------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
BRITAIN: LOSS FOR FUEL PROCESSOR British
US plans to lure Russia with missile arsenal cut
General Says Russia Willing to Talk
Why a Missile-Defense System Can Never Work
Officials Say Kursk to Be Raised
Salvage Vessels Leave for Russia's Kursk Next Week
Russia Open to ABM Changes, Top General Says
Nuclear weapons testing may hit the fast track
Uranium Processor to Pay $16.3M
U.S. Studying Nuclear Test Site
Plan to study Yucca routes fails
NUCLEAR OPERATOR APPROVED
Groups fear nuclear waste moving through Pa.
Historical Omissionism
Greenspan urges nuclear growth
Greenspan Discusses Energy Crisis
Abrams Named to NSC

MILITARY
Iraq's errant missile
Milosevic Is Given to U.N. for Trial in War-Crime Case
Yugoslav Prime Minister Resigns
U.S. Envoy Sent to Macedonia
Drug czar clings to U.N. post
Hindu council gives men arms training
India to Push for MFN Status at Pakistan Summit
Musharraf Defends Presidency Takeover
Iraq: U.N. Spends More on Sniffer Dogs Than People
Powell Pessimistic About Russia on U.N. Sanctions
Koizumi aims to 'lighten' troops
Japan Police Question U.S. Soldiers Over Rape
Three Politicans Freed From Jail
Johns Hopkins Lab To Build Spacecraft
Spacecraft to Study Oldest Light
Lying About Vietnam
Cambodia PM Rejects UN Demand
Hill Is Asked to Add 7% to Defense Budget
Bush Defense Plan Questioned
As Defense Secretary Calls for Base Closings, Congress Circles the Wagons
Pentagon: Osprey Records Falsified

OTHER
Death penalty divides EU, U.S.
In Slap at Bush, House Votes to Bar Oil Drilling in Great Lakes
Conservation-Mindful Bush Turns to Energy Research
Brazil Gets $1.1B in Energy Auction
Amtrak agrees to cleanup order
Japan's Koizumi Urging Bush on Kyoto
Canadian Greens Want U.S. - Style Toxic Waste Fund
Ex - EPA Head Accused of Files Purge
Why Wasn't Kissinger Asked About War Crimes Charges?
Yugoslav Donors' Conference Pledges $1.28 Billion
GAO: FBI Official Misled Congress
Indefinite detention ruled out for undeportable criminals
INS Worker Gets 5 Years for Spying
U.S. Backed Peru's Decision on Spy
U.S. Tells Taliban to Control Bin Laden

ACTIVISTS
Activists detained over Red Square nuke protest
Sharpton ends Vieques hunger strike
Tourists to get lesson in D.C. civics


-------- NUCLEAR

-------- britain

BRITAIN: LOSS FOR FUEL PROCESSOR British

Alan Cowell (NYT)
June 29, 2001
World Business Briefing
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/29/business/29FOBR.html?searchpv=nytToday

Nuclear Fuels, the troubled, state-owned British nuclear fuel processor, said yesterday that it had lost £210 million ($296 million) before one-time items in the year to March, in contrast to a profit of £74 million a year earlier. The company has been dogged by controversy over the falsification of data accompanying a fuel shipment. The British government says it wants to sell shares in the company but no offering is likely soon, the company said. British Nuclear Fuels said "disappointing overall performance" was in part a result of the closing of a generator for much of the year.

-------- missile defense

US plans to lure Russia with missile arsenal cut

By Ben Fenton in Washington,
June 29, 2001
UK Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=005374257242251&rtmo=a5a5Xq5J&atmo=rrrrrrrq&pg=/et/01/6/29/wbush29.html

THE Bush administration yesterday proposed scrapping all 50 of America's MX intercontinental ballistic missiles, among the most powerful weapons on earth, as a first step in a unilateral reduction of its nuclear stockpile.

President Bush said during his election campaign he planned to cut America's arsenal of nuclear warheads to "the lowest possible number". That has now become the lure being used by the White House to persuade Russia to let Washington breach the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty by deploying its proposed "Son of Star Wars" missile defence, which has caused alarm among some Nato allies as well as in Moscow and Beijing.

It was reported yesterday that the Pentagon was preparing for presidential approval to construct the first stage of the defence system at a base in Alaska as early as August.

