------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
The New Nuclear Danger
Disabled people used as nuclear 'guinea pigs'
Pyongyang mum on U.S. promise
They'd Shoot NMD Down
Missile Defense: Wishing Won't Make it So
NATO allies told US intends to deploy limited missile defence
Missile Defense Speedup Weighed
Rumsfeld Seeks NATO Support
Rumsfeld Outlines to NATO Fast Track for Missile Shield
Russia, NATO to Discuss Tactical Missile Defense
From Russia with nukes
Fire Hits Missile Base Near Moscow, Causes Damage
Russian Air Defense Missile Explodes
Russia Needs Funds to Destroy Arms
US CONDITIONS CAST DOUBT ON FUTURE OF RUSSIAN PLANS
Rumsfeld Takes Message to Russians
Ireland Rejects European Treaty
Despite hoopla no new US nuclear plants soon
Beryllium stories fake, expert says
No level of beryllium safe, Flats workers'
Yucca Mountain Project is Everybody's Problem
To demolish K-25 or not?
Our View: Treat DOE with respect
Rice Says No 'Values Gap' Between U.S. And Europe
The New Unilateralism
Environmentalists Praise US Position

MILITARY
China tests ALCM
Four Rwandans convicted of war crimes
Iranian weapons
Civilians said killed as Macedonia forces attack rebels
Government rejects cease-fire offer, pounds rebels
Former UN coordinators says "smart" sanctions to exacerbate Iraqi plight
Tenet brings Israeli, Palestinian chiefs together
CHINA: TREATY ON SPACE ARMS PROPOSED
Swiss Mulling Plan for Peacekeepers
Russia Questioning Premise of New Iraqi Proposals
Rumsfeld-style military reform
3 generals top list for joint chiefs job
CNN Settles Lawsuit With Operation Tailwind Producer

OTHER
SUSTAINABLE HIGH RISE POWERED BY SOLAR CELLS
Conference to Address Solar Electricity
Solar-powered aircraft and other bits of environmental news
Russia's New Reach: Gas Pipeline to Turkey
Russians Detain Critic Bound for U.S. Meeting
Guatemalan Officers Found Guilty
Major Changes Signaled at IMF
Navy Denies Body Searches
Idaho prosecutors not sure they'll try FBI sharpshooter
Texas Police Officer Killed
Australian Gets 15 - Year Sentence
World War I Blackout Continues

ACTIVISTS
ENERGY DEPARTMENT SEEKS PUBLIC INPUT ON EFFICIENCY, RENEWABLES
Some missile defense resources from IEER
Colombians Protest Bill on Cuts in Services


-------- NUCLEAR

The New Nuclear Danger

Common Dreams,
June 8, 2001
by Jonathan Schell
http://commondreams.org/views01/0608-04.htm

On June 12, 1982, 1 million people assembled in Central Park in New York City to protest the reckless nuclear policies of the Reagan Administration and to call for a nuclear freeze. They never assembled in such numbers again--in part because Reagan reversed course and opened nuclear arms talks with the Soviet Union, and in part because, after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, the cold war began to wind down. The day remains in memory as a reminder of how quickly public concern over nuclear annihilation can arise and how quickly it can evaporate. When the cold war finally did end, nuclear weapons pretty much dropped out of the conscious thoughts of most Americans. The weapons themselves, however, remain in existence--some 32,000 strong at last count. Now the policies of a new administration and the rise of fresh nuclear dangers have brought the issue back to awareness. On June 10 a coalition of groups that calls itself Project Abolition will hold an antinuclear demonstration in Lafayette Park across from the White House. It will be the first major effort of its kind in the capital since the end of the cold war. The precipitating event is the new arms race that is threatened by the Bush Administration's embrace of National Missile Defense (NMD) and the weaponization of space. A million people are not expected. But the protesters hope to make up in staying power what they lack in numbers. Their underlying cause is the abolition of all nuclear arms, and their vow is to stick with it for the duration.

It is no simple matter to take stock of the nuclear predicament in the year 2001. Under the Bush Administration, the nuclear policies of the United States--and of the world--are in a state of greater confusion than at any time since the weapons were invented. Chaos would not be too strong a word to use. In fact, the greatest current danger may lie not in one policy or another but precisely in this confusion, which leaves the world's nuclear actors without any reliable road map for the future. It is nevertheless essential to try to understand at least the broad outlines of the new shape of the predicament. This exercise is complex and riddled with paradox and contradiction, not to mention wishful thinking and sheer fantasy, yet it is unavoidable if either policy or protest is to make sense.

Nuclear danger today has two main sources. The first is the mountain of nuclear arms left over from the cold war. The second is the proliferation of nuclear weapons to new countries. The leftover cold war arsenals are still governed by the policy that prevailed during the cold war, the doctrine of nuclear deterrence, which holds (in its most enlightened version) that the rival great powers are safest when each has the unchallengeable power to annihilate its rival. This way, no one is supposed to try anything, because if anyone does, all will die. Today the United States has about 7,200 weapons poised to fire at Russia, and Russia has about 6,000 poised to fire at us, and the continued existence of each nation depends on the reliability of the other's forces, which is doubtful in the extreme in the case of Russia. Deterrence's provocative other name, of course, is mutual assured destruction, or MAD, a reference to the menace of complete annihilation on which the stability of the arrangement rests. MAD's confusing adjunct is arms control, whose aim has been to draw down the preposterous excess of offensive weapons through the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) while suppressing defenses by observance of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty of 1972, until this year called the "cornerstone of strategic stability" in NATO planning papers. Defenses had to be suppressed because if they ran free they would upset the laboriously negotiated offensive reductions.

MAD, however, is not a creature of the ABM treaty; it is an inescapable condition in a world of large nuclear arsenals, against which no defenses are available. The ABM treaty merely ratifies and codifies this underlying situation, the better to negotiate the reduction--though not the elimination--of offensive forces. Other things being equal, a world without an ABM treaty would not be a world without MAD; it would be a world with MAD but without arms control.

MAD was of course a product of the cold war. It was a desperate makeshift in a desperate situation. Today, however, the cold war has long been over. The extreme peculiarity--or downright absurdity--of continuing to rely on MAD is that the political antagonism that underlay and justified it ended ten years ago, when the Soviet Union disappeared. During the cold war, the two powers threatened each other with annihilation for a reason; now they do so without a reason. Russia and the United States have no quarrel that would justify the firing of a single conventional round, not to speak of mutual annihilation. The human beings resolved their quarrels, but the weapons, displaying their characteristic astonishing immunity to political influence, evidently did not get the news. Here is a state of affairs that seems ripe for radical surgery.

The second source of nuclear danger, proliferation, is most dramatically evident in South Asia, where India and Pakistan are engaged in the first nuclear face-off entirely unrelated to the cold war. It's difficult to predict where proliferation will occur next, but some of the main candidates are obvious: the Middle East, where Israel already possesses nuclear weapons and where Iraq and Iran are both known to be interested in acquiring them; and East Asia, where North Korea has well-developed nuclear and missile programs, and where Japan has just elected a prime minister who wishes to alter his nation's Constitution, which now forbids the development of offensive military forces, including nuclear weapons. If unchecked, proliferation has no logical or necessary stopping point. It points to a fully nuclearized world, in which any nation seriously threatened by another will feel itself fully entitled to build nuclear arms.

Unfortunately, the two basic elements of nuclear danger do not exist in separate worlds; they fatally interact in our one world. Most important, MAD is a standing invitation to proliferation, as the nuclearization of South Asia has already demonstrated. The simple, unavoidable truth is that possession fuels proliferation. If a country that feels threatened by the nuclear arms of another accepts MAD, as the nuclear powers teach them to do, they not only are likely to develop arms, they must do so. For a government to do otherwise would be to criminally abdicate its responsibility to defend its people. (Imagine the reactions in the United States, for example, if this country somehow did not possess nuclear arms but was suddenly threatened by a country that did possess them, and some third country lectured it on the virtues of remaining nuclear-weapon-free in the name of nonproliferation.)

Enter George W. Bush. His Administration has addressed the two major elements of nuclear danger in our world. In regard to the leftover cold war arsenals, he has proposed what on the face of it appears to be the most radical shift in policy since the inauguration of the MAD system. "The cold war logic that led to the creation of massive stockpiles on both sides," he has announced, in a refreshing acknowledgment of the new geopolitical reality, "is now outdated. Our mutual security need no longer depend on a nuclear balance of terror." The clear promise is of a fundamentally new policy, of a "new framework," in his words. In regard to proliferation, he has proposed to defend the United States with NMD (which was in fact embraced by President Clinton and both parties in the Senate before Bush took office). In sum, "it is time to leave the cold war behind, and defend against the new threats of the twenty-first century." The Bush policies have the merit of acknowledging, in a way that the seemingly insensate continuation of MAD into the post-cold war world did not, the basic new realities--on the one hand, the collapse of MAD's political underpinnings and, on the other hand, the increasing dangers of proliferation. MAD acknowledges neither. It anachronistically deals with Russia exactly as we did during the cold war (though with somewhat reduced overkill), and it fatally undercuts nonproliferation by teaching that nuclear arsenals are the key to a nation's security. It is, indeed, the impossibility, in a MAD world, of framing effective nonproliferation policies that set the stage for NMD. If diplomacy wedded to MAD cannot stop proliferation, isn't it time to try something else, namely defenses? In that respect, NMD is the product of MAD.

The Bush prescription, however, does not work merely because the policies it purported to replace have failed. The most notable problem with the Bush approach is that it has not provided--even in theory--policies that can make its promises a reality. Bush seeks to offer an exit from the balance of terror, but he provides no actual escape route. MAD, notwithstanding its deficiencies, is a tough old bird, and cannot be waved away with a phrase in a speech. The closest Bush has come to a concrete policy in this field has been to announce a unilateral reduction in offensive nuclear arsenals to "the lowest possible number"--a number, however, that he has not specified. But a low number of offensive warheads, however welcome in itself (press reports have suggested that the range might be between 1,500 and 2,500 warheads), gives no release from the balance of terror. It preserves it at lower levels of overkill. (Picture the United States or Russia after a thousand or so of its cities have been destroyed.) In other passages of his speeches, Bush has seemed to acknowledge that MAD will stay in effect. In a speech on May 1, he stated in a less noted passage, "Deterrence can no longer be based solely on the threat of nuclear retaliation." The word "solely" is decisive. It means that MAD will be continued. At best, it will be supplemented by something, not replaced by it. What will that something be? Bush immediately continued, "Defenses can strengthen deterrence by reducing the incentive for proliferation." But to add defenses to MAD is a far different proposition from substituting one for the other.

That brings us to the second problem with the Bush plan. It is the one that has led almost the entire world to reject national missile defenses. Russia fears that a resurgent United States, feeling protected by its shield, will bully it in the future, and China fears that its small nuclear arsenal will be negated. The initial goal of NMD is to protect against proliferators. But at the same time, it would upset arms control. Defenses do not enhance the existing MAD system; they undermine it. That is why the world is upset that the Bush Administration wants to jettison the ABM treaty. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, for example, has recently written, "With the ABM treaty as its root, a system of international accords on arms control and disarmament sprang up in the past decades. Inseparable from this process is the creation of global and regional regimes of nuclear nonproliferation. These agreements, comprising the modern architecture of international security, rest on the ABM treaty. If the foundation is destroyed, this interconnected system will collapse, nullifying thirty years of efforts by the world community." The United States' NATO allies have just made it clear that they agree.

