kuwait for participating in the aggression?'' the paper asked. ``Does Iraq have the right to take military measures to retaliate for the aggression and those who facilitate it ... if they continued the aggression and repeated it?''

The answer, it said, was left to ``Arabs, especially those in the Gulf states.''

The Iraqi government is basking in widespread international support against the U.S.-British raids -- which were the largest and closest to Baghdad in several years. Arab allies of the United States have criticized the attacks, as have France, Russia and China. Now the uproar threatens to overshadow U.N-Iraqi talks next week.

The United States and Britain say their planes hit long-range radar and associated facilities that Iraq has increasingly used to coordinate its defenses against allied planes patrolling no-fly zones over southern and northern Iraq. The United States and Britain say Iraq cannot fly its planes over those areas of its own territory; Iraqi says the no-fly zones are illegitimate.

Kuwait and Saudi Arabia allow allied planes to fly from their air bases to enforce the no-fly zones. U.S. officials said the planes in Friday's attacks flew from land bases and carriers in the Gulf, without specifying.

France stepped up its condemnations Monday, with Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine calling the missile attack ``a demonstration of force'' with ``no basis in international law.''

Vedrine told France's LCI television said that France was waiting for President Bush to provide a ``redefinition of the policy on Iraq.''

In Gaza City, about 1,000 Palestinians staged a rally in support of Iraq on Monday, chanting, ``Saddam, we wait for your rockets to hit Tel Aviv.'' Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has mixed anti-U.S. rhetoric with strong denunciations of Israel, gaining support from Arabs frustrated by the stalled peace process.

Russian legislator Vladimir Zhirinovsky, an ultranationalist and longtime supporter of Saddam, arrived in Baghdad on Monday to show support for Iraq.

``We condemn the latest bombing,'' Zhirinovsky told reporters, ``not only myself, but all members of the Duma (Russian parliament).''

Iraq's foreign minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, is due to hold talks Feb. 26-27 with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The meeting aims to restart the dialogue over sanctions and the long-halted U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq -- but now Baghdad may now be less inclined to compromise on inspections and more insistent sanctions be lifted.

Crippling U.N. economic sanctions were imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. The United Nations says Iraq must first let back in inspectors who have been barred since 1998.

Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz ridiculed the United States and Britain for portraying Friday's attacks as an attempt to protect their pilots.

``America defends itself in Baghdad? It enters the country ... bombs it, then says it was defending itself?'' Aziz said on Iraqi television Sunday night.

-------

SADDAM THREATENS RETALIATION AGAINST KUWAIT,

Monday, Feb. 19, 2001
Morrock News
David Morrock
http://morrock.com

SAUDI ARABIA As thousands of Iraqis demonstrated in Baghdad in protest of Friday's U.S.-Britain bombing of five Iraqi radar sites, Saddam Hussein issued a threat: he said his country will punish Kuwait and Saudi Arabia for allowing the attacks to go forward.

Western patrols of the no-fly zones over Iraq continued, and the Israeli army began a joint exercise with the U.S. to test Patriot missiles -- the airborne defenses used against Iraqi Scud missiles during the Gulf War 10 years ago. The exercises had been planned long before Friday's air strikes, Israeli officials said.

Press reports in Iraq describe U.S. President Bush as "the new dwarf" or "son of the snake," and say he means to destroy the country.

-------- israel

Israel and U.S. Begin Patriot Missile Exercise

February 19, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/19WIRE-MISS.html

JERUSALEM, Feb. 19 - Israeli and U.S. troops began a joint military exercise on Monday to test Patriot missiles, used to intercept Iraqi Scud missiles in the 1991 Gulf War, an Israeli army spokeswoman said.

The wargames in the Israeli desert began three days after U.S. and British fighter planes attacked military installations near the Iraqi capital Baghdad, sending jitters through Israel, which endured Iraqi missile attacks during the war a decade ago.

The Israeli army insisted the exercise was pre-planned and had nothing to do with the recent U.S.-British strikes.