America's willingness to make concessions to overcome outside objections was demonstrated by Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, when he told Congress he would like to scrap the MX weapons.

Their early retirement would mean a reduction of 500 warheads from America's battery, as each of the 70ft-long projectiles carries 10 warheads. That would leave America with 6,700 or so warheads. Mr Rumsfeld gave no sign of how soon the missiles might be removed from the inventory.

The MX, nicknamed the Peacekeeper, was designed to obliterate Soviet missile silos with its multiple warheads. Ronald Reagan pushed it through in the early 1980s despite vigorous opposition from a Congress controlled by Democrats.

Eventually Congress cut the number of missiles from the 200 the president initially wanted to 50. The missiles are more than three times the size of the Minuteman missiles they replaced. They are based in hardened underground silos at the Warren air force base in Wyoming.

America's possession of the MX missile was credited by many analysts with accelerating the collapse of the Soviet Union, which realised that it could not afford to match the Pentagon's technological superiority. Joseph Cirincione, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said: "The real significance of this is as a harbinger of deeper cuts to come."

Mr Rumsfeld's proposal was one of several showing an intention to cut nuclear arsenals that he made in presenting the Pentagon's 2002 budget needs to Congress. Others were reducing by a third of the nuclear-equipped B1-B bomber fleet and converting two Ohio-class missile submarines to carry conventional, rather than nuclear-tipped, missiles.

The budget also included plans for the missile shield. The contract for work in Alaska so far involves only the pouring of concrete foundations, which the administration claims would not infringe the ABM treaty.

The Pentagon budget mentioned plans for siting up to five interceptor missiles at Fort Greeley, near Fairbanks, Alaska, as a "test range" for studying missile defence. But it could be transformed into a rudimentary defence shield by 2004, military analysts say.

----

General Says Russia Willing to Talk

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-US-Defense.html?searchpv=aponline

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010629/aponline081742_000.htm

MOSCOW (AP) -- A top general said Russia is willing to discuss how to ward off missile threats that worry the United States -- but will insist on sticking to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty that bans nationwide missile defense, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported Friday.

The United States says it needs to build such a system to ward off potential attacks by so-called rogue states such as North Korea -- not, it says, to blunt the deterrent power of Russia's thousands of warheads.

Russia, however, remains opposed and says missile defense would provoke a new arms race as countries try to find ways to defeat it.

Gen. Leonid Ivashov, the head of the Defense Ministry's Department of International Cooperation, said that Russia was willing ``to sit down at the negotiating table for consultations with NATO and the United States, assess the world situation, and we are ready to discuss missile threats.''

But he said that while Russia was ready to talk about ``military-political and diplomatic measures'' to ward off threats, he said Russia would insist the U.S. not scrap the ABM treaty.

``If the United States begins deployment of an anti-missile system, Russia will announce that Washington has de facto abrogated the ABM treaty,'' he said.

The treaty, negotiated between the United States and the Soviet Union, allows each side only one system of ground-based interceptor rockets, to be deployed in a sharply defined area around either the capital or an offensive missile installation.

Defense systems that cover the entire country are banned, on the theory that neither side would start a nuclear war if it knew it was defenseless against retaliation -- the principle of mutual assured destruction.

--------

Why a Missile-Defense System Can Never Work

Los Angeles Times
Friday June 29 05:00 PM EDT
By Joshuah Bearman LA Weekly Writer
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/laweekly/20010629/lo/26047_1.html

Ever since W. made missile defense a central feature of his campaign, boosters of all stripes have been salivating over the opportunity to get their various pet Star Wars projects funded. There are plans for putting missile defense in the ocean, in the air and in space. There are even researchers working on airplane-mounted lasers and killer satellites. Recently W. announced that he plans to expand Clinton's already-contentious limited missile-defense research and deploy a comprehensive system over the objections of our allies.

The problem with all this is that none of it works. These systems use imprecise technology to track their targets, and most tests so far have failed. Last July, in the most recent trial run of the "hit to kill" vehicles currently being developed, the defensive rocket sailed wide of its target in an embarrassingly harmless arc high over the Pacific.