In the nuclear sphere, defenses and offenses are oil and water. The addition of defenses destabilizes an offensive system and vice versa. MAD is an offensive framework, depending on mutual vulnerability to make everyone cautious. A defensive framework--a so-called defense-dominated world--is imaginable. Under it, offenses would be hugely reduced or eliminated by mutual agreement, and protection from residual danger would be provided by defenses. Only when defenses could clearly overwhelm any offense would a defensive system have been achieved. At that point, and only at that point, would MAD truly be a thing of the past. This was the vision put forward, at least rhetorically, by Ronald Reagan as his ultimate goal when he first proposed strategic defenses. Like MAD, defense domination qualifies as a true framework for nuclear danger. It is one that is in fact supported by many retired civilian and military officials, including the commander of the allied air forces in the Gulf War, Charles Horner, and Reagan's chief arms negotiator, Paul Nitze, both of whom have called for the elimination of nuclear weapons together with the creation of defenses. The only way, indeed, to make sense of antimissile defenses such as NMD is to wed them to a commitment by the nuclear powers to abolish nuclear weapons.

A further problem with NMD--certainly, the strangest one--is that so far it is a technical flop, having failed most of its tests. Aristotle said that the most important attribute of a thing is existence. NMD lacks this attribute. Or, to put it differently, it has the attribute of nonexistence. It's been interesting to watch how this attribute has manifested itself politically. The Bush Administration announced that it means to "deploy" NMD. Deploy what, though? The Administration backed away from the Clinton plan--a limited deployment of ground-based missiles that would shoot down incoming missiles--and began to suggest even less-tested alternatives, including airborne, sea-based and space-based systems. When Bush recently sent his envoys to governments around the world to "persuade" them of the virtues of his plan, the governments learned to their surprise that nothing of a concrete character was on the table. It was one thing for Ivanov to say that "in order to hold a discussion, you have to have some subject for it, a plan, a concrete understanding of what the other side wants. For now, there are no such plans." It was another when the American envoy Paul Wolfowitz had to confess the truth of the charge, saying, "It is much too early, I think, even for us to ask people to agree with us, because we have not come to firm conclusions yet ourselves." The lesson may be that when you're promising pie in the sky, you should at least have some pie.

Is it possible that the nonexistence of NMD will spare us its harmful consequences? Unfortunately, not necessarily--unless the United States either abandons the scheme or weds it to a commitment to abolish nuclear weapons. Governments make their decisions according to future expectations. The looming possibility of NMD can therefore bring many of the disadvantages of actual deployment--disruption of arms control, pressure to proliferate--without any of the advantages. NMD thus creates a political problem that it cannot technically solve. When one reflects that the more ambitious NMD programs cannot be fully deployed (if they can work at all) until 2020, it becomes obvious that this is no minor consideration.

There is, we must note, one other "framework" that is possible: the framework of American military dominance, nuclear and otherwise, of the world. As the conservative commentators William Kristol and Robert Kagan have stated, Republicans "will ask Americans to face this increasingly dangerous world without illusions. They will argue that American dominance can be sustained for many decades to come, not by arms control agreements, but by augmenting America's power, and, therefore, its ability to lead." If the United States does abandon all nuclear arms control (perhaps, breaking out downward, in a manner of speaking, with unilateral cuts, the better to go upward again at will) in a bid for global dominance, and if it seeks to develop not only ballistic missile defense but--what may be more serious and technically feasible--offensive, space-based weapons, then our future framework will be neither MAD nor any version of defense dominance. It will be a hellbent military competition with the other powers of the earth--not just one but many arms races, and not, in all likelihood, in the nuclear sphere alone. Some countries will likely resort to the ugly little sisters of the family of mass destruction, chemical and biological weapons.

The great nuclear powers now rely on a system--MAD--that has lost political relevance to the world we live in. The Bush Administration has promised a new framework, in keeping with the needs of the time, but this collides both with itself and reality, political as well as technical. Absent a coherent global policy that actually does address the new shape of the nuclear predicament, events are likely to be driven in the vicious circle whose operations have already landed us in a world bristling with new nuclear dangers. Continued possession will fuel proliferation; proliferation will fuel hope for missile defense; missile defense (whether it can work or not) will disrupt arms control; and the disruption of arms control will, completing the circle, fuel proliferation. A second nuclear age has dawned, and it is running out of control. No new policies now on the horizon, in Washington or elsewhere, seem likely to turn things around anytime soon.

Jonathan Schell, The Nation's peace and disarmament correspondent, is the Harold Willens Peace Fellow at the Nation Institute.

-------- australia

Disabled people used as nuclear 'guinea pigs'

Irish Independent,
Kathy Marks in Sydney
June 8, 2001
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=32&si=450608

PROFOUNDLY disabled people were sent out from institutions in Britain to be used as guinea pigs during British atomic tests in the Australian desert in the 1950s, it was alleged yesterday.

They did not return home and are assumed to have died after witnessing nuclear explosions at Maralinga, in South Australia, at close quarters.

Claims that disabled people were deliberately exposed to radioactive fall-out in order to assess its effects on the human body were examined in 1985 by an Australian Royal Commission into the tests, but were dismissed as unsubstantiated.

Now The Independent has learned of the existence of a pilot who claims he flew them out from Britain.

The pilot related his story to respected Australian academic, Robert Jackson, director of the Centre for Disability Research and Development at Edith Cowan University in Perth.

The encounter took place after Dr Jackson gave a presentation to 300 staff in the late 1980s, during which he mentioned the allegations about radiation experiments.

Afterwards, he said, one staff member approached him and told him: "That was true. I was one of the pilots, and we didn't fly them out again."

Dr Jackson claimed he closely questioned the man, who had become a disabled care worker, and had no doubt he was telling the truth. "I was quite convinced," he added. The people who were used as guinea pigs had multiple disabilities, both physical and intellectual, the staff member told him. He is now trying to trace the man, who left the centre several years ago.

The disclosure follows revelations last week that bodies of stillborn and dead babies were shipped to the US in the 1950s from Britain, Australia, Canada and Hong Kong for use in research projects on the effects of radiation exposure. Thousands of human bone samples were also sent out.

The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency admitted bone samples were taken from dead babies and adults and sent abroad to be tested for Strontium 90, a key radioactive element, in a programme which continued until 1978. Chief Executive Dr John Loy said pathologists cremated bones and put ashes through a geiger counter.

-------- korea

Pyongyang mum on U.S. promise

By David R. Sands
June 8, 2001
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010608-906626.htm

North Korea remained silent yesterday as Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said the Bush administration was ready to revive without "any preconditions" intensified diplomatic contacts frozen since the end of the Clinton administration.

U.S. diplomats hope to renew direct talks with North Korea on its missile program and huge conventional forces through a long-standing diplomatic back-channel in New York "in the very near future," Mr. Powell said yesterday, as he emerged from a working lunch with South Korean Foreign Minister Han Seung-soo.

The only semi-official signal from North Korea came from Kim Myong Chol, an official in Japan often used as a spokesman for the North Korean regime.

Mr. Kim told reporters in Japan yesterday that the North was ready to talk with the United States about the missile issue, but would discuss conventional force levels only after the U.S. forces helping to defend South Korea are withdrawn.

The rapprochement with the Stalinist state had been put on hold for four months while the new U.S. administration reviewed the effort to cut a deal pushed strongly by President Clinton at the end of his term.

But while saying the United States hoped for a more "comprehensive" dialogue with North Korea, including "humanitarian" issues and the North´s huge troop deployment, Mr. Powell indicated he was ready to resume the talks pretty much along the lines of the Clinton initiative.

"We´re not setting any preconditions here," Mr. Powell said. "I think it´s important to have an open dialogue on all the issues that are concerned."

Mr. Bush in February delivered an unexpected setback to South Korean President Kim Dae-jung´s own efforts to ease tensions with the North and end a half-century of bitter military stalemate on the peninsula. Mr. Bush expressed deep skepticism about whether Pyongyang could be trusted to abide by any agreement to curb its missile development and export program.

The South Korean leader´s "Sunshine Policy," including a hoped-for visit by North Korean leader Kim Jong-il to Seoul this year, has been on hold as the U.S. administration conducted a four-month policy review on North Korea.

A relieved Mr. Han said he "welcomed" Mr. Bush´s statement Wednesday evening.

"We hope that the U.S. will engage North Korea in a very meaningful and useful dialogue, and in doing so, the United States and South Korea will coordinate our policy toward North Korea," he said.

While U.S. and North Korean diplomats have had "regular, logistical contacts" through the New York channel, North Korea learned of Mr. Bush´s statement just hours before it was issued.

Mr. Bush´s decision was welcomed by Japan and by the new Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, who had been highly critical of Mr. Bush´s treatment of South Korea´s Mr. Kim.

Mr. Powell confirmed yesterday that the administration would not seek a renegotiation of the 1994 Agreed Framework, under which North Korea suspended its nuclear program in exchange for fuel aid and foreign help in constructing modern nuclear-power plants.

The accord has come under heavy attacks from those who doubt North Korea´s promises can be adequately verified.

"It is an agreement and we see no reason to change our position right now," Mr. Powell said.

Privately critical of Mr. Clinton´s 11th-hour push for a diplomatic breakthrough with North Korea, Bush administration officials were on the defensive yesterday, trying to distinguish the differences in their new approach.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters yesterday that the incoming Bush team had a right and a duty to review the policy in one of the world´s most dangerous places.

Some 37,000 U.S. troops are posted along the demilitarized zone along with South Korean forces. They face more than 1 million North Korean troops across the world´s most heavily militarized border.

A White House background briefing paper indicated there would be substantial continuity with the previous administration´s approach.

"There are some elements that were useful and important, and we have incorporated them into our thinking," the paper concluded.

-------- missile defense

They'd Shoot NMD Down
Neighbors Of British Radar Site Aren't Keen On Missile Defense
Radar Hub For Missile Shield Would Be Housed At Local Base
Fear Enemy Would Attack Them As Prelude To Strike At America

June 8, 2001
CBS
http://cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,295712-412,00.shtml

FYLINGDALES, Britain, As the Bush administration continues its global sales pitch for national missile defense, it's winning few converts in the town that could host the lynchpin to the missile shield, reports CBS News Correspondent Tom Fenton.

The high-powered American radar base at Fylingdales - in a wild moorland corner of one of Britain's national parks - is slated to become a crucial element in the NMD program.

The base, known for the large pyramid-shaped radar array based there, would house the early warning radar that would alert batteries of "kill vehicles" to an enemy missile launch.

The Blair government appears to support the idea of NMD, but there is a problem: 100 British Parliamentarians oppose it.

"We should have no business whatsoever with national missile defense," said Labor Party MP Jeremy Corbyn. "It makes us a potential target for anyone who's looking for a war against the United States."

The locals hate it too.

"Anybody who wanted to attack America would most likely attack Fylingdales first," said Jackie Fearnley.

People here have watched the simulations and listened the message that the NMD "is designed to protect all 50 states," but heard no promise it would protect Britain.

The national missile defense is needed, supporters say, because a group of "rogue" nations - like North Korea, Iran and Iraq - could soon develop ballistic missiles capable of delivering chemical, biological or nuclear bombs to the United States.

Supporters says the possibility of a massive American retaliation may not dissuade these states from striking.

The project is estimated to cost as much $60 billion for the land-based leg of interceptors, radar stations and battle management network.

The Clinton administration conducted several tests of the missile defense technology but held off on a decision on whether to start building NMD. The Bush administration has vowed to push ahead, and said it plans to amend the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, which prohibits such systems.

Outlining his plans for missile defense, President Bush said the system is needed "to counter the different threats of today's world."

The administration believes the ABM treaty is outdated, and has pledged to cut nuclear stockpiles in coordination with building an NMD.

Domestic opponents criticize the program's cost and say it could trigger an arms race. Russia opposes scrapping the ABM treaty, China believes the missile shield could erode its nuclear deterrent, and some European allies are skeptical.

American envoys have been shuttling around the world explaining what's involved. But here in the communities that have to live alongside the secret American facility, people complain that they've been told nothing.

During the Cold War Fylingdales was a series of domed radar apparatuses designed to give Britain four minutes warning of a nuclear attack. In the 1960s people understood the purpose of the installation.