"The exercise has been planned for over a year and is part of routine U.S.-Israel training designed to validate interoperability of air defence systems," the army said in a statement.

Israel has said it is taking seriously Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's threats to retaliate for the air strikes -- even though it considers there to be no immediate danger.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met security officials on Sunday to discuss developments in Iraq. His office said in a statement that Israel would keep a close eye on the situation, but "there is no need to take any sort of special measures."

Washington sent Patriot missiles to Israel during the 1991 Gulf War with Iraq, but they failed to halt most of the 39 Iraqi Scud missiles fired at Israel, most of which damaged neighbourhoods in and around Tel Aviv.

--------

U.S., Israel in Missile Exercise

February 19, 2001
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Israel-US-Missiles.html

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Patriot anti-missile missiles will be launched in the course of a five-day joint Israeli and American military exercise that began in a stretch of desert in southern Israel on Monday.

The same type of missile was used against Iraqi Scuds fired at Israel during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. The Israeli army said the exercise was planned more than a year ago and was not related to the U.S. and British airstrikes Friday on Iraq.

According to U.S. Maj. Martin Downie, the live missiles will be fired close to drones serving as artificial targets. The missiles will not aim at the drones, but an area nearby. The teams will then measure for accuracy.

During the Gulf War, the Patriot missiles deployed in Israel proved ineffectual against 39 Iraqi Scuds fired at Israel.

The communications and training phase of the U.S.-Israeli exercise, called Juniper Cobra, began Feb. 6. At the time, the cruiser U.S.S. Porter was stationed off Israel. The ship carries radar capable of detecting missiles.

``It (the exercise) has been extremely successful,'' Downie said. ``In general we understand each other's procedures a lot better now.''

-------- kosovo

Peacekeeping Team Visits Lucane

February 19, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Yugoslavia-Kosovo.html

LUCANE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- A peacekeeping team with two American officers on Monday ventured into a village on the front lines of fighting between Serb forces and ethnic Albanian militants outside Kosovo, investigating the upsurge in violence that has raised tensions in the region.

The Americans and a Slovenian officer, who entered Lucane hours after heavy mortar and machinegun fire in the region, poked their heads into a bloodstained and bullet-shattered truck that rebels said was hit in a Serb attack the day before, killing a rebel commander.

Lucane lies on the edge of a buffer zone set up along the border between NATO-controlled Kosovo and the rest of Serbia. Ethnic Albanian rebels hold positions on the west side of the Binacka Morava River, which runs through the village, and Serb police hold the east side, less than 50 yards away.

The peacekeepers, part of a liaison team between NATO and the Yugoslav army, was asked by the rebels to view the damage. The team has entered the buffer zone in the past, but its visit now underlined NATO's concern that recent fighting could destabilize Kosovo.

Joined by rebel commander Shefket Musliu, the peacekeepers perused the bullet-scarred red Nissan in which Commander Bala -- who did not use a first name -- was killed in apparent reprisal for a land mine blast Sunday that killed three Serb policemen outside Lucane.

Without comment, the peacekeepers followed Musliu to other areas which rebels say were hit in the village. The peacekeepers inspected bullet holes and craters the militants claim were caused by Yugoslav forces in exchanges of fire Sunday and Monday.

``Tell them that if they want to shoot, they can shoot at us, not at our civilians,'' Musliu told the delegation as he pointed at softball-sized hole in the wall of a house hit in Sunday's clashes.

Yugoslavia has demanded NATO peacekeepers -- who are not allowed to patrol in the buffer zone since it lies outside Kosovo -- prevent ethnic Albanian militants in the province from entering the zone. Only lightly armed Serbian police are allowed into the zone, and the militants have been able to take control of most of the strip since November.

The militants want to join the zone -- which, like Kosovo, has an ethnic Albanian majority -- to the province, which came under control of NATO-led peacekeepers in 1999.

NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson issued a statement Monday deploring the escalation of violence, and urging the leadership of both sides to ``to exercise maximum restraint.''