Ted Postol, a physicist and former Pentagon adviser who is now a professor of science, technology and national-security policy at MIT, is a leading critic of missile defense. Building a $60-billion-plus system, he argues, provides the worst of both worlds: no effective defense and less international stability. In a telephone interview from his MIT office, Postol explains why the so-called kill vehicles won't kill anything, why having them will make the world more dangerous, and why the whole scheme is as dumb now as when Ronald Reagan was seduced by the Star Wars fantasy.

L.A. WEEKLY:

First, maybe you could describe a little bit about how the missile-defense system works.

TED POSTOL:

Basically, it is a system of radars that try to track objects in space and an interceptor, which is a rocket booster with a device mounted on top called a kill vehicle. The kill vehicle weighs maybe 120 or 130 pounds, and it looks like a sort of telescope with small rocket motors on it. The kill vehicle gets launched towards the target of concern â€" or targets, as you'd expect in a real-world scenario.

Does it all happen quickly?

Yes. The rocket booster accelerates the kill vehicle to a very high speed â€" between 7 and 8-and-a-half kilometers per second â€" and the incoming warhead is itself traveling near that speed. So the crossing speed is quite high. This is why accuracy is important. But the system is not very accurate. The kill vehicle is launched a few minutes before the actual flyby, but it is launched to a point in space where the system has calculated that it will be near incoming targets. And only there does the kill vehicle open its eyes, so to speak, to look for the targets. And when the kill vehicle opens its eyes, it's a very small field of view, perhaps 1 degree on a side. And then it has about 60 seconds to observe and home in on its target.

So the kill vehicle is not tracking the incoming missile the entire way. It goes to what it thinks is the vicinity, and then only has a brief moment to meet the target.

Right. It is a projected interception point calculated by the radar â€" with some uncertainty, I might add.

I understand that the infrared sensors of the system are an issue too. The tracking system on the kill vehicle sees the incoming missiles as â€"

Points of light. Like little stars.

And the resolution of these sensors is not very good.

That's part of the problem. There's no dimensional information.

Is that a technological limitation that can be overcome? Will we be able to make more accurate sensors in a few years?

No, that limitation will not be overcome, and even if it were improved, it would not entirely solve the accuracy problem.

And, if I understand correctly, the reason increased resolution wouldn't solve the problem is that even a better image would still not allow the kill vehicle to distinguish between actual warheads and decoys.

Yes. For example, say there's a warhead flying through space, tumbling end over end as warheads do. And say there's also a decoy balloon shaped like a warhead, also tumbling end over end. There would be no observable difference that would allow the sensor â€" even a better one â€" to determine which was the warhead. This is the fundamental problem. This kind of system is designed to work in the vacuum of space, and in the vacuum of space, the two would behave exactly alike. In space, it is extraordinarily easy to deploy decoys.

What other kinds of decoys are there, and how do they affect the infrared signals?

You could take a decoy balloon, for example, and paint big stripes on it so that its signal scintillates like that of a tumbling warhead. Or tethering objects to a warhead would be a way to defeat the system for sure. Tethered flares, for example â€" they would completely dominate the infrared signal. You wouldn't be able to see the warhead at all. Or you could throw flares out freely, and the system would have no way of telling one from the other.

And would that mean a total miss? How precise does the intercepting kill vehicle have to be?

It has to be precise within a fraction of a meter.

That's a tall order.

Yes. It's ridiculous to believe that our potential adversaries would be able to build ICBMs and warheads but not be able to devise these kinds of countermeasures.

You've said that the Pentagon went easy on its own tests of the systems. They didn't use these kinds of decoys.

They didn't do anything. First, their data showed clearly that the sensors wouldn't be able to distinguish tumbling warheads from tumbling decoys. So in the actual test series, they modified the tests to never deal with those kinds of decoys. They removed that kind of threat from their test program in order to claim they can build a system that's workable.

Tell me about the test of the system last July, which failed altogether.

That test was an extraordinary set of failures. First, the only targets were a warhead and a large balloon. The balloon is almost 10 times brighter than the warhead. There was no discrimination necessary. They told the kill vehicle ahead of time, "You are going to see two objects â€" a large bright object and a less-bright one. Now, go after the less-bright one." Even if it had gone well, it would have proved nothing because it was the simplest possible situation you can imagine. But the test warhead and decoy didn't deploy properly; the kill vehicle didn't deploy properly. They screwed up the whole thing.

