------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Sub investigation homes in on sonar
Bush Faults China on Aid to Help Iraq
Japan Suspects Negligence in Sub Collision
U.S. Offers Japan a New Apology
Bush - Blair Visit to Test Relations
Sailor Says Sub Tracked Ship but Guests Were Distraction
Japanese visit off
Arms investors named and shamed Charities
China and Iraq
Britain test fires depleted uranium into sea
Pakistan may equip subs with nuclear weapons
India acts to extend Kashmir cease-fire
Delegation heads for U.N. to discuss sanctions, weapons
Blair offers Bush European access
North Korea reacts to U.S. demands to disarm
N. Korea May Resume Testing Long-Range Missiles
North Korea Warns U.S. on Missile Testing
North Korea gives warning on launches
Moscow Signaling a Change in Tone on Missile Defense
German minister sees way to avert shield clash
President hails Russia defense plan
World Steps Deeper Into NMD Bog
MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS ON HUMANS
Use of Radioactive Materials as a Military Weapon
The Radiation Story No One Would Touch
RADIATION INCIDENT ALLEGED
RADIOACTIVE SPILL
ABOUT 530 LIKELY TO BE LAID OFF AT PIKETON PLANT

MILITARY
Bush Concerned About China Aid to Iraqi Defenses
OKINAWA RESPONDS
Colombian left, right slug it out; 30 die
Parental control curbs teen drug use
Bolivia says coca plants gone
U.S. Fighter Jet Attacks Iraqi Defenses
Bombs in Iraq Raid Fell Wide Of Targets
Air strikes against Iraq called mediocre at best
U.N. War Crimes Court Convicts Bosnian Serbs
U.N. Council Agrees to Withdraw Troops From Congo
Belgrade's Mladic goes underground
Cut in Congo force by U.N. draws fire
Nursing cadets

OTHER
Bit of topic, concerning America's First Amendment
Farmers use crops to heat homes
On Energy Farms, Technology Milks the Wind
Energy Industries Issue Warning
Fearing Disease, Brazil Bans Argentine Beef
Foot-and-Mouth Outbreak Halts British Animal Exports
WHALE FOUND DEAD
Colorado
Clinton's land designations likely to stand
Potomac monster
N.J. landfill suit deal reported
Court Asked to Keep Troopers' Charges
Delaware
Time in Elite Police Unit Included Secretive Work
Spy Handler Bedeviled U.S. in Earlier Case
No Polygraph for Spy Suspect
Spy Chasers Feel Betrayed by One-Time Top Gun
Zigs and Zags of Spy Cases Put a Damper on Predicting
Excerpts From the F.B.I. Affidavit
Spy Suspect Had Deep Data Access, Ex-Associates Say
New Controls Aided F.B.I. Spy Probe
Suspect hacked into FBI system
The mortician
Spy case reveals FBI failings
Bush voices confidence in FBI chief
NBC defers to FBI request in Hanssen arrest
Witness in Bombing Case Describes Scouting Mission
NEW BERENSON TRIAL
Taleban mulling trial for bin Laden abroad

ACTIVISTS
Oregon
Tibetan monk dies in Chinese custody
Mexico's Zapatistas outline plans for march
'Get out of Lebanon'
Homeless Voice LAWSUIT
World Bank Structural Adjustment Lending

-
-------- NUCLEAR

Sub investigation homes in on sonar

02/22/2001
USA Today
By Martin Kasindorf and Dave Moniz
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-02-22-sub.htm

Investigators are zeroing in on the USS Greeneville's sonar data for clues as to why the submarine struck and sank a 174-foot Japanese fishing ship. The National Transportation Safety Board is exploring several possible explanations for the crash, including whether poor communication between sonar operators and commanders aboard the Greeneville was a factor. NTSB member John Hammerschmidt called questions about the Greeneville's sonar tracking of the Ehime Maru "the heart of the investigation."

The Greeneville ran into and sank the Ehime Maru after conducting a rapid surfacing maneuver known as an "emergency blow." U.S. submarines rely on both sonar data and 360-degree periscope sweeps to determine whether it is safe to perform the procedure.

Another possible factor in the collision is the height of the periscope before the emergency blow. Investigators are trying to figure out whether the crew raised it high enough to see clearly over choppy, 8-foot ocean swells.

Wednesday, the NTSB reported several events aboard the Greeneville that could have contributed to the accident, including a crewmember who said civilian guests distracted him.

The safety board revealed that the Greeneville's sonar picked up the Ehime Maru about 71 minutes before the collision and also reported that a technician said he had been distracted and for a period of time didn't log sonar contacts with surface ships.

The NTSB's revelations marked the first evidence that the Greeneville had been aware of the Ehime Maru, which carried 35 students, teachers and crewmembers. Nine people aboard the ship are missing and presumed dead.

The NTSB also revealed that a sonar-tracking screen in the Greeneville's control room was not functioning. Hank McKinney, a retired rear admiral and former submarine commander, said that "passive" sonar used by the Greeneville measures only the direction of surface ships, not distance. "The key issue is, when at periscope depth, why didn't they see it?" McKinney said.

The Navy will conduct a court of inquiry in Hawaii on Monday to determine the cause of the accident. The focus of the inquiry are Cmdr. Scott Waddle, Lt. Cmdr. Gerald Pfeifer and Lt. (j.g.) Michael Coen. Each faces possible criminal charges. A lawyer for Waddle has asked for a continuance to March 5.

In Tokyo, U.S. Ambassador Thomas Foley personally apologized Wednesday to the emperor and empress of Japan.

Kasindorf reported from Honolulu, Moniz from Washington. Contributing: Andrea Stone in Washington, the Associated Press.

---

Bush Faults China on Aid to Help Iraq Build Radar

February 23, 2001
New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER and STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/23/world/23PREX.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 - President Bush said today that evidence of China's aid to Iraq in building radar systems to use against American and British warplanes had "risen to the level where we are going to send a message to the Chinese," a statement that put Mr. Bush at odds with Beijing only four weeks into his presidency.

Mr. Bush made the comments during his first solo news conference at the White House, called somewhat hastily today so Mr. Bush could sum up his first month in office before an address to Congress next week.

While he repeated his call for tax cuts and his education program, he also used the moment to declare that last Friday's bombing of the radar sites - which the Pentagon said were timed to avoid killing Chinese workers there - was intended to send a "clear signal" to Saddam Hussein and to reduce the capacity of Iraqi radar. [Excerpts, Page A10.]

"I believe we succeeded in both those missions," Mr. Bush said, although new indications from the Pentagon suggest that the bombing was not as effective as American officials had initially stated.

While Mr. Bush's harshest words were reserved for Iraq, he struck a tough tone with China saying, "It's troubling that they'd be involved in helping Iraq develop a system that will endanger our pilots."

Two hours later, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, softened the president's statement a bit. She said the White House and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell had sent inquiries to Beijing through the new Chinese ambassador here, Yang Jiechi. "I want to make clear that we are not accusing, at this point, the Chinese of anything," she said. "But we are telling them that we have tremendous concerns about what's going on."

Ms. Rice said that China had not yet responded to the inquiries. But in Beijing a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Zhu Bangzao, said, "China, as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, has always strictly and seriously implemented all the resolutions of the Security Council concerning Iraq."

American military and intelligence officials say that Chinese workers are helping Iraq build a fiber optic communications network that links the radar stations and other targets attacked by American and British warplanes last Friday.

The Chinese actions could violate United Nations sanctions imposed on Iraq after its invasion of Kuwait in 1990, administration officials said.

The confrontation with Beijing puts a chill on Mr. Bush's first high-level exchanges with the Chinese leadership. Only a week ago he exchanged polite introductory letters with President Jiang Zemin in which both leaders described in the most general terms their goals for their relationship.

The Chinese know the Bush family well: Mr. Bush's father was the American representative in Beijing before the two countries opened diplomatic relations, and Mr. Bush spent six weeks there in the 1970's, his longest stay abroad.

Now Mr. Bush's stance suggests that the United States and China may be headed to tougher exchanges, after the Clinton administration had finally succeeded in repairing most of the diplomatic damage done by the accidental American bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during NATO's air war against Serbia in 1999.

In its first weeks, the new administration has signaled that it will sponsor a resolution condemning China's human rights violations at an annual conference in Geneva. And it has promised to go ahead with a national missile defense plan despite China's vehement opposition and its promises to build up its own nuclear forces to defeat the system. In his appearance today, Mr. Bush seemed by turns relaxed and somewhat uneasy, especially when the subject turned to problems in foreign policy. He also used the event to argue anew for his tax cut proposal, which will be the subject of an address to Congress on Tuesday.

While Mr. Bush claimed that the raids on Friday against Iraqi air defenses served as a warning on Mr. Hussein, Iraqi forces appear undaunted. They continued to fire at American and British jets patrolling the no-flight zones over southern and northern Iraq, including those that flew today.

In fact, an American fighter jet attacked a missile defense battery today near Mosul, in northern Iraq. The strike was carried out against a French-made mobile antiaircraft battery purchased before the gulf war. It was not specifically authorized by President Bush but was carried out under standing orders that the pilots can defend themselves when they feel threatened by Iraqi forces in the no-flight zones.

Pentagon officials have said last week's attacks - against 20 to 24 radar sites and five to seven command or communication centers at five sites -- disrupted Iraq's air defenses, but they acknowledge that the damage was moderate.

The mixed success was attributed to problems with the Joint Standoff Weapon, or J-SOW. Navy F/A-18's fired more than two dozen of the relatively new J-SOW's at radar stations but "the vast majority" missed their precise targets, a military official said.

That was in sharp contrast to the early reports from Lt. Gen. Gregory S. Newbold, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who said on Friday after the raid, "We have no indications that there were any of the strikes that might have gone amiss."

Pentagon officials said the strikes had weakened Iraq's air defenses, and a spokesman said today that only two of the radars attacked had resumed tracking allied patrols.

He said the Pentagon had still not completed an assessment of the damage, but other officials said the raids had severely damaged five command or communications sites. In the case of the radar sites, which included some mobile systems, the success was less clear. One official said only that more than half showed damage visible from aerial or satellite photographs.

General Powell leaves for the Middle East on Friday, and the president said today that piecing together a consensus on how to rebuild a coalition to isolate Iraq is high on the agenda.

"The secretary of state is going to go listen to our allies as to how best to effect a policy, the primary goal of which will be to say to Saddam Hussein, `We won't tolerate you developing weapons of mass destruction and we expect you to leave your neighbors alone.'"

But he conceded, as he did in an interview last month, that "the sanction regime is like Swiss cheese."

---

Japan Suspects Negligence in Sub Collision

February 22, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Submarine-Collision.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld will order a moratorium on allowing civilians at the controls of any military ship, aircraft, or vehicle, officials said Thursday. The move responds to questions about the role of civilians aboard the U.S. submarine that collided last week with a Japanese fishing trawler.

Rumsfeld's spokesman, Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, said the order is a ``work in progress'' and may be issued by the end of the week.

``All the services know this is coming,'' Quigley said.

Rumsfeld wants the military services to review their safety guidelines on civilian participation in military activities. He supports involving civilians in military exercises and maneuvers, Quigley said, but wants to ensure that relevant policies are reviewed considering what happened aboard the USS Greeneville.

The Greeneville, a nuclear-powered attack submarine, had 16 civilians aboard when it collided with the fishing vessel Ehime Maru on Feb. 9 off the coast of Honolulu. The Japanese boat, on a cruise to teach commercial fishing to high school students, sank, and nine people were lost at sea. Two civilians were at control positions aboard the Greeneville at the time of the accident, although the Navy says they did not cause it.

Shortly after the accident, the Navy stopped allowing civilians in the control rooms of submarines.

The possibility that the presence of civilians aboard the sub could have contributed to the accident is one of the subjects to be examined in a formal Navy court of inquiry scheduled to convene in Hawaii next week.

A panel of three Navy admirals will conduct the inquiry, with a Japanese officer designated as an adviser. Tokyo announced the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force is sending Adm. Isamu Ozawa, who will be included in deliberations with the three American admirals and may submit questions. He will not have a vote in the proceeding's outcome.

The inquiry also will seek to determine whether the Greeneville undertook an emergency surfacing drill, which led to the collision, only as a demonstration for the civilians aboard, officials said.

One member of the Greeneville crew told National Transportation Safety Board investigators in Hawaii that the presence of civilians in the control room distracted him from completing his normal work.

It is not clear, however, whether distraction of the fire control technician played any role in the accident. He was not operating the sonar but was responsible for feeding sonar contact data into an electronic digital display that is available to the sub's captain and control room officers. He also plots sonar contacts on paper as a backup to the electronic system, and it was this backup activity which he told NTSB investigators he did not complete because of congestion in the control room.

On Feb. 14, five days after the accident, Rumsfeld was asked whether there was evidence that the civilians played a role in the accident. ``None whatsoever,'' he replied.

The Navy court of inquiry to investigate the Greeneville accident is to convene Monday in Pearl Harbor and is a public forum. Attorneys for Cmdr. Scott Waddle, the Greeneville's captain, asked that it be delayed until March 5. In the meantime Waddle has been relieved of command.

Parties to the court proceeding in Pearl Harbor are Waddle plus the sub's executive officer and the officer of the deck at the time of the accident. Once the three-admiral panel completes its inquiry, Adm. Thomas Fargo, commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, will decide what, if any, additional steps to take. He could choose to convene one or more courts-martial, and criminal charges are possible.

Tensions with Japan over the accident have increased with revelations about civilians in the submarine. Many in Japan were outraged that civilians were even allowed in the sub's control room at a time when it was supposed to ensure the surface area was clear of vessels before performing an emergency surfacing drill.

The services routinely and frequently arrange for civilians to operate vehicles, ships and weapons as part of a public outreach effort designed to win support and demonstrate the military's capabilities.

Anticipating Rumsfeld's moratorium, the Army last week temporarily stopped allowing civilians aboard its aircraft and tactical vehicles such as tanks. The Air Force and Marine Corps said they had taken no action in response to the sub collision.

---

U.S. Offers Japan a New Apology

February 22, 2001
New York Times
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/national/22JAPA.html

TOKYO, Feb. 21 - Meeting with Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko for an official farewell as his tour of duty ends, Ambassador Thomas S. Foley again offered American apologies yesterday for a submarine accident in which a Japanese trawler was sunk off Hawaii two weeks ago, Kyodo news agency said.

Separately, an American Embassy spokesman said Washington was considering Japan's request for a special envoy to come here to explain the accident.

A chance to mend fences on the issue receded when Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori said he would delay a visit to Washington to meet President Bush. Mr. Mori, under pressure to resign ahead of a tough upper house election in July, said an early March visit was difficult as it would conflict with the lower house's expected consideration of next year's budget.

"How would I be able to leave when we must do everything to have the budget pass?" he said.

American officials from Mr. Bush on down have apologized for the accident, in which nine people died. But political analysts said the two leaders needed to meet, to discuss not only the accident but also the future of their nations' relationship.

"We're at a turning point in how to manage U.S.-Japan relations," Takehiko Yamamoto, a political science professor at Waseda University, said.

Ties have been strained by a series of incidents involving American military forces on the southern Japanese island of Okinawa. In the most recent case, a marine was indicted last week on charges of setting fire to several restaurants.

"The submarine accident and the arson charges symbolize what has become a thorn in U.S.-Japan relations since the 1995 raping of a schoolgirl," Mr. Yamamoto said.

Three American servicemen were convicted in that incident.

---

Bush - Blair Visit to Test Relations

February 22, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Bush-Blair.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Patrolling the dangerous sky over Iraq and tense neighborhoods across the Balkans, the United States and Britain are resolute partners boasting of a ``special relationship.''

It is a bond that was nurtured by fellow conservatives Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. It was strengthened in the Persian Gulf War during the administration of Bush's father, and blossomed under like-minded baby boomers Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.

How will the fabled relationship fare under President Bush, a Republican, and Blair, leader of the Labor Party, amid new pressures over such issues as missile defense and even Saddam Hussein?

The answer may become clearer Friday and Saturday during discussions at Camp David.

U.S. officials say they expect Blair and Bush to see eye-to-eye on most issues. Before leaving London, Blair said, ``I work across party lines.''

Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said the president does not look to Blair to serve as ``some sort of intermediary'' between the United States and European nations. ``I don't think the British would want to be put in that position,'' she said.

She said Bush does envision a role for Britain in helping shape EU policies on defense, trade or other issues.

Both politically and in matters of style, there is little doubt that Blair was much closer to Clinton than to the more conservative Bush.

Blair partly modeled his campaign on Clinton's and has ruled as the British Labor Party equivalent of Clinton's ``New Democrat.'' Blair and Clinton both went to Oxford and married high-powered lawyers.

Blair became Clinton's best friend among foreign leaders. When Blair and his wife, Cherie, visited the Clintons at the White House in 1998, the two couples danced and partied until after midnight to music by Elton John and Stevie Wonder.

In recent years, the United States and Britain have fought side by side in the Persian Gulf and the Balkans. They also have kept a united front on dealing with Iraq's Saddam Hussein, including joint patrols of the no-fly zones over Iraq.

Both the United States and Britain have been firm in insisting that U.N. sanctions remain in place on Iraq, often generating criticism from other allies in the United Nations.

But Washington and London parted ways on the issue of sanctions against Iran. Britain last year joined other European allies in approving $232 million in World Bank loans to Iran -- over strong objections from then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

Also, Britain so far has taken a hands-off approach to a pivotal Bush priority, a national missile defense system that would blast enemy rockets out of the sky shortly after they lift off.

Earlier this month, Britain's foreign secretary, Robin Cook, urged the Bush administration to talk to the Russians before making a decision on a missile defense system.

Cook said ``there is no perception'' in Britain of a threat from North Korea, Iran and Iraq, states often cited by advocates of the program as threatening the United States with attack by long-range nuclear missiles.

Blair, in an interview with Forbes magazine, said the missile-defense plan ``is definitely in the box marked 'handle with care' on all sides.''

Still, Blair added, ``I understand totally America's desire to make sure that it's people are properly protected.'' He suggested that a way might be found that ``meets America's objectives and other people's concerns,'' and he suggested Britain might serve as a bridge between the United States and other nations on the issue.

With national elections expected in Britain this spring, leaders of the opposition Conservative Party have accused Blair of vacillating.

``Blair will be very careful in not making any statements leading to a rift between him and Bush that could turn into an electoral advantage to the conservatives at home,'' said Ivo Daalder, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution who specializes in European security issues.

``Overtly, things at the Blair-Bush meeting are going to look great. Below the surface, however, there can be little doubt that the way Tony Blair's Britain looks at the world and Bush's United States looks at the world is quite different,'' Daalder said.

---

Sailor Says Sub Tracked Ship but Guests Were Distraction

February 22, 2001
New York Times
By ELAINE SCIOLINO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/national/22HAWA.html?pagewanted=all

HONOLULU, Feb. 21 - The Navy has told federal investigators that the submarine Greeneville detected a Japanese fishing trawler more than an hour before sinking it in a collision. Separately, investigators learned from interviews that a Greeneville crewman keeping track of surface vessels said he could not complete his job because there were so many civilian guests in the control room.

But investigators emphasized today that they could not yet determine whether the crewman's inability to post the information for others to track the vessels was to blame for the accident.

The crewman, known as a fire control technician, is responsible for plotting information about the submarine and any nearby vessels through the submarine's sonar operators and transferring that information, with a pencil, onto a large paper chart attached to the bulkhead for others to see at all times. But he had to stop the paper-and-pencil charting because the control room was so crowded, federal investigators said.

The crewman was positioned in front of the officer of the deck and the captain, who should have seen whether he was doing the plotting - and one or both of them should have stepped in to make sure it was done, submarine experts said.

The revelations, disclosed by a National Transportation Safety Board member, John Hammerschmidt, in a news conference on Tuesday evening, are the first pieces of evidence that suggest that the submarine crew knew that the Japanese vessel, the Ehime Maru, was moving in nearby waters. The statements also represent the first acknowledgment by a crew member that the presence of 16 civilians on the submarine might have hampered normal functions.

Mr. Hammerschmidt said that the crewman "ceased this updating" of what is known as the Contact Evaluation Plot "because of the number of civilians present." He went on to say, "In terms of how important it was, we do not know at this point," but he called the situation "something of an anomaly that should be reported."

Another apparent anomaly, another safety board official said, was that a piece of equipment in the control room known as a sonar repeater was not working. The repeater is a display of the raw sonar information gathered in the sonar room.

The Navy declined to make an official comment on the disclosures, citing its need to protect its separate, parallel investigation into the collision on Feb. 9, in which 26 people were rescued, but 9 - 4 students, 2 instructors and 3 crew members - were missing and presumed dead.

The Navy has now delayed the opening of an unusual court of inquiry until Monday to give the submarine's three top officers more time to prepare their legal cases, Navy officials said. Although the investigating panel is not a court and the officers are not defendants, they will be represented by legal counsel. The results of the inquiry could lead directly to courts-martial on such charges as dereliction in the performance of duty, reckless operation of a Navy vessel or even manslaughter because of culpable negligence, the officials said.

But a further delay is possible. The submarine's 41-year-old captain, Cmdr. Scott D. Waddle, on Tuesday retained Charles W. Gittins, a civilian lawyer from Middletown, Va., specializing in military defense. In a telephone interview today, Mr. Gittins said he had requested a delay of the court of inquiry until March 5.

Mr. Gittins has been involved in other widely noticed military cases. He defended Gene C. McKinney, the former sergeant major of the Army, who was convicted in a military court in 1998 on one count of obstructing justice, for coaching one of the six women who had accused him of sexual harassment on what to tell investigators. He was acquitted of 18 other charges.

Mr. Gittins also represented former Cmdr. Robert E. Stumpf of the Navy, who was the leader of the Blue Angels flight demonstration team when he was among the officers implicated in the Tailhook sexual scandal. He was at the 1991 convention of the Tailhook Association, a group of current and retired aircraft carrier fliers, in Las Vegas, when an atmosphere of debauchery contributed to assaults on 83 women and 7 men.

After being implicated in the events, the commander was brought before a military court of inquiry, a step below a court-martial. With Mr. Gittins representing him, Commander Stumpf was exonerated, although he was later removed from the promotion list for captain and left the service for a job as a commercial pilot.

The disclosures by the federal investigators underscore the vast differences in the separate investigations conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board and the Navy.

The safety board gathers masses of information and often releases it publicly along the way, even before its investigation is completed, and without making analytical conclusions. The Navy, by contrast, has been faulted for withholding information and only then releasing it in bits and pieces.

Navy officials argue that they do not want to taint the investigative process, which could lead to criminal prosecutions.

Although the safety board has praised the Navy for its cooperation, tensions surfaced today over the disclosures.

"You've got N.T.S.B. guys with no experience with submarines gathering technical facts and trying to explain them to people with no experience with submarines," one Navy officer involved in the investigation said. "You just can't throw tidbits out to people that way. There's no context, no clarification."

According to the Navy's findings, the submarine's sonar crew detected the 190-foot Japanese commercial fishing and training vessel 71 minutes before the Greeneville tore into it in a practice exercise of an emergency rapid-ascent drill, Mr. Hammerschmidt said.

The Greeneville made what is known as passive sonar contact with a surface vessel at 12:32 p.m. on Feb. 9 and designated the contact as Sierra 13. Mr. Hammerschmidt said the Navy had reconstructed the path of the Ehime Maru and concluded that the ship was Sierra 13.

Altogether, there were two other vessels detected operating in the area.

Despite several periscope sweeps before the rapid ascent, the submarine crew did not detect the Ehime Maru above it; the trawler sank minutes after the submarine surfaced.

The safety board has asked the Navy for 200 documents to help in the investigation, including shipping logs, crew training records, maintenance training records, standard operating procedures, vessel maneuvering characteristics and weather observation summaries.

On Sunday night, the Navy gave the board about 500 pages of information taken via classified methods through the passive sonar system that should provide information about the submarine's movements, including its course, speed, depth, pitch and roll. Provision of the data was delayed because of its classified nature, a board official said.

The board has interviewed 19 submarine crew members and all of the civilians who were aboard. Today, Mr. Hammerschmidt and several board investigators examined the Greeneville in drydock to assess damage to the submarine. At least two other crew members were interviewed today. The board expects to complete its on-scene investigation by the end of this week, although it could take months to process the information and complete the inquiry.

The crew member monitoring the positions of the submarine and other vessels said he did not report his difficulties to anyone in the chain of command or ask the civilians to move out of the way.

Navy officials have insisted that the civilians were not a distraction, and the issue is expected to be raised before the court of inquiry, the highest level administrative hearing. The court of inquiry will be held before a panel of three American and one Japanese admiral.

The safety board has turned to other agencies for information. Data from the Federal Aviation Administration's air traffic control radar and from the Air Force, for example, helped the it locate the course of the Japanese vessel and its position at the bottom of the ocean.

U.S. Apologizes Again

TOKYO, Feb. 21 (Reuters) - Meeting with Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko for an official farewell as his tour of duty ends, Ambassador Thomas S. Foley again offered American apologies yesterday for the submarine accident,the Kyodo news agency said.

Separately, an American Embassy spokesman said Washington was considering Japan's request for a special envoy to come here to explain the accident.

A chance to mend fences on the issue receded when Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori said he would delay a visit to Washington to meet President Bush. Mr. Mori, under pressure to resign ahead of a tough upper house election in July, said an early March visit was difficult as it would conflict with the lower house's expected consideration of next year's budget.

---

Japanese visit off

February 22, 2001
Washington Times
Embassy Row James Morrison News and dispatches from the diplomatic corridor.
http://www.washtimes.com/world/embassy-2001222215657.htm

The prime minister of Japan yesterday called off a planned visit to Washington next month to meet President Bush, as the U.S. ambassador apologized to the emperor and empress for the sinking of a Japanese ship.

Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori cited the need to stay in Japan to prepare a government budget by the April 1 deadline as his reason for delaying his trip. He had been expected to travel to Washington in early March, although an exact date had not been announced.

"How would I be able to leave when we must do everything to have the budget pass?" Mr. Mori told reporters in Tokyo.

Meanwhile Ambassador Thomas Foley apologized to Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko for the sinking of the Ehime Maru by the USS Greeneville nuclear submarine on Feb. 9.

Nine of the 35 persons on board are still missing and presumed dead.

Mr. Foley visited the Imperial Palace to promise that the United States will make every effort to determine the cause of the accident and recover the missing passengers, a palace spokesman told the Associated Press.

The ambassador, who was planning to end his diplomatic tour on March 1, has decided to delay his departure to deal with the aftermath of the incident, which has caused widespread anger in Japan.

Meanwhile, the Japanese Embassy yesterday asked reporters to refer to the Ehime Maru as a high school training vessel, not a fishing vessel. The ship was owned by a school for aspiring commercial fishermen and most of the passengers on board were students.

------- britain

Arms investors named and shamed Charities,
NHS trusts, trade unions and Labour party among organisations accused of compromising ethical principles

Thursday February 22, 2001
The Guardian
Diane Taylor and Richard Norton-Taylor
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,441302,00.html

Charities, NHS trusts, trade unions and the Labour party are still holding millions of pounds in arms company shares despite pressure to invest ethically, a new report reveals today.

Campaign Against Arms Trade, which conducts an annual survey to find out which organisations hold shares in the UK's biggest arms companies, has found that some of the largest shareholdings come from organisations, including the Co-op, which publicly promotes ethical policies.

Organisations whose holdings are likely to cause embarrassment for their supporters include the Leukaemia Research Fund, a charity with more than 200 research teams. It has 10,000 shares in BAE Systems, Britain's biggest arms company. It manufactures shells tipped with depleted uranium which have been linked to leukeamia and other cancers.

Depleted uranium shells were used by US aircraft in Kosovo and by British and US tanks in the Gulf war.

The Labour party, whose government pledged an ethical dimension to its foreign policy and to work for human rights - and has banned the use of anti-personnel landmines by British troops - has 34,721 shares in BAE Systems.

Publicity surrounding organisations committed to ethical trading and found to have shares in arms companies has led to some disinvestment. The Red Cross was found to have arms trade shares two years ago and has since disinvested. The Church of England has followed the lead of the Catholic Church in getting rid of its shares in arms companies.

A spokesman for the Leukaemia Research Fund said he saw no contradiction in devoting itself to curing leukaemia and investing in a company whose shells are alleged to cause the illness.

"BAE Systems is a respected British company. We need to invest widely and wisely and ensure that we get the best returns for our money. BAE Systems are not responsible for what went on in Kosovo" a spokesman said.

The position regarding the Co-op is more complicated. There are several individual societies which the Co-op Group says are separate entities and determine their own ethical policies. The Co-op Group owns the Co-op Insurance Society, one of the biggest shareholders surveyed with 21,375,136 shares in BAE Systems.

But it says CIS is a separate entity despite being owned by the group and makes its own decisions. The Co-op Group holds shares in BAE Systems, Rolls Royce and GKN in their pension fund. It is a matter, they say, for their trustees to determine.

The Labour party's response was similar. A spokesman confirmed that Labour's position on investing in the arms trade had not changed since it was "outed" a year ago. "Our pension fund investments are a matter for the pension fund trustees," he said.

Crest, the new electronic system for holding shares, means they are often held in undesignated nominee accounts so that it is not possible to trace the beneficial owner by inspecting the company register.

The law only requires that a custodian is identified and does not require the identity of the beneficial owner be publicly available. The campaign is calling for all shares to be held in designated accounts and for one shareholder to be able to request the identity of another to improve transparency and accountability.

A campaign spokesperson said: "We know that the majority of people in the UK oppose most arms sales and support ethical investment. Despite the annual naming and shaming by CAAT, hundreds of public institutions continue to compromise their own objectives and principles by taking this dirty money."

Where the millions are held

Charities

Leukemia Research Fund 10,000 shares in BAe Systems

Mencap 58 shares in BAe Systems and 90 shares in Rolls Royce

Nacro 1,000 shares in BAe Systems

Battersea Dogs Home 29,702 shares in BAe Systems, 9,381 shares in BAES Stock, 30,355 shares in GKN

Royal National Institute for Deaf People 1,679 shares in BAe Systems, 530 shares in BAES Stock

Pension funds

Labour party 34,721 shares in BAe Systems

British Rail 24,280,210 shares in BAe Systems, 5,485,345 shares in BAES Stock, 1,226,032 shares in Rolls Royce, 8,865,700 shares in GKN, 325,500 shares in Alvis

Cornwall county council 483,693 shares in BAe Systems, 93,100 shares in GKN

Cumbria county council 419,980 shares in BAe Systems

West Sussex county council 560,176 shares in BAe Systems

Education

Balliol College, Oxford 52,745 shares in BAE Systems,10,657 shares in BAES Stock, 153,227 shares in Rolls Royce, 40,000 shares in GKN

Nuffield College, Oxford 30,015 shares in BAe Systems

University of Manchester superannuation scheme 642,000 shares in BAe Systems

University of Sussex 986 shares in BAe Systems, 311 shares in BAES Stock, 2,020 shares in GKN

East Berkshire College Trust Ltd 1,286 shares in BAe Systems, 406 shares in BAES Stock

Religious

Boys Brigade 6,624 shares in BAe Systems

Dean and Chapter of Christ Church, Oxford 64,500 shares in BAe Systems, 6,771 shares in BAES Stock, 85,400 shares in GKN

Evangelical Trust Ltd 1,384 shares in BAe Systems, 436 shares in BAES Stock

London Central Mosque Trust Ltd 5,025 shares in BAe Systems, 1,587 shares in BAES Stock.