``The problems in the region cannot be solved by violence -- they can only be settled through direct negotiations between the parties,'' the statement said.

Since November, the militants have attacked Serbian police inside the zone and have sometimes launched attacks across the line into the rest of Serbia. The land mine blast Sunday took place about 200 yards outside the zone.

The new fighting further fueled tensions in the region. On Monday, U.N. officials raised the death toll in a bus bombing Friday inside Kosovo to 10 Serb civilians. Two protests of the bombing by Serbs in Gracanica and Kosovska Mitrovica ended Monday without incident.

A senior rebel commander, Sami Azemi, denied any connection with either the mine blast or the bus attack and condemned both.

With violence mounting, top Yugoslav and Serb leaders met late Sunday, and President Vojislav Kostunica's office released a statement promising ``measures against terrorism'' in the area.

``That means that we'll no longer allow that our troops and citizens be moving targets for Albanian terrorists,'' Zoran Zivkovic, Serbia's Interior Minister, told The Associated Press. ``We had maximum patience, but this is not the fight for democracy (by the Albanian extremists), but plain terrorism.''

--------

Belgrade Urges NATO Action As Death Toll Rises

February 19, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-yugosla.html

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (Reuters) - Yugoslavia called on NATO Monday to clamp down on ethnic Albanian extremists as the known death toll from last week's bomb attack against a bus carrying Serbs rose to 10, including a 2-year-old.

A surge of violence in and around U.N.-administered Kosovo in the past few days has killed 14 people or more, including three Serb policemen blown up by anti-tank mines Sunday in the nearby Presevo Valley region of southern Serbia.

Friday's bus bombing was one of the deadliest attacks since Kosovo came under U.N. control in 1999, dealing a blow to Western hopes for a new era of Balkan stability following the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic.

The Yugoslav government says it believes that attack and the police killings are part of an organized terror campaign.

Interior Minister Zoran Zivkovic accused Kosovo peacekeepers of being too soft on the ``terrorists.''

He said the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping force and U.N. Mission in Kosovo could take a far tougher line with armed Albanians but were shying away from a direct confrontation.

``They're afraid that the Albanian terrorists will perceive them as their adversaries,'' Zivkovic told a news conference.

His views were echoed in Moscow, Yugoslavia's traditional ally, by Col.-Gen. Leonid Ivashov, head of the Russian military's foreign relations department.

``Albanian extremists are in essence throwing down the gauntlet not only to Serbia and Yugoslavia but to the international presence regulating the situation in Kosovo,'' Itar-Tass news agency quoted Ivashov as saying.

NATO DEFENDS PEACEKEEPERS

NATO has defended its peacekeeping in Kosovo, saying it has made major efforts to improve boundary security and protect minorities. Its commanders say they can only do so much and only local leaders and citizens can put an end to the violence.

NATO sources said the alliance did not yet know if there was any link between the bus bomb and the land mines. But the thinking in KFOR is that there is indeed now a coordinated campaign of violence within Kosovo against Serbs, they said.

``It's too broad, too steady, too consistent to be thought of as coincidental. There's a definite perception that there has been a substantial increase in attacks on Kosovo Serbs in response to the new government in Belgrade,'' one source said.

``The Presevo and Kosovo extremists have overlapping agendas but not necessarily the same,'' the source added.

The Presevo Valley guerrillas say they fight Serbian police repression in the area, which has a large ethnic Albanian population. The group said Sunday one of their number had been killed in a firefight with Serb forces the same day.

NATO and the U.N. took over the running of Kosovo almost two years ago after NATO's bombing campaign ended Milosevic's repression of ethnic Albanians by driving out Serb forces.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for Friday's bus attack, but Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica blamed ``Albanian extremists,'' saying they threatened stability in the Balkans.

A U.N. spokeswoman said the number of victims from the bus bombing might rise.