Clinton used this test as a reason for delaying the decision to employ the National Missile Defense program, citing the uncertain technology. But the current administration has signaled its interest in building the system â€"

Whether or not it works.

And we've been talking about what is called a midflight interception, right?

Right. This is not a boost-phase interception. This happens many hundreds of kilometers in altitude, where there's no atmosphere.

What about a system that tries to intercept the missiles at a different point in the trajectory?

A boost-phase interception or a re-entry interception, that is where the missile is exiting or re-entering the atmosphere, would make decoying much harder.

Let me ask you about that. Some, including Bush's advisers, propose boost-phase interception as a more workable alternative. How feasible is it?

Well, there are a lot of caveats here. I am not an advocate of a boost-phase system. But I will say that I have analyzed it more than anyone else. If the threat is North Korea, and they're using a fairly primitive missile technology, you could build a system of radars and interceptors that would have a very good chance of getting those missiles.

But a good booster-phase system still wouldn't be able to answer a large-scale attack or even a limited attack from missiles launched inland, from China, for example, or even Iran for that matter.

Right. Well, let me say this. Suppose that I can build a defense system that is so capable and robust that no missile could get through â€" 100 percent effective. Then, you might have a case for it. I say "might" because the likely response from our adversaries would be to try to develop weapons with different modes of delivery or to concentrate on short-range missiles [which are much harder to intercept because they are in the air less time] or to threaten our allies. So increased security for us, in this optimistic case, would come at the expense of arms control and the security of our allies. Now the other extreme, which is the situation we currently have, and will continue to have, is that defense, even under the most optimal conditions, is unlikely to work. But we will provoke the reaction anyway. This is the worst of both worlds: The defense has no capability, while also prompting our adversaries to step up the threat.

Is there any system that will ever work effectively, or is the whole idea a bust?

Ever?

Right. There are new proposals all the time. The most recent idea is lasers mounted on airplanes.

Well, a laser on an airplane has some potential to shoot down an ICBM. Now there's an important caveat there as well. It's not yet demonstrated that lasers have the power or beam quality that would make it effective. And maybe they will. On the other hand, a laser can only destroy a rocket in powered flight, which means that it will target the booster, leaving the warhead or biological payload or whatever else is in there to fall to Earth before it gets here. That would mean a WMD [Weapons of Mass Destruction] payload falling somewhere else, like in Canada. And that might bother the Canadians.

So lasers or other systems, even if effective, wouldn't solve all the ancillary problems of missile defense: no protection against short-range missiles; no protection for allies; and the slippery slope of arms escalation and even militarizing space.

Right. The question always should be: What do you get in relation to the cost? And, with missile defense â€" at least all forms of missile defense that will be available for the foreseeable future â€" the answer is: not a lot. My own view is that it is important to analyze these things in a comprehensive way, as opposed to dismissing them out of hand. Because there's people out there selling noodles, as the Israelis would say. And the systems sometimes have some merit, but they get oversold â€" way oversold in the case of what's on the table today. Missile defense has been completely politicized.

It's not only politicized, but it has become quite vitriolic.

Oh yeah. I had one guy threaten to attack me. A guy who works for Thad Cochran [Mississippi's Republican senator, who is an ardent supporter of missile defense] wanted to have a fistfight with me. It was in London, and I was sure he was going to hit me, but a bunch of British officers fell on him just before he got to me.

Maybe you need a Congressional Staffer Defense System.

Right. Well, that's the mindset of some of these guys.

-------- russia

Officials Say Kursk to Be Raised

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Russia-Kursk.html?searchpv=aponline http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010629/aponline122602_000.htm

MOSCOW (AP) -- The nuclear reactors aboard the sunken submarine Kursk are safe and won't jeopardize a Dutch company's effort to raise the stricken hulk from the seabed in September, the deputy head of the Russian navy said Friday.

``Regular radiation monitoring has shown that the reactors are safe,'' said Vice Adm. Mikhail Barskov, the navy's top official in the recovery effort.

He said naval ships would keep track of radiation levels constantly during the salvage effort run by the Dutch company Mammoet.