United Reformed Church Trust 37,000 shares in GKN

Miscellaneous

Co-op Insurance Society Ltd (owned by the Co-op Group) 13,798,294 shares in BAe Systems, 2,305,102 shares in BAES Stock, 5,137,521 shares in Rolls Royce, 6,857,486 shares in GKN, 1,327,107 shares in Hunting, 837,263 shares in Cobham, 830,880 shares in Alvis

Colchester & East Essex Co-op Society pension fund 88,882 shares in BAe Systems, 55,768 shares in Rolls Royce

Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union general fund 34,000 shares in Rolls Royce, 13,000 shares in GKN, 15,220 shares in Cobham

TUC superannuation society 302,540 shares in BAe Systems

Unison, long term investments 88,248 shares in BAe Systems, 594,557 shares in BAES Stock, 60,500 shares in Rolls Royce, 41,820 shares in GKN

Health

Blackburn, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley Healthcare NHS Trust 3,215 shares in BAe Systems

Bolton Hospice Ltd 9,157 shares in BAe Systems, 365 shares in BAES Stock

British Medical Association staff fund 63,712 shares in BAe Systems

Cancer Research Campaign 81 shares in BAES Stock

Royal College of Pathologists: 29,502 shares in BAe Systems, 6,250 shares in GKN, 3,000 shares in Cobham

Guardian Unlimited

-------- china

China and Iraq

Thursday, February 22, 2001
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38505-2001Feb21?language=printer

LAST WEEK's airstrikes in Iraq have forced the Bush administration to confront for the first time -- but surely not the last -- one of the most troubling parts of the complex U.S. relationship with China: Beijing's persistent practice of supplying weapons to unstable or unsavory governments in violation of agreements with the United States or international law, or both. Perhaps that is just as well: It is time to end the practice of past administrations that tolerated or overlooked these offenses.

In the latest instance, Chinese technicians were found to be installing fiber optic cable for Iraqi air defenses, a clear violation of United Nations sanctions. As reported by Thomas Ricks and Steven Mufson of The Post, the work continued despite the quiet delivery of a diplomatic protest to Beijing last month by an assistant secretary of state; as a result, U.S. strikes were timed for Friday, a Muslim holiday, in part in order to avoid injuring Chinese nationals.

So far, the administration's requests for an explanation from China, both public and private, apparently have been greeted with silence; a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman said Tuesday that the ministry knew nothing about the work. Some experts do question whether the Chinese government is always aware or in control of military deals struck by the People's Liberation Army and its associated companies. Still, there is a clear pattern here. Again and again in the past decade, the United States has detected illegal or troubling Chinese sales: missiles and missile-launchers to Pakistan and Syria, nuclear technology to Iran, antiaircraft systems to Iraq. The Chinese have first denied knowledge of the sales, then -- usually when faced with the threat of sanctions -- agreed to stop them, in exchange for concessions from the United States. Just three months ago, for example, Beijing formally agreed with the Clinton administration to stop selling missile technology to other countries. It was the third time it had made that promise; the other two times the sales soon resumed.

It is time to stop tolerating such gamesmanship. Behind the sales and the smoke screen lies a deeper Chinese purpose: to thwart U.S. global leadership, seen in Beijing as "hegemony," by encouraging those who oppose it. China's rulers apparently believe they can carry out such a policy while simultaneously intimidating U.S. administrations into strictly limiting support for Taiwan; that they can upgrade Saddam Hussein's defenses while demanding that the United States not do the same for Taiwan's democratic government. Whether they intended to or not, the past two administrations have accepted that formula. The Bush administration should make clear that it no longer holds.

-------- depleted uranium

Britain test fires depleted uranium into sea

February 22, 2001
Planet Ark
Story by Ed Cropley
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=9887&newsDate=22-Feb-2001

EDINBURGH - Britain began test firing depleted uranium shells at a range off the coast of Scotland on Tuesday for the first time since the munitions were linked to a possible risk of cancer.

The Ministry of Defence said troops tested a new batch of the armour-piercing munitions at the Dundrennan range, sparking anger among residents along the shores of the estuary, the Solway Firth.

Controversy over the use of the tank-busting DU weapons by NATO in the Balkans in 1999 erupted after reports from Italy that six soldiers had died of leukaemia.

Britain, along with NATO and the United States, insists there is no proof that the munitions pose any health risk.

"Even if it was the most inert substance known to man, I don't think you should be dumping them in our rivers," said local member of parliament Alasdair Morgan from the opposition Scottish National Party.

The ministry said there was no health risk involved with the tests, which had been planned for months and were expected to last for two days.

"Safety in all these matters is a very high priorty," a defence spokesman said. "We are going to be checking accuracy of a new batch of penetrators by firing them at soft canvas targets. There will be no particle dispersion."

Health fears centre around inhaling the dust thrown up when the heavy shells slam into a ground target - most often a tank.

However local people are also concerned about possible contamination of the sea near where they live, and want the tests stopped while questions remain about public health.

Thousands of uranium-tipped shells have already been fired into the Solway Firth over the last two decades, although the MoD said this week's tests would only involve around a dozen rounds.

The spokesman said the shells were the only ammunition the British forces had for penetrating modern heavy armour effectively and so had to be thoroughly tested.

The Campaign Against Depleted Uranium Weapons said it was stunned at Britain's decision after the European Parliament approved calls in January for a moratorium on the shells' use until the controversy had been cleared up.

"We believe in the precautionary principle. It seems the height of folly to still be test-firing them," a spokeswoman said.

Meanwhile, the Belgian Defence Ministry said on Tuesday evening they would stop test-firing all of its Milan anti-tank shells, after Britain had informed Belgium of the presence of more than two grammes of Thorium, a radioactive heavy metal, in the shell.

-------- india / pakistan

Pakistan may equip subs with nuclear weapons

02/22/2001
USA Today
http://usatoday.com/news/world/2001-02-22-nukes.htm

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) - In what appeared to be the first indication that Pakistan was ready to deploy nuclear weapons, its navy said Thursday that it may put nuclear missiles on its submarines.

Such a move would increase tension with nuclear neighbor India. Both exploded nuclear devices in 1998 and declared themselves nuclear powers.

"Pakistan may equip its submarines with nuclear missiles to defend its key naval installations," said navy spokesman Roshan Khayal.

It's not known how many nuclear weapons or the type that India and Pakistan possesses. But Pakistan recently added three French submarines to its fleet - all capable of carrying nuclear warheads, said Khayal.

On Wednesday, Rear Admiral Afzal Tahir, deputy chief of naval staff, said India has ambitions to nuclearize its submarine fleet and Pakistan has to keep pace.

"The Pakistan Navy continues to strive hard to make up for the deficiencies and achieve a qualitative edge over a numerically superior enemy," Tahir told the independent daily newspaper The News.

Tahir also said Pakistan would induct nuclear weapons into its submarine fleet. There was no time frame given by either Tahir or the spokesman.

Pakistan and India have gone to war three times since British rule of the Asian subcontinent ended in 1947. The development of nuclear weapons on the subcontinent raised fears among the international community that another war in the region could result in the use of nuclear weapons.

Both countries have been pressed by a worried world to halt its nuclear program and not develop nuclear weapons. The two say they want a minimum nuclear deterrent, but neither country has spelled out what that would mean and how many weapons that would involve.

India earlier released proposed plans for its nuclear development, which also called for the deployment of submarines equipped with nuclear weapons.

The two countries share access to the Arabian Sea. Karachi is Pakistan's biggest city, manufacturing and industrial hub and a major port on the Arabian Sea.

---

India acts to extend Kashmir cease-fire

February 22, 2001
Washington Times
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-200122221354.htm

NEW DELHI - India decided yesterday to extend its unilateral cease-fire in Kashmir, but Pakistan and hard-line guerrillas snubbed the latest truce extension even before details of it were released.

India's decision to continue its suspension of offensive operations against militants in Kashmir came as Pakistan announced that President Bush had written to military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf calling for dialogue between the two nuclear-equipped South Asian neighbors.

-------- iraq

Delegation heads for U.N. to discuss sanctions, weapons

February 22, 2001
Washington Times
By Betsy Pisik
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-2001222222428.htm

NEW YORK - An Iraqi delegation set out for New York yesterday for two days of meetings that could lead to a revision of decade-old sanctions on their country and ultimately a resumption of U.N. weapons inspections.

"We are going to start Round One. . . . We think this will be a long process," said the head of the delegation, Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Sa'eed al-Sahhaf.

He told reporters in Baghdad that "the dialogue between Iraq and the secretary-general is going to be without any precondition," such as the return of U.N. weapons inspectors, who were expelled after U.S.-led air strikes in December 1998.

The Iraqis arrive tomorrow night and will meet with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and other U.N. officials on Monday and Tuesday.

Meanwhile, a British delegation is in Washington today to begin discussions on how to focus the sanctions program better in advance of Prime Minister Tony Blair's visit to the White House tomorrow.

But U.N. officials and Western diplomats - who are eager to see the return of U.N. weapons inspectors after a two-year absence - had been playing down the likelihood of an early agreement with the Iraqis even before last week's U.S. and British air strikes around Baghdad.

"I don't think we are going to have a miraculous breakthrough, but at least it is a beginning," Mr. Annan said Tuesday, acknowledging that the bombing had made the timing of the talks "a bit awkward."

Foreign diplomats are still debating the likely impact of the air strikes and trying to determine whether they signal renewed U.S. attention to Iraq and the start of a tougher policy under the Bush administration.

A great number of foreign governments, including Arab and European allies, have denounced the air strikes as unnecessary or unconscionable.

Many are also questioning the legitimacy of the "no fly" zones patrolled by American and British planes to keep Iraq's military from harassing the Kurds to the north and rebellious Shiite Muslims in the south.

But others say that until the administration's U.N. ambassador shows up and more government appointments are made, it's too soon to know what to expect from the son of the president who ordered the Gulf war a decade ago.

During his visit to the United Nations last week, Secretary of State Colin Powell indicated a willingness to consider what are being widely described as "smart sanctions," while stressing the administration's desire to see the weapons inspectors return.

"We're looking at ways to make it possible for us to be assured that there are no weapons of mass destruction and there are no programs under way that would produce weapons of mass destruction," he said, adding that Washington would not attempt to modify existing Security Council resolutions.

The phrase "smart sanctions," frequently heard from British and other diplomats recently, refers to the idea of focusing the sanctions on a list of prohibited materials related to Iraqi's pursuit or use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

Iraq would be allowed to purchase items not on that list - such as food, medicine and materials to repair it's badly depleted infrastructure - with funds from a U.N.-controlled account without approval from the U.N. sanctions committee that now oversees all spending requests.

However, there are still vast differences between the United States and Britain, on one side, and Russia, China and France on the other, over what is "dual use" technology capable of being turned to sinister purposes.

U.S. and British officials will discuss in Washington today how better to focus the sanctions program in the face of eroding support in Europe and the Middle East.

Even the Iraqis acknowledge they are exporting oil outside U.N. channels and are bringing in millions of dollars that cannot be accounted for.

"It's frustrating when people say 'soften' or 'toughen' the sanctions," said one British official. "It's irrelevant . . . if you seek a system that will work effectively."

She said the Bush administration was not yet in complete accord on how to proceed, with the State Department showing more flexibility so far than the Pentagon.

Meanwhile, the U.N. Monitoring, Observation and Verification Commission (Unmovic) continues to hire and train inspectors to be ready if and when Baghdad agrees to work with them.

Executive Chairman Hans Blix was in Vienna yesterday, briefing the group's international panel of supervisors on their activities to date. Unmovic replaces the U.N. Special Commission (Unscom), which was effectively sidelined after the Clinton administration's bombing effort in 1998.

-------- korea

Blair offers Bush European access

02/22/2001
USA Today
By Louise Branson
http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/2001-02-22-ncguest2.htm

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is jetting to Washington today, then being whisked to the presidential retreat at Camp David for a cozy get-together with George W. Bush.

The two leaders are bound to emerge with glowing talk of a continued Anglo-American "special relationship," despite the fact that they come from different ideological corners. That's because the overriding factor in their relationship is the U.S.-Europe alliance, which is at a critical juncture.

Bush needs Blair as his main ally and bridge to Europe at a time when many European countries no longer see themselves in a natural alliance with America. The Cold War, when the U.S. president was the free world's leader, ended more than a decade ago.

Blair also needs Bush. Although Britain is a member of the European Union (EU), it has opted out of the single currency, the euro, and some other parts of the charter. Being America's de facto envoy to the European Union allows Britain to punch above its weight in Europe and elsewhere.

For some time, there has been talk on both sides of the Atlantic of the EU emerging as a rival to the United States. It presently stands at 15 members, but 13 more are hoping for admission. The idea is to make the EU a veritable "United States of Europe."

Meanwhile, the NATO alliance has been growing shakier. European countries are talking of creating their own military force, less dependent on the United States. Most oppose Bush's plan to press ahead with an anti-missile shield, which includes radar stations in Britain and Greenland.

European resentment of America also is growing. It is particularly noticeable in France, where many agree with former president Francois Mitterrand's depiction of a French "war with America. Yes, a permanent war, an economic war, a war without death. Yes, they are very hard, the Americans; they are voracious; they want undivided power over the world."

Take care of relationships

President Bush needs to deal sensitively with Europe. He should make good on his proposal to consult long and often with the allies on the many "issues" between them: from his plans for the missile shield and possibly pulling U.S. troops out of the Balkans to the many trade spats over such things as bananas and Scottish cashmere.

The reason: The transatlantic alliance has been a stabilizing force for most of the past century. It may be needed again for, say, a full-scale attack on Iraqi President Saddam Hussein or in some other, as-yet-unforeseen, crisis.

And the reality is that, despite the talk, Europe is a long way from being a solid "United States of Europe" that could rival this country. Even plans for the European defense force separate from NATO - which have upset some U.S. military officials - are running into budgetary and other squabbles. And the euro so far has performed like a damp squib.

Efforts at a unified foreign policy have floundered, too. As the Yugoslav wars unfolded, Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jacques Poos enthusiastically announced that, "the hour of Europe has dawned." But it hadn't. America eventually had to step in.

Expansion concerns

An immediate worry preoccupying many EU members is the plan to expand to include former communist countries. That has provoked fears of a population rush from a poorer new member such as Poland to richer France or Denmark.

It has brought visions, too, of farm and other subsidies propping up unhealthy economies, a complaint already made against Greece.

All of which means that fears of a big rivalry emerging on the other side of the Atlantic are, at least for now, exaggerated.

Still, Bush would do well to put a big sticker on his Europe file: "Handle with Care."

British writer Louise Branson covered European issues for London's The Sunday Times from 1990 to 1996. She is based in Washington, D.C.

---

North Korea reacts to U.S. demands to disarm

02/22/2001
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-02-22-northkorea.htm

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - In a sharp outburst Thursday, North Korea threatened to scrap missile and nuclear accords with Washington and railed against the Bush administration's plans for a missile defense system.

The new U.S. administration's foreign and national security teams are increasingly adopting a "hard-line stance" toward Pyongyang, North Korea's Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried in English on KCNA, the country's foreign news outlet.

Washington wants Pyongyang "to totally disarm itself first. The U.S. is seriously mistaken if it thinks that Pyongyang will accept its demand," it said.

The statement is a clear warning to President Bush, four months after then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il toasted one another at state banquets in Pyongyang, capital of the communist nation.

While the fundamentals of U.S. policy toward North Korea remain unaltered, there was a marked shift in tone after Bush took office. His senior aides seemed more wary about the prospect of progress and more assertive about the need for concrete gestures of reconciliation from Pyongyang.

And shortly before taking over Albright's job in January, Colin Powell referred to Kim as a "dictator" during a U.S. Senate confirmation hearing.

On Thursday, Pyongyang said it might abandon a moratorium on long-range missile tests, as well as a 1994 accord under which it froze its suspected nuclear weapons program in exchange for the construction by a U.S.-led consortium of two nuclear reactors. Delays have plagued the project.

Thursday's statement could heighten scrutiny of the alliance between Washington and Seoul, which closely coordinate North Korea policy. Some South Korean officials worry privately that a sterner stance from Washington would jeopardize engagement with the North.

There is even a perception among some security analysts that Washington is playing a "bad cop" role, intentionally goading North Korea. In this scenario, Seoul - now engaged in a wide range of contacts and exchanges with Pyongyang - is the "good cop."

Paik Sung-ki, a political science professor at Kyongwon University in Seoul, speculated that the North Korean statement was a diplomatic maneuver ahead of South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's planned meeting with Bush in Washington on March 7.

"It sends a strong signal that President Kim should persuade President Bush regarding North Korea," he said.

However, the U.S.-South Korean alliance is so strong that prospects of a serious rift over how to deal with the North are dim. Washington has voiced support for Seoul's policy of engaging its northern neighbor, which has yielded the best hope for peace in half a century.

There was speculation in the last months of President Clinton's tenure that he would go to Pyongyang to sign a deal ending North Korea's missile program. Clinton never went.

"What the Bush administration wants to do is lower these unreasonable expectations, that things are going to happen very quickly," Edwin Feulner, president of the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., said Thursday at a seminar in Seoul.

Leon Sigal, a North Korea expert, said Pyongyang has been pursuing better ties with the United States as well as South Korea for a decade and is deeply disappointed with the disarray surrounding the 1994 nuclear deal.

"That is the centerpiece of North Korea policy: they want to end enmity," he said.

---

N. Korea May Resume Testing Long-Range Missiles

Thursday, February 22, 2001
Washington Post
By Doug Struck
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A41163-2001Feb22?language=printer

TOKYO, Feb. 26 - In its first reaction to what it called a "hardline stance" by the Bush administration, North Korea warned today that it may resume testing long-range missiles. That would end a moratorium that was a key achievement of the Clinton administration.

"We promised not to test-fire long-range missiles during the duration of talks" with the United States, said a statement from North Korea's Foreign Ministry. "But we cannot do so indefinitely."

Threats are a standard negotiating tactic for the Stalinist country. But this is the first re

---

North Korea Warns U.S. on Missile Testing

February 22, 2001
New York Times
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/world/22KORE.html

SEOUL, South Korea, Thursday, Feb. 22 - North Korea warned today that it might scrap a moratorium on long-range missile tests to protest what it called a hard-line policy by the Bush administration.

The statement from the Foreign Ministry followed comments by senior Bush administration officials that they would review policy toward North Korea.

North Korea agreed to suspend missile tests in September 1999, and in turn, the United States eased some sanctions.

"The new U.S. foreign and security team is making a fuss by saying that it will take a hard-line stance on us," the statement said. "But this is an attempt to reverse the past course of conciliatory and cooperative relations between us and the United States, and break our will with force."

---

North Korea gives warning on launches

February 22, 2001
Washington Times
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-200122221354.htm

SEOUL - North Korea's foreign ministry warned yesterday that it may scrap a promise to stop missile test launches, South Korean monitors said.

The warning came in a foreign ministry statement that made the first official attack on the new government of President Bush.

If the United States does not change its attitude, the communist state may not keep "our promise to the previous U.S. government in connection with our missiles," said the statement by a foreign ministry spokesman, reported by North Korean state media and monitored in Seoul.

The spokesman accused "the foreign and security team of the new U.S. government" of taking a hard-line stance toward Pyongyang. The spokesman added that situation was "extremely serious."

Yonhap news said the warning could also target a 1994 agreement to freeze its suspected nuclear arms program.

---- Missile Defense

Moscow Signaling a Change in Tone on Missile Defense

February 22, 2001
New York Times
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/world/22MISS.html?pagewanted=all

MOSCOW, Feb. 21 - After months of protesting the American plan to develop an antimissile system, Russia has begun to talk more seriously about the possibility of missile defenses.

The Russians are still deeply unhappy about the Bush administration's decision to build a missile shield. Moscow's ideas on how to develop a missile defense are also sketchy and a far cry from the more ambitious system that the United States is most likely to design.

In meetings with the secretary general of NATO, Lord Robertson, the Russians outlined a potential system to defend Europe against missile attack. Russia's new thinking is in a confidential nine-page paper, "Phases of European Missile Defense," which was presented on Tuesday to Lord Robertson by Defense Minister Igor D. Sergeyev.

In a news conference on Tuesday at the Kremlin, Foreign Minister Igor S. Ivanov left open the possibility that antimissile defenses might eventually be needed to protect American territory. "We are ready and interested in starting a direct dialogue with the U.S. administration," Mr. Ivanov said.

The approach represents a change in tone from Moscow's initial "just say no" stance that dominated the initial debate. Although it is possible that the move is merely a change of tactics, Lord Robertson said he believed that it might be the start of a more fundamental search for an accommodation with Washington.

"Clearly," he said, "they wish to retain the existing arms-control architecture. But the depth with which the threats and how to neutralize them were dealt with does tend to suggest a different direction in thinking."

Mr. Ivanov added that he hoped to begin a serious discussion of strategic issues when he meets Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on Saturday in Cairo.

In Washington, the State Department said today that General Powell was willing to discuss the proposal then, but that it appeared incomplete. "We need to study it in detail before we can make a realistic assessment of what Russia has in mind," Richard A. Boucher, the department spokesman, told reporters.

When the Clinton administration began to wrestle with the question of missile defenses, Russian officials argued vociferously that the West did not face a serious missile threat from third world nations and that if it ever did the threat of retaliation was sufficient to keep potential aggressors at bay.

The head of the President Vladimir V. Putin's Security Council, Sergei B. Ivanov, presented the rigid line this year in a coolly received speech at a conference in Munich. In recent weeks, Russian commentators have cautioned that Moscow is losing the missile debate. In fact, most European governments have grudgingly begun to accept that Washington is determined to move ahead with a missile defense.

Britain has been the most supportive. German officials have indicated that the Bush administration's approach would be acceptable, provided that some way can be found to preserve arms control, a concern that the Bush administration is trying to satisfy with its promise to make deep, perhaps unilateral, cuts in long-range nuclear arms.

The French remain opposed to the Bush plan, in part, because they fear that a world full of antimissile systems might affect the effectiveness of their small missile deterrent. But the French have been critical of so many policies of the United States that their criticisms tend to be discounted in Washington.

In his meetings with Mr. Putin, Lord Robertson told the Russians that Washington's mind was made up. "I made it clear that the NATO allies accept that the U.S. has made its decision to have an effective missile defense," Lord Robertson said in an interview. "It would be a complete waste of time to try and split the alliance."

Even before Lord Robertson arrived in Moscow, that message was beginning to hit home.

"The sluggish resistance of the Europeans is weakening with every day," the Russian newspaper Noviye Izvestiya wrote. "In any case, considering the present geopolitical alignment of forces, nothing can prevent the only superpower from beginning to deploy its national ABM system."

Faced with the prospect of being pushed to the margins of the debate, the Russians switched gears. The document on a European missile defense that the Russians gave to Lord Robertson reflected a mix of bureaucratic interests - the Foreign Ministry's concern about maintaining a working relationship with the Bush administration and the military's anxiety that American missile defenses will give the United States a strategic edge.

The Russians have suggested that Europe is more vulnerable to missile threats than the United States, because it is closer to the Middle East and South Asia. The paper proposes that Western and Russian experts meet to assess the threats that face the Continent and how to deal with them by diplomatic and other means.

If the conferees determine that a military program is needed, the experts would discuss how to develop it. A diagram in the paper shows the Russian concept of a mobile land- based system that would be cued by satellites and that would destroy incoming warheads. The missile interceptors could reach an altitude of 90 miles, the document suggests. Mr. Putin said on Tuesday that the system could make use of a center to evaluate warning data that is staffed by both Russians and Americans.

The system could use Russian technology - at least in part - and would be tested and developed at Russian test ranges. Although the document specifies no system, the Russians appear to have in mind their S-300 air-defense system or its successors. The system would comply with the Antiballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, which sharply restricts the testing and development of antimissile technology.

Significantly, the document makes no mention of Mr. Putin's earlier proposal for a "boost phase" defense that would shoot down missiles as they ascend. Such an approach would have had the advantage of protecting the United States, as well as Europe.

The decision to drop "boost phase" systems may reflect the technical difficulties in developing it, as well as concern that it would run afoul of the ABM treaty and, thus, encourage American efforts to amend or replace the accord.

On its face, the proposal does little to address Washington's strategic concerns, because it would not defend American territory and would be based on systems that are intended to counter short- and medium- range missiles.

Mr. Ivanov, the foreign minister, conceded at his news conference that it would make little sense to defend Europe and leave the United States defenseless if third world nations developed the means to strike American territory with missiles that spanned oceans.

The Russians have suggested that diplomacy and controls on missile technology should be the primary tools in countering missile threats. But in his remarks, Mr. Ivanov did not rule out that a missile defense of United States territory might eventually be needed.

"It would be wrong to create an isolated security arrangement for one side to the detriment of the security of other countries," he said.

Despite the vagueness of the Russian proposal and the large gaps that remain between the Russian and American positions, Lord Robertson said his discussions in Moscow indicated that there was convergence in two respects. Moscow now accepts that some NATO allies may be confronted by a new missile threat, and the development of a antimissile defense might be needed.

"The pessimists would say they want to get involved to drive a wedge," Lord Robertson said, making clear that he was not one of them. "The optimists say they want to get engaged to have an influence and have their voice heard."

---

German minister sees way to avert shield clash with Russia

February 22, 2001
Washington Times
By David R. Sands
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-2001222222749.htm

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said yesterday he believes the United States and Russia can avoid a clash over the Bush administration's plans for a new defensive shield against missile attacks.

"There is a chance to have a productive approach with the Russian side" on missile defense in a "climate of cooperation," Mr. Fischer told reporters in Washington.

The German diplomat is wrapping up a series of meetings with top Bush administration officials this week, a month after he visited Moscow. The missile-defense idea has been repeatedly attacked by Russia and China, who claim it could eventually overwhelm their own nuclear deterrents.

Mr. Fischer said Russian leaders have concluded they cannot stop U.S. plans, and he said he had urged Moscow to work to shape the debate over the system rather than oppose it outright.

But he added much of the discussion will depend on just which system the United States eventually deploys, from a regional missile defense that could be used against a rogue state such as North Korea or Iraq all the way up to a global system that could theoretically protect the United States, Europe and Russia.

While continuing to criticize U.S. missile-defense plans, Russian officials this week have been pitching their own missile-defense alternative, designed to protect Russia and Europe, to NATO General Secretary George Robertson.

While cautioning that details are sketchy, both Mr. Fischer and U.S. government officials said the Russian offer shows Moscow concedes there is a security threat that missile defenses can address.

"We welcome the fact that Russia recognizes that Europe faces a serious threat from weapons of mass destruction and missile delivery systems, and that Russia believes that defensive systems are necessary for protection and stability," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said yesterday.

Secretary of State Colin Powell and Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov will discuss the competing missile-defense ideas when they meet for the first time Saturday in Cairo.

Mr. Fischer said yesterday he was heartened by Mr. Powell's positive response to plans for a new European Union defense force, which some have worried could in time duplicate or even compete with the NATO military alliance.

He said the EU force, like the introduction of the euro, was part of a larger integration process on the continent that the United States should welcome.

"Europe step by step is leaving the arena of national states," he said, adding that only a confident and secure European Union can be an equal partner with the United States on a global scale.

He also denied that plans to add new members to NATO next year in Central and Eastern Europe constituted a security threat to Russia, which has looked upon NATO enlargement with deep suspicion.

"We already have the experience of one round of enlargement for NATO, and where is the threat to Russian interests? I don't see it," Mr. Fischer said.

He acknowledged that the debates over missile defense and the EU security force have created strains in the trans-Atlantic alliance, but he added, "Tell me a time when there have not been tensions in NATO."

Mr. Fischer, who heads Germany's Green Party, refused to talk about his own political problems at home. He faces a perjury inquest over testimony he gave concerning his activities as a radical student activist in the 1970s.

"I've talked too much" on the subject, he said. "Whenever I say something, it's turned against me."

--------

President hails Russia defense plan

01/02/22
Infobeat
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406228459

WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House on Thursday cheered Russian President Vladimir Putin's proposal for developing a missile defense system.

Russian officials revealed a few details of the plan Wednesday during NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson's visit to Moscow. The plan involves creating a Europe-based system to counter short- and medium-range missiles, with a joint assessment of risks and the deployment of small, mobile anti-missile defenses as a last resort.

``I think the president was pleased to see the Russians indicate a level of support for a national missile defense concept,'' White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Thursday.

He said U.S. officials would look at the specifics of the Russian proposal, and Bush would proceed with his own plans for a missile defense system.

Robertson was noncommittal about Russia's plans, but said Putin's proposal demonstrated that Russia shares Western concerns about the threats posed by the proliferation of missile technology.

Russia has steadfastly opposed U.S. proposals for a missile defense, contending it violates the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

-------- russia

World Steps Deeper Into NMD Bog

Thursday, Feb. 22, 2001
Moscow Times
http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2001/02/22/005.html

The arrest of accused Russian spy Robert Philip Hanssen and the ensuing uproar notwithstanding, one might be excused for thinking that U.S./NATO/Russian relations had taken a step back from the brink in recent days. NATO Secretary-General George Robertson visited Moscow to cut the ribbon on a new NATO information center, replacing the NATO office that was closed during the 1999 Yugoslavia bombing.

More importantly, Robertson talked national missile defense with the Kremlin and received a Russian counterproposal for the joint development of a European defense system. At the same time, U.S. Congressman Curt Weldon was in town apparently offering a carrot from the Bush administration: "We'll go ahead and build this and maybe let some Russian scientists help out. How about that?"

It is now apparent that the Russian counterproposal, although perhaps really made in good faith, was a terrible blunder. Robertson seized on it as Russia's acknowledgement that NMD is necessary. "What is important now is that we have a Russian proposal to deal with the same kind of perceived threat."

In one fell swoop, Moscow has lost the ability to argue that NMD is an unworkable boondoggle designed to meet a nonexistent threat. It weakened the stance that the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty is an essential foundation of international security.

Of course such arguments wouldn't have carried the day anyhow. The real purpose of Robertson's visit was to lay down the law for Moscow. "I made it clear that the NATO allies accept that the United States has made its decision to have an effective missile defense." End of story. No ifs, ands or buts.

It is truly regrettable that the give-and-take of international relations has been reduced to this. The results of NMD are plain: The United States and Russia will back away from strategic-weapons reductions that could otherwise proceed immediately. China will most likely beef up its arsenal in order to get over the NMD threshold and maintain deterrence. India and Pakistan, wary of China, will try to keep up. International nonproliferation efforts will be completely derailed.

Meanwhile, terrorists will continue loading cars and suitcases with TNT, and "states of concern" will focus on far cheaper and more effective means of terror than "rogue ICBMs."