``We can confirm now there are 10 dead...it doesn't mean there aren't more dead,'' said spokeswoman Susan Manuel. Officials initially gave the death toll as at least seven.

-------- space

Space Shuttle Landing Postponed

FEBRUARY 19
AP Aerospace Writer
By MARCIA DUNN
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_package.html?FRONTID=SCIENCE&PACKAGEID=SPACEstations&STORYID=APIS7A8Q0QG0&SLUG=SPACE%2dSHUTTLE

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) - For the second day in a row, gusts of nearly 25 mph forced space shuttle Atlantis and its astronauts to keep circling Earth on Monday instead of coming home.

The weather was no better at the backup landing site in Southern California, so Mission Control ordered the crew to spend a 13th day in orbit and aim for a Tuesday afternoon touchdown.

``Bottom line is we're waving off,'' Mission Control told commander Kenneth Cockrell. ``We do have three sites for tomorrow, all of them have a 'go' forecast at this time.''

Atlantis and its crew of five undocked from the international space station on Friday, after delivering and installing the $1.4 billion Destiny laboratory, and should have returned to Earth on Sunday.

But the crosswind at the landing strip was well above the 17-mph safety limit, a situation that recurred on Monday. Not only that, thick clouds began moving in on Monday and NASA worried they might bring rain.

The last time Cockrell flew in space, the mission dragged on for almost 18 days because of landing delays and turned out to be the longest shuttle flight ever. Atlantis astronaut Thomas Jones was also on that 1996 mission.

``The rest of the crew wanted me to pass on that I already have the endurance record,'' Cockrell joked to Mission Control as the weather deteriorated. ``So there's no need to try for that this time.''

Mission Control replied: ``We'll do our best to get you back as well before you exceed that 18-day record you've already set.''

Meteorologists expected good weather, finally, at the Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday. The other two options were Edwards Air Force Base in California and White Sands, N.M., as a last resort. A space shuttle has landed only once at White Sands, way back in 1982.

Flight director Leroy Cain said he would not consider White Sands ``unless it was the only place that we were able to land in the end game.''

Atlantis and its astronauts has enough fuel, water, air purifiers and other supplies to remain aloft until Wednesday, Cain said.

``The weather is a very tricky thing to deal with, it's not an exact science,'' Cain said. But he promised: ``We'll find a landing site (Tuesday) where we're confident that we can perform a safe landing.''

Until all the landing delays, the mission had gone off without a hitch to the pleasant surprise of both the astronauts and ground controllers. The spectacular sunset launch on Feb. 7 was followed by a flawless linkup with the space station two days later and the eventual installation of the Destiny laboratory.

It took three spacewalks and the assistance of the both the shuttle and station crews to install the lab module.

After the previous week's hectic pace, the astronauts had little to do Monday except use up their last few rolls of film, exercise on a stationary cycle and wait to come home.

--------

Lasers could one day propel spacecraft

02/16/2001
USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/science/stuffworks/2001-02-16-light-propel.htm

More than 20 years ago, the United States began to develop a missile defense system that was given the nickname "Star Wars." This system was designed to track and use lasers to shoot down missiles launched by foreign countries. While this system was designed for war, researchers have found many other uses for these high-powered lasers. In fact, lasers could one day be used to propel spacecraft into orbit and to other planets.

To reach space, we currently use the space shuttle, which has to carry tons of fuel and have two massive rocket boosters strapped to it to lift off the ground. Lasers would allow engineers to develop lighter spacecraft that wouldn't need an onboard energy source. The lightcraft vehicle itself would act as the engine, and light - one of the universe's most abundant power sources - would be the fuel.

The basic idea behind light propulsion is the use of ground-based lasers to heat air to the point that it explodes, propelling the spacecraft forward. If it works, light propulsion will be thousands of times lighter and more efficient than chemical rocket engines, and will produce zero pollution. In this edition of How Stuff WILL Work, we'll take a look at two versions of this advanced propulsion system -- one may take us from the Earth to the moon in just five and a half hours, and the other could take us on a tour of the solar system on "highways of light."