"We really thought there could be a nuclear war," said Fearnley.

But people don't buy the current American argument.

"Some idea that Saddam Hussein might chuck a missile and hopefully hit Washington - the whole concept is so ludicrous," said Laureen Shaw.

The Washington Post reported Friday that administration officials are considering speeding up development of the system to install a few missile interceptors by 2004. But along with the technical hurdles the Pentagon faces, there is a growing political obstacle in Britain.

"By God, if Tony Blair and President Bush between them decide to go ahead with this, then by heck, just stand by because there will be a lot of people here who will be very, very upset and who will be making a lot of noise," said Fylingdales neighbor Tom Thomson.

----

Missile Defense: Wishing Won't Make it So

Council for a Livable World Education Fund
Press Release: June 8, 2001
http://www.clw.org/ef/bmddreams.html

The Bush Administration's rush to deploy a scaled down missile defense system by 2004 is nothing more than a "foot in the door" for Boeing and disastrous for U.S. security, the Council for a Livable World Education Fund said today.

"The Bush plan is the worst of all possible worlds. It means building something before we know if it will work; spending huge amounts of money we don't have; breaking the ABM treaty when our allies are strongly opposed to such action; and putting U.S. security at risk, all to appease the Republican right wing. It's outrageous. It's like the Pentagon is living in an Alice-in-Wonderland reality," said John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World.

The Bush plans for deploying five missile interceptors in Alaska by 2004, leaked on the eve of the President's first trip to meet with NATO partners and with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, appears to be an effort to bully our NATO allies, who do not see the need for the U.S. to deploy an anti-missile system, into concluding they have no chance of derailing the Administration's efforts.

"Simply using words like 'inescapable' and 'inevitable' to describe these half-baked plans won't make them come true," said Chris Madison, who directs the Education Fund's National Missile Defense Project. "The fact is, there is no consensus in the Senate, no consensus in the country and no consensus among our allies that this is the best way to proceed."

The Education fund noted that there were several major obstacles to the Administration's "hurry-up" missile defense. To deploy by 2004, they would have to use existing, but inadequate, radar systems, because there is not enough time to build sophisticated new radar systems. In addition, the Pentagon would have to significantly increase testing of the system.

However, if a test fails, and many anti-missile intercept tests do, several months are required to investigate the failure before the next test is conducted. When the next intercept test of this system is conducted, it will have been over a year since the last one. There simply is not enough time to do all the tests required before 2004.

Moreover, this 'build now, ask questions later' approach probably has a more cynical motivation. Everyone knows that once a weapons program enters its procurement phase, Congress is loath to stop funding it, even for substantial upgrades later on.

"This is a 'foot in the door' approach to missile defense," Isaacs said. "By getting some elements in place quickly, they hope to grease the wheels for more money in future years."

Council for a Livable World Education Fund, 110 Maryland Avenue NE #201, Washington, DC 20002, (202) 543-4100

Contact: John Isaacs - 202.543.4100 x. 131 or Chris Madison - 202.546.0795 x. 135

----

NATO allies told US intends to deploy limited missile defence

Fri, 8 Jun 2001 6:30 AEST
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newslink/weekly/newsnat-8jun2001-14.htm

The US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has told the NATO allies that the United States intends to deploy a limited missile defence and that breaking the 1972 ABM treaty with Moscow is "simply inescapable".

Mr Rumsfeld says missile defences will be added to traditional nuclear weapons as part of a strategy he calls "layered deterrence".

The ABM treaty bars the United States and Russia from deploying national missile defence systems.

Many US allies oppose abandoning the ABM treaty, fearing it will sharpen tensions with Russia and China and spur an arms race in response to a questionable threat.

----

Missile Defense Speedup Weighed
Implementing System By 2004 Considered

By Steven Mufson and Mary Pat Flaherty
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 8, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37473-2001Jun7?language=printer

The Bush administration is considering a crash effort to put into place a rudimentary missile defense system before the end of President Bush's current term in 2004, according to administration officials and a presentation by a major defense contractor.

The Defense Department has been pressing private contractors for options to speed up deployment of missile defenses. The lead contractor, Boeing Co., has given various proposals -- including one that would place five interceptor missiles in Alaska by March 2004, before a sophisticated new radar system could be built, and step up the number of flight tests to four or five a year -- far more than contractors have managed so far.

Until now, administration officials have spoken only in very general terms about the possible design, timetable and cost of missile defenses. Boeing's proposals, which officials said are under active consideration, indicate the administration wants to select a concrete plan and move quickly to build at least the first elements of a missile defense, which could be expanded over time.

A handful of interceptors, without a new "X-band" radar to guide them, is only a small part of what the administration envisions. But the rudimentary system would signal the administration's resolve, help fulfill one of Bush's campaign promises and require fundamentally changing or scrapping the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

"It is a simple question: Is something better than nothing?" a senior defense official said. "The president and the secretary [of defense] have made it pretty clear they believe that some missile defense in the near term is in fact better than nothing."

A Boeing Co. executive outlined an overall proposal and possible timetable in an April 23 presentation at the Pentagon. One innovative suggestion was that the United States could put a missile tracking radar on a movable floating platform by November 2004.

The platform, similar to an oil-drilling rig, could be deployed in international waters, reducing the need to obtain permission from U.S. allies to use radars on their territory. But because the platform would be vulnerable to attack, one official said, the idea appears unlikely to be adopted.

Boeing spokeswoman Monica Aloisio declined to comment on the details of the April 23 presentation, but said it was "one of many" options Boeing has presented. All the options were requested by the director of the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, Lt. Gen. Ronald T. Kadish, and the missile defense manager, Maj. Gen. Willie B. Nance, in an effort to speed up deployment.

"What the Department of Defense is doing is looking at optimal ways of getting pieces in place as soon as possible," a senior administration official said. "Different companies are pitching what they think they're best suited to do."

Boeing's proposals illustrate the difficulty in coming up with a missile defense system any time soon. To meet a 2004 deployment date, the initial handful of interceptors in Alaska would have to rely on an upgraded version of existing early warning radars, Boeing said. It would take until 2007 to deploy 50 interceptors -- about half the number the Clinton administration originally planned for that date.

Boeing's proposals would require putting the system in place piece by piece, with plans to upgrade the initial components in later years.

"It's like buying a car, and when you first get the car, it can only go in first gear," said Philip E. Coyle, formerly the Pentagon's top weapons tester.

Coyle said the approach differs from the Pentagon's normal acquisition procedure, in which requirements are spelled out in advance. "Now we're saying we won't wait until we have all the capabilities we want. We'll take each capability as we can get it, one piece at a time," he said.

The cost of speeding up deployment is unclear. Dov Zakheim, the Defense Department comptroller, said at a May 31 briefing that the budget for fiscal 2002 will include "considerably more" money for missile defense. But he did not provide a specific figure.

Preliminary decisions about the shape of a missile defense system appear to be drawing near. Yesterday, a senior Defense Department official traveling with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who was meeting with other NATO defense ministers in Brussels, said "we have moved from the initial consultations" and "are now talking about how we go forward."

One ambitious element of Boeing's proposals, and one potential obstacle for the Pentagon, is the need for increased tests, which cost about $75 million to $100 million each. A flight test planned for this month has been postponed until August, administration officials said. The most recent test took place nearly a year ago.

"It would be ambitious to try to sustain four or five tests a year for the next several years," Coyle said. "The best way to prove that is to notice how long the current one has been delayed. It was originally scheduled before the readiness review a year ago. Three or four other tests were supposed to have happened by now."

"It all comes down to the flight tests," a senior defense official added. "You get a string of successes and you can move faster. You run into problems, and there is simply no denying that it takes time to figure out what went wrong and fix it."

Boeing's presentation assumes that "treaty constraints" are "removed" -- a reference to the ABM Treaty, which prohibits testing and construction of missile defenses at multiple sites.

The Boeing presentation was made by Jim Evatt, a Boeing executive vice president and manager of its missile defense work. Major subcontractors on missile defense include TRW Inc., which makes the battle management control system; Raytheon Co., which makes the kill vehicle; and Lockheed Martin Corp., which makes the launch vehicle.

Staff writer Roberto Suro contributed to this report.

----

Rumsfeld Seeks NATO Support
Secretary Promotes Missile Shield Plan

By William Drozdiak
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, June 8, 2001; Page A11
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37366-2001Jun7?language=printer

BRUSSELS, June 7 -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told skeptical NATO allies today that the United States would soon start to build a system of "layered defenses" involving ground, sea and space-based weapons to cope with a growing threat of ballistic missiles in the hands of unpredictable foes.

In a strong appeal for their support, the latest such call from the United States in recent weeks, Rumsfeld urged fellow defense ministers in the 19-nation alliance to embrace a post-Cold War strategy being developed by the Bush administration. It emphasizes security dangers emerging from new technologies that Rumsfeld said are "putting unprecedented power in the hands of small countries and terrorist groups."

European ministers at the gathering continued to challenge the American view. France's defense minister, Alain Richard, said that NATO needs a more comprehensive analysis of what the supposed threat entails. And Germany's Rudolf Scharping called for "a coherent political answer to the threats [because] technological means alone are not sufficient."

Using charts and videotapes to fortify his message, Rumsfeld advocated a defense network that could intercept "handfuls of missiles, not hundreds." It would augment nuclear deterrence, he said, and protect the territory of the United States and its allies from a new generation of military perils that bears no resemblance to the old threat from the Soviet Union.

He said that deploying missile defenses would require abandoning the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty that the United States signed with the Soviet Union in 1972. While the Bush administration regards it as a Cold War relic that should be discarded, many NATO allies still consider the treaty the foundation of modern arms control and favor retaining it.

Rumsfeld acknowledged that the U.S. desire to scrap the treaty unsettles some European allies, but he called it a vital step in achieving a new strategic environment. "We understand this conclusion is not welcomed by some," he said. "But it is simply inescapable."

The debate over whether a missile shield is feasible and justified is shaping up as one of the most contentious issues NATO faces. Many allies see the construction of a missile defense network as a provocative act that would escalate the global arms race by prodding Russia, China and other nations to develop offensive weapons that could overwhelm any defense.

In addition, some allies question whether the threat is as serious as the United States would have them believe. Even if it is, they favor a stronger emphasis on engaging potential adversaries in the quest to find peaceful arms control solutions that would minimize all arsenals of mass destruction.

Last week, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell failed to persuade NATO foreign ministers at a meeting in Budapest to identify the proliferation of ballistic missiles as a "common threat" shared with the United States.

Today Rumsfeld said that a missile shield, by its very existence, could "dissuade and discourage potential adversaries from investing significant resources into hostile capabilities." He also said that failing to develop missile defenses as quickly as possible could actually encourage attacks.

Rumsfeld unveiled new intelligence assessments that purportedly show how such "nations of concern" as North Korea, Iran and Iraq have already deployed missiles capable of reaching NATO member states.

While conceding there had been major setbacks in the testing of antimissile defenses, he said the United States was determined to deploy systems "consistent with technical maturity and the threat" over the next few years. He said the Pentagon was exploring new technologies that feature ground and sea-based systems to intercept missiles in midcourse or in ascent, as well as an airborne laser.

Rumsfeld said the missile shield would allow the United States to proceed with major cuts in offensive nuclear missiles. But he also sought to reassure the allies that the United States did not intend to diminish its nuclear or conventional presence in Europe.

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Rumsfeld Outlines to NATO Fast Track for Missile Shield

By JAMES DAO
June 8, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/08/world/08NATO.html?searchpv=nytToday

BRUSSELS, June 7 - Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that the United States is likely to deploy certain antiballistic missile systems before testing on them is completed, signaling the speed with which the Bush administration hopes to develop and use the still-unproven technology.

In a meeting of NATO defense ministers, Mr. Rumsfeld outlined a two-tiered approach in which the administration intends to continue consultations with its skeptical allies and Russia, even as the Pentagon moves as swiftly as possible to develop and deploy systems.