And, although it seems petty next to such concerns, the United States will have frittered away at least $60 billion that could have been used for 101 vitally important domestic and international purposes. But at least we'll have NATO's information center to tell us where the money went.

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

MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS ON HUMANS

February 22, 2001

Gang: interesting how these agencies and their abusive practices have been ongoing for decades, scientific research proves their lies and abuses (as in radiation poisoning VS "it is not" by the agencies), congress hears the facts, the evidence and watches as parades of victims pass by with their evidence and visual 'aids', legal cases come and go, yet the abuses continue. After multiple congressionals with the GWI issues, the congressmen finally admitted to me "WE HAVE NO CONTROL OVER THE DOD" (can insert DOE and USDA and probably any other fed agency). To say it rests in Congress's'hands' is sickening. Nowhere in the constitution does it make a level of government more powerful than the president, the legislature, the congress, yet we have it today and it is entirely unaccountable to the congress, the president, the legislature, and the people. Entirely funded by them also. Until that changes, what do you really expect to happen, all? Laura


April, 17, 1947
SECRET UNITED STATES ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
U. S. Atomic Energy Commission P. O. Box E Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Attention: Dr. Fidler

1. It is desired that no document be released which refers to experiments with humans and might have adverse effect on public opinion or result in legal suits. Documents covering such work field should be classified "secret". Further work in this field in the future has been prohibited by the General Manager. It is understood that three documents in this field have been submitted for declassification and are now classified "restricted". It is desired that these documents be reclassified "secret" and that a check be made to insure that no distribution has inadvertantly been made to the Department of Commerce, or other off-Project personnel or agencies.

2. These instructions do not pertain to documents regarding clinical or therapeutic uses of radioisotopes and similar materials beneficial to human disorders and diseases.

ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION

C. G. HAYWOOD, JR. Colonel, Corps of Engineers.

CLASSIFICATION CANCELLED AUTHORITY: DOE/SA-20 BY H. R. SCHMIDT, DATE: 2/22/1994

---

About human radiation experiments during the Cold War

Thu, 22 Feb 2001
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/radiation/dir/mstreet/commeet/meet13/brief13/tab_f/br13f3.txt

[DISCLAIMER

The following is a staff memorandum or other working document prepared for the members of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments. It should not be construed as representing the final conclusions of fact or interpretation of the issues. All staff memoranda are subject to revision based on further information and analysis. For conclusions and recommendations of the Advisory Committee, readers are advised to consult the Final Report to be published in 1995.] MEMORANDUM

---

Post-World War II Recruitment of German Scientists--Project Paperclip

April 5, 1995
Members of the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments

The Air Force's School of Aviation Medicine (SAM) at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas conducted dozens of human radiation experiments during the Cold War, among them flashblindness studies in connection with atomic weapons tests, and datagathering for total-body irradiation studies conducted in Houston. (These have been the subject of prior briefing books.) Because of the extensive postwar recruiting of German scientists for the SAM and other U.S. defense installations, and in light of the central importance of the Nuremberg prosecutions to the Advisory Committee's work, members of the staff have collected documentary evidence about Project Paperclip from the National Archives and Department of Defense records. (The departments of Justice and Defense, as well as the Archives staff, have provided substantial assistance in this effort.)

The experiments for which Nazi investigators were tried included many related to aviation research. These were mainly high-altitude exposure studies, oxygen deprivation experiments, and cold studies related to air-sea rescue operations. This information about air crew hazards was important to both sides, and, of course, continued to be important to military organizations in the Cold War.

Background of Project Paperclip

Project Paperclip was a postwar and Cold War operation carried out by the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA).1 [Operation Paperclip's code name was said to have originated because scientific recruits' papers were paperclipped with regular immigration forms. The JIOA was a special intelligence office reporting to the Director of Intelligence in the War Department, comparable to the intelligence chief of today's Joint Chiefs of Staff.] Paperclip had two aims: to exploit German scientists for American research, and to deny these intellectual resources to the Soviet Union. At least 1,600 scientists and their dependents were recruited and brought to the United States by Paperclip and its successor projects through the early 1970s. The most famous of these was Wernher von Braun.

In recent years, it has been alleged that many of these individuals were brought to the United States in violation of American government policy not to permit the entrance of "ardent Nazis" into the country, that many were security risks, and that at least some were implicated in Holocaust-related activities.

The secondary literature on Paperclip includes Linda Hunt, Secret Agenda (1991) and Tom Bowers, The Paperclip Conspiracy (1989). The following is drawn from these sources and material retrieved from the National Archives and DOD files.

Nuremberg and Postwar Recruitment of Scientists

At the time of its inception, Paperclip was a matter of controversy in the War Department, as demonstrated by a November 27,1946 memorandum from General Groves, director of the Manhattan Project, relating to the bringing to the United States of the eminent physicist Otto Hahn.

Groves wrote that the Manhattan Project

does not desire to utilize the services of foreign scientists in the United States, either directly with the Project or with any affiliated organization. This has consistently been my views. (sic) I should like to make it clear, however, that I see no objection to bringing to the United States such carefully screened physicists as would contribute materially to the welfare of the United States and would remain permanently in the United States as naturalized citizens. I strongly recommend against foreign physicists coming in contact with our atomic energy program in any way. If they are allowed to see or discuss the work of the Project the security of our information would get out of control. (Attachment 1)

Biomedical Scientists at American Facilities

A number of military research sites recruited Paperclip scientists with backgrounds in aeromedicine, radiobiology and ophthalmology. These institutions included the SAM, where radiation experiments were conducted, and other military sites, particularly the Edgewood Arsenal of the Army's Chemical Corps.

The portfolio of experiments at the SAM was one that would particularly benefit from the Paperclip recruits. Experiments there included total-body irradiation, space medicine and bedrest studies, and flashblindness studies. Herbert Gerstner,2 [The Committee has no documents at this time indicating that Dr. Gerstner engaged in human experimentation in Germany.] a principal investigator in TBI experiments at the SAM, was acting director of the Institute of Physiology at the University of Leipzig; he became a radiobiologist at the SAM. (Attachment 2)

The Air Force Surgeon General and SAM officials welcomed the Paperclip scientists. In March 1951, the school's Commandant, O.O. Benson Jr., wrote to the Surgeon General to seek more

first-class scientists and highly qualified technologists from Germany. The first group of paperclip personnel contained a number of scientists that have proved to be of real value to the Air Force. The weaker and less gifted ones have been culled to a considerable extent. The second group reporting here in 1949 were, in general, less competent than the original paperclip personnel, and culling process will again be in order. (Attachment 3)

General Benson's adjutant solicited resumes from a Paperclip prospect list, including a number of radiation biology and physics specialists. The qualifications of a few scientists were said to be known, so curricula vitae were waived. The adjutant wrote, also in March 1951: "In order to systematically benefit from this program this headquarters believes that the employment of competent personnel who fit into our research program is a most important consideration." (Attachment 4)

The Head-Hunting Competition with the Soviet Union

Official U.S. government policy was to avoid recruitment of "ardent Nazis." Many of the Paperclip scientists were members of Nazi organizations of one sort of another. The documentary record indicates, however, that many claimed inactive status or membership that was a formality, according to files in the National Archives.

The director of the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency, Navy Captain Bosquet N. Wev, bluntly put the case for recruitment in a April 27,1948 memo to the Pentagon's Director of Intelligence: "Security investigations conducted by the military have disclosed the fact that the majority of German scientists were members of either the Nazi Party or one or more of its affiliates. These investigations disclose further that with a very few exceptions, such membership was due to exigencies which influenced the lives of every citizen of Germany at that time." Wev was critical of over-scrupulous investigations by the Department of Justice and other agencies as reflecting security concerns no longer relevant with the defeat of Germany, and "biased considerations" about the nature of his recruits' fascist allegiances. (Attachment 5)

The possibility of scientists being won to the Soviet side in the Cold War was, according to Captain Wev, the highest consideration. In a March 1948 letter to the State Department, Wev assessed the prevailing view in the government: "[R]esponsible officials ... have expressed opinions to the effect that, in so far as German scientists are concerned, Nazism no longer should be a serious consideration from a viewpoint of national security when the far greater threat of Communism is now jeopardizing the entire world. I strongly concur in this opinion and consider it a most sound and practical view, which must certainly be taken if we are to face the situation confronting us with even an iota of realism. To continue to treat Nazi affiliations as significant considerations has been aptly phrased as `beating a dead Nazi horse.'" (Attachment 6)

In his April 27,1948 report to his superiors, he again cited the Soviet threat:

In light of the situation existing in Europe today, it is conceivable that continued delay and opposition to the immigration of these scientists could result in their eventually falling into the hands of the Russians who would then gain the valuable information and ability possessed by these men. Such an eventuality could have a most serious and adverse affect on the national security of the United States. (Attachment 5)

Hubertus Strughold and the SAM

Perhaps the most prominent of the Paperclip physicians was Hubertus Strughold, called "the father of space medicine" and for whom the Aeromedical Library at the USAF School of Aerospace Medicine was named in 1977. During the war, he was director of the Luftwaffe's aeromedical institute; a Strughold staff member was acquitted at Nuremberg on the grounds that the physician's Dachau laboratory was not the site of nefarious experiments.

Strughold had a long career at the SAM, including the recruitment of other Paperclip scientists in Germany. His background was the subject of public controversy in the United States. He denied involvement with Nazi experiments and told reporters in this country that his life had been in danger from the Nazis. A citizen for 30 years before his death in 1986, his many honors included an Americanism Award from the Daughters of the American Revolution.

An April 1947 intelligence report on Strughold stated: "[H]is successful career under Hitler would seem to indicate that he must be in full accord with Nazism." (Attachment 7) However, Strughold's colleagues in Germany and those with whom he had worked briefly in the United States on fellowships described him as politically indifferent or anti-Nazi.

In his application to reside in this country, he declared:

Further, the United States is the only country of liberty which is able to maintain this liberty and the thousand-year-old culture and western civilization, and it is my intention to support the United States in this task, which is in danger now, with all my scientific abilities and experience. (Attachment 8)

In a 1952 civil service form, Strughold was asked if he had ever been a member of a fascist organization. His answer: "Not in my opinion." His references therein included the Surgeon General of the Air Force, the director of research at the Lovelace Foundation in New Mexico, and a colleague from the Mayo Clinic. (Attachment 9)

In September 1948, Strughold was granted a security certificate from the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency director, Captain Wev, who in the previous March had written to the Department of State protesting the difficulty of completing immigration procedures for Paperclip recruits.

Follow-up Research

The staff believes this trail should be followed with more research before conclusions can be drawn about the Paperclip scientists and human radiation experiments. That the standard for immigration was "not an ardent Nazi" is troubling; in Strughold's case, investigators had specifically questioned his credentials for "denazification."

It is possible that still-classified intelligence documents could shed further light on these connections. Staff is attempting to identify sites that may continue to hold this material. The Department of Defense has supplied a number of documents and the Central Intelligence Agency has been asked to search its files. Staff has been sifting declassified files at the National Archives and plans to inspect further classified files on this subject.

------

"Use of Radioactive Materials as a Military Weapon"

Thu, 22 Feb 2001
SECRET

30 October 1943
WAR DEPARTMENT
United States Engineer Office Manhattan District Oak Ridge, Tennessee

This document consists of 2 pages. Copy No (...) of 4, Series A.

MEMORANDUM to: Brigadier General L. R. Groves.
IN REPLY REFER TO: EIDM D-1-a

1. Inclosed is a summary of the report written by Drs. James B. Conant, Chairman, A. H. Compton, and H. C. Urey, comprising a Subcommittee of the S-1 Executive Committee on the "Use of Radioactive Materials as a Military Weapon." It is recommended that a decision be obtained from competent authority authorizing additional work pertaining to the use of radioactive materials in order that this country may be ready to use such materials or be ready to defend itself against the use of such materials. The following program is recommended:

a. Immediate formation of a research and study group at the University of Chicago under supervision of the present Area Engineer. Assignment to this group of competent individuals now working on dust and liquid disseminating munitions and field testing of chemical warfare agents from the National Defense Research Council.

b. Assignment of a competent Chemical Warfare Service officer to the Chicago Area Engineer, who would become familiar with, and work on, the problem under study by the University of Chicago. This officer should be experienced in the practical use of gas warfare.

c. The responsibility of the above organization would be:

(1) Develop radiation indicating instruments, expand present facilities of the Victoreen Company, and prepare a trial order for instruments with this company.

(2) Make theoretical studies pertaining to the methods, means and equipment for disseminating radioactive material as a weapon of warfare.

(3) Conduct field tests in isolated locations, such as Clinton Engineer Works or Hanford Engineer Works, using a non-radioactive tracer material.

(4) Prepare an instruction manual for the use of, or the defense against, radioactive weapons. This manual would be similar to that now used by the Chemical Warfare Service for gas warfare.

d. Formation of a mobile group at the University of Chicago under the supervision of the present Area Engineer, which could be moved quickly to the scene of any radioactive attack in case a city in the United States is attacked by the enemy. This group would be equipped with radiation detection instruments and trained to instruct local defense groups, civilian and military authorities on protection against radiation, decontamination and evacuation of civilian populations.

e. Preparation by the University of Chicago group, under supervision of the Chicago Area Engineer, of stories for newspapers and news services of proper explanatory and instructive nature to be released to civilian populations in the event of a radioactive attack, these stories to be submitted promptly and to be approved by proper military authority for release in case of emergency.

f. Radiation detection equipment and the radioactive warfare manual to be prepared with the idea that ultimately one officer located in each division embarking for any Theater of Operation wherein radioactive warfare might be encountered would have an understanding of radiation hazards, operation of radiation detection equipment, and be in a position to advise in troop movements in such a way as to detect and avoid exposure to harmful radiation. No large-scale orders for radiation detection equipment would be placed nor would the manual be printed until approved by you.

2. There is inclosed a draft of a letter to the Chief of Staff pertaining to this program.

K. D. NICHOLS, Colonel, Corps of Engineers, District Engineer.

2 Incls.: Summary of Report, in quad. Draft of Ltr.

From: marcosaba(AT)usa.net

---

The Radiation Story No One Would Touch

Thu, 22 Feb 2001
CJR, March/April 1994 THE MEDIA & ME
by Geoffrey Sea

Suddenly, at the close of 1993, the public was bombarded with "news" about the feeding of radioactive substances to pregnant women and mentally retarded students, about the unethical irradiation of workers, soldiers, medical patients, and prison inmates, and about the government's own internal fears that these experiments had "a little of the Buchenwald touch." But the story that appeared in The Albuquerque Tribune (circulation: 35,000) on November 15-17, and was then projected into the national headlines by the forthright admissions and initiatives of Secretary of Energy Hazel O'Leary, was hardly new.

By 1984, activists and researchers across the country were systematically investigating the human experimentation program and attempting to bring it to public attention. By 1986, documentation of the program was massive, solid, and publicly available.

I am among those who persistently tried to get national media coverage of this outrageous example of government wrongdoing. To say that the media were reluctant to listen, would be an understatement. The fact is that, for more than a decade, documentation was ignored and facts were misreported.

What follows is a chronology of significant events in the strange history of this important story - one that began to receive adequate coverage only after almost all the victims were dead and most of the perpetrators retired.

1971: The Washington Post reveals that a research team at the University of Cincinnati, under the leadership of Eugene Saenger, has been irradiating "mentally enfeebled" patients - all of them poor and most of them black - at dose rates know to have harmful effects. The aim of the research, funded by the Department of Defense: to discover whether and under what conditions soldiers on an atomic battlefield would b cognitively impaired.

A review panel is established at the University of Cincinnati. However, the ethical issues re subordinated to the relatively technical question of the mechanism for obtaining consent. The experiments continue. No one seems to consider the obvious ethical problem involved in extracting "informed consent" from patients selected because of their "low-educational level...low-functioning intelligence quotient... and strong evidence of cerebral organic deficit." The researchers claim that the patients "benefit" from the radiation exposure, despite the fact that the radiation far exceeds recommended therapeutic doses, that the treatments are not intended to have a therapeutic effect, and that, in Saenger's own estimation, eight patient deaths could possibly be attributed to the "treatments."

1972: The researchers quietly end their experiments when evidence of harmful effects begins to mount. After a cursory review by the American College of Radiology, no one bothers to reopen the case for public scrutiny. No attempt is made to monitor the health of the surviving experimental subjects.

1975: Following revelations of army-sponsored LSD experiments, Senator Edward Kennedy chairs hearings on human experimentation funded by the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency. Radiation experiments, however, are not mentioned either in the hearings or media coverage.

1976: Science Trends, a newsletter published in the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., reveals an experiment carried out in San Francisco, Chicago, and Rochester, New York, as part of the Manhattan Project, that "involved the injection of relatively massive quantities of bomb-grade plutonium into the veins of 18 men, women, and children." The article implies that the experiment was an isolated historical case, and concludes: "Whether injecting the key ingredient of the atomic bomb into unsuspecting patients can be equated with Nazi wartime experiments is a matter which is today considered moot."

1981: The case of Dwayne Sexton, irradiated as a child as part of NASA-sponsored research aimed at discovering the potential effects of radiation exposure on astronauts, gains fleeting attention when the mother of the child links the death of her son to the experiments. Mother Jones runs a cover story on the Sexton case. Albert Gore, then a young congressman from Tennessee, where the experiments had taken place, follows up with hearings on the Oak Ridge Total Body Irradiation Program. Neither the article nor the hearings links the Sexton case with the Saenger experiments or with the broader program of human experimentation with radiation.

Early-1980s: A Network of activist-researchers starts to compile the full and extensive record of U.S. radiation experiments on humans.

- In Cincinnati, Ohio, Dr. David Egilman of the Greater Cincinnati Occupational Health Center and I are investigating experiments conducted on nuclear workers and following the trail of the Saenger experiments. At the time, I am employed as a health consultant by the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union and the Fernald Atomic Trades and Labor Council. The unions are concerned about the intentional radioactive contamination of workers' skin as a means of testing external cleansing agents and about the continuing use of workers as experimental subjects in the development of chelation drugs to treat internal exposure to radioactive heavy metals.

In the course of pressing claims for worker's compensation, we discover that the AEC/DOE has secretly contracted with local hospitals and coroners for the collection of fluid and tissue samples, surgically removed organs, and autopsy specimens - in some cases, whole cadavers of atomic workers. Some of these specimens are being taken and destroyed by the government, often without the knowledge or against the expressed wishes of the workers and/or their survivors.

We suspect that this "body-snatching" program serves a dual purpose: it helps the government accumulate data for military purposes, while at the same time it results in the destruction of physical evidence that could support compensation claims. Finally, we are concerned that Dr. Saenger has become the chief consultant and expert witness for the government in defending itself and its contractors against liability suits.

- In California, Dorothy Legarreta, who had worked on the Manhattan Project as a laboratory technician, organizes the National Association of Radiation Survivors (NARS) and starts to write a book about human experimentation. In 1982, while examining the papers of Joseph Hamilton - the scientist in charge of radiation experiments at the University of California - at the library of the University of California at Berkeley, she comes across a 1950 memo written to Shields Warren, then director of the Atomic Energy Commission's Division of Biology and Medicine. The memo advised that large primates - chimpanzees, for example - be substituted for humans in the planned studies on radiation's cognitive effects (the very same program of experimentation that Dr. Saeger was to execute). The use of humans, Hamilton wrote, might leave the AEC open "to considerable criticism," since the experiments as proposed had "a little of the Buchenwald touch."

After Legarreta finds the so-called Buchenwald memo, Hamilton's papers are removed from public access by University of California administrators. Soon after this, Legarreta files a Freedom of Information Act request with the Department of Energy, asking for all documents concerning experiments in which humans were intentionally exposed to radioactive materials through injection or ingestion. Later that year, NARS receives a two-foot-high carton of documents in response - documents that, for the first time, expose the widespread human experimentation program of the U.S. government.

- In Missouri, Dotte Troxell is trying to document her own horrific experience and to demonstrate the bonds that unite all experiment survivors. In 1957, while working at the AEC's Kansas City plant, run by Bendix, she had been involved in a serious radiation accident. When the symptoms of acute radiation syndrome began appearing (hair loss, nausea, purpura, and hemorrhaging), she was sent to the Lovelace Clinic in New Mexico, a clinic established by the AEC for developing treatments for radiation injury. Because Troxell was thought to be near death, and presumably because she had been exposed to a Cobalt-60 calibration source that allowed the dose to her organs to be precisely determined, the doctors at Lovelace did exploratory surgery on her, probably to obtain tissue biopsies from her internal organs. When she awoke from surgery and asked what had been done to her, the doctors said they could not tell her for "national security" reasons. After suffering radiogenic cataracts in both eyes and giving birth to a son with congenital diabetes, Troxell founds VOTE: Victims and Veterans Opposed to Technological Experimentation.

- In Knoxville, Tennessee, Clifford Honicker and Jacqueline Kittrell are investigating the human experimentation program at the DOE's nuclear complex at Oak Ridge. They locate and begin to analyze the papers of Stafford Warren, who had been medical director of the Manhattan Project and who subsequently directed the Oak Ridge medical program. Those of Warren's papers that are obtained, including classified documents and medico-legal files, provide a clear picture of the origins of the government's human experimentation program, as well as of the government's policy of denying compensation to radiation survivors. Honicker and Kittrell found the Radiation Research Project, which later becomes the American Environmental Health Studies Project.

Mid-1980s: Our network has accumulated enough documentation on the human experimentation program to go public. We do so at press conferences held in Cincinnati (November 1984), Knoxville (May 1985), Kansas City (May 1986), and Berkeley (July 1986). At each of the last three conferences, Hamilton's Buchenwald memo is released to the press, but no mainstream paper mention it.

1985-86: In contract talks, the labor council representing workers at the DOE's Fernald, Ohio, uranium plant demands disclosure of all human studies involving uranium and plutonium, as well as information about toxic release to the environment, use of atomic workers as experimental subjects, and the body-snatching program. Rather than release this information to the labor council, DOE officials contact the AFL-CIO leadership nd threaten to close the plant if labor will not honor its "national security obligations." Frank Martino, president of the International Chemical Workers Union, writes to Paul Burnsky, president of the AFL-CIO Metal Trades Department, calling for an end to "continued efforts to represent the community" - a reference to the council's attempt to obtain information from the DOE through collective bargaining. The unions back off in their demands for information and abruptly terminate my employment. Dr. Egilman is instructed to stop all radiation-related work. He chooses instead to resign.

Dr. Egilman and I decide that now is the time to take everything we have and give it to The New York Times. Dr. Egilman gives the Buchenwald memo to Times reporter Matthew Wald, a college acquaintance. But no article appears in 1985, and there is no word from the Times. I contact Times reporter Stuart Diamond, describe the outlines of the story, arrange a meeting, assemble a stack of documents, and fly to New York. Diamond and I meet at a restaurant at La Guardia Airport. After reviewing the documents, including the Buchenwald memo, he says he will come to Ohio and look into the story.

On January 28, 1986, the date of Diamond's intended arrival, I am working at my desk with the television turned on but the sound off, as I often do. I am distracted at one point by a striking picture on the TV screen: a beautiful white plume of smoke unfurling against the azure sky. It is the explosion if the space shuttle Challenger. Within the hour Diamond calls to say that he will be investigating the Challenger disaster - and thus won't be coming to Ohio any time soon. He tells me to wait until he's done with the Challenger story. I wait for three months.

On April 26, the number three unit at the Chernobyl nuclear energy station explodes, and melts down. Diamond leaves to cover the accident. I leave Cincinnati and head for Kansas City, where, on May 5, Dotte Troxell and I hold a press conference. We say that U.S. criticism of Soviet secrecy on Chernobyl is hypocritical and call on the U.S. government to release all data on human experimentation. In our press release we attack the credibility of Dr. Saenger - who has quickly been hired to advise the U.S. government on Chernobyl's impact on U.S. personnel stationed in Europe and has become the media's authority on Chernobyl's health effects. Our press release also details the U.S. human experimentation program "that has, at various times, included the exposure of prisoners, mental patients, terminal cancer patients, and paid volunteers to "non-therapeutic" radiation doses... " Again, we show the Buchenwald memo to the press. The press responds with silence.

A number of us start working our congressional contacts. Cliff Honicker, Dorothy Legarreta, and I all had a close working relationship with the House Subcommittee on Energy Conservation and Power when it had been under the chairmanship of Representative Richard Ottinger of New York. Near the end of his tenure, Ottinger ha authorized a full-scale staff investigation into the DOE's human experimentation program.

By 1986 chairmanship of the subcommittee has passed to Edward Markey of Massachusetts. Eager to see some result of the investigation, we press the subcommittee to go public in hearings and a report. No hearings are held - a curious fact given the magnitude of the issue - but in October the staff issues its report, "American Nuclear Guinea Pigs: Three Decades of Radiation Experiments on U.S. Citizens." Markey simultaneously issues a press release that states: "The purpose of several experiments was actually to cause injury to the subjects... American citizens thus become nuclear calibration devices for experimenters run amok."

The Markey report, which contains all the relevant facts that would be treated as major revelations seven years later, results in minor and often misleading news stories in several papers. The New York Times's Matthew Wald extracts a single strand from the ninety-five-page report - news that some of the releases of radioactive iodine from the Hanford, Washington, nuclear facility had been intentional - and turns it into a story that run on page A-20. The other ninety-plus pages of the report, which deal with unethical clinical experiments, are downplayed in a small, unbylined piece headed VOLUNTEERS AROUND U.S. SUBMITTED TO RADIATION. Contrary to the Markey report and to fact, the headline and article imply that all subjects had volunteered for the experiments and that they knew they were subjected to radiation. Neither article mentions the Buchenwald memo.

Of all the papers that come to our attention, only The Daily Californian, the student newspaper at the University of California at Berkeley, points up the Buchenwald memo. In a piece titled "At Buchenwald and Berkeley," editor-in-chief Howard Levine quotes from the November 28, 1950, memo by Dr. Hamilton and incisively criticizes reporting on the Markey report by the San Francisco Chronicle and The New York Times. Both papers, he writes, "minimized the gross inhumanity of these tests by downplaying their scope and ignoring the fact that most of the experiments were conducted without the "informed consent" demanded by the Nuremberg protocols of 1946-47.

1987: Eileen Welsome of The Albuquerque Tribune starts looking into the plutonium-injection experiment, after coming across a footnote about it in a report on animal experimentation at the Air Force Weapons Laboratory at Kirtland Air Force Base in New Mexico.

1988: Dorothy Legarreta is killed in a mysterious car crash, reminiscent of the death of Karen Silkwood. Legarreta's briefcase - listed on the accident report as being found - is missing. The tow-truck driver says that the solid aluminum case was discarded because it was badly damaged, though such an action would be against the law. I was working with Legarreta just prior to her death and know that her briefcase contained a file titled "hot docs" - formerly secret documents that she and I had culled from government papers obtained through a class action lawsuit by veterans who had been intentionally exposed to atomic blasts and radiation while in the service.

1989: On November 19, The New York Times Magazine publishes an article by Cliff Honicker titled "The Hidden Files." The subtitle reads: "In 1946, a Nuclear Accident Killed One Scientist and Injured Several Others. The Government Response to That Tragedy Established a Pattern of Secrecy That Still Exists." Based in large part on the files Honicker had discovered five years earlier, the closely focused article does not deal with the government's years-long human experimentation program and its origins.

1991: 60 Minutes airs a segment on the government's body-snatching program. In his introduction to the January 13 segment, Harry Reasoner says: "In the case of the men and women who have worked in this country's nuclear-weapons industry, the government is apparently willing to go to any lengths to defeat workers' claims that they were injured or killed by exposure to radiation - any lengths, including falsifying records, concealing evidence, even trying to steal human remains..." Oddly, according to the segment's producer, one of the most powerful interviews - with a courier who arranges for the shipment of body parts to Los Alamos and who was present at a secret autopsy at which body parts were removed without the knowledge or consent of the family - winds up on the cutting room floor.

Meanwhile, Jackie Kittrell and Cliff Honicker have been combing the hills of Tennessee, trying to track down women who, while pregnant, had been unwitting subjects in radioisotope ingestion studies decades earlier. Since some of the initial recruitment for the experiments had been through classified ads placed in newspapers in remote Appalachian towns, Jackie and Cliff try, repeatedly, to get the same papers to run articles describing the experiments and asking the women to come forward on a confidential basis. They try to persuade the Nashville Tennessean to run such articles because one of the largest experiments, involving more than 800 pregnant women, took place at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville. At least one reporter - Carolyn Shoulders, at The Tennessean - proposes articles about the experimentation program to her editor, but no proposal meets with approval.

1992: In May, frustrated by the feeling that we are shouting in the wind, Dotte Troxell announces that she will begin a hunger strike in July, which she says she will continue until death unless the government releases all data on the experiments and provides care for all survivors. She says she prefer death "on her own terms" to a slow, quiet death preceded by the intensifying pains of her radiation injuries nd she wants to use the hunger strike to help establish a union called IRIS: International Radiation Injury Survivors. But, fatigued and under the influence of pain-killing drugs, she dies in a tractor accident in late-May. She leaves behind the text of an intended final speech in which she asks to be cremated so that "the perpetrators of cruel and barbaric experimentation" will be denied "the knowledge they seek." She also forgives all those in the government, the public interest community, and the media who continue to "ignore our plight, for they know not - they were not on shipboard in the nuclear Pacific tests or in trenches in Nevada, nor are they with the veterans in VA hospitals..."

1993: In mid-November, The Albuquerque Tribune publishes Eileen Welsome's three-part series. "The Plutonium Experiment." In late-December, a decade after Kittrell and Honicker alerted the paper to the story - The Tennessean finally publishes an article about the Vanderbilt experiment and its medical follow-up study. Emma Craft, who had never known that she had been fed radioactive iron in the 1940s, reads a detailed description of the 1958 death by cancer of an unnamed eleven-year-old girl whom she recognizes as her daughter.

1994: Craft, along with a handful of other women who have learned through The Tennessean that they had been experimental subjects, file a class action lawsuit against a long list of defendants, led by Vanderbilt University. (I sign on as a radiation expert with the law firm representing the women and surviving children).

Acting as if the recent "revelations" are news to him, John Herrington, Secretary of Energy in the Reagan administration and now vice-chairman of the California Republican party, tells The Associated Press that during his tenure "there had not been enough work done to establish that there was a problem."