The operation is to start around July 9, when 16 Russian and foreign divers are expected to arrive at Barents Sea site. They are to inspect the submarine and install equipment needed to haul it to the surface, which is supposed to occur about Sept. 15.

The Kursk sank last Aug. 12 after two explosions in its forward weapons bay, killing all 118 crewmen. Unexploded torpedoes remain inside, and Barskov said a careful inspection is needed to ensure they pose no hazard to the salvage effort.

``Cutting of the bow will be done by robots, and no one will be working under water at that moment,'' Barskov said.

Mammoet formed a joint venture with Smit International, a Rotterdam-based company that specializes in maritime salvage operations. The companies plan to lift the Kursk using hydraulic devices mounted on a giant barge.

Mammoet's president, Frans van Seumeren, claimed the project is far better than an earlier proposal by an international consortium, which Moscow rejected. ``We have solved all the technical problems,'' he said.

Barskov called the Mammoet project the ``best existing today.''

Divers plan to cut 26 holes in the submarine's hull to anchor lifting cables connected to hydraulic jacks on the barge.

After the Kursk is raised to the surface and clamped to the barge, it will be brought to the port of Murmansk and put in dry dock, where the navy will remove its 22 Granit cruise missiles.

Barskov said the missiles, which are separate from the torpedoes and are located in midsection of the ship in containers as strong as the hull, will pose no threat during the recovery.

The Kursk's broken bow will be left on the seabed, and the navy is planning to raise at least some parts of it next year. Raising the entire craft at once would be dangerous because the bow could break off, Barskov said.

Barskov said officials hope to learn more about the cause of the explosions after raising the Kursk. They also hope to raise the remains of more of the crewmen -- only 12 were recovered during a salvage operation last fall.

Officials said the disaster was triggered by a practice torpedo, but that they remain unsure whether it had been caused by a malfunction -- the theory favored by most outside experts -- or a collision.

--------

Salvage Vessels Leave for Russia's Kursk Next Week

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-russia-.html?searchpv=reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) - The first vessels aiming to lift Russian nuclear submarine Kursk from the seabed will leave next week with a view to completing the operation in September, officials said on Friday.

All 118 men on board died on the Kursk after it sank in the Barents Sea last August off Russia's Arctic Kola peninsula. President Vladimir Putin has promised bereaved relatives the wreck will be lifted this year.

The exact cause of the disaster remains a mystery.

``Next week the diving support vessel will leave Aberdeen (Scotland) to go to the job site,'' said Frans van Seumeren, president of Dutch company Mammoet that Moscow signed up to carry out the operation.

He told reporters that workers would start by cutting off the devastated bow where the submarine's torpedoes are stored. Special robots will be lowered to fulfil the task.

Russian officials say the disaster was probably caused by a torpedo explosion which detonated most of the rest of the arsenal on board, although they have not reached a final judgement on what caused the torpedo to explode.

Salvagers fear triggering an accidental blast from remaining unexploded torpedoes when they move the submarine's body, lying at a depth of more than 100 meters (350 feet). Russia says it will deal with the torpedo bay later and without foreign help.

Russian deputy navy commander Mikhail Barskov said the first stage of the salvage would begin between July 9 and 10.

Seumeren said the actual lifting of the Kursk is scheduled to take place from September 15 to 20. A Russian company is due to provide Mammoet with giant pontoons specially designed for the task.

The operation to raise the submarine has sparked controversy with calls for the vessel to be buried under concrete to minimise the danger from its two nuclear reactors.

Russian officials have said they chose to lift the wreck to avoid any risk of polluting a busy international fishing area with radiation, which ecologists say could start leaking from the body as reactor protection deteriorates.

The military also say they hope a close inspection of the Kursk will help shed some light on the cause of the accident, though other Russian officials doubt the wrecked body would give any new clues to investigators.

-------- treaties

Russia Open to ABM Changes, Top General Says

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-arms-ru.html?searchpv=reuters

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is open to changes to the 1972 ABM treaty, which bans a missile defense system planned by the United States, news agencies quoted a top Russian general as saying on Friday.

Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, a military hawk in charge of international cooperation, said Russia ``does not rule out amendments to this agreement, but what the United States is demanding will lead to the collapse of the entire accord,'' RIA news agency quoted him as saying.

``We are not going down that path as such a step would destroy the system of checks and balances in the strategic sphere,'' he said.