"I don't know a single advanced research and development project in the history of mankind that didn't suffer a series of failures," Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters after today's meetings. "You end up learning something by trying it."

As one of the administration's most determined advocates of a missile shield, Mr. Rumsfeld viewed his trip here as an opportunity to lay out his most detailed arguments yet on the growing threat of missile attacks and the ways a missile shield could fit into a broader strategy of deterrence, his aides said.

In one closed-door session, the American delegation presented the NATO ministers with detailed intelligence information that they said clearly demonstrated the efforts of certain nations to acquire advanced, long-range missile technology.

Mr. Rumsfeld also told the defense ministers that the administration is not prepared to abandon the cornerstones of current nuclear policy - deterrence and arms control - in an attempt to allay some of the allies' concerns that building a missile defense will set off a new arms race.

But he asserted that the Antiballistic Missile Treaty the United States signed with the Soviet Union in 1972 has made testing, much less deploying, antimissile technology next to impossible. For that reason, he concluded, amending or scrapping the treaty was "inescapable."

"The treaty stands in the way of a 21st-century approach to deterrence," Mr. Rumsfeld said in a statement distributed to the NATO ministers. "It prevents deployment of defense that can deny others the power to hold our populations hostage to nuclear blackmail."

Critics of missile defense said Mr. Rumsfeld's remarks mean the United States may be heading toward withdrawing from or even violating the ABM treaty even sooner than they had anticipated.

"The course they are choosing will precipitate an international political crisis regarding the ABM treaty sooner than is necessary, given the very immature status of the technology," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, a nonprofit group. "Why perpetuate a crisis when the technology will not provide you the protection you desire?"

Privately, some European officials agreed. "It doesn't make sense to decide on something that hasn't been proven, when you don't know whether it works or whether you can pay for it," a German defense official said.

Mr. Rumsfeld said it was too early to determine when testing on various antimissile technologies - which could include lasers mounted on jets or missiles fired from destroyers - might begin "bumping up" against the ABM treaty. But some arms control groups contend the administration could violate the pact within months if it proceeds aggressively with certain kinds of tests.

Indeed, Mr. Rumsfeld said today that unlike the Clinton administration, the Pentagon under President Bush will not be deterred from conducting tests that might violate the treaty.

"We are proceeding with a variety of technologies or research and development activities that had not previously been explored to any length because, had they been successful, they would have bounced against the treaty," he told reporters.

"The prior administration had concluded that they didn't want to bounce against the treaty," he said. "This administration has drawn the conclusion that the nature of the threat is sufficient" to proceed with those unexplored programs, he said.

Some defense analysts argue that the Bush administration has exaggerated the limitations on testing imposed by the ABM treaty. They contend the main obstacles to developing a viable system are the untested nature of the technology and the high costs - hundreds of billions of dollars for the kind of "layered" system Mr. Bush has advocated involving land, sea and airborne weapons.

"The spending required to pursue these options is the real current issue, not the ABM treaty," argues Philip E. Coyle, who ran the Pentagon's testing office under the Clinton administration and is now an adviser to the Center for Defense Information, a nonprofit defense analyst group, in a draft report on the ABM treaty.

Mr. Rumsfeld's appearance today came just a week after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell failed to get NATO foreign ministers to agree that the 19 NATO countries faced "a common threat" from ballistic missiles attacks.

Today, Mr. Rumsfeld faced some of the same type of skepticism about the imminence of a ballistic missile attack.

During one meeting, Mr. Rumsfeld and one of his top aides, Dr. Stephen A. Cambone, gave the ministers intelligence information, including satellite photographs of missile equipment on trucks, that was intended to demonstrate the proliferation of advanced missile technology to countries like Libya, Iraq, Iran and North Korea, people who attended the meeting said.

Although some people said the briefing was persuasive, others sounded unconvinced. "The information was not new to us," said a German defense official. "We knew there were bad guys out there."

And the French defense minister, Alain Richard, when told that some people felt Mr. Rumsfeld had provided strong new evidence of a growing missile threat, said, "That's a superficial impression." He added, "Fortunately, I don't discover threats every day."

But several NATO officials said that the Bush administration was making headway within the organization. The officials said many NATO countries were enticed by Mr. Bush's pledge to cut America's nuclear arsenal and to provide missile defense technology to the allies. The officials also said the administration was wearing down some of its opponents by not budging from its vow to build a system.

"When you know they are going to build it no matter what, is it really worth the fight?" asked one NATO official. "I don't think so."

----

Russia, NATO to Discuss Tactical Missile Defense

New York Times
June 8, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-nato-ru.html

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO on Friday accepted Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov's offer to send experts from Moscow to Brussels to discuss prospects for a possible joint Russian-European defense against medium-range tactical missiles.

The agreement was announced by Ivanov and NATO Secretary-General George Robertson at a news conference following a meeting between Ivanov and Atlantic alliance defense ministers. No date was set for the talks on Russia's earlier proposal to examine the possibility of such a joint defense.

Ivanov told reporters at a press conference that Moscow remained opposed to U.S. demands to change or scrap the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which would allow Washington to build defenses against long-range strategic missiles.

Ivanov, who was holding talks later with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, welcomed continuing anti-missile consultations with the Bush administration on emerging missile threats.

But ``as for inter-continental ballistic missiles, our view of the threat from that area these days is that it is an entirely hypothetical problem. There is no chance of it coming ... for a long, long time,'' said Ivanov, who conceded that Russia might face a more near-term threat from tactical missiles.

-------- russia

From Russia with nukes

June 8, 2001
Ariel Cohen
Washington Times
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20010608-76849372.htm

As Presidents Bush and Putin plan their summit in Ljubljana, Slovenia, on June 16, Russia´s sales of ballistic missile technology and nuclear systems to Iran must be urgently addressed by the two presidents. Otherwise, the tentative improvement in the U.S.-Russian relations, based on Washington´s overtures to Moscow over cooperation in missile defense, may be derailed.

Iranian President Mohammed Khatami´s visit to Moscow on March 12-15, 2001, turned Mr. Putin´s Russia into a Toys-R´-Us for the ayatollahs´ military. Iran already is the third largest importer of Russian arms after China and India. Russia will supply Iran enough weaponry to destabilize the Middle East, which may mean higher oil prices and higher gasoline bills at the pump for an American consumer.

Russian-Iranian military ties that increases Tehran´s weapons of mass destruction capabilities will make this sponsor of terrorism more of a threat to vital U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf as well as to the security of America´s allies in the Middle East. Moreover, by gaining nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and other advanced weapons systems from Russia, Iran could one day threaten the United States directly.

The administration must develop a comprehensive strategy that relies on proactive diplomacy, creative economic countermeasures, and innovative military responses to address this growing threat from Iran. It should maintain a strong U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf, particularly by the U.S. Navy, to deter and defend against military threats from Iran. As long as the United States stands by its allies, the chances of attack from Iran are low.

The United States should also accelerate the deployment of sea-based missile defense systems on U.S. ships in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf. Washington should cooperate with Israel and Turkey in the Mediterranean region and the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to deploy a sea-based anti-ballistic missile systems on U.S. ships. Once deployed, such a system would blunt the emerging threat of Iranian missile attack.

The United States should also strengthen its military ties with the Gulf Cooperation Council to help it become a more effective military alliance. Bolstering the GCC would lessen Iran´s ability to intimidate its weaker neighbors and would enhance efforts to contain both Iran and Iraq.

Furthermore, the administration must ensure that U.S. enterprises and credits do not contribute in any way to Iran´s buildup of missiles or weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs. The United States should expand sanctions against Russian companies and institutions that help Iran build missiles or that transfer weapons technology. They should be forced to choose between trading with America or aiding Iran.

Under U.S. law, the president can withhold U.S. aid to any country that provides assistance to a government that the State Department deems a terrorist state. Iran has been on the U.S. terrorism list since 1984, and the State Department lists it as the most active state sponsor of international terrorism in its April 2000 "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report.

The administration should prevent U.S. investors from subsidizing Russian projects that could generate revenue for Iran, which Tehran could use to obtain advanced military technology. Russian companies investing in Iran should not be allowed to raise capital in U.S. financial markets.

In particular, Russian companies, such as the natural gas monopoly Gazprom, should not be allowed to raise funds from U.S. investors benefiting their energy schemes in Iran, since they could fund its military buildup and ultimately could be used to threaten U.S. interests in the region.

The intelligence community should be tasked with a comprehensive assessment of the ongoing technology transfer and weapons programs, and with providing recommendations identifying "choking points" that are vulnerable to sanctions.

The current WMD working group at the National Security Council should be requested to develop a sanctions strategy that targets Russian and Iranian officials, businesses, and individuals involved in the proliferation of WMD technologies, material, or know-how, as well as their sources of financing. This strategy could include restrictions on access to U.S. capital markets, scrutiny of international investment and banking activities by violators, and stricter visa controls for the individuals involved.

The Bush administration should support the rescheduling of Russia´s $150 billion debt to the Paris Club only in exchange for its active cooperation in cutting the flow of advanced military technology to Iran. The administration should make clear that it opposes further rescheduling of Russian debt to the Paris Club as long as Moscow continues to export dangerous military technology to Iran.

Last but not least, the United States should assist the Iranian people in their quest to achieve genuine democracy. Despite the reform efforts of President Khatami, the current regime remains a harsh dictatorship of radical Islamic ideologues. The Bush administration should support the creation of an international network of nongovernmental organizations concerned with the plight of Iranian students, businessmen, national and ethnic minorities, and women, the main supporters of reform who voted for Mr. Khatami in 1997 and for reformers during the 2000 parliamentary elections. Washington should help Iranians gain access to uncensored information by expanding the broadcasting range and frequencies of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Voice of America.

This strategy, implemented under President Ronald Reagan in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe, proved highly successful. Applied to Iran, it could lead to the emergence of democratic forms of government and leadership. The Bush administration should definitely take this lesson from the Ronald Reagan foreign policy manual.

Ariel Cohen is a research fellow in Russian and Eurasian studies in the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies at the Heritage Foundation.

----

Fire Hits Missile Base Near Moscow, Causes Damage

New York Times
June 8, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-russia-.html

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A fire broke out on Friday in one of Russia's S-300 missile systems outside Moscow, causing damage but no injuries, Russian news reports quoted military officials as saying.

Interfax news agency, quoting the Russian Air Force, said the fire, which was later extinguished, occurred in the morning in the Zakharovo Yegorovsky district while the missiles were in a horizontal position and in a protective covering.

Interfax said three missile launchers were damaged.

``There was no accidental launch. There are no injuries... There was no damage in the village. Neither residents nor servicemen were evacuated,'' it said.

Gennady Vasilyev, Air Force and Air Defense commander in Moscow region, told NTV television: ``We had an abnormal situation with our equipment. There was a fire in one of the systems and as a result three launch systems were damaged.''

Two women residents of the village told NTV that they heard a series of explosions and saw a huge cloud rise over the area.

``There were two small explosions and then a big one which blew our windows out,'' one of the unidentified women said. ``My husband and son went out to see what was happening. Then there was panic and we ran off.''

The second woman said she saw a large, black cloud over the area. She described the incident as ``dreadful.''

Vasilyev told NTV he could draw no conclusions about the accounts pending an investigation.

The S-300 system is a key part of Russian air defenses and has been sold to a number of other countries. U.S. officials have suggested they might purchase the system as part of efforts to persuade Russia to join it in efforts to build an anti-missile defense system.

---

Russian Air Defense Missile Explodes

Washington Post
Friday, June 8, 2001
The Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010608/aponline103249_000.htm

MOSCOW -- A Russian air defense missile exploded at a military base near Moscow on Friday, spilling burning fuel but hurting no one, a defense ministry spokesman said.