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

-------- new jersey

RADIATION INCIDENT ALLEGED

February 22, 2001
New York Times
Metro Briefs
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/nyregion/22MBRF.html

TOMS RIVER: A meeting between Community Medical Center and government nuclear-safety regulators is scheduled today for discussion of an incident nearly two years ago when radioactive material was spilled during a woman's cancer therapy. No injuries were reported in the incident. The low-level contamination, which was found during a routine government check in December, occurred on Aug. 19, 1999, when phosphorous-32 was injected into a woman with ovarian cancer. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission charged the hospital with failure to report the incident within 24 hours, as well as with inadequate staff training in radiology safety. Steve Strunsky (NYT)

-------- new york

RADIOACTIVE SPILL

February 22, 2001
New York Times
Metro Briefs
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/nyregion/22MBRF.html

MANHATTAN: An unknown amount of low-level radioactive material was improperly disposed of in the New York City sewer system. But officials said the material was so mildly radioactive - less than the exposure from a single dental X-ray - that it was not a health hazard. City health officials invited the federal Environmental Protection Agency to help investigate the matter. A city Department of Environmental Protection official said the material was most likely discarded medicine used to treat thyroid cancer. Eric Lipton (NYT)

-------- ohio

ABOUT 530 LIKELY TO BE LAID OFF IF PLANS PROCEED AT PIKETON PLANT

Thu, 22 Feb 2001
The Columbus Dispatch

The big problem is the DOD/DOE doesn't know how to shut the plant down safety..

PIKETON, Ohio (AP) -- USEC, which runs the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, yesterday gave workers their first indication of how many of them still might have jobs after production is stopped in June.

If the federal government provides money to put the plant on standby status, about 1,200 people would be needed to conduct future operations, USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle said from the company's headquarters in Washington. That means about 530 of the 1,730 employees would be laid off.

Last year, USEC announced plans to stop production at the plant, but it did not say how many people would be laid off.

The company has told the government that it has to know by next Thursday whether to begin efforts to prepare the plant for standby status. Stuckle said that if money for such work is not received by then, the number of layoffs will be larger.

Another company spokeswoman, Angie Duduit, said layoff notices would be posted beginning Wednesday.

-------- MILITARY

Bush Concerned About China Aid to Iraqi Defenses

February 22, 2001
New York Times
By DAVID E. SANGER and STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/politics/22CND-PREXY.html

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 - President Bush said today that he was troubled by evidence that China was aiding Iraq in attempts to build a radar system more capable of attacking American and British pilots, and said the problem had now "risen to the level where we are going to send a message to the Chinese."

In his first full press conference in the White House, called somewhat hastily today, Mr. Bush also said that the raid on Iraqi radar sites last Friday - which was timed to avoid killing Chinese workers - was primarily intended to signal Saddam Hussein that Mr. Bush planned to contain his military capability.

Mr. Bush insisted that the bombings had achieved their objectives, although new indications from the Pentagon suggest that it was not as effective as first hoped.

In his appearance today Mr. Bush seemed by turns relaxed and somewhat uneasy, especially when the subject turned to problems in foreign policy. He also used the event to argue anew for his tax cut proposal, which will be the subject of an address to Congress on Tuesday.

Before he spoke, an American fighter jet attacked a missile defense battery in Northern Iraq today, Pentagon officials said, resuming low-level skirmishes with Iraqi air-defense forces six days after American and British jets launched the first military strike authorized by President Bush.

Today's strike - against a French-made mobile anti-aircraft battery - was not authorized by President Bush but rather carried out under standing orders after Iraqi forces fired on American and British jets patrolling the no-flight zone over northern Iraq, the officials said.

Although relatively minor compared to last week's raids, which included strikes outside of the no-flight zones over Iraq, today's attack underscored Iraq's determination to continue challenging the patrols, which President Saddam Hussein's government considers illegal.

Since the attacks last week, Iraqi gunners have repeatedly fired at American and British jets over the northern and southern zones, though today's skirmish was the first in which the allied pilots responded.

Pentagon officials have said that last week's attacks - against 20 to 24 radar sites at five targets - disrupted but did not significantly damage the Iraqi defenses. Today, they attributed the mixed success of the raids, in part, to problems with one of the missiles used in the attacks, the Joint Standoff Weapon, or J-SOW.

---

OKINAWA RESPONDS

February 22, 2001
New York Times
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/world/22BRIE.html?pagewanted=all

JAPAN: The Okinawa City assembly, responding to a rash of incidents involving American military personnel, passed a resolution calling for a curfew on United States troops. It was adopted after a series of recent arson attacks said to have been committed by a United States marine. The assembly also called for a revision of the Status of Forces, to end an exemption from Japanese laws enjoyed by American soldiers. Howard W. French (NYT)

-------- colombia

Colombian left, right slug it out; 30 die

February 22, 2001
Washington Times
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-200122221354.htm

BOGOTA, Colombia - Clashes between leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary groups have killed at least 30 persons in a war-torn corner of Colombia's jagged Andes mountains, officials said yesterday.

The toll from the fighting near the remote town of Santa Rita de Ituango, some 155 miles northwest of the capital Bogota, is the heaviest in the last seven months in the South American nation's increasingly brutal 37-year-old war.

A Santa Rita official said most of the dead were believed to be members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's largest rebel force, and their bitter enemies, the outlawed United Self-Defense Forces (AUC).

"We can confirm the death of 29 people, apparently all combatants, and the death of a civilian woman," Alvaro Londono told private radio Caracol.

-------- drug war

Parental control curbs teen drug use

February 22, 2001
Washington Times
By Regina Holtman and Cheryl Wetzstein
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2001222231359.htm

Teen-agers with parents who enforce curfews and monitor their children's TV and music habits are less likely to use drugs, says a report released yesterday by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.

"Mothers and fathers who are parents rather than pals can greatly reduce the risk of their children smoking, drinking and using drugs," said Joseph Califano, president of CASA, an umbrella national organization based at Columbia University that studies substance abuse.

However, seven in 10 youths are living in households where their parents have few or no rules for their children's behavior.

Teens with parents who are "hands off" and impose no restrictions on them are at four times the risk to smoke, drink or use drugs than teens living in a house with rules. Whether living with both parents or a single parent, teens are better off with "hands on" parenting, the survey says.

"Parental power is the most underutilized tool in combating substance abuse," Mr. Califano said, noting that many teens now say they can get access to marijuana in a day or less.

Despite the conventional wisdom that teens want their parents to give them freedom, the survey of 1,000 youths ages 12 to 17 found that teens with parents who set rules have better relationships with their parents.

"Our teen-agers are giving parents permission to be parents," said Brent Coles, president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, who joined Mr. Califano in releasing the survey. "It seems simple, but it's hard work to be a parent."

The more times a week teens eat dinner with their parents - without the TV on - the less the children's risk of becoming substance abusers. Youths who do not eat with their parents have double the risk of using drugs than those who eat dinner as a family every night.

For the sixth straight year, teens reported drugs as the greatest concern facing people their age. The majority said they were worried about how drugs could ruin their lives or cause harm.

The fact that drugs are illegal concerned only 2 percent of those surveyed.

Mr. Califano said he was disturbed by findings that 60 percent of high school students attend schools where drugs are used, kept or sold.

Last year, 60 percent of teens said they would never use drugs. This year only 51 percent said they planned not to use drugs.

Not surprisingly, the chances of teens using drugs more than doubles when they attend a school with drugs in its halls and lockers.

"When parents feel as strongly about drugs as they do about asbestos, we will have drug-free schools," said Mr. Califano, former secretary of health, education and welfare.

Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley called for more funding from local, state and federal governments to combat teen drug use.

"This is an urgent life-and-death issue," Mr. O'Malley said. "If this is a war on drugs, then governors and Congress people need to start putting dollars in it."

The CASA findings about parents fit "a lot with my observations," psychologist Sylvia Rimm said.

She explained that she recently was with several dozen high school students who were asked about shock rapper Eminem's music.

"I was amazed that the kids said their parents didn't have any objection to their listening to Eminem. Nobody said anything. And all I could think of was, 'Come on. There should be some noes in the world.'"

Many parents have lost control of their children because they gave them too many choices - too much power - when they were small, said Mrs. Rimm, a syndicated columnist. This power isn't easily reclaimed when the children become teens, which may explain why some parents feel powerless, she said.

Parenting children and teens takes different skills, said sociologist and noted teen researcher Michael D. Resnick. He believes that parents can't run the lives of their teens or the youths "will run in the other direction."

However, that doesn't mean parents should be "wimpy, laissez-faire, hands off, 'Do what you want, dear,' " he said. "It means having clear expectations and boundaries and providing the rationale and reason for those boundaries, so the kids know where you are coming from and why."

Parents need more support from society, said Jim Feldman, spokesman for Kids Peace: The National Center for Kids Overcoming Crisis, a nonprofit organization based in Orefield, Pa.

"Parents and caretakers have a tremendous amount of power [over children], and we need to empower that group of people with as many resources as we can," he said. "It's a lot easier to point fingers than it is to empower."

--------

Bolivia says coca plants gone

01/02/22
Associated Press
By VANESSA ARRINGTON
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406228862

SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia (AP) - Bolivia's president said his government has cleared coca plants from the country's largest coca-producing region, with police and soldiers pulling out the last few plants by hand.

As part of his efforts to eliminate cocaine production in Bolivia, President Hugo Banzer in December vowed to destroy the remaining 1,500 acres of coca plants used to make cocaine in the Chapare region.

``Today I can say that this work has been completed,'' he said Wednesday, opening a three-day international conference on coca eradication.

The Chapare region in the lowlands of central Bolivia was once one of the world's largest coca growing areas. Over the last three years about 106,000 acres of coca plants have been uprooted. The last 50 were destroyed on Tuesday, a government spokesmen said.

The efforts capped a three-year program in Chapare to manually remove thousands of plants since chemical fumigation is illegal in Bolivia.

Banzer, who took office in 1997, has said he wants to make Bolivia the first country to eliminate itself as a producer of drugs.

Government spokesman Hernan Terrazas said that only about 5,000 acres of illegal coca plants remain, mostly in the Yungas and Apolo regions in the country's west. The government permits nearly 30,000 acres to be grown in northern Bolivia to satisfy local demand for coca leaves used in teas and for chewing by miners and farmers.

Bolivia's coca growers say, however, that the eradication has adversely affected tens of thousands of farmers and removed some $250 million from South America's poorest country.

-------- iraq

U.S. Fighter Jet Attacks Iraqi Defenses

February 22, 2001
New York Times
By STEVEN LEE MYERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/world/22CND-IRAQ.html

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 - An American fighter jet attacked a missile defense battery in Northern Iraq today, Pentagon officials said, resuming low-level skirmishes with Iraqi air-defense forces six days after American and British jets launched the first military strike authorized by President Bush.

Today's strike - against a French-made mobile anti-aircraft battery - was not authorized by President Bush but rather carried out under standing orders after Iraqi forces fired on American and British jets patrolling the no-flight zone over northern Iraq, the officials said.

Although relatively minor compared to last week's raids, which included strikes outside of the no-flight zones over Iraq, today's attack underscored Iraq's determination to continue challenging the patrols, which President Saddam Hussein's government considers illegal.

Since the attacks last week, Iraqi gunners have repeatedly fired at American and British jets over the northern and southern zones, though today was the first time the allied pilots responded.

Pentagon officials have said that last week's attacks - against 20 to 24 radar sites at five targets - disrupted but did not significantly damage the Iraqi defenses. Today, they attributed the mixed success of those raids, in part, to problems with one of the missiles used in the attacks, the Joint Standoff Weapon, or J-SOW.

---

Bombs in Iraq Raid Fell Wide Of Targets

Thursday, February 22, 2001
Washington Post
By Thomas E. Ricks
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36729-2001Feb21?language=printer

Most of the bombs dropped by U.S. warplanes on Iraqi radar stations during last week's airstrikes missed their mark, Pentagon officials disclosed yesterday, with most of the misses blamed on a new and expensive Navy guided bomb.

About 25 of the guided bombs, which were first used in combat two years ago, were dropped in the attack, and the majority fell "tens of yards" from their "aimpoints," a Navy official said. Another official said he had been told the bombs missed by an average of more than 100 yards, an unsatisfactory performance for a modern precision-guided weapon.

Pentagon officials' assessment of Friday's airstrikes against the Iraqi anti-aircraft system, which involved U.S. and British warplanes, was initially glowing. But the disclosure of the guided weapon's failure rate stunned defense officials yesterday and led them to scale back their assessment of the damage done in the attack.

"We feel we had a good effect. Was it perfect? No. Did every weapon system perform perfectly? No, but they never do," said Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, a Pentagon spokesman.

The guided bombs were fired at about 25 parts of Iraqi radar stations -- radar dishes, communications bunkers and other components -- and the Pentagon has been able to confirm damage to only eight of these targets, one official said. About another eight targets escaped damage, while satellite imagery has not produced usable pictures of the remaining radar targets, the official said.

In a second part of the raid, communications nodes connecting the Iraqi anti-aircraft system were hit with two other types of smart weapons -- about five AGM-130 guided missiles and about 10 Standoff Land Attack Missiles. One or two of the AGM-130s also missed their targets, but the communications nodes were destroyed by the bombs that did hit, an official said. "Everything they were fired at was destroyed or heavily damaged," he said about the AGM-130s.

The communications nodes were considered the most important targets because they linked large radars around Baghdad to surface-to-air missile batteries in southern Iraq.

In the past, those batteries used their own radar to guide missiles toward U.S. and British aircraft patrolling the southern "no-fly" zone. But U.S. radar-seeking missiles have proven so lethal against the batteries the Iraqis turned off those radars. Instead, they moved to a new system of using the large radars stationed outside the "no fly" zone to locate aircraft and then fire at allied planes from missile batteries in the south. It was the communications links tying together the new system that were attacked Friday.

Almost all the Navy guided bombs, known as the AGM-154A "Joint Standoff Weapon," that missed on Friday did so in the same way, veering to the left of where they were supposed to hit, officials said. The consistency of this error has led Navy officials to believe that it is likely a software glitch threw off the bombs' guidance systems. The weapon receives data from global positioning satellites as it glides as far as 40 miles to its target.

But officials also are looking at whether the bombs were mishandled or otherwise damaged before they were put on F/A-18 jets flying from the USS Harry S. Truman, an aircraft carrier that was in the Persian Gulf.

"It could be a mechanical problem, it could be a software problem," a Navy official said. He emphasized that a bomb that misses its "aimpoint" -- the actual spot where it is supposed to strike -- still can damage its target as it explodes and sends fragments flying for hundreds of yards. "Most of those which were assessed as missing their aimpoints still damaged their targets," he said. "They missed by tens of yards when they were sent from 30 to 40 miles away."

But others said the Navy was embarrassed over the weapon's poor performance and taken aback by how many radar stations escaped damage. "There is great concern with how these things performed," a Navy officer said.

The Joint Standoff Weapons range in cost from about $250,000 to about $700,000 apiece, according to the Federation of American Scientists.

The new Iraqi air defense system hasn't succeeded in downing a U.S. warplane. But a new fiber-optic communications system that Pentagon officials say was being installed threatened to dramatically increase the speed with which aircraft could be targeted accurately. "We were going after the brains," a Pentagon official said yesterday.

Pentagon officials contend that Chinese advisers were helping install the fiber-optics network. They said the airstrikes were timed to occur on the Muslim Sabbath of Friday, when no major construction work is done in Iraq, to reduce the chances of injuring or killing the Chinese.

The United States has protested the presence of the Chinese advisers in Iraq several times. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell met yesterday with China's new ambassador, Yang Jiechi, who was presenting his credentials, and expressed U.S. displeasure over the matter, a State Department spokesman said. Powell "took this occasion to convey a message, and the message was that we're concerned about the issue of Chinese workers in Iraq," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. The United States maintains that such outside assistance is not permitted under U.N. Security Council resolutions. The United Nations office that administers the oil-for-food program for Iraq said it had received three requests last year -- two involving French firms and one involving a Russian firm -- to release money for Iraq to buy fiber-optic cables, allegedly for its telecommunications industry. The committee of nations running the program did not approve the sales requests, a U.N. official said.

Staff writer Steven Mufson contributed to this report.

---

Air strikes against Iraq called mediocre at best

02/22/2001
USA Today
AP
Jassim Mohammed
http://usatoday.com/news/nphoto.htm

PHOTO: An Iraqi woman cries in front of the remains of her home in the province of Basra, Iraq. U.S. and British planes bombed radar sites in Iraq last week and hit some civilian homes. ()

WASHINGTON (AP) - Results of last weekend's airstrikes on Iraqi air defense sites were mediocre at best - a senior Pentagon official said Thursday that far fewer than half the targeted radars were damaged. Early assessments indicate a new satellite-guided missile fired by Navy planes was mainly to blame.

"We have detectable damage on 38 to 40% of the radars, and we still have some (data) coming in," said the official, discussing the Pentagon's preliminary bomb damage assessment on condition of anonymity.

Most of the misses were by a margin of 100 to 150 feet, he said.

On Wednesday, another senior defense official graded the bombing raids' accuracy at a B-minus or a C-plus.

In northern Iraq on Thursday, Iraqi forces fired anti-aircraft artillery at allied aircraft and targeted them with radar, according to U.S. European Command, which manages U.S. air operations over northern Iraq. The allies fired back at "elements of the Iraqi integrated air defense system," according to a brief announcement by European Command.

"We were doing our job, the Iraqis fired on us and we acted in self defense," said Maj. Ed Loomis, a European Command spokesman. The announcement said the Iraqi fire came from air defense sites north of the city of Mosul while allied planes were conducting "routine enforcement" of the northern "no-fly" zone north of the 36th Parallel. It did not disclose any result of the allied response.

Loomis said he could not discuss details such as the specific target of the allied retaliation.

In Baghdad, the official Iraqi News Agency quoted an unidentified Iraqi military spokesman saying, "American and British warplanes flew over the (northern) provinces of Duhok, Irbil and Mosul on Thursday. They were confronted by our anti-aircraft weaponry, which forced them to leave our skies and return to their bases in Turkey." It made no mention of the allied planes firing in retaliation.

U.S. and British air patrols over northern Iraq originate from Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.

Thursday's incident in the north was the first involving allied retaliation since Feb. 12, according to European Command. Since Jan. 1, the Iraqis have fired on allied planes over northern Iraq 15 times, and in three cases - including Thursday's - the allies fired back, Loomis said.

Last week's U.S.-British attacks were related to enforcement of a "no-fly" zone over southern Iraq. Four of the five sites attacked were near Baghdad, between the two "no fly" zones.

The Pentagon has yet to pinpoint the reason for the mediocre accuracy rate, but officials said Thursday that it may be related to computer software used in the missiles' guidance system. The weapon used against the Iraqi radars was the AGM-154, also known as a Joint Standoff Weapon, or JSOW, launched from Navy F/A-18 fighters that flew from the USS Harry S. Truman carrier in the Gulf.

Other weapons, including the AGM-130 missile, were used against Iraqi command and control facilities, which were considered the most important targets because they link elements of Iraq's air defense network.

The military is not releasing detailed public assessments of the attack's effectiveness, because it contends that could help Iraq prepare for any future attacks.

On Tuesday, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said the airstrikes achieved their purpose of "disrupting and degrading" Iraq's air defenses,

Quigley said the attack by 24 American and British warplanes last Friday was a necessary response to indications that Iraq was integrating its air defenses in a way that would give them better chances of shooting down allied planes. The bombs were aimed at radars and command and control "nodes" that link elements of the air defense network.

The U.S.-British operation, which targeted installations near Baghdad, were timed to avoid killing or injuring Chinese workers that the Americans say are in Iraq working on fiber optics and other projects to upgrade communications linking the sites. That in turn would increase the risk for allied pilots enforcing flight-interdiction zones in southern and northern Iraq.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Colin Powell criticized the Chinese work, which U.S. officials contend violates U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Powell raised the issue with China's new ambassador, Yang Jiechi, after he presented his diplomatic credentials.

In January, the State Department, without announcement, dispatched Assistant Secretary David Welch to Beijing to discuss the issue. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Wednesday the Bush administration is awaiting a detailed response from China.

Iraq denied on Wednesday that it had imported workers from China.

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

U.N. War Crimes Court Convicts Bosnian Serbs in Rape Case

February 22, 2001
New York Times
By CHRISTOPHER S. WREN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/world/22CND-HAGUE.html?pagewanted=all

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 22 - In a groundbreaking prosecution of sexual slavery, a United Nations war crimes tribunal in the Hague convicted three Bosnian Serbs for taking part in the systematic rape of Muslim women during the Bosnian war and sentenced the men to long prison terms.

Dragoljub Kunarac, 40, was found guilty of sexually assaulting and torturing Muslim women. Radomir Kovac, 39, was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity by rape. Zoran Vukovic, 39, was convicted of raping and torturing a girl of 15.

"What the evidence shows are Muslim women and girls together, mothers and daughters together, robbed of the last vestiges of human dignity, women treated like chattels, pieces of property at the arbitrary disposal of the Serb occupation forces, and more specifically, at the beck and call of the three accused," said Florence Mumba, the presiding judge of the tribunal, said in the judgment read out today.

Mr. Kunarac was sentenced to 28 years, Mr. Kovac to 20 years and Mr. Vukovic to 12 years. Though the three men were not high-level commanders, the court said that "lawless opportunists should expect no mercy, no matter how low their position in the chain of command may be."

The courtroom was solemn and quiet when the verdict was announced, and the defendants appeared to be in shock, according to an observer in the courtroom.

The defense lawyers had no comment after the verdict, but it appeared that they would appeal the decision.

The investigation was the broadest yet into wartime sexual abuse of women. Although this tribunal, as well as another United Nations court overseeing crimes related to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, has dealt with rape, this latest case is the first by an international tribunal to explore charges of sexual slavery.

War tribunals after World War II dealt with slavery, but as an economic crime, in the form of slave labor, legal experts advising the prosecution have said.

In this trial, prosecutors have often used the phrase "sex slaves" to describe the victims, and have used language from the Slavery Convention of 1926.

Judge Mumba said it would have been misleading to say that the systematic rape was employed as a "weapon of war," because that implied that members of the Serbian armed forces in Bosnia had been ordered to rape Muslim women.

"What the evidence shows," she said, "is that the rapes were used by members of the Bosnian armed forces as an instrument of terror, an instrument they were given free rein to apply whenever and against whomever they wished."

The trial focused on the Muslim women of Foca, a small Bosnian town southeast of Sarajevo on the banks of the Drina River. Serbian fighters overran the town in April 1992. Although women were raped on all sides of the Bosnian war, Foca represents the best-documented case of organized sexual abuse.

Judge Mumba said the Serbian forces were able to set up and maintain a detention center in a sports hall next to police headquarters in Foca, "from which women and young girls were taken away on a regular basis to other locations to be raped."

The evidence also showed, she said, that the authorities who were meant to protect the victims, such as local police officers, had turned a blind eye to the women's suffering. "Instead, they helped guard the women, and even joined in their mistreatment" when the victims approached them for help.

The dozens of rape victims included girls as young as 12 and 13, the prosecution charged. Sixteen women who had been abused testified during the trial, which began on March 20, 2000. They were identified by numbers, spoke through voice scramblers and were hidden from public view to protect their privacy, but always faced their accusers.

Women who testified said they slept on the floor, received little to eat, and were often threatened with weapons, as well as being raped. The the women described beatings and the pain of the sexual attacks, both physical and mental.

When the women were mistreated, the court said, their men often were locked up in the local prison for long periods, and "some were killed on the spot, often in the presence or within earshot of their families."

According to the indictment, women and children were sent to motels, schools and the sports hall, all converted into detention centers.

Witnesses testified that Serbs would come to the centers at night to rape the women, or take them away. The three defendants also took women away, to force them to work in "quasi brothels" used by themselves or by other soldiers, the prosecution said. Sometimes they rented the women out or sold them.

The three defendants acknowledged that they had taken part in the attacks, which prosecutors said were part of a campaign intended to drive Muslims from the area. But they denied the charges of torture, rape and enslavement.

Mr. Kunarac commanded a reconnaissance unit of the Bosnian Serb army and Mr. Kovac and Mr. Vukovic were paramilitary leaders, the prosecution said. All three have been in custody for more than a year.

---

U.N. Council Agrees to Withdraw Troops From Congo

February 22, 2001
New York Times
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/world/22CONG.html

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 21 - Moving with remarkable speed and unanimity to respond to a cooperative new government in Congo, the Security Council agreed today on a step by step plan for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the country, the scene of Africa's largest war.

The agreement, drafted by France, is expected to be adopted on Thursday as a Security Council resolution at the end of two days of meetings between Council members and representatives of the African countries and Congolese rebel armies involved in the war. The plan follows the outline of an agreement reached by all the warring sides in Harare, Zimbabwe, in December, a pact that has not been acted on. The resolution is intended to put more pressure on all sides to do so.

Under the force of the resolution the parties will jeopardize any further United Nations involvement in settling the war, including the possibility of a peacekeeping mission, if they do not meet the Council's requirements.

Although a few final details remain to be settled, the resolution calls for a 14-day period beginning in the middle of March for all foreign troops to complete plans to pull back from battle lines, and a deadline around the middle of May for setting up a timetable for leaving the country, a process diplomats hope can be completed by the fall.

James B. Cunningham, the acting American ambassador, said that the United States welcomed the unanimous support for the resolution and the "global approach" the Council was taking. "We're trying to strike a balance so that every participant has a stake in the process," he said in an interview. "I can't say we're optimistic or pessimistic. Just hopeful."

The plan calls for a Security Council visit to Congo in May to check on progress. "It's a way to put pressure on them," said Jean-David Levitte, the French ambassador. "If they know we are coming on the 15th of May, hopefully disengagement will be over and they will have to focus on the next steps. This mission of the Council will be key."

Rwanda and Uganda, which invaded Congo in 1998, have already promised to begin pulling back as early as next week. Those movements are prerequisite to putting pressure on Congo's allies - Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia - to also begin leaving.

The Congo debate began today with a blunt warning to the warring parties by Secretary General Kofi Annan, who said that if it was taking a long time to get a peacekeeping operation on the ground it was because nations in the region had yet to demonstrate that they really wanted to end the war.

"We have heard complaints of the slowness of the United Nations to act, or the small size of the forces it plans to deploy," Mr. Annan said. "But governments that contribute troops to the United Nations peacekeeping operations are not convinced that they should risk their soldiers' lives in circumstances where those most responsible are not themselves reliably committed. You may wish it otherwise, but these are the facts."

Under the new resolution, the Security Council pledges to station military monitors with the withdrawing troops as a verification and confidence-building measure. In a country as vast, dense and undeveloped as Congo, diplomats say, there should be no question about whether troops are abiding by their commitments to leave.

Mr. Levitte said in an interview today that the two steps - a pullback to new lines followed by a timetable for complete withdrawal - had to be linked or Congo risked being "transformed into Cyprus," with opposing troops holding lines that will be hard to erase later.

Foreign Minister Stanislaus Mudenge of Zimbabwe, the country that did most to prop up the regime of Laurent Kabila, Congo's assassinated president, chided the Council today for taking what he called a "gradualist and minimalist" approach, conveying "the impression of hesitancy and doubt about the peace process." He was referring to a decision last week to scale back the size of the protection force being formed to accompany 550 military monitors to observe the withdrawal of foreign troops.

The head of United Nations peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guehenno, said last week that a smaller force now seemed workable because a cease-fire seemed to be holding and advance parties of monitors in the country had faced no violence.

Moreover, the assassination of Mr. Kabila on Jan. 16 led to an unexpected opportunity when his son and successor, Joseph Kabila, pledged greater cooperation with the United Nations and neighboring countries.

"This new president is a kind of miracle," Mr. Levitte said today. "He is taking bold decisions. He is proposing to the warring sides, let's have national reconciliation. On that basis, Rwanda and Uganda feel obliged to reciprocate. So there is a new climate, and our ambition is to build on that."

---

Belgrade's Mladic goes underground

February 22, 2001
Washington Times
World Scene Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/world/worldscene-200122221354.htm

BELGRADE - In a new blow to the U.N. war-crimes tribunal, a top official said yesterday that one of the court's most wanted suspects - Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic - has gone underground after years of living publicly in Belgrade.

Serbian Interior Minister Dusan Mihajlovic said his police have been unable to find the former commander of the Bosnian Serb army at his Belgrade home - or anywhere else in Serbia.

"As far as I know, Mr. Mladic was in Belgrade for a while, at a certain address," Mr. Mihajlovic said. "But he has not been at his address for some time and we do not have information that he is in Serbia at all."

--

Cut in Congo force by U.N. draws fire

NEW YORK - - The warring sides in Congo criticized a U.N. plan to reduce its observer force for the central African nation from an authorized 5,537 to 3,000, saying yesterday that it sent the wrong message at a time when combatants have pledged to end the conflict.

Zimbabwe's foreign minister, Stanislaus Mudenge, told U.N. Security Council ambassadors at the start of a two-day summit meeting of the warring states that the proposed reduction implied the United Nations wasn't sincere about seizing the opportunity to implement a 1999 cease-fire agreement.

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

Nursing cadets

February 22, 2001
Washington Times
Inside the Beltway John McCaslin Political tidbits and other shenanigans from around the nation's capital.

A member of the Virginia Military Institute "Old Corps" is behind the distribution of a lesson in etiquette, poking fun at VMI's board of visitors for derailing any attempt to draft a "pregnancy policy" at the school after the U.S. Supreme Court forced VMI to admit women four years ago.

One female VMI board member was paraphrased by the alumnus as saying then: "We'll never have girls like that at VMI."

"Well, now we have a second classman [junior] with a child due in July," he says. "Can't wait to see the bulging coatee in finals' dress parades."

Several VMI alumni who had been outspoken against dropping the institute's 157-year all-male admissions policy were recipients of the alumni brother's mailing, culled from the 1923 book "Etiquette: In Society, In Business, In Politics and at Home," by Emily Post, and titled: "The Best Chaperon Herself."

"Ethically the only chaperon is the young girl's own sense of dignity and pride; she who has the right attributes of character needs no chaperon - ever. If she is wanting in decency and proper pride, not even Argus could watch over her. But apart from ethics, there are the conventions to think of, and the conventions of propriety demand that every young woman must be protected by a chaperon, because otherwise she will be misjudged."

The pregnant cadet has been provided separate quarters at VMI until her baby is born. What happens beyond that is anybody's guess; however, expelling the woman is illegal under federal Title IX.

-------- OTHER

Bit of topic, concerning America's First Amendment

Thu, 22 Feb 2001
Some other document on the The National Security Archive from The George Washington University
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/radiation/dir/mstreet/commeet/meet13/brie f13/tab_f/br13f3.txt

Senate Threatens First Amendment
"Official Secrets" Proposal would Stifle Informed Public Debate

September 29, 2000

Pending in the Senate is a proposal to enact an "Official Secrets Act" for the United States. Section 303 of the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2001, S. 2507, would make it a crime for government employees to disclose classified information to the public. The proposal is unconstitutional. In violation of the First Amendment, it would stifle informed public debate about the most serious matters of national defense and foreign policy.

For the last 50 years, Congress has consistently rejected as unnecessary and unconstitutional, proposals, usually from the CIA, to make leaking classified information to the press a crime. Now, without any public hearings, without any consideration by the Judiciary Committee, and without even any public debate on the floor of the Congress, such a provision has been included in the Intelligence Authorization bill in the Senate.

The Proposal is Unconstitutional.

Criminalizing public disclosures of national security information raises serious First Amendment problems. Democracy requires an informed public,especially about the most serious matters of defense and foreign policy. The public's right to know may not be held hostage to criminal sanctions for disclosing any information that comes within the broad scope of any classification standards a President decides to adopt.

a. Sanctions for disclosure already exist.