Laser-propelled Lightcraft

Light-propelled rockets sound like something out of science fiction -- spacecraft that ride on a laser beam into space, require little or no onboard propellant and create no pollution. Sounds pretty far-fetched, considering we haven't been able to develop anything close to that for conventional ground- or air-travel on Earth. But while it may still be 15 to 30 years away, the principles behind the lightcraft have already been successfully tested several times. A company called Lightcraft Technologies continues to refine the research that began at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.

The basic idea for the lightcraft is simple -- the acorn-shaped craft uses mirrors to receive and focus the incoming laser beam to heat air, which explodes to propel the craft. Here's a look at the basic components of this revolutionary propulsion system:

Carbon-dioxide laser - Lightcraft Technologies uses a Pulsed Laser Vulnerability Test System (PLVTS), an offspring of the Star Wars defense program. The 10 kw pulsed laser being used for the experimental lightcraft is among the most powerful in the world. Parabolic mirror - The bottom of the spacecraft is a mirror that focuses the laser beam into the engine air or onboard propellant. A secondary, ground-based transmitter, telescope-like mirror is used to direct the laser beam onto the lightcraft. Absorption chamber - The inlet air is directed into this chamber where it is heated by the beam, expands and propels the lightcraft. Onboard hydrogen - A small amount of hydrogen propellant is needed for rocket thrust when the atmosphere is too thin to provide enough air.

Prior to liftoff, a jet of compressed air is used to spin the lightcraft to about 10,000 revolutions per minute (RPMs). The spin is needed to stabilize the craft gyroscopically. Think about football: a quarterback applies spin when passing a football to throw a more accurate pass. When spin is applied to this extremely lightweight craft, it allows the craft to cut through the air with more stability.

Once the lightcraft is spinning at an optimal speed, the laser is turned on, blasting the lightcraft into the air. The 10-kilowatt laser pulses at a rate of 25-28 times per second. By pulsing, the laser continues to push the craft upward. The light beam is focused by the parabolic mirror on the bottom of the lightcraft, which heats the air to between 18,000 and 54,000 degrees Fahrenheit (9,982 and 29,982 degrees Celsius) -- that's several times hotter than the surface of the sun. When you heat air to these high temperatures, it is converted to a plasma state -- this plasma then explodes to propel the craft upward.

Lightcraft Technologies, Inc., with FINDS sponsorship - earlier flights were funded by NASA and the U.S. Air Force - has tested a small prototype lightcraft several times at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. In October 2000, the miniature lightcraft, which has a diameter of 4.8 inches (12.2 cm) and weighs only 1.76 ounces (50 grams), achieved an altitude of 233 feet (71 meters). Sometime in 2001, Lightcraft Technologies hopes to send the lightcraft prototype up to an altitude of about 500 feet. A 1-megawatt laser will be needed to put a one-kilogram satellite in low earth orbit. Although the model is made of aircraft-grade aluminum, the final, full-size lightcraft will probably be built out of silicon carbide.

This laser lightcraft could also use mirrors, located in the craft, to project some of the beamed energy ahead of the ship. The heat from the laser beam would create an air spike that would divert some of the air past the ship, thus decreasing drag and reducing the amount of heat absorbed by the lightcraft.

Microwave-propelled Lightcraft

Another propulsion system being considered for a different class of lightcraft involves the use of microwaves. Microwave energy is cheaper than laser energy, and easier to scale to higher powers, but it would require a ship that has a larger diameter. Lightcraft being designed for this propulsion would look more like flying saucers (now we're really heading into the realm of science fiction). This technology will take more years to develop than the laser-propelled lightcraft, but it could take us to the outer planets. Developers also envision thousands of these lightcraft, powered by a fleet of orbiting power stations, that will replace conventional airline travel.