Col. Vyacheslav Sedov said the incident was caused by a short circuit that set the engine of an S-300 surface-to-air missile ablaze. The ensuing explosion spread burning missile fuel and it took firefighters several hours to put out the fire, he said in a telephone interview. The missile's conventional warhead did not go off, he said.

"The incident hurt no one," Sedov said.

RTR government television quoted eyewitnesses who heard an explosion and saw a column of black smoke rising over the base near the village of Zakharovo, some 19 miles southeast of Moscow.

The S-300 missile is one of Russia's most modern weapons, capable of shooting down aircraft and incoming missiles at ranges of up to 120 miles. Russian officials have claimed it is superior to the U.S. Patriot system used during the Gulf War.

Russia has aggressively marketed the S-300 and has sold it to several nations.

----

Russia Needs Funds to Destroy Arms

Washington Post
Friday, June 8, 2001
By Judith Ingram
Associated Press Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010608/aponline092805_000.htm

CHELYABINSK, Russia -- Russian disarmament officials brought diplomats from the United States, the European Union and Canada to a remote eastern town Friday to drum up funding for Moscow's long-delayed effort to destroy the world's largest arsenal of chemical weapons.

Russia was one of the first nations to join the international Chemical Weapons Convention, which required countries to destroy their chemical weapons by 2007 - a date later extended to 2012.

Yet successive Russian governments have pleaded poverty, asking for more money and time to deal with the gigantic task of eliminating 44 million tons of the deadly compounds.

"The chemical weapons stockpiled by the people of the world don't belong to one country, they are a common problem and we bear responsibility for them," said former Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko, who heads a committee overseeing the effort.

At a flag-raising ceremony in Shchuchye, near a 60-year-old storage site for nerve agents, Russia thanked international donors for the $958 million they have committed so far to construct destruction facilities.

Shchuchye, some 975 miles southeast of Moscow in the Ural Mountains region, will have the largest destruction plant.

The United States, the biggest financial supporter of Russia's chemical weapons destruction program, has committed some $888 million to the facility, which is due to start operating in 2004. Russia is to put in some $400 million.

But Russian disarmament officials said more money is needed.

The Russian government has estimated the cost of destroying the weapons at $7 billion, though Munitions Agency head Zinovy Pak, in charge of the destruction effort, has recently said costs could be trimmed by up to half.

Costs include construction of roads, power plants and other infrastructure, partly to operate the plants and partly to buy the cooperation of local communities that fear chemical contamination.

Deputy Prime Ilya Klebanov said Russia had managed to get $120 million for the program in the budget this year, six times more than in 2000.

Russia's chemical weapons are stored at the seven sites where they were produced for most of the 20th century. The last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, announced in April 1987 that the country had stopped chemical weapons production, and a decade later parliament ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention.

About 14 percent of the weapons are at Shchuchye - some 2 million shells and missile warheads. After shells and missiles are drilled and drained, the chemicals will be chemically neutralized, then mixed with asphalt and solidified for storage.

European countries have also contributed to Shchuchye, though most have concentrated on building the smaller Gorny destruction facility in the Volga River region.

A third destruction plant is expected to be built in Kambarka, northeast of Gorny.

------

US CONDITIONS CAST DOUBT ON FUTURE OF RUSSIAN PLANS TO IMPORT NUCLEAR WASTE

8 June 2001
http://www.greenpeace.org/pressreleases/nucwaste/2001jun8.html

Moscow, Russia, 2001: Russian government plans to import nuclear waste were in doubt after the US State Department ruled out Russian reprocessing of nuclear waste as an option for US origin nuclear fuel, which accounts for 90 percent of the potential waste imports.

"Russia is neither able nor willing to fulfil the US conditions, which amount to a de facto veto on this dangerous Russian nuclear waste import scheme," said Tobias Muenchmeyer of Greenpeace International. "The US conditions make Minatom's plans impossible. Without the US controlled fuel the Minatom program, if it proceeds, will involve mainly spent nuclear fuel from former Eastern Block countries."

The State Department's announcement followed Greenpeace's call for the US government to veto nuclear waste exports to Russia. The announcement came out a few hours after the Russian Duma on Wednesday approved a controversial amendment to the environmental law, which overturned a ban on the import of radioactive waste to Russia

Reprocessing (see notes) of imported nuclear waste is a crucial part of the Russian Atomic Ministry's (Minatom) plan. Minatom estimates, 16,000t of the 20,000t imported would be reprocessed. The US State Department, in a statement released yesterday clarifying US policy, said: "For Russia to import irradiated fuel containing US origin nuclear material would require a Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreement with the US, something it does not now have".

The statement continued: "In considering whether in the future to grant consent for retransfer, the US would want to consider several factors. For instance, the US would want to be assured that the transfer was for eventual disposal, and not for reprocessing, in order to avoid increases in civil stockpiles of separated plutonium. The US would need to be assured that the planned transportation, storage, and disposition of the fuel complied with appropriate standards of safety and security. An especially important factor would be the nature of Russia's nuclear cooperation with third parties". The last point refers to American concerns over Russian sales of nuclear technology to Iran.

Recent calculations based on data provided by the US Department of Energy (DOE) show that more than 90 percent of foreign radioactive waste (spent nuclear fuel) considered for import by Russia's Ministry of Atomic Energy (Minatom) is under US control.

Only 180t (or 7.5 percent) of the 2,400 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel produced annually, by Minatom's claimed potential client countries, could be exported to Russia without US approval.

This material is mainly produced in Eastern European countries and in China.

The State Department conditioned a permission for countries to export US controlled fuel to: a commitment that Russia would give up its plan to reprocess the imported spent fuel: that transportation, storage, and disposition of fuel would comply with international safety standards; and Russia would give up nuclear cooperation with Iran and India.

The law changes, approved by the Duma on Wednesday, must go in the coming days to the Russian Upper House. The leader of Russia's Upper House is opposed to the radioactive waste import legislation

"The Federation Council must demonstrate that it has nothing to do with the nuclear mafia, but is reflecting the people's opinion. Greenpeace urges the Federation Council to turn down this insane law change." said Muenchmeyer.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

- Tobias Muenchmeyer (Berlin) +49 170 86 66 052 - Ivan Blokov (Moscow) +7 095 257 41 22 or visit the Greenpeace website at www.greenpeace.org/~nuclear/waste/russianwaste.html where a chronology of events leading up to today's Duma vote is available. PHOTOS AND VIDEO are available of the victims of radioactive pollution from the Mayak nuclear facility. Contact Greenpeace Communications Mim Lowe (video) or John Novis (photo) on ++31-20-5236222

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Rumsfeld Takes Message to Russians

Washington Post
Friday, June 8, 2001
By Jeffrey Ulbrich
Associated Press Writer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010608/aponline090108_000.htm

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, having hammered the NATO allies with Washington's missile defense message, took the same argument to the Russians on Friday, hoping to persuade them the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty has outlived its usefulness.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov indicated that if Washington wants to abandon the 1972 ABM treaty, the Russians can't stop them. But he wanted to know what would be put in its place.

Allied defense ministers opened the second-day of their spring session by meeting Ivanov in the NATO-Russia Permanent Joint Council, a forum created in 1997 when the first former Warsaw Pact countries joined NATO.

That was followed by bilateral talks between Rumsfeld and Ivanov, their first since Rumsfeld took charge of the Pentagon and Ivanov stepped into his new defense post.

Rumsfeld made the U.S. sales pitch for missile defense to the allies Thursday, sharing satellite photos, videotape and other sensitive intelligence with them and arguing that emerging threats, particularly missile attack from "rogue nations," require a new response from the West.

He said it was inevitable that the United States would move beyond the ABM treaty, though he did not say when. Washington would consult with the Europeans and Russia to find a "new framework" enabling the Pentagon to test and deploy defenses against ballistic missiles, he said.

The allies remained skeptical.

Ivanov told reporters that after Washington and Moscow signed the 1972 ABM treaty, 32 other agreements and treaties were signed "creating the entire regime of arms control."

"So we would like to understand exactly what is intended to replace the existing system to assure strategic stability in the future," he said.

The United States wants to develop and deploy a system capable of shooting down ballistic missiles fired by unpredictable nations such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq.

In his presentation to NATO defense ministers, Rumsfeld argued that the Cold War-era concept of deterring aggression must be replaced by a more complex idea.

Threatening to retaliate against an attacker with massive nuclear force will not necessarily deter a country like Iraq or North Korea, he said.

Rumsfeld proposed a three-pronged approach to deterrence: an offensive nuclear force, a missile defense, even if rudimentary in its initial form, and more advanced, flexible and mobile non-nuclear forces.

"Deploying missile defenses capable of protecting the U.S. friends and allies will eventually require moving beyond the ABM treaty," he said.

Ivanov said Moscow views the main threats today as "religious extremism, terrorism and the influx of drugs." Future threats, he said, are proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Ivanov agreed that there is a danger of threats from medium-range missiles, "something we would take very, very seriously."

The Russians have made a counterproposal to Washington's missile defense plan, essentially involving a European theater missile defense system, but that proposal, made nearly a year ago, remains vague and lacks any real detail, NATO officials say. Until the Russians provide the alliance with these details, they say, no extensive discussions of the Russian ideas can start.

Ivanov said Russia has agreed to send a team of military experts to Brussels soon to answer questions from the allies on the Russian proposal.

"We don't regard this as a monopoly suggestion," he said. "We don't want to impose it on anybody."

The entire question of missile defense will be on the agenda of Russian President Vladimir Putin's summit in Ljubljana, Slovenia June 16 with President Bush.

In the Permanent Joint Council, involving Ivanov and the 19 allies, the defense ministers also discussed the Balkans - where Russian troops make up part of the NATO-led force - arms control, proliferation and search and rescue at sea.

Officials here say NATO-Russia military cooperation in the Balkans is excellent and the departure of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic from the scene has made the political dialogue easier.

-------- treaties

Ireland Rejects European Treaty

New York Times
June 8, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Ireland-Referendum.html

DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) -- Irish voters rejected a key European Union treaty designed to streamline the 15-nation trading bloc before it admits more members, final results showed Friday.

The rebuff represented an embarrassing blow for the EU, which drew up the treaty in an effort to reshape its bureaucracy before adding as many as a dozen new members in the coming years.

Irish officials said final official results showed 453,000 votes in favor of adopting the treaty and 529,000 against in Thursday's referendum.

Opponents of the treaty had plastered Dublin with posters warning that Ireland risked being bossed around by larger European states, having to subsidize poorer applicant states, and having its tiny military forced to take part in NATO-inspired peacekeeping operations.

Turnout was also very low, and a senior Irish cabinet minister said voters were apparently confused over what the treaty was about.

``It is obviously very disappointing for our partners in the community, and the applicant countries waiting to join (the EU),'' said Defense Minister Michael Smith. ``A huge proportion of the people did not vote because they were confused and in doubt.''

There was no immediate reaction from the European Union's head office in Brussels, Belgium. Officials were assessing what damage the vote would do to ambitious expansion plans.

Before the vote, opinion polls in Ireland had indicated strong majorities in favor of the treaty, but with low motivation to vote. Opponents, on the other hand, were highly motivated to cast their ballots.

The setback may only be temporary. Before the vote, Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said his government would stage another referendum later if this one were rejected. Ireland was the only EU country required to hold a public referendum before putting the treaty to a parliamentary vote.

The treaty overhauls the institutions of the EU in preparation for the eventual entry of up to a dozen new members, mostly from eastern Europe. It sets a 2004 deadline for wrapping up the next round of reform talks that promise yet another fight over distributing power among small and large countries, old and new members, and between national governments and a central authority.

The pact also carries forward plans for the union to form a rapid reaction force of 60,000 soldiers for peacekeeping and humanitarian missions. Ireland would contribute 850 soldiers.

One of the leading ``no'' campaigners, Patricia McKenna of the Irish Green Party, said the vote reflected concerns about lack of democracy in EU structures and institutions.