This proposal violates the constitutional requirement that the government employ the least restrictive means when it seeks to outlaw core First Amendment speech. Serious, albeit non-criminal, penalties already exist for unauthorized disclosures by government employees of classified information. Employees who leak information to the press properly lose their security clearances and in most cases their jobs and any future chance of government employment.

In addition, it is already a crime to leak the most sensitive kinds of national security information, in particular the names of covert intelligence agents or cryptographic and communications intelligence information.1

b. The proposal to criminalize leaks of all "properly classified" information is unconstitutionally overbroad.2

The threat of prosecution for leaking classified information would have a broad, chilling effect on public debate, which cannot be justified by the goal of preventing serious harm to national security interests. Millions of pages of documents in myriad federal agencies are "properly classified" under current classification standards. While the government may have a legitimate interest in keeping such information secret, much of it is also important to public policy debate. The frontpages of newspapers have reported such "properly classified" information for at least the past 25 years, beginning with the Pentagon Papers and including the intelligence community budget held by a federal judge to be properly classified.

Thus, "proper classification" does not meet the First Amendment requirement for criminalizing public disclosures by government employees lying at the core of the First Amendment.

Rather, as Congress has consistently recognized in dealing with proposed leak statutes, the First Amendment permits criminal sanctions for such disclosures only for those narrow categories of specific information, where it is likely that disclosure will result in immediate and substantial harm to a substantial national security interest and the information is of marginal relevance to public policy debate. Applying this standard in 1984, Congress criminalized leaks by government employees of the names of covert intelligence agents. Indeed, both Congress and the President have explicitly recognized that even when information is properly classified, the public interest in knowing the information may require its public disclosure. Executive Order 12958 setting classification standards, directs that in "some exceptional cases" where "the need to protect [ ] information may be outweighed by the public interest in disclosure of the information" such information shall be disclosed. Sec. 3.2(b). The Rules of the Congress set out procedures whereby the Congress may decide to publicly disclose classified information after a determination "that the public interest would be served by such disclosure." See Senate Res. 400 sec. 8(a).

Just as the government may not obtain a prior restraint against publication of properly classified information except in the most rare and compelling circumstances, it may not use the heavy hand of the criminal law to prevent public access to crucial information about national security matters.

The Bill also Threatens Freedom of the Press.

If enacted, the bill is also likely to directly threaten press freedoms. While on its face, the bill applies criminal penalties only to government employees, Supreme Court opinions would allow the government to subpoena journalists to compel them to identify their confidential sources in order to identify who leaked classified information. While current Justice Department regulations severely restrict such subpoenas, the regulations are subject to change by the Attorney General.

There Has Been No Public Debate or Review of this Proposal.

If the government were to make a compelling showing of actual and substantial harm from leaks of specific kinds of classified information, the Congress could then consider whether grounds exist to criminalize leaks of any additional narrow and specifically identified category of information, in light of its importance to public policy debate. It has not done so. In the absence of any such showing, and indeed, any public argument whatsoever about the need for such a bill, the process and the bill are a constitutional affront.

Notes 1. While the Justice Department argued successfully in one case that the espionage laws apply not only to spies but to leakers, that position has never been generally accepted by the courts and the government itself has acknowledged the uncertainties and difficulties involved in applying the espionage laws to leaks.

2. The Justice Department has proposed that the bill be amended to refer to disclosures of "properly" classified information. Such an amendment would not cure the basic constitutional infirmity of the bill.

-------- alternative energy

Farmers use crops to heat homes

02/22/2001
USA Today
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001-02-22-farmer.htm

CENTRE HALL, Pa. (AP) - On a cool, still day, there's a subtle scent of popcorn surrounding Ed Leightley's farm. Something on the stove? Nope. The aroma is coming from the furnace. Leightley is one of a growing number of farmers who find they can save money by using their crops to heat their homes.

"I just love it," said Leightley, a corn farmer who lives in a 100-year-old two-story home without insulation in central Pennsylvania. "It hasn't varied 2 degrees in here all winter. And there's no way I could get heating oil for the same price I'd get for my corn - this old house doesn't heat cheap."

No one knows exactly how many people are burning grain for heat, but rising prices for fossil fuels and falling grain prices have prompted more farmers to switch to grain furnaces, which can burn corn, wheat, barley, rye, sorghum and even soybeans.

Dennis Buffington, a professor of agricultural and biological engineering at Penn State University, says one bushel of corn - dried and off the cob - will generate about as much heat as five gallons of liquid propane, which has long been the fuel of choice in farm country.

While prices vary based on location and dealer, Buffington said corn had a wholesale value of about $2 a bushel in late 2000, while propane cost about $1.30 per gallon. That means farmers could cut their heating costs by more than two-thirds by heating with corn.

And those savings can add up.

Eldon Higgins, who owns a sheet metal shop in Sandusky, Mich., said he saved close to $2,000 in the first month after switching from propane to corn and wheat to heat his shop. Higgins started using his grain furnace in January.

"My last bill for 28 days was $2,126 for propane," Higgins said. "Now we're heating for about $8 per day."

And, he said, he'll soon start saving even more after agreeing to take some substandard wheat from an area grower. Higgins said he'll get the grain - three truckloads of it - for free.

Buffington said that's one of the advantages of grain furnaces: the furnace doesn't know if kernels are too small to be marketable or if the grain is diseased.

"Where this has a real advantage is if the corn has lesser value," Buffington said. "When corn is low-quality or is mildewed or for some other reason is unmarketable, it still burns just as well."

Most farmers who use grain furnaces burn whatever crop they grow instead of buying grain. The furnaces have been most popular among corn and barley farmers because of the low prices for those crops.

While grain-fired furnaces are starting to catch on in farm country, grain specialist Dan Brann said most urban and suburban customers probably would find the heaters inconvenient.

"Somebody's got to make it where the homeowner does not need to bring in grain - that the homeowner simply goes down, knocks the ashes out, and everything else operates just like their oil furnace," said Brann, who works for Virginia Tech Extension.

---

On Energy Farms, Technology Milks the Wind

February 22, 2001
New York Times
By MATT LAKE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/technology/22HOWW.html

THE windmill is a centuries-old technology originally developed to pump water and grind grain, but it could play an important role in solving two serious problems facing the United States: generating an adequate supply of electricity and reducing the emission of greenhouse gases.

Wind turbines have been used for generating electricity for more than a century, beginning with experiments by a Danish meteorologist, Poul la Cour, in the 1890's and his founding of the Society of Wind Electricians in 1905.

Despite refinements in the 20th century, development did not begin in earnest until the oil crisis in the 1970's made the electricity supply expensive and less reliable. The 1970's and 1980's saw a proliferation of turbine designs, ranging from two- and three-propeller horizontal generator designs to a vertical model that resembled an eggbeater. But this country's nascent wind generation industry got a bad rap in the 1980's when investments in wind generators failed because of cheap electricity from fossil and nuclear fuels and the inefficient design of some turbines.

Wind turbines have now become much more efficient, thanks in large part to the Danish windmill industry. Now dozens of manufacturers are cranking out turbine models, from small designs, each aimed at providing power for a single house, to huge machines with 100- foot blades that can supply between two and three million kilowatt-hours in a year, enough to power at least 500 households. California, which has the most developed wind-power industry of any state, has more than 15,000 turbines creating enough energy for about a million people. And in the late 1990's, Enron Wind, a wind-turbine developer based in California, installed the three largest wind-generation plants in the world in the American Midwest: two plants, each producing more than a hundred megawatts, in Lake Benton, Minn., and a 193-megawatt plant in Storm Lake, Iowa.

The impetus for generating clean power is being spurred by efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. Currently, two-thirds of the electricity in the United States is generated by burning fossil fuels like coal, gas and oil. Such combustion pumped 2,245 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 1999, according to the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency. That was an increase of 1.35 percent over the previous year.

The more power produced by wind, the less need be produced by burning fossil fuels. But wind turbines remain a relatively untapped resource. Wind currently contributes three billion kilowatt-hours annually, less than 1 percent of the national supply.

Wind power has a few benefits over more common ways to generate electricity. Wind "farms," with dozens or even hundreds of turbines, can be built cheaply and quickly, and they can be easily expanded. Their operational costs are not subject to fuel prices, and the cost per kilowatt-hour is comparable to the cost for plants burning fossil fuels.

A disadvantage of wind power is its unreliability. Although wind farms are situated to take advantage of strong prevailing winds, variations in wind speed cause unpredictable fluctuations in the capacity of a wind turbine. Even the most efficient design fails to capture 40 percent of the energy in the wind. But since it's "free" energy, failing to tap it all is not such a big problem.

Despite the advantages of wind generation, it has a large number of earnest opponents. Some people just do not want to have wind turbines nearby. The turbines are huge structures that are visible from great distances because they need unobstructed access to air currents. So many zoning boards and prospective residents say they are eyesores that contribute to visual blight.

The large structures also require deep concrete foundations, and that heavy construction has its own impact on rural settings. Such excavation leads to local air pollution and the risk of erosion at the sites and their access roads. And wind farms gobble up territory, taking up considerably more land than other electrical generators to generate a comparable amount of electricity.

Many older models drew opposition because they were noisy, but newer designs are quieter. The wind generation industry says modern turbines are no louder than refrigerators when heard from the distance that most turbines are placed from populated areas.

There is also controversy over the impact of wind turbines on the environment, especially bird life, because raptors like golden eagles are drawn to prey sheltering near the turbines and can be killed by the spinning blades. The Sierra Club, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Audubon Society all recognize bird mortality as a significant problem with wind generators.

The Department of Energy's goal is to increase the contribution of wind power to electricity generation nationwide to 5 percent by 2020, and that may be within reach. The department has plans on file from several power companies that want to build large-scale wind farms between now and 2019 in Texas, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Minnesota, with smaller plants in Pennsylvania, Connecticut and upstate New York, near Watertown.

---

Energy Industries Issue Warning

Thursday, February 22, 2001
Washington Post
By Peter Behr

Representatives of the U.S. oil, gas, coal, electric and nuclear power industries yesterday called for a long list of legislative and regulatory actions to boost production across all of their sectors, warning that their ability to meet the nation's energy needs is in jeopardy.

"The United States is operating at or near its maximum in most energy production areas," said Red Cavaney, president of the American Petroleum Institute. To meet future requirements for fuel and power, the nation "will need to optimize energy production from all its sources," he said. "We need everything."

The API and seven other energy producing organizations issued a new report yesterday on their policy and lobbying goals as Congress takes up the most comprehensive array of energy legislation in a decade or more.

The group of energy industries unites political and economic interests in virtually every part of the country, from natural gas producers along the Gulf of Mexico to coal-mining companies in mountain states to utilities and generators whose electricity lights cities nationwide.

Missing from the group, however, were two interest groups whose political support in Congress is also substantial -- advocates of energy-efficiency policies and environmentalists.

The report was criticized yesterday by David Nemtzow, president of the Alliance to Save Energy, a D.C.-based organization that promotes conservation. "We don't say efficiency is the entire answer. But it's certainly a cornerstone, and this report gives it only lip service, and that's too bad. It's like they want the United States to drill its way out of the problem, and that's only part of the answer," Nemtzow said.

"Everybody can agree we need more oil and gas. They can't agree where to get it from," said Dan Becker, energy policy director for the Sierra Club in Washington.

Federal incentives should be offered to maximize oil and gas production from existing wells rather than opening up environmentally sensitive new areas, he said. "And we prefer to drill under Detroit by making cars get more miles to the gallon," Becker added.

The producers' report, issued by their umbrella organization, the U.S. Energy Association, warns that based on current patterns of energy consumption, the nation is falling steadily behind in supplies and being forced to rely on an aging, inadequate energy infrastructure.

Raising the investment needed to upgrade and expand energy facilities will require a combination of higher energy prices and tax incentives, the report authors said, without specifying the magnitude of the tax cuts they seek.

No major oil refinery has been built in the nation in 25 years, the report said. "What policies will Congress enact to support the construction of eight or more new refineries during the next 20 years?" the report authors ask, citing Energy Department estimates of new refinery capacity needed to meet expected demands for gasoline and heating oil.

The report asked what policies "will encourage major investment in the pipelines and terminals that will be needed to transport an additional 5 million barrels of oil per day to consumers" over the next two decades.

And David K. Owens, executive vice president of the Edison Electric Institute, asked: How will electricity needs be met without more investment in long-distance high-voltage power lines, an overloaded part of the nation's energy infrastructure where investment has been steadily declining for years?

All of these issues will soon be headed to Congress.

Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, is expected to introduce comprehensive energy legislation next week, after several weeks of fine-tuning the proposal.

A Bush administration task force headed by Vice President Cheney is preparing to issue a similarly wide-ranging energy proposal in about two months.

Owens said yesterday that the California energy crisis has created a sense of urgency in Congress that offers the best chance in many years to get a comprehensive energy bill passed.

But Alan H. Richardson, executive director of the American Public Power Association and a co-sponsor of yesterday's report, said it is too soon to judge the public's reaction to California's plight.

"Skepticism is rampant" about the causes of the California crisis, he said, and it isn't clear whether the public's final judgment will help the industry's cause or harden political opposition to it.

-------- environment

Fearing Disease, Brazil Bans Argentine Beef

February 22, 2001
New York Times
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/world/22ARGE.html

BRASÍLIA, Feb. 21 - Brazil's Agriculture Ministry banned imports of cattle along with most beef and associated products from neighboring Argentina today, citing fears of spreading foot-and- mouth disease.

"This decision is a joint decision with the Argentine authorities," said Brazil's agriculture minister, Marcus Vinícius Pratini de Moraes, after an emergency meeting in Brasília with senior food safety officials.

Argentina, the world's fifth-largest beef exporter, which is renowned for the very high quality of its lean grass-fed product, recently acknowledged that some of its territory is no longer free of the virus that causes foot-and-mouth.

It had not officially vaccinated against the virus since 1998, and the last recorded case was in 1994.

This surprise admission prompted the Paris-based International Epizootic Office to cut Argentina from its list of countries deemed free from foot-and-mouth without vaccination.

Brazil and Argentina are the chief players in the four-nation Mercosur trade bloc, the world's third largest, whose other members are Paraguay and Uruguay. Brazil imported 8,500 tons of beef from Argentina in 2000.

---

Foot-and-Mouth Outbreak Halts British Animal Exports

February 22, 2001
New York Times
By SARAH LYALL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/world/22PIGS.html?pagewanted=all

LONDON, Feb. 21 - Faced with its first outbreak in 20 years of foot-and-mouth disease, a virulent illness that infects animals with relentless speed, Britain said today that it was suspending all exports of live animals as well as milk and meat, even though the disease poses small risk to humans.

British officials said they moved after consulting officials from the European Commission, which later went a step further, saying the ban would last at least until March 1.

The suspension is a terrible blow to Britain's livestock industry, already reeling from the prolonged crisis over mad cow disease, an outbreak of classical swine flu last summer and severe flooding on farms across the country over the winter. While the export ban is in place, the industry is set to lose some £8 million a week, officials said, an amount approaching $12 million.

Nick Brown, the agriculture minister, told reporters today that his department had confirmed the existence of 27 cases of foot-and-mouth disease on Monday night, in pigs at a slaughterhouse in Essex, and in cattle on an adjoining farm.

Animals at the farm and slaughterhouse are in the process of being slaughtered, he said, and their remains destroyed. In addition, officials have established a five-mile exclusion zone around the area, and are limiting the movement of people, animals and traffic in and out of the zone.

A number of other farms around Britain that have done business with the affected slaughterhouse and farm have also been placed under quarantine. That is to give the officials time to determine whether other animals have been infected and where the virus may have come from.

"Everyone in the industry has been left shattered by this," said Paul Cheale, whose family owns the slaughterhouse and farm where the infected animals were identified and who is now helping officials in their painstaking investigation. "We are now trying to source where every animal which arrived here in recent weeks came from. It will involve many thousands of animals and many weeks of work."

Officials are hoping to contain the illness as quickly as possible. Animals suspected of foot-and-mouth disease will be killed, Mr. Brown said; farmers are to be compensated with the market price for each animal. Infected farms and slaughterhouses will have to be disinfected under government supervision, and new animals will not be allowed into the premises without official permission.

"We're faced with what is potentially a very, very serious situation," Mr. Brown said. "I cannot promise that these measures will not be prolonged, but we have to do whatever we have to do. I apologize if what we appear to be doing seems heavy- handed, but it is absolutely essential."

Foot-and-mouth disease, which generally strikes cloven-footed ruminants like sheep, pigs, goats, deer, camels and cows, is a wildly contagious viral illness that can be spread through even minimal contact with infected animals, farm equipment or meat.

It can also travel through the air, and animals can contract it simply by being in a field or truck where an infected animal or infected meat has been, or by coming into contact with a person who has been exposed to an infected animal.

The disease affects humans only very rarely, and usually not seriously, and for that reason, domestic sales of meat will continue, officials said.

Foot-and-mouth disease is not necessarily fatal in animals. But infected animals become gravely ill in a matter of days, with symptoms including high fevers, excessive salivating and outbreaks of painful sores on their mouths and feet. Animals with the illness tend to lose considerable weight, and dairy cows produce far less milk than usual.

Britain has not had a case since 1981, when several hundred cows and pigs became infected in the Isle of Wight after, it was believed, the virus traveled by air across the English Channel.

In the early 1990's, the European Union declared that the illness had been eradicated from its member countries. But foot-and-mouth disease is endemic in Africa, South America, India and the South Pacific, and it has proved impossible for Europe to keep it permanently at bay. Greece, for instance, had an outbreak last year.

The European Union has a policy of not vaccinating against the disease, in part because the viruses mutate so quickly that it is hard to develop an effective vaccine, and in part because many countries do not accept exports from countries with vaccination programs, perhaps fearing the programs are testimony to an incidence of the disease.

British farmers still shudder when they remember the last major epidemic here, in 1967. It began with a single case in Shropshire and raged across the country. In the five months it took to bring the illness under control, 442,000 animals were destroyed, large swaths of the countryside were in quarantine and declared off limits to the public, and Britain lost $217 million in slaughter costs and lost sales, as well as paying $39 million to farmers in compensation.

Officials said they did not know how the latest outbreak had come to Britain, but speculated it had probably been through contaminated meat or animals brought into the country illegally.

"It's very difficult to see how this could have developed lawfully, and the truth of the matter is that we don't know," Mr. Brown said. The situation is bound to develop over the next two or three days, and we will then have a better idea of the extent of what we're dealing with. But far and away the most important thing is to get this condition contained and isolated."

Hugh Crabtree, a spokesman for the National Pig Association, said that Britain should work harder to protect its livestock industry. Among other things, he said, the government should establish buffer zones around farms, more carefully monitor the animals that come into the country, and impose restrictions, as the United States does, on people entering the country with meat and farm products.

Veterinary officials said they were working to identify exactly what type of foot-and-mouth disease had struck. The chief veterinary officer, Dr. Jim Scudamore, said this afternoon that the evidence so far showed that the strain in Britain, identified as Type O, was similar to strains reported in Japan, South Korea, Mongolia and Russia last year, and was also similar to a South African strain.

Speaking to the House of Lords, Baroness Hayman, the agriculture minister, urged farmers to be vigilant for signs of the illness and to report any suspected cases to the authorities. "Time is of the essence if we are to limit the spread of this disease," she said.

---

WHALE FOUND DEAD

February 22, 2001
New York Times
Metro Briefs
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/nyregion/22MBRF.html

MANASQUAN: For the fourth time since December, a giant finback whale has been found dead in the coastal waters of New Jersey and New York. Crew members of a federal research vessel spotted the latest one floating in the Atlantic on Feb. 14 about 35 miles off Manasquan. The crew took pictures and skin samples but decided that the whale, more than 35 feet long, was too far off shore to tow in for an examination, said Teri Frady, a spokeswoman for the National Marine Fisheries Service. Ms. Frady said that officials thought the whales may have been hit by ships. Robert Hanley (NYT)

---

Colorado

01/02/22
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Ouray - Frank Baumgartner's plan to use cyanide for the mining of gold and silver has infuriated environmentalists. Baumgartner said he will mine an alpine tract on Red Mountain using cyanide leaching, which extracts flakes of gold while other metals leach out. Scientists cite the potentially harmful results of metal contamination, but Baumgartner said the process is much safer under new mining laws.

Kentucky

Lexington - Brain worms have killed about 20 yearling elk in eastern Kentucky, officials said. The elk indirectly catch the parasitic worm from white-tailed deer, which aren't affected. Wildlife official Jon Gassett denied that the elk are dying from ailments related to "mad cow" disease.

Michigan

Detroit - For a fourth year, volunteers will steal Canada goose eggs and replace them with fake ones in an effort to reduce the bird's population in southeastern Michigan. Property owners who want to participate must obtain a permit from the state Department of Natural Resources, said Humane Society officials. Canada geese are protected as migratory game birds. Nearly 8,000 eggs have been removed from nests since the program began.

New York

Albany - The Department of Environmental Conservation fined the Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. $900,000 for allowing excessive smoke emissions from four upstate power plants the utility used to own. It was the agency's largest air pollution fine. Two of the plants burn coal while two others burn natural gas or coal.

North Dakota

Grafton - Walsh County officials are considering a proposal that would turn 550 acres of land along the Red River into a wildlife refuge. The American Foundation for Wildlife wants to buy the farm land, turn some of it into a wetland, plant the rest in native grasses then turn it over to the state. County officials have heard no opposition to the plan, but will meet before recommending it to Gov. Hoeven.

Vermont

Burlington - Lake Champlain might stay open this winter for the fifth season in a row. If the lake doesn't freeze within the next few weeks, it will be the longest streak since record keeping began in 1816. Until last year, the lake hadn't stayed open for more than three years in a row. Scientists aren't sure if the recent trend is a fluke, global warming, or a modern ability to monitor the ice better.

Virginia

Newport News - A panel of Virginia crabbers recommended restricting commercial crab pot fishermen to an eight-hour workday to conserve the species. The Virginia Marine Resources Commission estimated that the change would cut catches by 5%. The panel also recommended exempting the Eastern Shore crabbers from the restriction because they schedule their workdays around tides, not the clock.

---

Clinton's land designations likely to stand

February 22, 2001
Washington Times
By Ralph Z. Hallow
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2001222231138.htm

President Bush is unlikely to try to overturn his predecessor's 11th-hour designations of millions of acres of federal land as national monuments.

"No decision has been made by the Interior Department on whether or not to try to overturn Clinton's national monument designations at this point," a spokesman for Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton told The Washington Times yesterday.

Many conservatives were upset with the way former President Bill Clinton removed huge tracts of federal land from commercial and recreational use without first consulting with the governors of the affected states and local residents.

Mr. Clinton made all but one of the national monument designations after the presidential elections in November. He expanded by at least 1 million acres, or 25 percent, the amount of land designated as national monuments, which precludes mining, logging and recreational activities on the land.

Many conservatives, however, did not expect Mr. Bush to unilaterally roll back Mr. Clinton's actions, believing it to be unfeasible - both politically and legally.

Under the law, once a president designates federal lands as national monuments, that designation cannot be removed by another president. In that respect, congressional legal experts said, national monument designations are not the same as executive orders, which can be reversed by a new president.

Mr. Bush said he would review Mr. Clinton's end-of-term executive orders, but the national monuments designations are of a different nature and will require congressional action.

However, Angela Antonelli, Heritage Foundation director for the Roe Institute for Economic Policy, noted, "No president ever rescinded designations made by a previous president."

There appeared to be little concern among conservatives that the Bush administration probably will not attempt to unilaterally overturn Mr. Clinton's designations. This suggests - to some conservatives at least - that the property-rights movement is reflecting a political savvy and maturity indicative of the larger conservative movement.

"One of the mistakes [Reagan administration Interior Secretary] James Watt and his Interior Department made was being too direct and confrontational, and I think Gale Norton understands political strategy better than Watt did," said Clark Collins, executive director of the Blue Ribbon Coalition.

"We need to make some changes in these monuments, but we don't need to have a lot of political bloodshed over it," added Mr. Collins, who said his coalition represents more than 1,000 off-highway recreational users and businesses that would be denied use of national monument lands.

While the president and the interior secretary may be legally barred from acting without the consent of Congress in the case of national monuments, an attempt to do so might have played well in the past with a Republican president seeking to shore up his conservative political base.

But many conservatives say their movement has gained a considerable degree of sophistication and moderation, especially after eight years of being out of the White House during the Clinton era.

"People who understand it takes an act of Congress to get rid of these designations won't be angry if Bush doesn't rescind them, and people who don't understand are probably very angry," said Myron Ebell, international environmental director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

Although Congress has the legal authority, most political observers believe it is unlikely to move to rescind the national monument designations Mr. Clinton made in his last three months in office.

---

Potomac monster

February 22, 2001
Washington Times
Inside the Beltway John McCaslin Political tidbits and other shenanigans from around the nation's capital.

What better day than George Washington's birthday to call attention to a huge Potomac River fish that amazed the nation's first president because of its ability to grow as long as 14 feet.

The National Wilderness Institute has petitioned the federal government to protect the Atlantic sturgeon, which Washington hailed for its abundance in the Potomac River.

Washington actually was one of the earliest commercial fishermen on the Potomac, says NWI executive director Rob Gordon. In the period that followed, fish were so plentiful that river docks in Alexandria, Georgetown and Washington supported 450 fishing vessels, 1,350 fishermen and 6,500 laborers.

Today, government biologists believe the primary, if not only local spawning grounds for the magnificent sturgeon, often confused with the shortnose sturgeon, are in the Little Falls area, near the Georgetown Reservoir and upriver from the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.

John McCaslin, a nationally syndicated columnist, can be reached at 202/636-3284 or by e-mail:mccasl@twtmail.com.

-------

N.J. landfill suit deal reported

01/02/22
Infobeat
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406228083

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A settlement has been reached in a lawsuit involving more than 1,600 people who said they were exposed to poisons from a toxic waste dump that was once dubbed the nation's worst, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Thursday.

The settlement, which is still being finalized, would provide $2.5 million to $3 million to pay for the plaintiffs' medical monitoring. The money would be paid by about a dozen companies that dumped hazardous waste at the Lipari landfill in Mantua, N.J., near Philadelphia.

The settlement would not provide for treatment costs or preclude plaintiffs from individually suing the companies should any medical problems be detected.

``The goal of this was to get everybody monitored who was exposed and we have done that,'' Harris Pogust, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, told the newspaper.

Lawyers for the defendants did not return calls seeking comment, the newspaper said. But a spokesman for Rohm & Haas Inc., a defendant in the suit, said the chemical manufacturer was pleased that the class-action suit was close to being resolved.

The 16-acre landfill was a dumping site for hazardous chemicals, and drums were dumped in open trenches. The state closed Lipari in 1971 after residents complained about respiratory problems, nausea, dying vegetation and odors. It was so bad that when the federal Superfund program was created to clean up waste sites, Lipari was ranked No. 1 in eligibility for money.

Cleanup of the site, which is largely complete, has cost about $130 million, with the Environmental Protection Agency recouping most of the money from defendants in the class-action suit. Those companies include Owens-Illinois, CBS, AT&T Technologies and Firestone Tire & Rubber Co.

Through the years, several studies of the landfill's health effects have been conducted, but none has been conclusive.

-------- police

Court Asked to Keep Troopers' Charges

February 22, 2001
New York Times
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/nyregion/22TROO.html

TRENTON, Feb. 21 - The attorney general has asked the State Supreme Court to uphold a ruling that lets stand criminal charges from a shooting by state troopers on the New Jersey Turnpike in April 1998.

In October, a judge in State Superior Court temporarily halted New Jersey's case against the troopers, John Hogan and James Kenna, by dismissing charges related to the shooting. Judge Andrew Smithson of Superior Court said a politically motivated attorney general had tainted the grand jury.

On Jan. 5, however, an appeals court unanimously reversed that ruling and reinstated the charges. The Supreme Court has not indicated whether it will hear the case.

In court papers filed late Tuesday, the state asked the court not to consider an appeal filed by defense lawyers. The state argued that the appeals court was justified when it overturned Judge Smithson.

Trooper Kenna is charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault; Trooper Hogan is charged with aggravated assault. Prosecutors dropped an attempted murder charge against Trooper Hogan.

Four black and Hispanic men in a van on the turnpike were stopped by the police in April 1998. Three were shot and wounded when the van began to back up toward a trooper - accidentally, according to the driver. The troopers said they opened fire because they feared for their lives.

---

Delaware

01/02/22
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Wilmington - Officials are investigating a communication breakdown that led to the mayor and the police chief not being informed of a shooting until two days afterwards. About 25 gunshots were fired on Market Street Mall, injuring one person and damaging cars and businesses. Mayor Jim Baker says he learned of the shooting when a reporter called him for comment.

Washington

Federal Way - Police officer Roger Baldwin filed a $57,000 claim for duress related to his heavy holster. Baldwin, 29, hasn't worked since November, citing hip pain so debilitating he was unable to walk. The holster, along with the gear on his gunbelt, weighs more than 12 pounds. Baldwin asked Chief Anne Kirkpatrick for permission to wear a suspender-style gun harness. She said she's exploring options.

-------- spying

The Chicago Years: Time in Elite Police Unit Included Secretive Work

February 22, 2001
New York Times
By PAM BELLUCK
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/national/22CHIC.html

CHICAGO, Feb. 21 - In October 1972, when Robert Philip Hanssen started out in law enforcement with the Chicago Police Department, he started out at the top.

For a little over three years, Mr. Hanssen was an investigator for a special unit of the department set up to catch corrupt police officers.

The unit, known as C5, had about 30 investigators, many of them young, intelligent rookies fresh out of the police academy. Mr. Hanssen was one of those who went directly into C5 without walking a beat or riding in a patrol car.

The officers in the unit "were the cream of the crop," said James W. Reilley, a former prosecutor who worked with the unit but did not know Mr. Hanssen.

In addition to being smart, Mr. Reilley added, C5 officers had to be able to do things not everyone on the force was able to do. They had to be "able to do this kind of work without having a problem mentally going after another cop," he said. They seemed to be O.K. with that."

Mitchell Ware, now a judge in Cook County Circuit Court, was the deputy police superintendent in charge of the bureau of inspectional services when Mr. Hanssen was on the force. Mr. Ware, whose duties included supervising C5, said that sometimes the unit's members would pose as drug dealers to catch corrupt officers in sting operations. Other times, they would pose as uniformed officers in order to observe members of the force who were under suspicion. The unit was so secretive that sometimes its members would have phony assignments recorded in their personnel files.

Ernie Rizzo, a Chicago private investigator, met Mr. Hanssen in the early 1970's when the two attended an elite counterintelligence school in the city.

Mr. Rizzo, who was then a suburban police officer, said the storefront school was disguised as a television repair shop. Elite officers in Chicago went there to learn how to install, operate and buy high-tech surveillance equipment. He said he did not get to know Mr. Hanssen very well.