A microwave-powered lightcraft will also utilize a power source that is not integrated into the ship. With the laser-powered propulsion system, the power source is ground-based. The microwave propulsion system will flip that around. The microwave-propelled spacecraft will rely on power beamed down from orbiting, solar power stations. Instead of being propelled away from its energy source, the energy source will draw the lightcraft in.

Before this microwave lightcraft can fly, scientists will have to put into orbit a solar power station with a diameter of 1 kilometer (0.62 miles). Leik Myrabo, who leads the lightcraft research, believes that such a power station could generate up to 20 gigawatts of power. Orbiting 310 miles (500 km) above Earth, this power station would beam down microwave energy to a 66-foot (20-meter), disk-shaped lightcraft that would be capable of carrying 12 people. Millions of tiny antennae covering the top of the craft would convert the microwaves into electricity. In just two orbits, the power station would be able to collect 1,800 gigajoules of energy and beam down 4.3 gigawatts of power to the lightcraft for the ride to orbit.

The microwave lightcraft would be equipped with two powerful magnets and three types of propulsion engines. Solar cells, covering the top of the ship, would be used by the lightcraft at launch to produce electricity. The electricity would then ionize the air and propel the craft for picking up passengers. Once it's launched, the microwave lightcraft used its internal reflector to heat the air around it and push through the sound barrier.

Once in a high altitude, it would tilt sideways for hypersonic speeds. Half of the microwave power could then be reflected in front of the ship to heat the air and create an air spike, allowing the ship to cut through the air at up to 25 times the speed of sound and fly into orbit. The craft's top speed peaks at around 50 times the speed of sound. The other half of the microwave power is converted into electricity by the craft's receiving antennae, and used to energize its two electromagnetic engines. These engines then accelerate the slip stream, or the air flowing around the craft. By accelerating the slip stream the craft is able to cancel out any sonic boom, which makes the lightcraft completely silent at supersonic speeds.

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

Sub Commander Refuses Questioning

FEBRUARY 19
Associated Press
By JAYMES SONG
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=NATIONAL&STORYID=APIS7A8QVB80

HONOLULU (AP) - The commander of the U.S. submarine that sank a Japanese fishing vessel has refused to discuss the accident with investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board until the Navy completes its investigation, officials said on Monday.

NTSB investigators met with Cmdr. Scott Waddle over the weekend when he told them his lawyer recommended he only respond to written questions from the NTSB for the time being and only about search and rescue efforts, NTSB spokesman Ted Lopatkiewiscz said.

Waddle's information could be crucial to the NTSB effort to determine how the USS Greeneville failed to detect the 190-foot Ehime Maru before it conducted an emergency rapid-ascent drill nine miles south of Diamond Head on Feb. 9.

The Ehime Maru, a commercial fishing training vessel, was headed toward fishing grounds 300 miles southeast of Oahu when the Greeneville crashed into it. The submarine tore through the hull of the ship, sinking it within minutes. The vessel was found by underwater probes Friday night in 2,000 feet of water.

The ship was on a two-month training trip with students from a Japanese high school. Twenty-six people were rescued but nine have not been found - three crewmen, two teachers and four students.

The Navy announced Saturday it would conduct a court of inquiry - its highest-level administrative investigation - to focus on the actions of the Greeneville's three top officers: Waddle; its executive officer, Lt. Cmdr. Gerald K. Pfeifer, and the officer of the deck, Lt. j.g. Michael J. Coen.

Three admirals will oversee the hearing, which could lead to courts-martial, said Adm. Thomas Fargo, commander in chief of the Pacific Fleet. The board is scheduled to convene Thursday.

The hearing is expected to examine the presence of 16 civilian guests on the submarine, two of whom, supervised by crew members, were at key controls when the Greeneville made its rapid ascent. One pulled the levers that initiated the drill.

On Monday, the Navy and Coast Guard continued the search for the nine missing.

``At this point, it's going to go on indefinitely,'' said Coast Guard spokesman Eric Hedaa. ``We have no plans to discontinue the search.''