``Ireland is the first country to be asked its opinion (of the treaty),'' said McKenna, a member of the European Parliament. ``If that's an indication of how Europe feels ... then all the member states' governments must renegotiate. It's back to the drawing board.''

Although every major political party here supported the treaty, negotiated last December in the southern French city of Nice, their campaign was lackluster.

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

Despite hoopla no new US nuclear plants soon

USA: June 8, 2001
Story by Carolyn Koo
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11101

NEW YORK - Despite haunting memories of the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl accidents, the U.S. nuclear power industry appears poised for a rebirth as a worsening energy shortage and the high price of alternative fuels force utilities to seek new supply.

But energy executives caution it may be years before completion of the next new plant.

"I'm a huge believer that nuclear power should play a part in our energy needs," Michael Morrell, president and chief operating officer of Allegheny Energy Supply Co., a subsidiary of utility Allegheny Energy Inc., said at a recent conference.

"But I don't believe there will be a nuclear plant built in my lifetime."

Morrell, 53, was an engineer at GPU Inc. during the 1979 meltdown of the utility's Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania, the U.S. industry's worst nuclear accident, and knows whereof he speaks.

Three Mile Island was followed by the world's worst nuclear accident at the Chernobyl plant near Kiev in Ukraine in 1986.

Not all industry executives are as pessimistic - or blunt - as Morrell.

But, as much as they all hope that a national energy crisis and an improved safety record pave the way for new plants, they realize that issues like deciding where to dispose of waste, improving licensing, attracting people to the industry and, not least, mustering public support continue to stand in the way.

And that means new plants won't go up any time soon - certainly not in time to solve today's power problems.

Already, nuclear power supplies about 20 percent of U.S. energy needs, but those needs are rapidly expanding. Supplies are scant, even as electricity demand nationally is set to rise about 20 to 25 percent over the next decade.

Don Kirchoffner, spokesman for utility Exelon Corp., said he thinks 2006 is the earliest for construction of a new plant. But Lou Long, vice president of technical services at Southern Co. unit Southern Nuclear Operating Co., is slightly more optimistic, estimating that a new plant could be in place by 2005 but only "if you started today."

In other words, nuclear power isn't going to be much help in the current crisis in California, which remains at the mercy of a flawed deregulation plan that's resulted in power shortages and a series of rolling blackouts.

THINGS HAVE CHANGED

Nevertheless, energy executives say nuclear power could do its part to provide energy for the country's future needs, and the industry is poised to press ahead, given the imprimatur of President George W. Bush as well as nascent public approval.

The national energy policy announced last month by the administration called for increased use of nuclear power. "Existing and new technologies offer us the opportunity to expand nuclear generation as well," the policy stated. "This power source, which causes no greenhouse gas emissions, can play an expanding part in our energy future."

Even Stephen Dolley, research director of the anti-proliferation Nuclear Control Institute, admitted, "It's the strongest support nuclear power has had in the White House in 20 years."

And a recent poll by the Field Institute, a nonprofit public policy research group, revealed that 59 percent of Californians support building more nuclear power plants.

The realization that California's problems aren't necessarily unique has propelled nuclear power onto the national energy agenda. And high natural gas prices have utilities looking at alternative fuel sources like nuclear or cleaner-burning coal.

"Our industry was caught off guard in that we really weren't seriously looking at nuclear power plants because the price of gas was so low," explained Southern's Long. "Suddenly things changed dramatically."

More encouragement came when the state of Georgia recently issued a request for power in 2005-2006, from either a coal-fired plant or a nuclear plant, according to Long.

"It was another sign that the landscape has changed," he said. "From Georgia's perspective, they're just beginning to say, 'Oops, we don't want the same situation as California.'"

Exelon, for one, is seeking to build a cheaper and more efficient type of plant called a pebble bed modular reactor, pending a feasibility study that has cost $8 million already. The study will be completed in six to nine months.

Until new plants are built, the energy industry is working on renewing current 40-year licenses, which would extend them by another 20 years. While praising the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for starting to expedite the license renewal process, Dominion Resources Inc. unit Dominion Energy Chief Executive Thomas Farrell II told the Nuclear Energy Assembly last month, "We need assurance that the process won't get stalled."

However, David Lochbaum, a nuclear safety engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists, thinks that renewals work against the construction of new plants. "There are 103 plants. Renewals of 103 plants is 103 fewer reasons to build," he said.

-------- colorado

Beryllium stories fake, expert says
Maker allegedly planted medical-journal articles

By Berny Morson, News Staff Writer,
June 8, 2001
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_621912,00.html

GOLDEN -- An Ohio company that produced beryllium planted articles in medical journals saying the deadly metal was safe, a Massachusetts expert testified Thursday. Dr. David Steven Egilman said the false science produced by employees of Brush Wellman Inc. was picked up and included in technical manuals and even textbooks used by many medical schools.

Egilman testified during the fourth day of a trial in Jefferson County District Court in which 54 Rocky Flats workers, former workers or their next of kin are seeking damages from Brush Wellman for debilitating lung diseases caused by breathing beryllium dust.

They claim the company knew beryllium is toxic, but failed to inform customers, such as Rocky Flats. Some parts of the nuclear weapons produced at Rocky Flats were fashioned from beryllium.

Egilman cited a half-dozen publications, including safety manuals and textbooks, written by Brush Wellman employees as early as 1964.

Those materials support the federal standard for beryllium in place at the time, which said that beryllium dust was not hazardous in tiny quantities, estimated at 2 micrograms per cubic meter. One article claimed beryllium is safe even in concentrations 15 times the federal standard.

But Egilman, who has reviewed the company's own documents, said Brush Wellman knew even as the articles were being written that beryllium was dangerous in concentrations below the federal standard.

"There is no safe level to prevent chronic beryllium disease," Egilman said. "The safe exposure level is no exposure."

Brush Wellman attorney Sydney McDole fought Thursday to keep Egilman's testimony out of the trial. She challenged Egilman's qualifications as an expert, then threw up numerous procedural roadblocks to the substance of his testimony.

In the end, District Court Judge Frank Plaut allowed the jury to hear most of what Egilman had to say.

McDole limited her questions of Egilman to the amount of money the plaintiffs paid him to testify as an expert witness. Because Plaut has issued a gag order, the company's lawyers could not speak to the media after the Thursday court session.

However, two plaintiffs who testified said Dow Chemical Co., which ran Rocky Flats under a government contract in the 1950s and 1960s, did little to train workers to handle beryllium safely.

--------

No level of beryllium safe, Flats workers' expert says

By Stacie Oulton
Denver Post Staff Writer
June 08, 2001
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,53%257E44150,00.html

- GOLDEN - A Boston doctor called as an expert witness in a lawsuit brought by Rocky Flats workers sickened by beryllium testified that any exposure to the toxic metal's dust or fumes can cause illness.

"There is no safe level (of exposure) to prevent chronic beryllium disease," a wasting lung ailment, said David Egilman, a professor at Brown University and director of a medical clinic.

Egilman testified on behalf of four Rocky Flats workers and their wives who are suing Brush Wellman, an Ohio-based company that supplied beryllium to the former nuclear weapons plant.

The lawsuit alleges that the company covered up what it knew about the toxicity of the metal and conspired with the federal government to accomplish that.

In articles and books stretching from the 1960s to the 1990s, company officials said that no workers became ill from exposures to 2 micrograms or less of dust or fumes from the metal, which is the federal safety standard.

But the company founder and president wrote in his private diary in 1951 that Brush employees were getting the disease when exposed to dust or fumes below the safety standard. That diary and other company documents were introduced earlier in the case.

Two of the workers also testified Thursday that the conditions in their work area at Rocky Flats were clean.

"They were very clean, I thought," said Salvador Valencia, a 53-year-old who machined the metal at the plant for about eight months in the 1970s.

Brush has tried to show government contractors operated the plant under unsafe conditions because workers didn't have proper ventilation and were allowed to eat around the metal's dust.

Valencia said that he was never told to wear a respirator when he machined beryllium, and there was no special ventilation.

James Tooley, another worker in the lawsuit, testified he was exposed to fumes during an accident while he was distilling dissolved beryllium metal as a lab worker.

-------- nevada

Yucca Mountain Project is Everybody's Problem

NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release:
June 8, 2001
Contacts: Kalynda Tilges - 702-796-5662;
Lisa Gue - 202 905-7413 (cell);
Citizen Alert - Las Vegas - lvcitizenalert@earthlink.net

LAS VEGAS, NEV. -- Activists from across the country voiced solidarity with Nevada's struggle against the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear dump. "We are here to assure Nevadans that they have our support ," said Lisa Gue, policy analyst with Public Citizen in Washington, D.C. "We will continue to actively oppose the industry-driven scheme to make Yucca Mountain into a high-level nuclear waste dump.

Representatives of national groups were in Las Vegas today to speak in support of Governor Guinn's Nevada Protection Plan at the meeting of the Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects. National and Nevada activists underscored the critical role of public interest groups in fostering informed citizen involvement at the grassroots. "A broad-based national effort is needed to defeat the Yucca Mountain Project and redirect nuclear waste policy to protect the health and safety of all Americans," said John Hadder, northern Nevada coordinator for Citizen Alert.

The presence of groups from outside of Nevada demonstrates the national significance of the Yucca Mountain Project. "Yucca Mountain is a bad site for a bad plan brought to us by bad politics," said Steve Erickson, a representative of anti-nuclear groups in Utah. "Its time for Westerners to unite with our national supporters to stop the nuclear waste dump, just as we did to stop the MX missile shell game," he said.

The unprecedented nuclear transportation scheme that would be launched if the repository proposal were approved would send high-level waste shipments through 43 states and within one half mile of 50 million people. "Across the country people are waking up to the dangers of transporting highly radioactive waste through their communities to a leaky dump in Nevada. Awareness is growing that Yucca Mountain is in everyone's back yard," said Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, D.C.

"After 14 years of study, we are at a critical juncture in the Yucca Mountain process. National groups are committed to working closely with Nevadans and concerned citizens across the country to defeat this dangerous and inherently flawed project," said Gue.

-------- tennessee

To demolish K-25 or not?

June 8, 2001
by Paul Parson
Oak Ridger staff
http://www.oakridger.com/

A report issued this week analyzes four alternatives -- ranging in cost from zero to $434 million -- for decontaminating and decommissioning two large, historic uranium enrichment process buildings at the Oak Ridge K-25 Site.

Buildings K-25 and K-27 are the two facilities examined in the engineering evaluation/cost analysis prepared by Science Applications International Corp. for the Department of Energy.

The U-shaped K-25 building covers more than 40 acres at the site while K-27 takes up around 374,000 square feet. Operations in K-25 ceased in the early 1960s while K-27 was completely shut down in the mid-1980s.

SAIC's report analyzes four alternatives for taking care of the buildings on the basis of cost, implementability and effectiveness.

The most effective method, according to the report, consists of removing equipment from the buildings, demolishing the facilities and disposing of the waste. Estimated cost is $373 million if the waste is taken to the Nevada Test Site or $296 million if the waste is disposed of at the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility, which is under construction in Oak Ridge.

This choice is also deemed the "preferred or recommended" alternative for handling the two buildings.

However, this alternative poses the greatest transportation risk if the waste is shipped to Nevada, the report states. It has been estimated that 10,032 shipments may be required to transport waste to Nevada if the material doesn't meet the local facility's acceptance criteria.

This alternative is one of two that would take eight years to complete. The other would entail decontaminating the equipment, demolishing the building and disposing of the waste at the Environmental Management Waste Management Facility.

According to the report, this alternative is considered the most difficult because of all the large equipment that will have to be cleaned under the constraints of criticality and security concerns. Estimated cost is $434 million.

The report also looks at spending no money to take "no action" on the buildings and paying $361 million over 30 years to continue surveillance and maintenance.

Both structures have been determined eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. So, continuing surveillance and maintenance is the one alternative that would not adversely impact the buildings from a historic preservation perspective.