"You had F.B.I. agents, county coppers, city coppers and suburban coppers - all the top guys together and nobody said much," he said. "I met him and then saw him around. He was just like the other guys, really into doing their own thing."

Mr. Rizzo did say that "the Chicago cops must have spotted him as a sharp guy and sent him to the clandestine operation, because you had to know your stuff to be there. We're not talking about doughnut- eating cops, it was a real elite group of guys."

And he offered this assessment:

"If Hanssen did what they say he did, then he didn't do it for money. When you're into the superspy stuff, you just get into it so deeply and you get lost in it. It couldn't have been the money for him. It was the spy game."

Members of the unit had a tense relationship with their colleagues on the force. One current police official, who insisted on anonymity, said the C5 unit was hated by other police officers.

"C5 took kids right out of the academy and put them in the position of investigating cops," the official said. "The average police officer with 25 years on the force would take exception to that."

Mr. Hanssen came from a police family. His father, Howard, was a career Chicago police officer who did intelligence work for the department.

A police officer for nearly 30 years, the elder Mr. Hanssen was a lieutenant whose last assignment was investigating targets outside the police force, said a police spokesman, Pat Camden. He served in the external intelligence unit in the early 1970's, a time when police departments sometimes investigated political organizations. He retired in 1972, three months before his son signed on. In the Chicago neighborhood of Norwood Park, where Mr. Hanssen grew up, a few neighbors remembered his family as quiet and unremarkable. His parents moved to Florida after Howard Hanssen retired, and Robert moved in with his wife and young children for a few years. Howard Hanssen died in the early 1990's, a neighbor said. No one answered the telephone today at the Florida home of Robert's mother, Vivian.

"They were a real policeman's family," said Ruth Kremske, who lived next door to the Hanssens in Chicago. "I don't think they wanted everybody nosing around in their business."

June Nelson, 82, lived across the street from the Hanssens' two-story white house on Neva Avenue. She said that when Robert, who was called Bobby, was about 8 or 9, "I would have him walk my son to kindergarten on days that I couldn't do it." She added, "There really wasn't anybody else I would have trusted my son with.

---

Spy Handler Bedeviled U.S. in Earlier Case

February 22, 2001
New York Times
By JAMES RISEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/national/22HAND.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 - Viktor Cherkashin wears the Russian face of the cold war: A piercing stare, and the intimidating presence of a brilliant actor, which of course is a necessary tool of any successful spy. But it was his careful approach to clandestine operations that made him such a tough adversary to the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

As a colonel in the K.G.B., Mr. Cherkashin was instrumental in handling both Aldrich H. Ames, who spied for nine years from within the heart of the Central Intelligence Agency, and, federal law enforcement officials now say, Robert Philip Hanssen, who is accused of spying for more than 15 years from inside the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Mr. Cherkashin was chief of counterintelligence in the K.G.B.'s Washington station in 1985 when Mr. Ames and, according to the F.B.I., Mr. Hanssen also volunteered to spy for Moscow.

While questions still abound about the Hanssen case, it appears that Mr. Cherkashin was such a master of his espionage craft that he was able to help keep two moles running deep inside the United States government far longer than American counterintelligence experts would have believed possible.

Mr. Cherkashin's pivotal early role in the Hanssen case was disclosed for the first time on Tuesday in an F.B.I. affidavit that provided a detailed history of the F.B.I.'s charges of Mr. Hanssen's alleged dealings with the K.G.B.

Mr. Cherkashin, like many of his generation, left government service in obscurity in the early 1990's in the wake of the Soviet Union's collapse, burdened by personal wounds and career resentments that have been slow to heal.

Yet among a few specialists in the United States and Russia, Mr. Cherkashin is now gaining new recognition and respect for his remarkable professional achievements that have only come to light years after he retired. In fact, a decade after the cold war, it is now clear that Viktor Ivanovich Cherkashin was the unheralded superstar of international espionage. .

The United States government alleges that on Oct. 1, 1985, Mr. Hanssen mailed a letter to a K.G.B. officer serving in Washington named Viktor M. Degtyar. Inside was an inner envelope, marked: "Do not open. Take this envelope unopened to Victor I. Cherkashin." Inside that inner envelope was a letter to Mr. Cherkashin, written anonymously by Mr. Hanssen, according to the affidavit, proposing to send a box of classified documents to the K.G.B. through Mr. Degtyar in return for $100,000.

According to the F.B.I., Mr. Hanssen, a longtime counterintelligence expert, had clearly done his homework before deciding to approach Mr. Cherkashin. Mr. Hanssen, identifying himself only as "B," later told Mr. Degtyar and Mr. Cherkashin that he "would not have contacted you if it were not reported that you were held in esteem within your organization," according to the F.B.I. affidavit.

Mr. Cherkashin has never talked about the Hanssen operation. But in interviews in the past, he has discussed in detail his involvement in the Ames case, as well as the poisonous internal politics of the K.G.B.

When Mr. Ames walked in the front door of the Soviet embassy in April 1985, offering his services as a spy, Mr. Cherkashin quickly recognized his enormous potential, and was determined to protect his new agent. Mr. Cherkashin's caution was heightened by the fact that the information Mr. Ames was handing over revealed that the K.G.B. was thoroughly riddled with moles reporting to the C.I.A. and F.B.I.

So instead of notifying headquarters about Mr. Ames through regular channels, Mr. Cherkashin took the precaution of flying back to Moscow himself to tell K.G.B. foreign intelligence chief Vladimir Kryuchkov about their new C.I.A. agent, Mr. Cherkashin said.

In addition to Mr. Kryuchkov - who later became a key figure in the 1991 coup attempt against Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev - knowledge of the Ames case was tightly restricted within the K.G.B.'s First Chief Directorate, its foreign intelligence arm.

Mr. Cherkashin's prudence protected Mr. Ames when, in August 1985, a K.G.B. officer, Vitaliy Yurchenko, defected to the United States. Mr. Yurchenko was in counterintelligence in the First Chief Directorate, but because knowledge of the Ames case was so tightly restricted within the K.G.B., he was unable to warn the C.I.A. about Moscow's new agent. Indeed, in one of the great ironies of the cold war, Mr. Ames served as one of Mr. Yurchenko's C.I.A. debriefers, even as Mr. Ames was working for the K.G.B.

Former United States intelligence officials have said that they knew that Mr. Cherkashin had suddenly returned to Moscow in spring 1985, but at the time they were unable to determine why he had done so.

The new accusation that Mr. Hanssen volunteered in October 1985 changes the historical record of that year, known within the intelligence world as the "year of the spy" because of the large number of espionage cases that broke.

The Hanssen case may shed new light on Mr. Cherkashin's behavior during that year. Notably, in November 1985, Mr. Cherkashin helped work out an ingenious scheme to trick one of the F.B.I.'s moles in the K.G.B. to return to Moscow. Mr. Yurchenko, unhappy with his lot as a defector, suddenly redefected back to the Soviet Union in early November. Mr. Cherkashin has said in a previous interview that Mr. Yurchenko's redefection presented an opportunity to lure Valeriy Martynov, a K.G.B. officer in the Washington station working for the F.B.I., back to the Soviet Union: The K.G.B. arranged for Mr. Martynov to serve as a member of an honor guard escorting Mr. Yurchenko back to Moscow.

When they arrived back in the Soviet Union, it was Mr. Martynov who was arrested; Mr. Yurchenko was given a job at the K.G.B. again.

Until this week, it had appeared that Mr. Cherkashin and the K.G.B. had moved against Mr. Martynov solely because of Mr. Ames. Now, the United States government says that Mr. Cherkashin had two sources before he targeted Mr. Martynov. Mr. Hanssen volunteered to spy for the Soviets while Mr. Yurchenko was still in the United States, and corroborated information the K.G.B. had received from Mr. Ames about Mr. Martynov.

In his first letter to Mr. Cherkashin in October, Mr. Hanssen betrayed the identities of Mr. Martynov and two other K.G.B. officers working for the F.B.I., according to the affidavit. Mr. Hanssen, just as cautious as Mr. Cherkashin, wanted the K.G.B. to know about its moles in order to protect himself from being discovered by the F.B.I.

"I must warn of certain risks to my security of which you may not be aware," Mr. Hanssen wrote in his first letter to Mr. Cherkashin, according to the F.B.I. affidavit. "Your service has suffered some setbacks. I warn that Mr. Boris Yuzhin (Line PR, SF) Mr. Sergey Motorin, (Line PR, Wash.) and Mr. Valeriy Martynov (Line X, Wash.) have been recruited by our "special services."

Mr. Martynov and Mr. Motorin were later executed. Mr. Yuzhin was imprisoned and later resettled in the United States. But because Mr. Hanssen and Mr. Cherkashin were careful, the F.B.I. says, American spy watchers had only a few clues that Mr. Cherkashin was running an important new agent.

On Oct. 16, 1985, F.B.I. surveillance personnel noted that Mr. Degtyar had arrived at the Soviet Embassy in Washington carrying a large black canvas bag that he did not normally carry. But the F.B.I. did not know what to make of that fact until more than 15 years later, when the agency discovered that Mr. Degtyar had received a large package of classified material at his home from Mr. Hanssen the night before.

To ensure his security, Mr. Hanssen never met with Mr. Cherkashin or any other K.G.B. officers, and did not tell the K.G.B. his name or where he worked in the United States government, federal officials said. Still, he fretted that Mr. Cherkashin might be too prominent in Washington's intelligence world, and might be attracting too much attention.

In June, 1986, Mr. Hanssen allegedly wrote to Mr. Degtyar apologizing for briefly breaking contact, but explained that he had done so to determine if he had a security problem. The F.B.I. appeared increasingly interested in Mr. Cherkashin, he warned. A new K.G.B. defector, Victor Gundarev, had been questioned by the F.B.I. about whether he knew Mr. Cherkashin, Mr. Hanssen allegedly told the K.G.B.

Mr. Hanssen, according to the F.B.I., was worried that the agency now believed that Mr. Cherkashin was running an important agent.

"I thought this (questioning of Mr. Gundarev) unusual," Mr. Hanssen wrote to Mr. Degtyar, according to the affidavit. "I had seen no report indicating that Viktor Cherkashin was handling an important agent, and here-to-for he was looked at with the usual lethargy awarded line chiefs. The question comes to mind, are they somehow able to monitor funds, i.e., to know that Viktor Cherkashin received a large amount of money for an agent? I am unaware of any such ability, but I might not know that type of source reporting."

It is unclear whether Mr. Cherkashin took the same precautions with this second case that he did with Mr. Ames - traveling to Moscow without sending cables back to headquarters about yet another sensitive new case.

Mr. Cherkashin was awarded the Order of Lenin for his work in Washington, and returned to Moscow in 1987, proud of his accomplishments.

Yet he soon began to face bitter disappointments within the K.G.B.

He complains that after his return, he was never promoted to K.G.B. general, and blames Mr. Kryuchkov and petty internal K.G.B. politics for stalling his career.

Today, Mr. Cherkashin, now in his late 60's or early 70's, still lives in Moscow, but it is uncertain how he has responded to the F.B.I.'s charge that it has discovered his second great mole.

In interviews in Moscow in 1997 with this reporter for The Los Angeles Times, which published an article about him, Mr. Cherkashin discussed his involvement in the Ames case but never disclosed the existence of another major spy operation. But he did suggest that Mr. Ames may not have been responsible for everything that the F.B.I. and C.I.A. had alleged.

"I think Ames' damage has been exaggerated a bit in the West," Mr. Cherkashin said. "Maybe because of Ames himself. I think he may have exaggerated in his confessions to the F.B.I., maybe he told them he did everything, even things he never did."

---

No Polygraph for Spy Suspect

February 22, 2001
New York Times
By DAVID JOHNSTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/national/22SPY.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 - Robert Philip Hanssen was never polygraphed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation to determine whether he might be a security risk during the 15 years when, it is charged, he spied for the Soviet Union and then Russia, law enforcement officials said today.

Mr. Hanssen, who worked at the heart of the bureau's most secret counterespionage operations, was not under suspicion until late last year, when American intelligence obtained what officials have said was the entire Russian case file on his activities as a secret agent.

The officials said that the failure to polygraph Mr. Hanssen, disclosed after an F.B.I. review, would revive long-debated proposals at the agency to require much wider use of polygraphs to screen counterintelligence agents like Mr. Hanssen.

The bureau's director, Louis J. Freeh, never acted on these proposals, even though he adopted other measures to strengthen the agency's counterespionage efforts.

Currently, all prospective agents are polygraphed before they are hired, but veteran agents are not subject to such tests unless they are suspected of wrongdoing or are assigned to counterintelligence projects deemed by superiors to require such an examination.

For years, F.B.I. counterintelligence officials have urged wider use of polygraphs.

But top senior managers have refused, in part because of the opposition of criminal investigators who said the examinations would turn up damaging but peripheral personal information that might ruin an agent's career.

The officials said that other changes are expected, like stricter controls on the use of the bureau's databanks.

Investigators said they had determined that Mr. Hanssen had repeatedly entered his name into the agency's classified computer files to determine whether he was under suspicion.

Today, William H. Webster, the former F.B.I. and C.I.A. director, said in an interview that he was assembling a team to assess the bureau's security procedures and methods for detecting penetrations by foreign agents.

Mr. Webster said he would focus on the F.B.I.'s polygraph policy and other counterespionage methods.

He said that the C.I.A. had long accepted wide use of polygraphs in counterintelligence screening.

"I would ask the question, What level of privacy are you willing to forgo to carry the substantial trust the country has placed in you?" Mr. Webster said.

Mr. Hanssen was arrested on Sunday evening at a park in suburban Virginia where he was dropping off a package of classified documents, officials said.

Nearby was a second site where agents recovered $50,000 in cash that they said was intended for Mr. Hanssen.

F.B.I. officials had expected criticism in Congress over the spy case, and today the Senate intelligence committee scheduled a closed hearing on the case, the committee's senior Democrat, Senator Bob Graham of Florida, said.

Today, one day after Mr. Hanssen was accused of espionage in federal court in Alexandria, Va., a prevailing mood of shock rippled through the agency's ranks.

Agents expressed bewilderment and outrage over the actions of which Mr. Hanssen is accused.

A well-known colleague to many, Mr. Hanssen is said to have compromised, with seeming cold-blooded calculation, what law enforcement officials have described as a virtual library of counterespionage secrets.

Asked how he felt about the case, one counterintelligence agent replied, "Miserable."

F.B.I. agents interviewed employees at the State Department who had worked with Mr. Hanssen from 1995 to 2000, when he was the F.B.I.'s liaison to that department.

Other agents, shifting from a covert investigative mode to an open inquiry, began an examination of Mr. Hanssen's work history, personal life and finances, hoping to determine what he might have done with $600,000 in cash and diamonds that he was said to have received from the Russians.

His Russian handlers told Mr. Hanssen they had deposited another $800,000 in a bank account they had opened for him in Moscow, officials said.

Today, agents scoured Mr. Hanssen's home in Vienna, Va., emptied the family shed and even raked through leaves and debris in the yard, according to the Associated Press.

Agents carried out family belongings from the shed - bicycles, a fertilizer spreader, a plastic-foam pool toy marked Hanssen.

The agents raked under the shed and around it, and turned up a matchbook and a shotgun shell.

According to the complaint the authorities have filed against him, Mr. Hanssen revealed to Moscow the identities of three Russian agents who had been recruited to spy for the United States.

Two of the Russians were subsequently tried and executed; the third was imprisoned and later released.

Mr. Webster said his review would not be a disciplinary inquiry aimed at punishing F.B.I. officials for managerial lapses, but would focus on procedural changes.

He said he would try to complete the review in a few months.

"I want to see if there are some suggestions to strengthen their ability to head this off and identify it more quickly and prevent it if possible," Mr. Webster said.

He said his review of the Hanssen case so far had suggested a meticulous spy.

"I'm impressed at the care he took," Mr. Webster added.

He said that Mr. Hanssen's extensive knowledge of counterintelligence methods helped him avoid conduct that might have put him under suspicion, including actions like unexplained foreign travel, spending or absences from work.

---

The New York Years:
Spy Chasers Feel Betrayed by One-Time Top Gun

February 22, 2001
New York Times
By BENJAMIN WEISER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/national/22YORK.html

When Robert Philip Hanssen went to work as a squad supervisor in F.B.I. counterintelligence in New York in 1985, the hundreds of agents in his division were consumed by what they saw as an all-out war against hostile targets, primarily the Soviet Union.

He was at ground zero.

Mr. Hanssen led an elite squad of 15 to 20 agents who worked out of an office in Midtown Manhattan and focused much of their attention on the official Soviet trade organization, Amtorg.

That organization gave Moscow a commercial foothold in New York and also cover for its spying activities, former agents and others say.

Now, with the shock waves of potentially the largest espionage case in F.B.I. history being felt in Washington and around the world, there is a particular feeling of astonishment and betrayal within the F.B.I. community in New York, a city where Mr. Hanssen twice worked, from 1979 to 1981 and then again from 1985 to 1987.

"I was absolutely shocked," said James K. Kallstrom, who directed the F.B.I.'s New York office in the mid-1990's and knew Mr. Hanssen a decade earlier when Mr. Kallstrom's special operations division supported the counterintelligence squads.

If the charges against Mr. Hanssen are true, Mr. Kallstrom said, "the notion that he'd sell out his country as a citizen, as an F.B.I. agent and as a fighter in the cold war - knowing what he knew, and the circumstances of what he was doing - is unbelievable.

"He was a lieutenant in that war," Mr. Kallstrom said, "and the war was being fought in the streets of New York."

The war was being fought in New York for obvious reasons, starting with the presence of the United Nations, where the Soviet Union had a large mission along with its trade office and other activities.

But New York was also the espionage battleground because it was, for the Soviets in particular, so different from Washington.

"New York was special," said one former American intelligence officer, "because they could freelance there, whereas in Washington they were highly circumscribed. In New York you can play go-hide."

As a squad supervisor in the counterintelligence division, Mr. Hanssen led one of more than two dozen such squads. About a third of them focused on Soviet activities in New York.

In the late 1970's and mid-1980's, former agents say, the F.B.I.'s counterintelligence division was responsible for a number of significant cases in which Soviet spies were expelled from the United States or began to cooperate with the United States government.

Mr. Hanssen was in the middle of it all, his former colleagues say, but they say he also volunteered to work in other programs, ones that were beyond his squad's immediate responsibilities.

At one point, he helped to develop a computer program to track the movements of suspected Soviet spies.

Mr. Hanssen was also seen as somber and aloof at times, and that kept him somewhat isolated from his New York colleagues.

"If you were to put him on `Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,' if you wanted to enter him in a trivia contest, if you wanted to test his I.Q.," a former colleague said, "he would get high marks. But dealing with people, he wasn't there."

When Mr. Hanssen began his two- year tenure as a counterintelligence supervisor in 1985, the Amtorg trading enterprise, which employed 40 to 50 people, was seen as a significant espionage target.

James M. Fox, then head of the Soviet counterintelligence division in the New York office, said in an interview in 1985, "The Soviets use a subtle approach on American businesses. Amtorg can run a credit check on a business, learn its financial health. If a company is in trouble they can get them contracts, gain financial leverage. They can do so much legally."

Under the cloak of legitimate business activities, Amtorg officials visited American companies and military bases. In New York, Mr. Hanssen's squad of agents did, as one former agent put it, "everything from surveillance in cars to technically and analytically trying to identify movements: Why is this guy here? He's off and gone during the day. What does that mean?"

Mr. Hanssen's arrest was the hot topic yesterday among many current and former New York agents. One retired official said an agent told him, "It was tough going home to my kids."

Barry W. Mawn, the current director of the New York F.B.I. office, said, "They are obviously angered by this guy's alleged treason and espionage, and he obviously hurt and potentially compromised an awful lot of good work."

Some of that work produced evidence that pointed in the direction of Mr. Hanssen, one former colleague said, adding, "New York had a number of successful cases that we found out later had gone bad, and you don't know why."

---

The Prosecution Case:
Zigs and Zags of Spy Cases Put a Damper on Predicting

February 22, 2001
New York Times
By NEIL A. LEWIS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/national/22LEGA.html

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 - The espionage case against Robert Philip Hanssen as outlined in a 100-page document from the F.B.I. looks as strong as can be, with investigators possessing computer disks, bundles of cash, a fingerprint and other incriminating evidence.

But lawyers and others familiar with espionage prosecutions know that even the best cases can take legal twists and turns. The criminal complaint is also the beginning of a process in which Mr. Hanssen and the government will have to deal with many questions, the most important of which may be whether he will, in exchange for avoiding a death sentence, agree to tell intelligence officers what secrets he may have handed over to Moscow.

Attorney General John Ashcroft would have to decide whether to seek the death penalty before any trial begins if the local prosecutor recommends it. With the law recently changed to allow federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty, it is widely assumed that the issue would figure in any bargaining talks.

Mr. Ashcroft, like President Bush, has a history of support for the death penalty and the administration could even choose not to bargain with Mr. Hanssen, hoping to try to have him executed in a federal penitentiary. But former intelligence officials and prosecutors said there might be an overwhelming need to get Mr. Hanssen to cooperate.

Mark Hulkower, a Washington lawyer who in 1994 prosecuted Aldrich H. Ames, a C.I.A. officer who spied for the Russians for nine years, said the death penalty would probably be a major bargaining chip.

"The prosecutors have to figure out a way to get him to deal if they want his cooperation," Mr. Hulkower said, "and they're not going to be willing to give away a lot."

Louis J. Freeh, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has named William H. Webster, a former head of the bureau and former director of central intelligence, to lead an effort to assess the damage Mr. Hanssen may have wrought. But Mr. Hulkower said the effort might not succeed without Mr. Hanssen's cooperation.

"Given the broad access this guy had and considering his history of spying goes back 15 years, it's hard to see how the damage assessment could be reliable without some cooperation from Hanssen," Mr. Hulkower said.

Mr. Ames agreed to be fully debriefed by the F.B.I. and C.I.A. as part of an arrangement in which his wife, who helped him in his spying, received a lighter sentence. Mr. Hanssen is depicted as a lone actor and no evidence has been presented that his wife or anyone else helped him.

Still, he might want to spare his wife and six children the spectacle of a trial and the possibility of his being put to death. The espionage act under which Mr. Hanssen is charged provides for the death penalty in a variety of circumstances, including one in which the defendant is found guilty of disclosing the identities of agents who die as a result.

The affidavit charges that Mr. Hanssen told his handlers about three Soviet officials who were double agents for the United States; two were subsequently recalled to Moscow and executed.

In the documents disclosed on Tuesday, Mr. Hanssen is reported to have pointedly reminded his Russian handlers that he could be executed for what he was doing for them.

Plato Cacheris, who represented Mr. Ames and is now Mr. Hanssen's lawyer, told reporters on Tuesday that the government always made it sound as if its case was solid but that it remained to be seen in this instance.

Mr. Cacheris, a highly experienced lawyer, may ask that his side be given classified information necessary to mount a defense.

Under a law known as the Classified Information Procedures Act, defense lawyers are allowed to try to convince a judge that a defendant must divulge secrets to obtain a fair trial. The act was intended to allow trials to proceed when secret information is involved and to counter the technique known as "graymail," in which lawyers assert that in order to mount a complete defense they must use documents with a confidentiality so vital that the government would rather drop the charges than give up the papers.

Under the law, judges may rule that the information is not necessary, and that has been an increasing trend. In the case of Mr. Hanssen, intelligence officials are also highly likely to be as flexible as possible in divulging information to have Mr. Hanssen convicted.

---

Excerpts From the F.B.I. Affidavit in the Case Against Robert Hanssen

February 22, 2001
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/national/22HTEX.html?pagewanted=all

Following are edited excerpts from an F.B.I. affidavit in support of the criminal complaint, arrest warrant and search warrants filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, in the spying case against Robert Philip Hanssen:

OCT. 4, 1985

A K.G.B. political officer in Washington, Viktor M. Degtyar, received an envelope by mail, at his residence in Alexandria, Va. Inside was an envelope marked: "Do not open. Take this envelope unopened to Viktor I. Cherkashin." Mr. Cherkashin was the foreign counterintelligence chief at the Soviet Embassy in Washington. Inside the inner envelope was an unsigned typed letter from the person the K.G.B. came to call B.

Dear Mr. Cherkashin:

Soon, I will send a box of documents to Mr. Degtyar. They are from certain of the most sensitive and highly compartmented projects of the U.S. intelligence community. All are originals to aid in verifying their authenticity. Please recognize for our long- term interests that there are a limited number of persons with this array of clearances. As a collection, they point to me. I trust that an officer of your experience will handle them appropriately. I believe they are sufficient to justify a $100,000 payment to me.

I must warn of certain risks to my security of which you may not be aware. Your service has recently suffered some setbacks. I warn that Mr. Boris Yuzhin, Mr. Sergei Motorin and Mr. Valery Martinov have been recruited by our "special services."

B proceeded to describe in detail a particular highly sensitive and classified information collection technique. In addition, "to further support my bona fides," he provided specific closely held items of information regarding recent Soviet defectors.

Details regarding payment and future contact will be sent to you personally. . . . My identity and actual position in the community must be left unstated to ensure my security. I am open to commo suggestions but want no specialized tradecraft. I will add 6 (you subtract 6) from stated months, days and times in both directions of our future communications.

OCT. 24, 1985

Mr. Degtyar received by mail at his residence a typed message from B in an envelope bearing a handwritten address and postmarked New York, N.Y.

Drop Location

Please leave your package for me under the corner (nearest the street) of the wooden footbridge located just west of the entrance to Nottoway Park. (ADC Northern Virginia Street Map, #14, D3)

Package Preparation

Use a green or brown plastic trash bag and trash to cover a waterproofed package.

Signal Location

Signal site will be the pictorial "pedestrian-crossing" signpost just west of the main Nottoway Park entrance on Old Courthouse Road. (The sign is the one nearest the bridge just mentioned.)

Signals

My signal to you: One vertical mark of white adhesive tape meaning I am ready to receive your package.

Your signal to me: One horizontal mark of white adhesive tape meaning drop filled.

My signal to you: One vertical mark of white adhesive tape meaning I have received your package.

The message established a date and times for the signals and drops, and concluded, "I will acknowledge amount with my next package."

The K.G.B. designated this dead drop site by the code name "Park." It is located in Fairfax County, Va. On Saturday, Nov. 2, 1985, the K.G.B. loaded the Park site with $50,000 in cash and a message proposing procedures for future contacts.

NOV. 8, 1985

Mr. Degtyar and Mr. Cherkashin received a typed letter from B that read in part:

Thank you for the 50,000.

I also appreciate your courage and perseverance in the face of generically reported bureaucratic obstacles. I would not have contacted you if it were not reported that you were held in esteem within your organization, an organization I have studied for years.

I did expect some communication plan in your response.

I viewed the postal delivery as a necessary risk and do not wish to trust again that channel with valuable material. I did this only because I had to so you would take my offer seriously, that there be no misunderstanding as to my long-term value, and to obtain appropriate security for our relationship from the start.

Referring to Mr. Yuzhin, Mr. Motorin and Mr. Martinov, whom he had identified in his first letter as United States intelligence recruitments, B wrote:

I cannot provide documentary substantiating evidence without arousing suspicion at this time. In conclusion, B warned of a "new technique" used by the National Security Agency, which he described.

JUNE 30, 1986

Mr. Degtyar received a typed letter from B at his residence that read in part:

I apologize for the delay since our break in communications. I wanted to determine if there was any cause for concern over security. I have only seen one item which has given me pause. When the F.B.I. was first given access to Viktor Petrovich Gundarev, they asked . . . if Gundarev knew Viktor Cherkashin. I thought this unusual. I had seen no report indicating that Viktor Cherkashin was handling an important agent, and heretofore he was looked at with the usual lethargy awarded Line Chiefs. The question came to mind, are they somehow able to monitor funds, i.e., to know that Viktor Cherkashin received a large amount of money for an agent? I am unaware of any such ability, but I might not know that type of source reporting.

B then described a United States Intelligence Community technical surveillance technique. He concluded:

If you wish to continue our discussions, please have someone run an advertisement in The Washington Times during the week of 1/12/87 or 1/19/87, for sale, "Dodge Diplomat, 1971, needs engine work, $1,000." Give a phone number and time of day in the advertisement where I can call. I will call and leave a phone number where a recorded message can be left for me in one hour. I will say: "Hello, my name is Ramon. I am calling about the car you offered for sale in The Times." You will respond: "I'm sorry, but the man with the car is not here. Can I get your number." The number will be in area code 212. I will not specify that area code on the line.

B signed the letter "Ramon."

This advertisement appeared in The Washington Times from July 14 to 18, 1986:

Dodge '71, Diplomat, needs engine work, $1,000. Phone . . . (Call next Mon., Wed., Fri. 1 p.m.)

The number belonged to a public telephone located in the vicinity of the Old Keene Mill Shopping Center in Fairfax County, Va. On Monday, July 21, 1986, B called that number and gave a Manhattan number. The call was taken by Aleksandr Kirillovich Fefelov, a K.G.B. officer assigned to the Soviet Embassy.

AUG. 18, 1986

B telephoned and spoke with Mr. Fefelov. The latter portion of the conversation was recorded as follows:

B Tomorrow morning?

MR. FEFELOV Uh, yeah, and the car is still available for you and as we have agreed last time, I prepared all the papers and I left them on the same table. You didn't find them because I put them in another corner of the table.

B I see.

MR. FEFELOV You shouldn't worry, everything is O.K. The papers are with me now.

B Good.

MR. FEFELOV I believe under these circumstances, it's not necessary to make any changes concerning the place and the time. Our company is reliable, and we are ready to give you a substantial discount, which will be enclosed in the papers. Now, about the date of our meeting. I suggest that our meeting will be, will take place without delay on Feb. 13, one three, 1 p.m. O.K.? February 13th.

B [unintelligible] Feb. 2?

MR. FEFELOV Thirteenth. One three.

B One three.

MR. FEFELOV Yes. Thirteenth - 1 p.m.

B Let me see if I can do that. Hold on.

MR. FEFELOV O.K. Yeah.

[pause] B [unintelligible whispering]

MR. FEFELOV Hello? O.K.

[pause]

B [whispering] Six . . . six . . .

[pause]

That should be fine.

MR. FEFELOV O.K. We will confirm you, that the papers are waiting for you with the same horizontal tape in the same place as we did it at the first time.

B Very good.

MR. FEFELOV You see. After you receive the papers, you will send the letter confirming it and signing it, as usual. O.K.?

B Excellent.

MR. FEFELOV I hope you remember the address. Is . . . if everything is O.K.?

B I believe it should be fine and thank you very much.

MR. FEFELOV Heh-heh. Not at all. Not at all. Nice job. For both of us. Uh, have a nice evening, sir.

B Do svidaniya.

MR. FEFELOV Bye-bye.