A deep-sea robot was also combing the ocean floor to evaluate the feasibility of raising the 500-ton Ehime Maru. Japanese officials and families of the missing are pressing the United States to salvage the ship if that is the only way to recover bodies that may be entombed in its hull.

---

U.S. Navy releases VIP list from sub

February 19, 2001
WASHINGTON TIMES
By Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-200121923634.htm

The Navy has released the names of the 16 civilians on board the submarine USS Greeneville on Feb. 9 when it rammed and sank a Japanese fishing trawler, saying the group was part of a long-standing program to promote the Navy to the public.

The VIP list includes only the guests' names and hometowns. Most of the civilians on the Greeneville were associated with the USS Missouri Memorial Association, a private group raising $25 million to restore the mothballed battleship and open it to the public in Honolulu.

As the Navy for one week declined to release the visitors' names until late Saturday night, rumors swirled in Washington that some had been financial contributors to the campaign of President Bush. His spokesman vehemently denied it was selling seats on the Greeneville in the way the Clinton administration allowed wealthy donors to stay in the White House Lincoln bedroom.

A check by The Washington Times yesterday of federal campaign records showed none of the 16 listed as federal campaign contributors to Mr. Bush..

Their common link appears to be as boosters of the Missouri project. Most guests were brought to the Navy's attention by retired Adm. Richard Macke, who lives in Honolulu and once commanded all the U.S. forces in the Pacific. Adm. Macke, a volunteer for the association, submitted a list of names to the Pacific Fleet for a one-day trip on a U.S. submarine. Most of the 16 civilians were selected from that list, Navy officials say.

"There is nothing fishy here," said Lt. Cmdr. Conrad Chun, Pacific Fleet spokesman. "If influential people - business leaders -spread the word about the Navy, that's the kind of target audience you are looking for in our business. The news media is one of the top people we take because they reach the right people."

The list of 16 VIP guests included seven married couples. The Navy describes them all as business leaders from Texas, Kansas, Colorado, Hawaii and Massachusetts. Phone messages left for the people matching the listed names and hometowns were not returned yesterday.

The Navy said it had withheld the names pending the completion of a confidential preliminary inquiry. Now that that investigation is complete and the Navy has opted to conduct a public court of inquiry into the accident, the Pacific Fleet said the names were allowed to be released.

The inquiry, which will be presided over by three admirals, could result in court-martial proceedings against the Greeneville's captain, Cmdr. Scott Waddle; its executive officer, Lt. Cmdr. Gerald K. Pfeifer; and the officer of the deck, Lt. j.g. Michael J. Coen. Some of the civilians likely will be called as witnesses, Navy officials said.

Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on ABC's "This Week" yesterday that a congressional investigation should follow the military inquiry, which he praised.

"The seriousness of this accident and the tragedy involved requires that there be this kind of a very thorough, very high-level and -perhaps most important - very open hearing," Mr. Levin said. "I think this hopefully will give the Japanese some confidence as to just how seriously we take this tragedy."

The civilians' presence on the Greeneville received heightened scrutiny after the Navy belatedly acknowledged last week that two guests, although supervised, were at control stations when the submarine rammed the trawler Ehime Maru. Nine passengers, including students and crewmen, are missing and presumed dead. The Navy located the wreckage Friday night more than 2,000 feet below the surface off the Hawaii coast.

One VIP, supervised by a control room "watch man," sat at the helmsman's station, which controls the sub's direction. The other, guided by another crew member, activated the ship's main ballast switches which sent the Greeneville rushing to the surface from 400 feet in a drill called an "emergency blow."

In a statement issued yesterday, two of the civilians aboard the Greeneville, Michael and Susan Nolan of Honolulu, expressed their sorrow over the incident and said they did not believe it was caused by neglect or carelessness.

"We very deeply regret the loss of life resulting from the accident and extend our most sincere sympathy and heartfelt aloha to the survivors of the accident and to the families and friends who have missing loved ones," the statement said.

The Nolans also defended the Greeneville cre