But this alternative can't be considered a "permanent solution," and it only defers the inevitable demolition of the structures, the report states.

Copies of the engineering evaluation/cost analysis are available at DOE's Information Resource Center, 105 Broadway. DOE is accepting public comments on the document until July 9.

-------

Our View: Treat DOE with respect

June 8, 2001
http://www.oakridger.com/

While many areas of Tennessee tend to look upon Oak Ridge alone as being favored by federal -- and particularly Department of Energy -- largess, a new study by the University of Tennessee suggests the beneficial reach extends well beyond the city's borders.

Among the findings by UT's Center for Business and Economic Research:

- DOE's local work year led to an increase of nearly $1.8 billion in Tennessee's gross state product in 2000; boosted state and local tax coffers by $56.6 million; and directly or indirectly created 33,517 full-time jobs for the state.

Certainly that is nothing to sneeze at. And, as maddening as we might sometimes find dealing with big-government bureaucracies and decision-making, the fact is DOE on the whole is a pretty good corporate neighbor. At the least, it should be treated with some measure of the same courtesy and consideration accorded to private-sector employers whose impact pales by comparison.

-------- us nuc politics

Rice Says No 'Values Gap' Between U.S. And Europe

New York Times
June 8, 2001
By REUTERS Filed at 0:35 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-bush-eu.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush rejects the premise that a ``values gap'' is driving a wedge between the United States and Europe, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday.

Despite differences on a number of social issues, the United States and Europe will remain strong allies because of their shared interests and common values, Rice said in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

Speaking four days before Bush leaves for his first overseas visit as president, Rice said he views the trip as an opportunity to advance America's common goals with Europe and to discuss their common challenges.

``Reasonable people can disagree on the best approach to policy issues such as global climate change and genetically modified food,'' Rice said, adding that it was imperative for allies to have ``an open, healthy debate on issues where we differ.''

``The debate over a values gap or a strategic split ignores the fact that at a very fundamental level our economic interest and our security interests -- far from driving us apart -- are major factors in keeping the United States and Europe working together,'' Rice said.

Bush is scheduled to travel to Europe on Monday for a six-day trip that will take him to Spain, Belgium, Sweden, Poland and Slovenia where he will have his first meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

He is expected to face tough questions from European allies who are skeptical about his policies on missile defense and global warming and other issues.

European leaders were caught by surprise by Bush's rejection of the 1992 Kyoto treaty, which requires industrial nations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases thought to cause global warming.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said on Thursday that Bush was looking forward to discussing the issue when he goes to Europe next week.

``He is going to tell the Europeans that he takes the situation very seriously, that global climate change is an issue that nations do need to deal with,'' Fleischer told reporters.

Fleischer would say not whether Bush plans to present his European counterparts with any specific proposals for dealing with global warming.

----

[Krauthammer is his usual self here, except for the surprising suggestion to cut the nuclear arsenal.]

The New Unilateralism

Washington Post
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, June 8, 2001; Page A29
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38839-2001Jun7?language=printer

While Washington wasn't looking -- distracted by tax cuts, campaign finance reform and the exquisite spectacle of Jim Jeffords wrestling his conscience to a draw -- the Bush administration gave the nation a new foreign policy. It is far from fully developed, but it is clear and carries enormous implications.

After eight years during which foreign policy success was largely measured by the number of treaties the president could sign and the number of summits he could attend, we now have an administration willing to assert American freedom of action and the primacy of American national interests. Rather than contain American power within a vast web of constraining international agreements, the new unilateralism seeks to strengthen American power and unashamedly deploy it on behalf of self-defined global ends.

Ends such as a defense against ballistic missiles. (We are -- most Americans do not know -- entirely defenseless against them today.) Indeed, the Bush administration's most dramatic demonstration of the new unilateralism was its pledge to develop missile defenses and thus abolish the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union. And the most flamboyant demonstration of the new unilateralism was Bush's out-of-hand rejection of the Kyoto protocol on global warming, a refreshing assertion of unwillingness to be a party to farce, no matter how multilateral.

With ABM and Kyoto, the new unilateralism is earning notice. It began with a great gnashing of teeth by our allies: Nations that spent the better part of the last 500 years raping and pillaging vast swaths of the globe now pronounce themselves distressed at the arrogance of the United States for refusing, at the height of its power, to play the docile international citizen.

The French have charmingly dubbed us not a superpower but a "hyperpower." The newly Democratic Senate is already giving tremulous voice to similar misgivings about the new unilateralism, though without the charm. "I have great concerns about a unilateral decision [on missile defenses]," worried Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, "because I believe that it could risk a second cold war -- Cold War II, I call it."

On Tuesday, Levin and other committee Democrats pilloried Douglas Feith, President Bush's nominee for undersecretary of defense for policy, for daring to suggest -- as he did in a brilliant legal brief he co-authored two years ago -- that the 1972 ABM treaty expired when its only other signatory (the Soviet Union) expired. Another defense nominee, Jack Dyer Crouch II, was similarly attacked for daring to oppose the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty -- an unenforceable agreement that the Senate itself voted down in 1999.

A more measured response came from The Post, which editorialized that "unilateralism [is] not an end in itself." True. It only describes how one will conduct foreign policy. Nonetheless, how one conducts foreign policy immeasurably affects what one ends up doing.

When you start, as did the Clinton administration, with a self-declared foreign policy of "assertive multilateralism" -- a moronic oxymoron that, if it meant anything, meant submerging American will in a mush of collective decision-making -- you have sentenced yourself to reacting to events or passing the buck to multilingual committees with fancy acronyms.

Small countries are condemned to such constraint. Nations like Israel and Taiwan have almost no freedom of action. Their foreign policy is driven by destiny, dictated by the single goal of sustaining their own existence. Even middle powers, such as Great Britain and Germany, find foreign policy largely dictated by necessities of power and geography.

An unprecedentedly dominant United States, however, is in the unique position of being able to fashion its own foreign policy. After a decade of Prometheus playing pygmy, the first task of the new administration is precisely to reassert American freedom of action. That means:

• Cutting our anachronistic offensive nuclear arsenal -- a legacy of a bipolar world that no longer exists -- whether or not Russia follows.

• Intervening abroad, not to "nation-build" where there is no nation to be built but to protect vital interests.

• Shaping our defenses against new enemies -- like Iran and Iraq -- rather than, absurdly, against a former enemy, namely Russia.

• Dismissing environmental agreements so bizarrely self-flagellating that they exclude India (population 1 billion), China (population 1.3 billion) and the rest of the Third World from their pollution restrictions.

For a decade after the Cold War, reactionary liberalism gave us a foreign policy frozen in the habits and conventions of the dead bipolar era: foreign policy dominated by treaties, summits, arms control, signing ceremonies.

The time warp is over.

The new unilateralism recognizes the uniqueness of the unipolar world we now inhabit and thus marks the real beginning of American post-Cold War foreign policy.

-------- us nuc waste

Environmentalists Praise US Position

New York Times
June 8, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-Nuclear-Waste.html?searchpv=aponline

MOSCOW (AP) -- Environmental groups on Friday praised U.S. hesitance toward approving exports of American-made nuclear fuel to Russia after recent passage of a controversial new bill by Russian legislators.

The bill, approved Wednesday by the lower house of parliament, would allow Russia to import spent nuclear fuel, which proponents say would bring in revenues to help clean up radioactive pollution across the country.

Opponents question if the money would be used as promised, and whether Russia is equipped to safely handle the foreign fuel.

More than 90 percent of the potential imports would need U.S. approval, because most of the world's nuclear fuel includes material of U.S. origin.

In a statement after the vote, the U.S. State Department said that before granting consent, ``The U.S. would want to be assured that the transfer was for eventual disposal, and not for reprocessing, in order to avoid increases in civil stockpiles of separated plutonium.''

It continued: ``The U.S. would need to be assured that the planned transportation, storage, and disposition of the fuel complied with appropriate standards of safety and security. An especially important factor would be the nature of Russia's nuclear cooperation with third parties.''

Washington has been particularly concerned about Russia's nuclear cooperation with Iran, which the United States says sponsors terrorism.

``The U.S. conditions make (Russia's) plans impossible,'' Tobias Muenchmeyer of Greenpeace International said in a statement Friday. ``Russia is neither able or willing to fulfill the U.S. conditions, which amount to a de facto veto of this dangerous nuclear waste import scheme.''

The bill must still pass the upper house, the Federation Council, and be signed by President Vladimir Putin. Despite public opposition, passage is considered likely.

------- MILITARY

China tests ALCM

Washington Times
June 8, 2001
Inside the Ring Notes from the Pentagon.
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010608-99623006.htm

China test-fired a new air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) for the first time last month, according to U.S. intelligence officials. The weapon, China´s first land-attack cruise missile, is Beijing´s answer to the ship-launched U.S. Tomahawk.

The ground-hugging, air-to-surface missile was launched from a B-6 bomber and was deemed successful by defense and intelligence agencies, according to officials familiar with the test.

The missile is assessed to be capable of carrying a 1,100-pound warhead -- either high-explosive or nuclear to an unknown range. It was the first time China test-fired its new land-attack cruise missile.

Military analysts said China has been working secretly on the cruise missile, which is an extended-range version of the C-802 anti-ship missile. The missile is said to be powered by a turbojet engine and is expected to have a range of at least 111 miles.

Richard Fisher, a specialist on the Chinese military with the private Jamestown Foundation, said his research has shown the new ALCM will have "substantial range" and will be fitted with television-camera precision guidance.

Mr. Fisher said the new missile has been dubbed variously the "Hong Niao," or Red Bird, and "Chang Feng," or Long Wind. The missile is said to be a hybrid of three missiles: the Russian Kh-55 cruise missile, the Tomahawk -- obtained clandestinely from recent U.S. attacks -- and a cruise missile purchased from Israel.

"This has been expected for some time," said Mr. Fisher, who is writing a book on the Chinese military.

China is said by defense officials to be aggressively developing a land-attack cruise missile capability to match the U.S. Navy´s famed Tomahawk and Air Force´s ALCM. It has been receiving assistance in the program from Russia, which has provided hardware and technical assistance.

The Air Force recently moved a stockpile of ALCMs to Guam for the first time to make the missiles more available for use in a regional conflict.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman declined to comment on the test. But he said: "Like many countries, China is developing an air-launched, land-attack cruise missile capability."

Russia deploys boomer

The Russian navy deployed a nuclear-missile submarine in the Pacific Ocean for the first time in months, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

The Delta-III class submarine was traced leaving port at Petropavlovsk on the Kamchatka Peninsula by U.S. intelligence agencies, as it headed for deeper Pacific waters. It is the first such deployment in almost a year, reflecting the Russian Pacific fleet´s poor state of readiness.

The Delta-III carries 16 SSN-18 long-range missiles each with between three and seven nuclear warheads.

Strategy update

The Pentagon´s Andrew Marshall has completed a 20- to 30-page outline of a potential new national military strategy. But the net assessment director´s work is not done.

Insiders tell us Mr. Marshall´s staff is working on a half-dozen "supporting papers" that focus on specific issues, such as the size of the 1.36 million active duty force and 865,000 Guardsmen and reservists. While the Marshall strategy paper is "almost philosophical," the augmenting papers will make recommendations, an official said.

The services and the staff of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld embarked last month on writing the congressionally mandated Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), which will spell out the strategy, global military requirements, and the size of force needed to carry it out. Officials expect Mr. Rumsfeld to decide later this month on whether to retain or amend the current two-war requirement.

Mr. Rumsfeld was asked this week what he doesn´t like about the two-war requirement. He said in part: "If you´re constantly looking at the two major regional conflicts, then look over the last period of years, you will see that there have been deficiencies in funding for infrastructure. There have been deficiencies in funding for pay, deficiencies in funding for maintenance and repairs.