The K.G.B. then loaded the Park dead drop site with $10,000 in cash, as well as proposals for two additional dead drop sites to be used by B and the K.G.B.; a new accommodation address code-named Nancy; and emergency communications plans for B personally to contact K.G.B. personnel in Vienna, Austria. The Nancy address was the residence of K.G.B. political officer Boris M. Malakhov in Alexandria, who was to become Mr. Degtyar's replacement as the Soviet Embassy press secretary. B was instructed to misspell Mr. Malakhov's name as "Malkow." B subsequently cleared the dead drop.

SEPT. 11, 1987

Mr. Malakhov received an envelope at his residence addressed to B. N. Malkow at the Nancy address, and a handwritten return address of "R. Garcia, 125 Main St., Alexandria, Va.," postmarked Sept. 8, 1987. Inside was the following typed letter:

Dear Friends:

No, I have decided. It must be on my original terms or not at all. I will not meet abroad or here. I will not maintain lists of sites or modified equipment. I will help you when I can, and in time we will develop methods of efficient communication.

Unless a [sic] see an abort signal on our post from you by 3/16, I will mail my contact a valuable package timed to arrive on 3/18.

I will await your signal and package to be in place before 1 p.m. on 3/22 or alternately the following three weeks, same day and time.

If my terms are unacceptable then place no signals and withdraw my contact. Excellent work by him has ensured this channel is secure for now. My regards to him and to the professional way you have handled this matter.

Sincerely,

Ramon

According to the established "6" coefficient, the dates referred to in this letter were actually Sept. 10, 12 and 16.

SEPT. 26, 1987

The K.G.B. recovered from the Park dead drop site a package from B. The package contained a handwritten letter reading as follows:

My Friends:

Thank you for the $10,000.

I am not a young man, and the commitments on my time prevent using distant drops such as you suggest. I know in this I am moving you out of your set modes of doing business, but my experience tells me the [sic] we can be actually more secure in easier modes.

NOV. 19, 1987

The K.G.B. received a handwritten letter from B. The envelope bore a return address of "G. Robertson" in "Houston" and was postmarked on Nov. 17, 1987. The letter read as follows:

Unable to locate AN based on your description at night.

Recognize that I am dressed in business suit and cannot slog around in inch-deep mud. I suggest we use once again original site. I will place my urgent material there at next AN times. Replace it with your package. I will select some few sites good for me and pass them to you. Please give new constant conditions of recontact as address to write. Will not put substantive material through it. Only instructions as usual format.

Ramon

JULY 15, 1988

The K.G.B. received a letter from B at an accommodation address in the Eastern District of Virginia. The envelope bore a return address "Chicago" and was postmarked "WDC 200" on July 13, 1988. The typed letter read as follows:

I found the site empty. Possibly I had the time wrong. I work from memory. My recollection was for you to fill before 1 a.m. I believe Viktor Degtyar was in the church driveway off Rt. 123, but I did not know how he would react to an approach. . . .

My security concerns may seem excessive. I believe experience has shown them to be necessary. I am much safer if you know little about me. Neither of us are children about these things. Over time, I can cut your losses rather than become one.

Ramon
P.S. Your "thank you" was deeply appreciated.

MAY 7, 1990

B and the K.G.B. carried out an exchange operation at a dead drop site in Virginia. The package from B to the K.G.B. contained his 19th diskette and approximately 232 pages of material. The package from the K.G.B. to B contained $35,000 cash and a K.G.B. diskette. It read, in part:

Dear Friend:

We attach some information requests which we ask your kind assistance for. We are very cautious about using your info and materials so that none of our actions in no way causes [sic] no harm to your security. With this on our mind we are asking that sensitive materials and information (especially hot and demanding some actions) be accompanied by some sort of your comments or some guidance on how we may or may not use it with regard to your security.

We wish you good luck and enclose $35,000.

Thank you.
Sincerely,
Your friends.

APRIL 15, 1991

In response to a call-out signal from B, he and the K.G.B. carried out an exchange operation at a dead drop site code named Doris in Canterbury Park in Springfield, Va.

The package from B to the K.G.B. contained his 22nd diskette, in which he confirmed receipt of cash. B also provided classified F.B.I. material about a specific recruitment operation about which the K.G.B. had asked. The package from the K.G.B. to B contained $10,000 and a K.G.B. diskette which read, in part:

Dear Friend:

Time is flying. As a poet said:

What's our life,
If full of care
You have no time
To stop and stare?

You've managed to slow down the speed of your running life to send us a message. And we appreciate it. . . .

Enclosed in our today's package please find $10,000.

Thank you for your friendship and help.

We attach some information requests. We hope you'll be able to assist us on them.

Take care and good luck.
Sincerely,
Your friends.

JULY 15, 1991

After a call-out signal from B, he and the K.G.B. carried out an exchange operation at the Ellis dead drop site at Foxstone Park near Vienna, Va.

The package from B to the K.G.B. contained his 23rd diskette and approximately 284 pages of material. The diskette read, in part: "I returned, grabbed the first thing I could lay my hands on," and "I was in a hurry so that you would not worry, because June has passed, they held me there longer." He also noted that he had at least five years until retirement, and remarked, "Maybe I will hang in there for that long."

The package from the K.G.B. to B contained $12,000 cash and a K.G.B. diskette reading, in part:

Dear friend:

Acknowledging the disk and materials . . . received through "Doris" we also acknowledge again your superb sense of humor and your sharp-as-a-razor mind. We highly appreciate both.

Don't worry. We will not steam out incorrect conclusions from your materials. Actually, your information greatly assisted us in seeing more clearly many issues and we are not ashamed to correct our notions if we have some. So, thank you for your help. But if some of our requests seem a bit strange to you, please try to believe us there were sufficient reasons to put them and that what we wanted was to sort them out with your help.

In regard to our "memo" on your security. Just one more remark. If our natural wish to capitalize on your information confronts in any way your security interests we definitely cut down our thirst for profit and choose your security. The same goes with any other aspect of your case. That's why we say your security goes first. . . .

Sincerely,
Your friends.
Enclosed in the package please find $12,000.

OCT. 6, 1999

B received the following letter from the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service:

Dear friend: welcome!

It's good to know you are here. Acknowledging your letter to V. K. we express our sincere joy on the occasion of resumption of contact with you. We firmly guarantee you for a necessary financial help. Note, please, that since our last contact a sum set aside for you has risen and presents now about 800,000 dollars.

This time you will find in a package $50,000.

Now it is up to you to give a secure explanation of it.

As to communication plan, we may have need of some time to work out a secure and reliable one. This why we suggest to carry on the 13th of November at the same drop which you have proposed in your letter to V. K. We shall be ready to retrieve your package from DD since 20:00 to 21:00 hours on the 12th of November after we would read you [sic] signal (a vertical mark of white adhesive tape of 6-8 cm length) on the post closest to Wolftrap Creek of the Foxstone Park sign. We shall fill our package in and make up our signal (a horizontal mark of white adhesive tape).

After you will clear the drop don't forget to remove our tape that will mean for us - exchange is over.

We propose a new place where you can put a signal for us when in need of an urgent DD operation.

Location: the closest to Whitehaven Parkway wooden electricity utility pole at the southwest corner of T-shaped intersection of Foxhall Road and Whitehaven Parkway. . . .

In case of a threatening situation of any kind put a yellow tack at the same place. This will mean that we shall refrain from any communication with you until further notice from your side (the white tack). . . .

Thank you. Good luck to you. Sincerely, Your friends.

The initials "V.K." are those of a known Russian Foreign Intelligence Service foreign counterintelligence senior officer in Washington, D.C.

MARCH 14, 2000

B wrote a letter to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, reading, in part:

I have come about as close as I ever want to come to sacrificing myself to help you, and I get silence.

I hate silence. . . .

Conclusion: One might propose that I am either insanely brave or quite insane. I'd answer neither. I'd say, insanely loyal. Take your pick. There is insanity in all the answers.

I have, however, come as close to the edge as I can without being truly insane. My security concerns have proven reality- based. I'd say, pin your hopes on "insanely loyal" and go for it. Only I can lose.

I decided on this course when I was 14 years old. I'd read Philby's book. Now that is insane, eh! My only hesitations were my security concerns under uncertainty. I hate uncertainty. So far I have judged the edge correctly. Give me credit for that.

Set the signal at my site any Tuesday evening. I will read your answer. Please, at least say goodbye. It's been a long time my dear friends, a long and lonely time.

Ramon Garcia

JUNE 8, 2000

B wrote a letter to the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service which read, in part:

Dear Friends:

Administrative Issues:

Enclosed, once again, is my rudimentary cipher.

Obviously it is weak in the manner I used it last - reusing key on multiple messages, but I wanted to give you a chance if you had lost the algorithm.

Thank you for your note. It brought me great joy to see the signal at last. As you implied and I have said, we do need a better form of secure communication - faster. In this vein, I propose (without being attached to it) the following:

One of the commercial products currently available is the Palm VII organizer. I have a Palm III, which is actually a fairly capable computer. The VII version comes with wireless Internet capability built in. . . .

The U.S. can be errantly likened to a powerfully built but retarded child, potentially dangerous, but young, immature and easily manipulated. But don't be fooled by that appearance. It is also one which can turn ingenious quickly, like an idiot savant, once convinced of a goal. The [ ] Japanese (to quote General Patton once again) learned this to their dismay. . . .

On Swiss money laundering, you and I both know it is possible but not simple. And we do both know that money is not really `put away for you' except in some vague accounting sense. Never patronize at this level.

It offends me, but then you are easily forgiven. But perhaps I shouldn't tease you. It just gets me in trouble.

Thank you again,

Ramon

JULY 31, 2000

B received the following letter from the K.G.B./Russian Foreign Intelligence Service:

Dear Ramon:

We are glad to use this possibility to thank you for your striving for going on contact with us.

We received your message. The truth is that we expended a lot of efforts to decipher it.

First of all we would like to emphasize that all well known events which had taken place in this country and in our homeland had not affected our resources and we reaffirm our strong intentions to maintain and ensure safely our long-term cooperation with you. . . .

We thank you for information, which is of a great interest for us and highly evaluated in our service.

We hope that during future exchanges we shall receive your materials, which will deal with a [sic] work of I.C., the F.B.I. and C.I.A. in the first place, against our representatives and officers. We do mean its human, electronic and technical penetrations in our residencies here and in other countries. We are very interested in getting of the objective information on the work of a special group which searches "mole" in C.I.A. and F.B.I. We need this information especially to take necessary additional steps to ensure your personal security. . . .

NOV. 17, 2000

B wrote a letter to the K.G.B./Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, reading, in part:

Dear Friends:

Bear with me. It was I who sent the message trying to use Tom to communicate material to you. On reflection, I can understand why you did not respond. I see that I failed to furnish you sufficient information for you to recognize that the message you left for me in Ellis did not go astray. You do this often (communicate such assurances through the mention of items like the old date offset we used), and believe me, it is not lost on me as a sign of professionalism. I say bear with me on this because you must realize I do not have a staff with whom to knock around all the potential difficulties. (For me breaks in communications are most difficult and stressful.) Recent changes in U.S. law now attach the death penalty to my help to you as you know, so I do take some risk. On the other hand, I know far better than most what minefields are laid and the risks. . . .

I have drawn together material for you now over a lengthy period. It is somewhat variable in import.

Some were selected as being merely instructive rather than urgently important. I think such instructive insights often can be quite as valuable or even more valuable long-term because they are widely applicable rather than narrow. Others are of definite value immediately.

My position has been most frustrating. I knew Mr. Gusev was in imminent danger and had no effective way of communicating in time. I knew microphones of an unknown origin were detected even earlier and had no regular way of communicating even that. This needs to be rectified if I am to be as effective as I can be.

No one answered my signal at Foxhall. Perhaps you occasionally give up on me. Giving up on me is a mistake. I have proven inveterately loyal and willing to take grave risks which even could cause my death, only remaining quiet in times of extreme uncertainty.

So far my ship has successfully navigated the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

I ask you to help me survive. . . .

On meeting out of the country, it simply is not practical for me. I must answer too many questions from family, friends, and government plus it is a cardinal sign of a spy. You have made it that way because of your policy. Policies are constraints, constraints breed patterns. Patterns are noticed.

Meeting in this country is not really that hard to manage, but I am loath to do so not because it is risky but because it involves revealing my identity. That insulation has been my best protection against betrayal by someone like me working from whatever motivation, a Bloch or a Philby. (Bloch was such a shnook. . . . I almost hated protecting him, but then he was your friend, and there was your illegal I wanted to protect. . . .

On funds transfers through Switzerland, I agree that Switzerland itself has no real security, but insulated by laundering on both the in and out sides, mine ultimately through say a corporation I control loaning mortgage money to me for which (re) payments are made. . . . It certainly could be done. Cash is hard to handle here because little business is ever really done in cash and repeated cash transactions into the banking system are more dangerous because of the difficulty in explaining them. That doesn't mean it isn't welcome enough to let that problem devolve on me. (We should all have such problems, eh?) How do you propose I get this money put away for me when I retire? (Come on; I can joke with you about it. I know money is not really put into an account at MOST Bank, and that you are speaking figuratively of an accounting notation at best to be made real at some uncertain future. We do the same. Want me to lecture in your 101 course in my old age? My college level Russian has sunk low through inattention all these years; I would be a novelty attraction, but I don't think a practical one except in extremis.)

So good luck. Wish me luck. O.K., on all sites detailed to date, but Tom's signal is unstable. See you in "July" as you say constant conditions.

Yours truly,

Ramon

---

Spy Suspect Had Deep Data Access, Ex-Associates Say

Thursday, February 22, 2001
Washington Post
By Vernon Loeb and Brooke A. Masters
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A36466-2001Feb21?language=printer

The damage from Robert P. Hanssen's alleged spy career could be particularly severe because he possessed both access to intelligence information across the government and computer skills that made him among the most technologically sophisticated officials at the FBI, three of his former colleagues said yesterday.

Two years after he allegedly began spying for the KGB in 1985, Hanssen served as deputy director of the FBI Intelligence Division's Soviet section, giving him full access to information about counterspy activities against the Soviet Union.

David Major, who was Hanssen's boss and worked with him for 20 years, described Hanssen's access as: "Everything -- all sources, all methods, all techniques, all targets. There's only a few people in counterintelligence that have to know everything. And he was one of them."

Major, who served as a counterintelligence liaison in the Reagan White House, said the accused spy also had virtually unlimited access to intelligence documents from the CIA, the National Security Agency and other U.S. intelligence agencies, giving him "astonishing" capabilities to compromise their operations and analytical assessments.

With Hanssen in custody at a detention facility in Virginia, FBI agents yesterday stepped up questioning of State Department employees to learn more about Hanssen's activities there. For the last five years, Hanssen had been an FBI liaison at State, with access to sensitive information and many parts of the building.

Other FBI personnel searched his property in suburban Vienna yesterday, emptying a garden shed and even raking through leaves in the yard. But the key task now facing the FBI, present and former officials said, is to try to determine exactly what information Hanssen may have turned over to the Russians.

"It's going to be horrible," said Paul Moore, a former colleague who said he considers Hanssen a close friend. "You develop a capability into the other side that puts information into your hands -- and somebody comes along and blows that up."

Moore noted that Hanssen could program computers in two languages -- C and Pascal -- and created a system for automating the teletype at the FBI's Washington Field Office for receiving cables from agents in the field. That system was so successful that it quickly gained use at FBI headquarters, Moore said.

John Gaskill, another retired FBI counterintelligence official, said Hanssen was a "towering intellect."

Hanssen, 56, has been charged with betraying numerous U.S. intelligence operations and at least three of the FBI's Russian agents over the past 15 years in return for more than $1.4 million in cash, diamonds and deposits in a Russian bank.

Hanssen's lawyers declined to comment yesterday.

He was arrested Sunday at a Fairfax County park not far from his home after he was caught attempting to deliver a garbage bag full of classified documents to Russian intelligence agents in exchange for $50,000 in cash left at another park in Arlington, according to the FBI.

To support the leveling of espionage charges against Hanssen, the government filed a 109-page affidavit in U.S. District Court on Tuesday that appears to be based largely on a KGB dossier. It cites correspondence between Hanssen and his handlers from 1985 to 1991 and alleges that two of the three Russian agents betrayed by Hanssen were executed.

While FBI Director Louis J. Freeh has called Hanssen's apprehension a "counterintelligence coup," neither he nor other senior officials have explained how the KGB internal documents were obtained.

"The real story is how we got the stuff," said one former government official who has been briefed on the Hanssen case. Added a senior intelligence official: "No one will talk about how we got the documents."

But the extensive detail in the affidavit, including references to the executed Russian agents, indicates that prosecutors are prepared to seek the death penalty and are willing to bring into court someone who can authenticate the documents as originals, a step necessary for them to be introduced at trial, a former high-ranking counterintelligence official said.

"They would need to prove a chain of custody for the letters," the former official said, "and that would be unprecedented since it would inevitably have to be the person who provided them."

Under a law passed after the 1994 arrest of CIA spy Aldrich H. Ames, prosecutors can seek the death penalty for a person who delivers classified information to a foreign power that betrays nuclear secrets or results in the death of U.S. agents.

Since the FBI claims in the affidavit to have observed Hanssen as he placed a bag of secret documents Sunday night in a "dead drop" where Russian agents were to pick it up, prosecutors could have charged him with espionage based on his actions in the last few weeks alone. But with the threat of seeking a death penalty, they hope to persuade Hanssen to negotiate a plea bargain and to cooperate with an investigation into the damage from his alleged spying.

Although Freeh said at a news conference Tuesday that the FBI investigation into Hanssen began late last year, federal agents have been searching since at least the summer of 1999 for a mole with broad access to FBI and CIA counterintelligence data, two sources close to the investigation said yesterday.

Initially, the search focused on someone else, and Hanssen was not the main suspect. The target of the investigation in 1999 was suspected of passing information to the Russians in return for cash and diamonds.

It is not clear when the U.S. government received the KGB internal documents that investigators used in singling out Hanssen. Intelligence officials yesterday reiterated Freeh's answer to a question at Tuesday's news conference in which he denied that the source of the documents was a former Russian diplomat, Sergey Tretyakov, who defected last November from his post as first secretary at Moscow's mission to the United Nations. A former Russian ambassador to Iran, Tretyakov had an intelligence background, sources said.

Freeh and other officials have said it may take years to determine the damage caused by Hanssen's alleged spying. One result may be a reassessment of their previous conclusions about the damage caused by Ames, who began his career as a CIA spy for the KGB six months before Hanssen.

Investigators have suspected since 1994 that another spy helped confirm information passed to the Russians by Ames, who pleaded guilty and is imprisoned for life. At one time, the investigators suspected the second mole was FBI counterintelligence agent Earl E. Pitts, who pleaded guilty to spying for the KGB in 1997.

But Pitts has maintained that he had nothing to do with Ames's activities, which have been blamed for the deaths of 10 Russian agents working for U.S. intelligence.

Hanssen's former colleagues believe the damage he caused could equal or exceed that of Ames, given Hanssen's extraordinary access and his facility with computers, which expanded that access even further.

After reading the government's affidavit, Major said Hanssen compromised communications intelligence, CIA operations and "numerous" human assets. "Some of the documents he gave them -- I know what they are, and I shudder," Major said.

Staff writer Walter Pincus contributed to this report.

---

New Controls Aided F.B.I. Spy Probe

February 22, 2001
Associated Press
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Spy-Arrest.html?pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI says tighter controls over top-secret documents and other improvements recommended after the Aldrich Ames spy case helped catch Robert Philip Hanssen.

Bureau management had been cautioned four years ago by the Justice Department inspector general to beef up training and communications. The FBI was criticized at that time for not doing enough to find out how Ames leaked sensitive information to the Soviet Union.

FBI spokesman John Collingwood said Thursday that recommendations made in the inspector general's 1997 report were implemented and had a direct bearing on the arrest of Hanssen this week. Hanssen, a veteran FBI agent, is accused of spying for Russia for 15 years.

``The IG's recommendations were constructive and incorporated into the FBI's counterespionage program,'' Collingwood said. ``The post-Ames focus on the possibility of additional compromises led directly to the charges against Hanssen. Substantial resources and expertise are being afforded to this effort.''

Michael Bromwich, in his 1997 report, criticized FBI management for not reacting more quickly to signs of leaks and for its ``failure to devote priority attention'' to the devastating loss of intelligence information.

``FBI management devoted inadequate attention to determining the cause of the sudden, unprecedented and catastrophic losses suffered by both the FBI and the CIA in their Soviet intelligence programs,'' Bromwich wrote.

Hanssen's arrest has left members of Congress with questions about what happened and how to stop it from recurring.

So the Senate Intelligence Committee scheduled a closed hearing for Wednesday to press FBI Director Louis Freeh and CIA Director George Tenet for some specifics.

``Some of the questions that will be asked are looking through the rearview mirror, trying to find out what happened, and some will be looking through the front window pane into how we can prevent a repetition,'' Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., the panel's vice chairman, said Wednesday.

One question Graham indicated he's not seeking an answer to: Why?

``It's essentially one word: greed,'' he said in a telephone interview from his family farm in Albany, Ga. ``There did not appear to be any ideological basis to what he was doing.''

A 100-page affidavit released by the FBI on Tuesday, when Hanssen, 56, was arraigned on espionage charges, alleges that Hanssen in 1985 sent a letter to a Soviet agent volunteering to provide classified intelligence information in exchange for $100,000.

For the next 15 years, the affidavit says, Hanssen passed along to Soviet and later Russian agents 6,000 pages of documents on secret programs that described how the U.S. gathers intelligence, technologies used for listening, people who work as double agents and other highly sensitive matters.

Other details of Hanssen's career with the FBI appeared in published reports Thursday:

--Former FBI officials quoted by USA Today said Hanssen once openly hacked into the office computer of the FBI's top Russian counterintelligence official in the early 1990s. After infiltrating the computer, he told FBI officials that he was demonstrating the vulnerability of system. He was not reprimanded, according to the officials.

A law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the FBI did not view the incident as hacking; it occurred during a meeting with and in full view of a section chief and was done as a demonstration of how to get into the computer, the official said.

--David Major, who was Hanssen's boss at the FBI, told The Washington Post that the agent had access to ``Everything -- all sources, all methods, all techniques, all targets. There's only a few people in counterintelligence that have to know everything. And he was one of them.''

The FBI scoured Hanssen's suburban Virginia home Wednesday, emptied the family shed and even raked through leaves and debris in the yard.

At the same time, Attorney General John Ashcroft promised to search for answers to one of the most troubling questions in the case: Why Hanssen's alleged 15 years of spying for Moscow was never detected at the FBI.

Former CIA and FBI Director William Webster, at Ashcroft's request, will convene a panel to review FBI security procedures and recommend changes that could prevent future incidents.

Hanssen's knowledge of how things worked made it much tougher to uncover him, officials said.

He didn't suddenly start flashing cash around; his outward behavior didn't change; he exhibited none of the signs -- financial troubles, marital problems, drug or alcohol problems -- that would attract attention.

``He knew the system, he knew how to protect himself or he wouldn't have lasted for 15 years,'' Graham said.

FBI agents as a rule are given polygraph -- or lie-detector -- tests only when they join the bureau and when they need a higher level of clearance for a particular assignment.

CBS News, citing FBI sources, said Hanssen never received a polygraph test. Tracy Silberling, an FBI spokeswoman, said Hanssen was hired before 1994, when the agency began testing new agents, but would not comment on whether he would have been tested anyway because of his assignment. Counterintelligence and national security assignments could, but may not always, require a polygraph, said Silberling.

---

Suspect hacked into FBI system

02/22/2001
USA Today
By Edward T. Pound
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/2001-02-21-spyhacker.htm

WASHINGTON - A veteran FBI agent charged this week with spying for Moscow hacked into the office computer of the bureau's top Russian counterintelligence official in the early 1990s, according to former senior intelligence officials. At the time, Robert Philip Hanssen did not try to hide his actions. He told FBI officials that he had hacked into the computer to demonstrate the vulnerability of a system used by counterintelligence agents at the Washington headquarters. But the former officials say the espionage charges against him now raise the question of whether he drew attention to his hacking to develop a cover story in case his penetration of the computer was discovered.

The FBI did not discipline Hanssen in the incident, and one of the former officials says that in hindsight, the bureau might have "blown" an opportunity to uncover his spying much earlier. The FBI declined to comment Wednesday. Hanssen's attorney, Plato Cacheris, was traveling and could not be reached.

Some officials familiar with the incident did not fault the FBI. They said that once Hanssen, a computer expert, revealed the system's vulnerability, the FBI focused on fixing the system. Some computers containing sensitive and classified information were immediately disconnected.

The FBI is reviewing the incident in its investigation of Hanssen, 56, a veteran counterintelligence analyst who is accused of selling secrets to Russia for $1.4 million in cash, diamonds and deferred money.

Raymond Mislock, the former bureau official whose computer was targeted by Hanssen, has discussed the incident with the FBI, the former officials say.

Hanssen removed information from Mislock's computer, the former officials say. But it was unclear what type of material was involved.

Mislock was section chief for counterintelligence operations involving the Soviet Union and Russia. Based at the FBI's Washington headquarters, he helped supervise the investigation of Aldrich Ames, the former CIA agent who pleaded guilty in 1994 to spying for Moscow. Mislock, who retired in 1997, declined to comment.

Hanssen hacked into Mislock's computer in 1992 or 1993, the former officials say, as the FBI was conducting a top-secret probe into whether a "mole" was supplying Russia with information. FBI officials worried that a mole was operating in either the FBI or the CIA.

Officials said that Hanssen, then chief of an economic espionage unit, did not fit the FBI's "profile" of a suspected spy for Russia. Eventually, the mole hunt uncovered Ames' decade of espionage .

The hacking occurred at least seven years after Hanssen allegedly began working for the Russians. At the time, Hanssen did not appear to be particularly active in spying for Russia, according to the FBI affidavit filed in support of the espionage charges against him.

According to the account provided by the former officials, Hanssen claimed that he had hacked into Mislock's computer because no one would listen to his complaints that the system was not secure.

They said the computer system involved was used only within the national security division at the FBI's Washington headquarters, and could not communicate with computers outside the division. They said information generally was not stored on the computers, which were used to process memos and sensitive data. The information was put on disks or printed out.

The former officials described Mislock as very angry when he learned about Hanssen's penetration - angry because of the hacking, but also because the system was so vulnerable.

---

The mortician

February 22, 2001
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-house-2001222185021.htm

America was sold out, it would appear, by a dour FBI spy known to his colleagues as "the mortician." Robert Hanssen, the FBI contends, sold the Soviets and the Russian government U.S. intelligence on Russian double agents, U.S. surveillance techniques, and other highly sensitive information for over 15 years. In doing so, Mr. Hanssen would have transgressed against the security of every American. His alleged betrayal of his great country, in exchange for a fistful of diamonds and cash, is perplexing and deeply disturbing. Indeed, the United States seems considerably more vulnerable in the wake of the Hanssen news.

We may never come to understand what drew Mr. Hanssen to such a treacherous means of enrichment. Surely, with his background and apparent intelligence, he could have become wealthy working in the private sector. So did Mr. Hanssen harbor a deep hatred for his country - or an abiding affinity for the Soviet Union? Did he thrive on the threat of detection?

A close look at Mr. Hanssen reveals an eerily dispassionate man, with a contempt for his fellow man and country, but no apparent ideology. Although he seemed to others a deeply religious man and was believed to attend Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church in Vienna every Sunday, he has not been a member of the church since 1988. Most news sources reported that Mr. Hanssen was also regarded as quite a family man, but an article in The Washington Times indicates an underlying distance between man and wife. "I never saw them together, it was quite strange," neighbor Ena Thomas said of Mr. and Mrs. Hanssen.

And even within the agency, Mr. Hanssen demonstrated some personality traits which could indicate some sociopathic tendencies. He was arrogant and contemptuous of anyone he regarded as his mental inferior, according to colleagues. He seemed emotionally detached and socially awkward. Among his fellow FBI colleagues, he stood out as an eccentric.

Letters Mr. Hanssen wrote to his Russian contacts demonstrate his scorn for America and its intelligence apparatus. "The U.S. can be errantly likened to a powerfully built but retarded child," he said in June, "potentially dangerous, but young, immature and easily manipulated. But don't be fooled by that appearance. It is also one which can turn ingenious quickly, like an idiot savant, once convinced of a goal."

Although vetting for personality traits is certainly an inexact science, it seems that Mr. Hanssen's personality profile, if not his carefully guarded spying, should have caught the attention of FBI security. In hindsight, it seems easy to fault the FBI for allowing Mr. Hanssen to do so much damage for so many years. However, the FBI has foolishly shied away from procedures it regards as inexact. Unlike the CIA and National Security Agency, the FBI has no agency-wide program for the ongoing polygraph testing of its employees. FBI Director Louis Freeh has declined to specify whether Mr. Hanssen was ever subjected to a polygraph.

Former FBI and CIA chief William H. Webster has been placed in charge of a blue-ribbon panel to determine which steps should be taken. Fortunately, this review will be done under the Bush administration, which isn't expected to exhibit a Clintonian disregard for security matters. It would appear that the FBI's vetting procedures need to be significantly improved. Surely, there are ways to counteract the inconvenience such procedures might cause agency officials.

---

Spy case reveals FBI failings

February 22, 2001
Washington Times
By Bill Gertz
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-2001222231555.htm

The arrest of Robert P. Hanssen on charges he spied for Moscow has exposed weaknesses in FBI internal security, including document-handling procedures and a policy of not requiring regular polygraph tests for its agents.

"The security procedures in place failed to identify his activity over a substantial period of time, so we want to look at that," said former FBI and CIA Director William Webster, who is heading a special commission to investigate FBI security procedures.

Mr. Hanssen, like most veteran special agents, never underwent routine polygraph examinations that might have detected his activities sooner, intelligence officials said yesterday.

The 27-year counterspy also appears never to have been subjected to special polygraph tests that come with being granted access to extraordinarily secret intelligence programs, the officials said.

"We're not sure he was ever polygraphed," said one official familiar with the case.

U.S. defense, intelligence and national security officials have begun preliminary inquiries into the damage caused by what appears to be a spying career that began in 1985 and involved large amounts of documents - both paper and computerized - sold to Moscow, said federal officials.

Mr. Hanssen is suspected of receiving more than $650,000 in cash and diamonds for his services as a "mole" inside the FBI's counterintelligence section. Court documents also say Moscow put $800,000 for him in a Russian bank.

The damage examination is said to focus on the loss of highly classified documents Mr. Hanssen took from FBI headquarters, field offices and other intelligence facilities and sold to the Soviet KGB intelligence service and its Russian successor, the SVR.

"This is extremely bad. The case touches equities across the community," said the intelligence official, referring to damage caused to numerous intelligence agencies, including the FBI, CIA, National Security Agency, National Reconnaissance Office and State Department intelligence.

"Equities" means lost agents, compromised electronic spy operations, and some of the most important secrets on how the FBI targets and tracks foreign spies.

Russia's government remained silent yesterday on what may have been one of its most successful espionage operations against the United States.

Moscow's intelligence service spokesman, Boris Labusov, yesterday told Russian television: "We never comment on whether any specific person has or has no relation to Russian special services."