"Now you can´t come into this fresh from Chicago ... and not ask yourself the question, what is it about the interaction, the process, within and among the department and all of the various transmission belts for decision, and the Congress -- that leaves a military that has that many problems, with something as important as the human beings that populate the defense establishment."

NRO chief under fire

An internal audit of the National Reconnaissance Office has found further abuses of the secret spy satellite agency´s multibillion-dollar budget, we are told.

The office builds and operates the U.S. government´s constellation of high-technology photographic and electronic-eavesdropping satellites. Its space-based cameras are said to be able to read car license plates from hundreds of miles in orbit.

NRO´s two top officials were fired in 1996 for mismanagement of a pot of $2 billion in reserve funding for emergency satellite launches.

This time, current NRO Director Keith Hall, a holdover from the Clinton administration, is said to be scrambling to explain similar budget mismanagement problems at the agency. "Any CEO of a major corporation that did this would be fired," one source told us.

Details of the mismanagement problems could not be learned. Mr. Hall could not be reached for comment.

Intercepts

• Robert Andrews for years has played the role of Washington insider. He´s been a CIA intelligence officer, Senate staffer, defense industry executive and, most recently, a novelist.

Now Mr. Andrews, a Green Beret in Vietnam, is returning to government. The Bush White House, we are told, plans to nominate him as principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict. The White House is also eyeing Michelle K. Van Cleave as the assistant secretary.

• As this column predicted last week, new Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, gave Bush defense nominees a working over at Tuesday´s confirmation hearing. Congressional insiders say the liberal senator is looking for a basis to block the confirmation of two conservative thinkers: Douglas J. Feith, nominated for undersecretary of defense for policy; and J.D. Crouch II, nominated as assistant secretary of defense for international security policy.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Levin said the senator has submitted further written questions to the two and will decide on whether to oppose the nominations after reviewing the answers.

• Retired Gen. Thomas Moorman, a former Air Force vice chief of staff, is in line to become the next director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He would replace current NASA Director Dan Goldin.

• The four services are executing a "budget drill" this week. At a furious work pace, budgeteers are forwarding increased funding request to the office of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for the fiscal 2002 budget. The White House has told the department it will approve up to $30 billion in spending, in addition to the pending $310 billion budget.

We´ve seen the Air Force´s request in a three-page Power Point slide sent to Mr. Rumsfeld´s staff Tuesday night. It wants $12.8 billion for readiness and modernization alone. Sources tell us the lion´s share of the president´s 2002 augmentation will go for health care and improved living conditions.

• Navy Secretary Gordon England sent his first message to the fleet June 1, trying to soothe fears about President Bush´s impending military transformation.

"The president and secretary of defense have indicated this is a time of change," Mr. England said. "I ask that each of you join me and them, bringing your talents, innovative thoughts and experience to bear in transforming the way we do business, in order to meet our commitments, now and in the future.

"I know the Navy and Marine Corps team has a strong sense of our core values of honor, courage and commitment. In that vein, we should at all times conduct our business in a forthright, open, honest and direct manner both with each other and the public. ... We will simplify the acquisition system, streamline the bureaucratic decision-making processes, promote innovation throughout the Department of the Navy."

----

CNN Settles Lawsuit With Operation Tailwind Producer

Washington Post
By Lisa de Moraes
Friday, June 8, 2001; Page C07
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38913-2001Jun7?language=printer

CNN has settled a lawsuit brought by one of two former producers fired for their role in a report that accused the U.S. military of using nerve gas on Vietnam War defectors.

Jack Smith, who stands by the story, had asked for $6 million in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages. He would not disclose terms of the settlement yesterday but said it "serves as a down payment on restoring my reputation as a journalist and I'll take it as that."

Smith, who now teaches in the political science departments at two Chicago-area universities, told The TV Column, "When your reputation is put through the meat grinder it's hard to put back together again."

A CNN spokeswoman said in a statement, "The case has been settled by mutual agreement of both parties."

The announcement of the settlement came three years to the day after CNN telecast the report on Operation Tailwind to premiere its newsmagazine "NewsStand."

When military experts disputed the claim that lethal nerve gas was used on a Laotian village in 1970 as part of a mission to kill American defectors, the cable news network retracted the story, saying it could not verify its accuracy.

In July 1998, longtime CNN producer Smith and his colleague April Oliver were fired. Oliver settled her suit against CNN last year. The story's on-air reporter, Peter Arnett, was reprimanded; he later left CNN.

Smith's suit for defamation and wrongful termination claimed that "CNN management decided that the Tailwind report, about a covert operation 30 years ago, was not worth jeopardizing its valuable and lucrative contacts with senior military and Pentagon officials."

-------- africa

Four Rwandans convicted of war crimes

06/08/2001
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/june01/2001-06-08-rwanda-convicts.htm

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) - Prosecutors demanded life sentences Friday for four Rwandans convicted of war crimes in the African nation's 1994 genocide, while defense lawyers argued that heavy sentences would harm efforts to reconcile Hutus and Tutsis.

The four - two Benedictine nuns, a factory owner and a university professor - were convicted in a trial that human rights campaigners hailed as a precedent for legal action against suspected war criminals, wherever they may hide.

After returning the guilty verdicts early Friday, the jury returned to court in the afternoon to decide on sentences.

"You will hear calls for clemency from the defense team," chief prosecutor Alain Winants told the jury. "I ask you, Did the victims receive any gestures of clemency or pity? No, none at all."

Sister Gertrude and Sister Maria Kisito were found guilty of all homicide counts of against them stemming from several days of slaughter at their convent in southern Rwanda, where up to 7,000 people were burned and butchered to death.

Alphonse Higaniro, a factory owner and former government minister, was also found guilty on all counts, while the fourth defendant, university professor Vincent Ntezimana, was judged guilty on five counts of homicide and cleared on five others.

The two men were accused with helping to plan and carry out the slayings of members of Rwanda's Tutsi minority during 13 weeks of violence that killed more than 500,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates.

The defendants face a maximum of life imprisonment, which in Belgium usually means at least 20 years.

"A life sentence would be the negation of any hope of reconciliation," defense attorney Serge Wahlis told the jury.

The trial, which lasted almost eight weeks, was the first in which a jury of citizens from one country judged defendants in war crimes committed in another country. A 1993 Belgian law gives local courts jurisdiction over violations of the Geneva Convention on war crimes, no matter where they occurred.

"This is a big step forward for international justice. It shows that such a trial can be organized, that you can have a fair trial for events that happen on the other side of the world," said Reed Brody, advocacy director of Human Rights Watch.

"The idea that justice has no border has received a big boost here."

The two nuns, dressed in beige-and-brown habits, showed no emotion as the court clerk confirmed the verdict. All four defendants stood motionless, eyes fixed on the bench.

The 12-member jury included a hairdresser, a truck driver, a university teacher and a journalist. They deliberated for eleven hours before reading out the verdicts.

The judgments were met with anger by a group of Hutu youths among the many Rwandans in the packed public gallery. Relatives of genocide victims hugged and wept quietly.

"They have given a human face to people that were killed like animals," said Marguerite Lens-Nyirajhninka, who said she had lost all of her family in the Rwandan genocide. "Today, we can feel our humanity has been recognized."

Prosecutors claimed the two nuns encouraged and collaborated with the Hutu mob that repeatedly attacked Tutsis seeking shelter at the Sovu convent in the green hills of southern Rwanda.

Witnesses told the court the two nuns called in militias to clear the Tutsis from the convent grounds. They were accused of supplying gasoline to the mob that burned some 500 people to death as they cowered in the convent's garage, and of guiding the killers to the hiding places of doomed Tutsi men, women and children.

Defense lawyers said the women were innocent bystanders, unable to halt the slaughter. The two male defendants also denied the charges. Immediately after the verdict, defense attorneys said it was too early to say if they would appeal.

Ntezimana and Higaniro were accused of being Hutu extremists who virulently opposed proposals to share power with Tutsi rebels and responded by helping plan and carry out the genocide in their southern region.

The four fled to Belgium - Rwanda's former colonial ruler - after the rebels took control of the country in July 1994 and put an end to the killings of Tutsis.

-------- arms sales

Iranian weapons

June 8, 2001
Embassy Row
James Morrison
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010608-92183704.htm

Iran is arming Palestinians by smuggling weapons through Syria, Israeli Ambassador David Ivry said yesterday.

"It´s done with the blessing of Syria," he said.

Mr. Ivry said Iranian weapons also end up in the hands of Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad terrorist groups in Lebanon.

Israel suspects some weapons are smuggled through a port in Egypt, although the Egyptian government is not involved, he said.

Mr. Ivry, meeting reporters over breakfast, also said his government is prepared for a reduction of U.S. troops in the Sinai, along the border with Egypt.

"We still need the U.S. flag there, so how big a reduction is another question," he said.

The United States stations 865 troops in the Sinai as part of an international observer force of 1,850 soldiers from 11 countries.

Mr. Ivry also said Israel has learned to accept limitations on the amount of force it can use against Palestinian attacks, while Palestinians have learned how to get international attention and to portray Israel as the aggressor.

"It is always the strong side that will get criticized. The underdog will get sympathy," he said.

-------- balkans

Civilians said killed as Macedonia forces attack rebels

Friday June 8, 6:58 PM
AFP
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010608/1/tn38.html

MATEJCE MONASTERY, Macedonia, Macedonian government forces on Friday used tanks and helicopters to launch a fresh attack on positions held by ethnic Albanian guerrillas, and a rebel leader said that at least three civilians were killed by the shelling.

The rebel leader told an AFP journalist that the casualties occurred when helicopters strafed houses where civilians were sheltering in the village of Otlja.

He also said at least one house sheltering civilians in the nearby village of Lipkovo was hit. The reports could not be independently verified.

Friday's early-morning attack came just hours after the guerrillas of the self-styled National Liberation army (NLA) offered a conditional ceasefire from midnight (2200 GMT) Thursday, and as Macedonian Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski said he would refrain from declaring a state of war in the country.

Shooting and shelling started around 5:00 am (0300 GMT), said an AFP reporter who reached the rebel-controlled zone with a convoy carrying food for the guerrillas.

The guerrillas and government forces have been engaged in violent clashes around the villages of Slupcane and Matejce, northeast from Skopje.

"The Macedonian army is trying to take over the villages, but it will not make it," one of the guerrilla leaders said.

He claimed that more than 30 army tanks were involved in the attack on the village. The rebels responded with rocket launchers and heavy machine guns.

The rebel commander said that a house in the village of Lipkovo, where he said between 8,000 and 15,000 Albanian civilians were sheltering, had been hit by the government shelling.

"There are certainly casualties but we cannot for the moment approach the house," the rebel commander, Hassan, said.

More than sixty shells were fired on rebel positions around the villages of Slupcane, Otlja and Orizare, he said.

About a dozen very powerful explosions were heard from near a rebel-held Orthodox monastery in Matejce. Return fire from the NLA guerrillas was sparse.

Outside the monastery's church an Orthodox icon of the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus still hung above the entrance. On one wall, the letters "UCK," the Albanian acronym for the NLA rebels, had been scrawled.

The monastery itself has been spared from clashes, as the Macedonians, who are Orthodox Slavs, have held back from shelling it, although there was a gaping hole in one of the side buildings.

"They shot at it from a helicopter," commander Hassan said.

It was difficult to estimate the exact amount of damage caused by the Macedonian attack, however.

An AFP reporter saw a fighter plane, apparently a Russian Mig-21, fly low over the area.

----

Government rejects cease-fire offer, pounds rebels

06/08/2001
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/june01/2001-06-08-macedonia.htm

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) - Government forces pounded rebel positions northeast of Macedonia's capital with heavy artillery Friday, despite a tentative cease-fire offer from ethnic Albanian insurgents. The attacks intensified even as Macedonia's prime minister bowed to international pressure and backed off on plans to ask parliament to declare a state of wa