However, Mr. Labusov suggested the arrest may have involved one of its agents, noting that "as long as intelligence exists there will be counterintelligence services and inevitable exposures."

Mr. Webster said in an interview that the internal security system for the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies was defeated by "an unusually skillful person who knew all about the procedures the bureau had in place to detect [spies] and he took the appropriate steps not to trip" any alarms.

Polygraphs can be useful in "neutral vetting" although Mr. Webster said he will not make any recommendations on its use until after the panel has completed its security review.

He noted that FBI agents now undergo drug testing and are accepting the practice. The CIA also adopted greater use of the polygraph and "people are using it and accepting it," said Mr. Webster.

FBI spokesman Bill Carter declined to comment when asked if Mr. Hanssen avoided a polygraph for his entire career.

"I doubt very much that there would have been any occasion under which the procedures required [Mr. Hanssen] to take a polygraph without 'probable cause,' " Mr. Webster said.

Mr. Webster said one option the panel will explore is to order document searches of FBI employees who leave buildings. The practice may not work because of the ease of removing digital media by concealment or by sending e-mail.

Computer system auditing and warning procedures also will be examined, said Mr. Webster.

Intelligence officials say the greatest national security damage came from the losses to FBI and CIA agent networks - the exposure of recruited spies who provided intelligence.

Sen. Richard C. Shelby, Alabama Republican and chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said the damage could be "exceptionally grave."

"Mr. Hanssen's alleged activities are of such scope that I don't believe that we will know the true extent of the damage for years to come," said Mr. Shelby.

Mr. Hanssen also did not have to undergo regular probes of his finances that might have detected the large sums federal investigators say he received from Moscow.

Mr. Hanssen had extraordinary access to intelligence material from agencies outside the FBI, according to a FBI affidavit made public Tuesday. He also took part in Special Access Programs - ultrasecret so-called black programs involving electronic and other technical spying operations. Access to those programs usually requires periodic polygraph tests.

The National Security Agency for decades has required all its employees to take a polygraph test every several years and to allow checks into personal finances in a search for unexplained wealth.

The CIA adopted NSA security procedures seven years ago after the 1993 arrest of CIA counterintelligence officer Aldrich Ames, who passed two polygraphs in a spy career that began in the 1980s.

A Bush administration security official said FBI agents disdained the use of polygraphs for checking the reliability of agents because they regarded them as too unreliable and "beatable" by good liars.

"It used to be the view of FBI professionals that [foreign counterintelligence] polygraphs are useless," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Kenneth deGraffenreid, a former White House intelligence director, said he believes the national security damage in this case ranges from very grave to beyond calculation because of Mr. Hanssen's broad access to U.S. secrets.

"He's the guy who was supposed to protect us from foreign spies and he was a foreign spy," Mr. deGraffenreid said. "It is on par with Walker and Ames."

John A. Walker Jr. was uncovered in 1985 as a spy inside the U.S. Navy who provided Moscow with code secrets - data that could have helped Moscow win a war against the United States.

The arrest shows that Moscow has not given up efforts to get U.S. secrets, Mr. deGraffenreid said.

"They're spying on us because they are still in the business of stealing American secrets because American secrets still have value to them," he said.

Mr. deGraffenreid said Mr. Hanssen appears to have avoided detection because the U.S. government lacks aggressive counterspy capabilities and because "our security is lousy."

Tighter security inside U.S. intelligence might have forced Mr. Hanssen to meet his handlers face to face and increased his risk of exposure, he said.

"With a strong security system, no one should be able to walk out of the FBI with those documents," Mr. deGraffenreid said, acknowledging that digital storage media have made security tougher.

------

Bush voices confidence in FBI chief

2/22/2001
InfoBeat News
AP White House Correspondent
By RON FOURNIER
http://www.infobeat.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/IBFrontEnd.woa/wa/fullStory?article=406229200

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush expressed confidence Thursday in FBI Director Louis Freeh despite the worst spy scandal in the agency's history. ``I think he does a good job,'' Bush said.

Bush, at a news conference, declined to comment on the controversy about pardons granted by President Clinton on his last day in office. ``It's time to go forward,'' Bush said. ``I've got too much to do'' in trying to win passage of an education program, tax cuts and a new budget. Bush said Congress has a right to investigate the pardons and he said Clinton would have to answer questions about them.

The president spoke at his first White House news conference a month after his inauguration. He said one of his early goals was to ``change the tone'' in Washington and ``encourage civil discourse. I think we're making good progress.''

The news conference came on the heels of the arrest of FBI agent Robert Philip Hanssen, accused of spying for Moscow for more than 15 years. Bush said he was deeply concerned by the case and looked forward to the findings of an investigation led by former FBI Director William Webster into how the espionage could have occurred.

Bush declined to say whether senior FBI agents such as Hanssen should be required to take polygraph tests.

He indicated the Hanssen case would not derail U.S. relations with Moscow. Bush said he would deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin ``in a very straighforward'' manner.

------

NBC defers to FBI request in Hanssen arrest

Thursday February 22
Yahoo News
Reuters/Variety
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010222/en/television-spy_1.html

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - NBC News said Thursday it knew about FBI (news - web sites) agent Robert Hanssen's arrest on suspicion of spying a day before the story broke but delayed reporting it when the FBI said its investigation was still in progress.

NBC, a unit of General Electric Co., learned of the arrest late Monday afternoon, just hours before its Nightly News was set to air, said Bill Wheatley, vice president of NBC News.

``We were able to get some confirmation from several sources,'' Wheatley said. ``When we called the FBI, they in effect confirmed it for us but said the operation remained in progress.''

At the time, the FBI had already arrested Hanssen but was staking out a site to see who would pick up materials in a ''drop'' made earlier by the 25-year FBI veteran.

Given the national security implications, NBC agreed to hold off from reporting the story on its Monday night news, and reported it on its Tuesday morning edition of the ``Today'' show instead. As circumstances would have it, the network was able to break the story using a scheduled court appearance by Hanssen that morning as a peg.

Wheatley said the holding of news for national security reasons is not unprecedented but is still unusual. More commonly, media will sometimes agree not to broadcast live footage from the scene of crimes in progress to avoid helping suspects or their accomplices from using the footage to their advantage.

Wheatley recalled one case in the 1980s where NBC turned down a government request to kill a sensitive story. In that instance, NBC learned the Chinese had allowed the installation on its soil of sophisticated U.S. equipment for spying on the Soviet Union.

``As we were prepared to report it, the U.S. government asked us not to on national security grounds,'' Wheatley said. ''After carefully weighing it, it was obvious to us the Russians knew about the devices and it was more a matter of our government not wanting to embarrass the Chinese.''

-------- terrorism

Witness in Bombing Case Describes Scouting Mission by 3 Men Near Embassy

February 22, 2001
New York Times
By ALAN FEUER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/world/22TERR.html

Almost four years before a terrorist bomb demolished the American Embassy in Kenya, three men paid a visit to an old acquaintance in Nairobi.

The visitors, an American and two Libyans, turned up at the small one-bedroom apartment of their host and stayed for nearly a week. They were comfortable enough to turn a corner of the apartment into a makeshift darkroom, switching off the lights and hanging blankets over the windows and doors.

Yesterday, the host, a man named L'Houssaine Kherchtou, related the story of his visitors at the trial of four men accused of joining a terrorist conspiracy led by Osama bin Laden that resulted in the deadly bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

Describing what appeared to be a reconnaissance mission, Mr. Kherchtou said he often saw the three men developing photographs in his apartment and had once spotted one of them with a camera around his neck strolling through downtown Nairobi near the embassy.

The government called Mr. Kherchtou as a witness because he was a sworn member of Al Qaeda, the group led by Mr. bin Laden, who prosecutors say orchestrated both of the embassy blasts. Mr. Kherchtou is now cooperating with the American authorities, although it was unclear yesterday why or even when he broke with Mr. bin Laden's group.

Speaking calmly to a jury in Federal District Court in Manhattan, Mr. Kherchtou said that one of the men who visited his home was Ali A. Mohamed, a former top Al Qaeda member who pleaded guilty last year to conducting surveillance of American targets in Nairobi on Mr. bin Laden's behalf.

Mr. Mohamed, a former sergeant in the United States Army, was the first person to link Mr. bin Laden directly to the attacks in Africa, saying in court that Mr. bin Laden once asked him to scout out the embassy in Kenya.

"I took pictures, drew diagrams and wrote a report," Mr. Mohamed told Judge Leonard B. Sand when he entered his guilty plea on Oct. 20. "Bin Laden looked at the picture of the American Embassy and pointed to where a truck could go as a suicide bomber."

Mr. Kherchtou and Mr. Mohamed had apparently known each other for some time. Mr. Kherchtou testified that in the 1980's he took a surveillance seminar taught by Mr. Mohamed in a military training camp in Pakistan.

Mr. Kherchtou said he recognized some of the same techniques that Mr. Mohamed had taught him in Pakistan - the camera work, in particular - when Mr. Mohamed visited him in Nairobi nearly a decade later.

Mr. Kherchtou said that he went to Kenya in 1993 to enroll in flight school with a plan to become Mr. bin Laden's personal pilot. He said he also spent time assisting Al Qaeda members who were traveling to Somalia to fight United Nations forces assigned there during the Somali civil war.

At one point, Mr. Kherchtou said, Al Qaeda toyed with the idea of sending a car bomb into a United Nations compound in Somalia, but the attack was never carried out. He also testified that he and Mr. Mohamed were once ordered by Al Qaeda's military chief to conduct reconnaissance of French targets in Senegal for a possible attack.

But again, no attack was ever carried out.

As Mr. Kherchtou spoke of Mr. Mohamed, the four men on trial - Wadih El-Hage, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, Mohammed Saddiq Odeh and Mohamed Rashed Daoud al- 'Owhali - listened, whispered to their lawyers or simply stared into space.

Mr. Kherchtou identified two of the defendants. He said he recognized Mr. Odeh from Al Qaeda's military training camps in Pakistan, and he said that his talks with Mr. Mohamed about Senegal had taken place at Mr. El-Hage's Nairobi home, but apparently not in Mr. El-Hage's presence. He also said that when his boss in Nairobi was arrested by the local police, Mr. El-Hage was sent as a replacement.

The last few days of the trial have focused on Mr. El-Hage, who has maintained through his lawyers that he was a legitimate businessman working solely for Mr. bin Laden's "commercial interests."

Mr. El-Hage's lawyer, Sam A. Schmidt, rose several times yesterday and offered spirited objections to the government's case.

The day began with the prosecution playing a 30-minute videotape of an interview that Mr. bin Laden gave to CNN in a remote corner of Afghanistan in 1997. Occasionally smiling, Mr. bin Laden called the United States government "unjust, criminal and tyrannical" and told the CNN reporter that "explosions and killings of the American soldiers would continue."

---

NEW BERENSON TRIAL

February 22, 2001
New York Times
World Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/22/world/22BRIE.html?pagewanted=all

PERU: A senior prosecutor has decided to go ahead with retrying Lori Berenson, a New Yorker convicted of playing a leading role in the activities of a Marxist terrorist group. The prosecutor, Julian Vivas, could have dismissed the case for lack of evidence but instead said he would seek a 20-year sentence in a trial that will take place next month. Ms. Berenson was tried and sentenced in 1996 by a special military tribunal, but former President Alberto K. Fujimori ordered that she should be retried by a civilian court. Clifford Krauss (NYT)

---

Taleban mulling trial for bin Laden abroad

February 22, 2001
Washington Times
By Rory McCarthy
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-2001222224056.htm

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Officials in Pakistan believe Afghanistan's rulers, beset by a fierce drought and international isolation, are ready to consider a compromise under which Saudi terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden could face trial in a third country.

Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider, who met this month with the Afghan Taleban militia's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, said the Taleban would consider allowing Islamic scholars to meet abroad to hear evidence against bin Laden and decide his fate.

It is the first time the idea of a trial outside Afghanistan has been raised.

"Mullah Omar said that he was ready for religious scholars from Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and a third Muslim country to collect in some place and, having seen the evidence, then this group would decide what is to be done to him," Gen. Haider said in an interview.

"If we speak to the Taleban, it is possible that [the scholars] could meet in another country."

Until now Mullah Omar, the reclusive and one-eyed Taleban leader, has refused to hand over the Saudi dissident to any foreign government. Bin Laden has been charged by a New York court with masterminding the bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998, which killed 224 persons.

Last month, the U.N. Security Council imposed a second round of sanctions on the Taleban, including an arms embargo, to press for his extradition.

The sanctions come at a time of worsening drought and civil war in Afghanistan. More than 1 million people are facing famine this year, and already 500,000 have fled their homes in search of food.

The Taleban has tried to win international approval by outlawing the production of opium. The fields of Afghanistan, which last year produced the world's largest heroin crop, are this year largely free of the drug, according to a U.N. survey.

But the issue of the Saudi terrorist remains the biggest hurdle to the Taleban's hopes of international diplomatic recognition.

In the past, it has offered to put bin Laden on trial in Afghanistan if the United States provided evidence against him. It also offered to have a group from the Organization of the Islamic Conference keep him under surveillance inside Afghanistan.

As a third proposal, it has suggested that Islamic scholars from three countries could hold a trial in Afghanistan. Now the militia appears ready to consider a trial abroad, and Pakistan is supportive of the idea.

"If we agree to this proposal of having scholars from three individual countries, maybe something will come out of it," Gen. Haider said.

"I think the new administration in America should look at the problem with a fresh approach. To break the ice, they should create some flexibility in their demands also."

As the Taleban's most important ally, Pakistan is itself facing growing pressure over its close links with the hard-line regime.

Afghanistan's drought, the worst in 30 years, has forced 150,000 refugees to flee into Pakistan. Islamabad says it cannot afford to handle the sudden influx.

Pakistan's military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, also has suggested that a trial for bin Laden could be held outside Afghanistan.

"Between the American and the Afghan extreme stances, it is possible that the United States and Afghanistan can choose another country where bin Laden can have a fair trial," Gen. Musharraf said in an interview with an Egyptian newspaper this month.

Taleban leaders consistently have refused to hand over the Saudi, who they say is a "guest" in their country. They say the United States has not provided evidence against him, and they have rejected U.S. proposals for dealing with the problem.

"The Taleban stand by their old stance that Osama will not be handed over to any country," the Taleban's ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, said this week. "But we are ready for talks to find a solution to the issue."

Bin Laden is now thought to be living in a base in Oruzgan province in central Afghanistan. Last October - fearing a U.S. missile strike - he left his main camp 20 miles west of Kandahar, where the Taleban has its headquarters in southern Afghanistan.

-------- activists

Oregon

01/02/22
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Salem - A House subcommittee moved forward with proposed legal penalties for "eco-terrorists." A proposed bill would add several crimes to Oregon's anti-racketeering law, which allows prosecutors to go after individuals or organizations engaged in a pattern of crimes. Backers want to add tree spiking, interference with agricultural operations, animal research, livestock production or agricultural research.

---

Tibetan monk dies in Chinese custody

02/22/2001
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-02-22-monk.htm

DHARAMSALA, India (AP) - A Tibetan monk arrested while returning from exile in India has died under mysterious circumstances in the custody of Chinese police, a Tibetan human rights group said Thursday.

Another Tibetan, a former political prisoner, died within a month of being released from jail on medical parole last year, the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy said, bringing to five the number of Tibetan political prisoners who died last year.

"These deaths are further evidence of the Chinese government's continuing blatant violation of fundamental human rights," said Lobsang Nyandak, the center's executive director. "We find it appalling that the international community has still failed to actively condemn the Chinese government."

The monk, Saru Dawa, 27, was arrested at the Chinese border at Dram while returning to Tibet on Nov. 20. Dawa, who left Tibet in 1992 and joined a monastery in Dharamsala in northern India, was returning to visit his sick mother.

Dawa's relatives learned of his arrest and made inquiries at the Nyari Detention Center in Shigatse, where prisoners arrested at the border normally are held, the center said. After paying a bribe, the family was told Dawa committed suicide Jan. 9, 2000. Dawa's body was shown to the family Feb. 15 before being cremated, the statement said.

Prison officials said Dawa was arrested carrying a photo of himself with the Dalai Lama and a number of books published by the Tibetan exile community. The officials said Dawa was sick when arrested, and this, along with his crime, had driven him to suicide.

But a fellow monk at the Kirti Monastery in Dharamsala said Dawa was only carrying religious texts.

Another prisoner, identified only as Penpa, 40, was severely beaten by police in 1997 when he was arrested for allegedly raising a Tibetan flag at Lhasa's Jokhang temple, the center said. He was denied medical attention at the time, the statement said.

A former political prisoner who arrived in Nepal this week said Penpa was released on parole early last year, six months before the end of his three-year sentence. Following his death, family members discovered he had a collapsed lung, apparently as a result of torture, the center said.

The Tibetan Center is based in Dharamsala, home of the Dalai Lama, the supreme spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists. The Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule and based himself in the northern Indian town.

---

Mexico's Zapatistas outline plans for march

02/22/2001
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2001-02-22-zapatista.htm

LA REALIDAD, Mexico (AP) - Mexico's Zapatista rebels, who are preparing a journey from the jungle to rally support for Indian rights, accused President Vicente Fox on Thursday of trying to rush the guerrillas to peace without achieving justice.

"The central worry of Mr. Vicente Fox is not peace in Chiapas, but to make it appear that peace in Chiapas is possible or is now a fact," the ski-masked rebel leader Subcomandante Marcos told reporters at the rebels' jungle village.

Marcos said the government hopes "to force an unconditional surrender" by pushing the rebels based in Chiapas state to sign a peace agreement without achieving their goals of Indian rights and economic justice.

The Zapatistas took up arms for two weeks in January 1994 to fight for the rights of poor Indians. The rebellion was followed by six years of conflict between pro-government paramilitary groups and rebel sympathizers in Chiapas.

Fox himself already achieved one of the main Zapatista goals with his July 2000 election: He defeated the Institutional Revolutionary Party that had ruled Mexico since 1929.

Mexican TV stations broadcast part of Marcos' news conference live from La Realidad, a village of tin-roofed, wood-plank buildings in a clearing several hours from the nearest paved road.

Marcos outlined plans for a 15-day march through about a dozen states, with plans to arrive in the Mexican capital March 11, to promote a law that would expand the rights of Indian communities to enact laws, control lands and use their own languages.

He and 23 rebel commanders plan to leave their villages on Saturday, rendezvous in San Cristobal de las Casas on Sunday and then roam through southern and central Mexico, accompanied by hundreds of foreign and Mexican supporters. The march has already become a major national issue.

Fox said Wednesday that he "welcomes this march because we believe, feel and bet that that march will bring us to a peace process."

But some senators and governors denounced the Zapatistas for refusing to give up their masks and guns. Others say they fear accidents or conflicts on the route could set back peace efforts. Business groups worry that the march could frighten investors.

A state congressman from Morelos, one of the Zapatista stops, challenged Marcos to a shootout. Ranchers in Chiapas, angry at rebel occupation of their lands, threatened to block the route.

On Wednesday, Marcos accused Fox's government of blocking plans to have the International Red Cross accompany the march.

The president expressed "surprise" at the accusation, adding: "We have had no contact" with the Red Cross on the issue.

Fox said his government would try to ensure the safety of the march, but the Zapatistas' had refused to meet to discuss security even while demanding safety measures.

Marcos and the Zapatistas have refused to meet with the new government until it fulfills a series of demands: troop pullbacks, liberation of prisoners and passage of the rights law.

Talks cannot start "while the army is still holding Zapatista communities hostage," he said.

Congress has not yet acted on the rights bill and while Fox has withdrawn many troops and freed many prisoners, the Zapatistas said he has not gone far enough.

---

'Get out of Lebanon'

February 22, 2001
Washington Times
Embassy Row James Morrison News and dispatches from the diplomatic corridor.
http://www.washtimes.com/world/embassy-2001222215657.htm

Lebanese security forces yesterday clashed with demonstrators supporting Iraq and demanding the removal of the U.S. ambassador.

Police stopped the protesters, numbering in the thousands, from marching on the U.S. Embassy on the outskirts of Beirut. A Reuters news agency correspondent reported that the crowd broke through barriers on the road to the embassy, but security forces beat them back. About 20 people were reported injured.

They called Ambassador David Satterfield a "coward" and demanded he "get out of Lebanon."

The demonstrators, mostly students angered by U.S. and British air strikes on Iraqi radar stations, shouted, "Death to America. With our blood and our souls we will redeem you, Iraq."

-------

Homeless Voice LAWSUIT
Police arrest 69 streetpaper vendors

Thu, 22 Feb 2001
HPN Homeless Newswire
http://projects.is.asu.edu/pipermail/hpn/
"Homeless People's Network list" <HPN@projects.is.asu.edu>
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/bpiep/20010221/en/_b_h1_miami_herald_designing_news_racks_h1_b__1.html

Several South Florida cities have passed or proposed laws to sweep away Homeless Voice street newspaper vendors. In recent weeks, police in Weston have ARRESTED 69 Homeless Voice hawkers.

MIAMI HERALD DESIGNING NEWS RACKS

To many city and suburban officials in southern Florida these days, there's a new Miami vice: the proliferation of newspaper street hawkers and news racks.

Miami officials want to replace all freestanding news racks with modular units. Aventura two weeks ago banned street hawkers from its busiest streets, joining other suburbs that already have similar ordinances against street sales. And, in recent weeks, police in Weston have arrested 69 hawkers of The Homeless Voice, a semimonthly put out by the Helping People in America homeless shelter in Hollywood.

In response, newspapers - especially The Homeless Voice - are fighting back. On Feb. 9, the paper sued Hallandale Beach, claiming the city is discriminating by banning its hawkers while letting vendors continue to sell The Miami Herald and the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, based in Fort Lauderdale.

Homeless Voice Publisher Sean Cononie said that next week he will file a lawsuit seeking to overturn the Aventura ordinance and that he would follow with suits against similar hawker bans in other Broward County and Dade County suburbs. "I'm a constitutional stickler, and when you start telling me I can only distribute 20 papers instead of 5,000, you're restricting my rights," he said.

Cononie said his shelter needs the earnings hawkers split with the paper. Barely a year old, The Homeless Voice sells an estimated 70,000 copies an issue. In January, he added, the paper generated $122,000 in revenue - enough to run the shelter for a month.

To some suburban authorities, however, public safety has been threatened by the addition of Homeless Voice hawkers to the street vendors who for years have peddled the Herald, the Sun-Sentinel, and such products as flowers, oranges, and toys. The Homeless Voice stations crews of six vendors, all wearing bright orange T-shirts and hats, at intersections.

Homeless papers have faced similar problems recently in Cleveland as well as Phoenix and Tucson in Arizona, said Brian Davis, coordinator of the North American Street Newspaper Association. "Cities think it's bad for their image to have people on the street corner selling papers," he said.

Miami Herald General Counsel Robert Beatty said the paper has not decided whether to challenge the street-hawker ordinances. But the paper is negotiating with the City of Miami over a proposal to replace freestanding news racks with multiple-title racks, he said.

The Herald is designing a modular rack that would meet the paper's goal of keeping the distinctive yellow color and logo it uses on all its boxes, Beatty said. Miami's 19-page proposed ordinance - clearly crafted to meet legal challenges - specifies that the entire modular rack be painted a color it identifies as "Deep Waters."

------

Sign-On letter, World Bank Structural Adjustment Lending

Thu, 22 Feb 2001
Abigail Parish <ntangri@essential.org>
(by way of Neil Tangri <ntangri@essential.org>)

Please reply to Globalization Challenge Initiative, global.challenge@juno.com Apologies for all cross-postings...

PLEASE PASS ON THIS SIGN-ON LETTER TO YOUR NETWORKS IMMEDIATELY

Dear Friends,

The World Bank is planning to EXPAND its structural adjustment lending!

Please add your signature to the letter below calling upon the World Bank to conduct broad and thorough consultations on its structural adjustment policy. Send your name, organization, and country to: <global.challenge@juno.com> prior to 12 noon on Monday, February 26, 2001.

After decades of debate, controversy and protest about the social and environmental consequences of the liberalization, privatization, fiscal austerity, and subsidy-cutting conditions attached to adjustment loans, the World Bank plans to revise its operational policy on structural adjustment lending. It is not certain that the revision will address the substantive concerns of civil society organizations around the world, nor that the new policy will reflect some of the principles of participation, and national ownership promoted in recent vehicles such as the Poverty Reduction Strategy initiative.

There are two risks inherent in the revision of the World Bank's structural adjustment policy. First, the Bank could use the operational policy revision to polish the tarnished image of structural adjustment loans, renaming them Poverty Reduction Support Credits (PRSCs) and Development Support Loans (DSLs). Second, the operational policy revision could remove the current language which restricts the amount of adjustment lending to 25 percent of the World Bank's portfolio averaged over 3 years. Adjustment lending is a cheap way to move large amounts of money and the Bank's soft loan window, IDA, has extra money to disburse. IDA would like to boost lending from $2.3 billion to $3 billion in FY01 and $3.2 billion in FY02. The plan to boost adjustment lending is particularly directed toward the poorer countries, especially Africa.

The letter below proposes to the World Bank basic principles to achieve a broad and accountable consultation process, including the involvement of an external advisory group. In addition to signing yourself, please forward this letter to other groups and networks. In order to sign on to the letter, please send your name,organization, and country to: <global.challenge@juno.com> prior to 12 noon on Monday, February 26, 2001.

Sincerely yours,

Globalization Challenge Initiative SAPRIN Secretariat/Development Gap Friends of the Earth USA

--

Ms. Joanne Salop
Vice President, Operations Policy and Strategy
The World Bank
1818 H Street, NW Washington DC 20433

Dear Ms. Salop:

The undersigned groups believe that the World Bank has a fundamental obligation to carry out broad and thorough public consultations regarding its proposed operational policy on structural adjustment. Few other World Bank programs have had such far-reaching impact upon people, the environment, local institutions, and national economies, or have generated such controversy over so many years. Furthermore, the adoption of a new operational policy provides a significant opportunity to ensure coherence between the practice of economic-reform lending and the principles of pro-poor economic growth, national ownership, and civil-society participation, which are identified as the objectives of the Bank-supported Poverty Reduction Strategies, the Bank's Comprehensive Development Framework, and are upheld in the World Development Report 2000.

The World Bank set an important standard of transparency and participation with the practice of broad consultation on the revision of its information-disclosure policy and its resettlement policy. It is important that this standard be met with regard to an issue as central to the Bank's operations - and as contentious - as structural adjustment. Indeed, the World Bank has recognized that one of the major reasons for failure of structural adjustment programs is the lack of resolve on the part of governments and their citizens. Therefore, failure to carry out meaningful consultation over the new policy could raise serious concerns about the World Bank's good-faith commitment to participation and further alienate critics of adjustment operations.

A review of a preliminary draft of "Adjustment Lending: Retrospective and Implications" suggests that the World Bank and many civil-society groups would define the issues of the adjustment debate quite differently. For this reason, we propose that the World Bank immediately share responsibility with an external advisory committee to define more precisely the terms of consultation over the operational policy proposal, including the selection of countries for direct consultations, the schedule, the agenda for the consultations, the participants to be invited, and the mechanisms for accountability to issues raised by civil society groups.

Although the details of the consultation process might be designed with such an external group, we hope that the process will observe the following general principles:

Focus on the proposed policy: We believe that it is essential that the consultations occur around the proposed new operational policy itself, not simply around the retrospective study or any other discussion document. However, the World Bank could invite comment on the retrospective study in advance of consultations, which might inform the draft of the new policy.

Adequate timeframe: The breadth and complexity of the issues raised by structural adjustment, as well as the number of people affected, suggest that the entire consultation process should be carried out over a minimum of one year, with the possibility of extending the timeframe as necessary. In the case of country or regional consultations, a complete schedule should be posted as early as possible, and documents made available in local languages to local/regional groups who might participate at least four weeks in advance of a consultation.

Accountability: The World Bank should ensure that the points of discussion in each consultation process are accurately documented and then shared with the participants in the consultation for comment prior to submitting it to Bank headquarters. At a global level, we encourage the World Bank to develop a document that synthesizes the major issues of concern raised through the consultation process and offers the institution's response to each issue, together with an indication of proposed modifications to the draft policy.

Broad-based participation: Consultations should build upon existing global and country-level networks, particularly those that have been active on adjustment-related issues. In individual countries, consultations should involve representatives of grassroots organizations that are directly affected by structural adjustment programs, as well as civil-society organizations, academics, and parliamentarians. We urge that any direct consultations be facilitated by a third party mutually agreeable to the World Bank and civil society groups.

Access to information: To facilitate the broadest possible participation, the draft policy and at least the executive summary of the discussion document should be translated into at least all major UN languages, preferably before any consultation begins. In individual countries, the documents should be translated into the local language of that country. All documents and minutes of all consultations should be also accessible through the World Bank website.

Diversity of country experiences: Consultations should be carried out in all major regions of Bank operations. In selecting individual countries, we urge the World Bank to include a mix of both low-income and middle-income countries, as well as countries that demonstrate both "successful" and "unsuccessful" adjustment performance records. Furthermore, if civil-society groups request a consultation in a country where one is not scheduled, they should be encouraged to meet with the World Bank Resident Representative, who can report the results of the meeting to headquarters.

Outreach: The Bank should not rely only upon its website to disseminate information about the consultations. Instead it should actively engage its resident missions, through NGO liaison officers, to conduct outreach to civil-society groups and disseminate key documents several months in advance of the consultation. The Bank should also involve its civil-society unit in conducting outreach at a global level.

Involving the IMF: The consultations are likely to raise issues and concerns that are equally relevant to the programs of the International Monetary Fund as they are to the World Bank. Therefore, we urge the World Bank to invite IMF staff representatives to all consultations. If their participation is not possible, we urge the World Bank at a minimum to share the key documents summarizing the results of consultation with the IMF staff.

Finally, we urge the World Bank not to preempt the consultation process by taking irreversible action with regard to the Poverty Reduction Support Credit, its new structural adjustment loan program to low-income countries that produce a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper.

An open, transparent, and participatory process designed in accordance with the above principles would go a long ways toward building confidence in the World Bank's commitment to the ideals of poverty reduction, participation, and national ownership. We would be pleased to meet with you to discuss the proposal for an external advisory committee and the above principles at greater length.

Sincerely yours,

Bank Information Center Washington, DC, USA
Friends of the Earth USA Washington, DC, USA
Globalization Challenge Initiative Washington, DC, USA
World Vision International New York, USA
American Jewish World Service New York, USA
cc: Executive Directors to the World Bank
Sign-on to WB on SA operational policy.doc

Abigail Parish Information Services Coordinator Bank Information Center 733 15th Street NW, Suite 1126 Washington, DC 20005 USA www.bicusa.org

phone: (202) 624-0632 fax: (202) 737-1155 aparish@bicusa.org

The Bank Information Center (BIC) is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organization that provides information and strategic support to NGOs and social movements throughout the world on the projects, policies and practices of the World Bank and other Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs). BIC advocates for greater transparency, accountability and citizen participation at the MDBs.

------- Onelist (submissions from subscribers)