Ivashov's comments mark the first time such a high-ranking official has explicitly raised the possibility of making changes to the treaty, regarded as a Cold War ``relic'' by the United States but seen as vital to strategic security by Moscow.

Earlier this month President Vladimir Putin gave his strongest hint yet that Moscow was ready to consider limited changes to the landmark accord, which has provided the cornerstone for more than 30 arms control agreements between the world's two nuclear superpowers.

Speaking to American journalists following his first summit with President Bush, Putin noted that the treaty had been amended before, a comment defense analysts said indicated Moscow understood it had to give ground to save ABM.

The United States wants to build a national missile defense system -- banned by the ABM treaty -- to protect itself against the threat of rogue rockets.

But Moscow says Washington's fears are exaggerated and has called for the two sides, Europe and other nuclear powers like China, to agree political measures to stem emerging threats.

Putin has put forward a cut price anti-missile defense which would not violate the ABM treaty, but it would be deployed only if all other means of confronting the menace failed. Washington has dismissed the scheme as failing to meet its security needs.

Deep skepticism among Washington's European NATO allies, and the loss of the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate, forced Bush to make a hard sell of the missile defense scheme during a European tour earlier this month.

Democrats who now control Congress are unwilling to alienate Russia and antagonize China by dumping the ABM treaty when missile defense has not been shown to work effectively. A prototype system has so far failed to strike a dummy warhead in two of three tests.

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

Nuclear weapons testing may hit the fast track
ACTIVISTS CONCERNED ADMINISTRATION PLANS TO END MORATORIUM
The Pentagon wants to scrap all Reagan-era MX nuclear-tipped missiles.

BY JONATHAN S. LANDAY
Mercury News Washington Bureau
June 28, 2001
San Jose Mercury News
http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/nation/docs/nuclear28.htm

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has asked U.S. nuclear weapons scientists to examine ways that nuclear test explosions beneath the Nevada desert could resume more quickly if the government decides to end a nine-year moratorium on nuclear testing.

It would now take one to three years to prepare a test, and a recent study concluded that such long lead times could allow political opponents to block any resumption of nuclear testing.

Nuclear weapons scientists are looking at ``what it would take to do various kinds of tests on various time scales,'' said C. Bruce Tarter, the director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Testing moratorium

Tarter and others said the administration hasn't decided to resume testing. Nevertheless, the review is likely to add to fears that President Bush might end the nuclear testing moratorium and push for developing new ``low yield'' nuclear warheads that some weapons scientists and conservative lawmakers advocate.

The Nevada Test Site readiness review was requested by retired Air Force Gen. John Gordon, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, the Energy Department agency that manages nuclear weapons programs.

``During this year, we will look hard again at improving test site readiness, and will review whether an appropriate level of resources is being applied to this vital element of Stockpile Stewardship,'' Gordon said Wednesday in testimony submitted to a House of Representatives subcommittee.

The stewardship program uses experiments, computer simulations, warhead inspections and tests of non-nuclear components to determine whether the nation's nuclear arsenal is ready.

Most valuable test

Darwin Morgan, a spokesman for the Nevada Test Site, said the thrust of the examination is determining the most valuable test to conduct if the United States decides to resume testing.

``The question is . . . what information do you want back from the test?'' Morgan said. ``If it were to rattle a sword, we could do that fairly quickly. If you need to get good diagnostic information . . . that's where you get the time.''

Bush has said he has no plans to end the U.S. moratorium. But Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have argued that the safety and potency of the American arsenal can be assured only by periodically detonating randomly selected warheads underground.

``This is all part of a well-coordinated effort inside and outside the government to basically resume production of nuclear weapons,'' charged Stephen Schwartz, the publisher of the Chicago-based Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, an arms control journal. ``If you are going to do that, you are going to need to test, and this is what this exercise is all about.''

Schwartz said the readiness review of the Nevada Test Site could provide ``cover to China and Russia, and maybe even India and Pakistan,'' to prepare resumption of nuclear tests.

Tarter dismissed such concerns. ``Understanding the state of readiness, I think, is a non-provocative activity,'' he said.

The test site-readiness study comes as the Pentagon is conducting a separate review of U.S. nuclear strategy and forces, including whether to trim America's nuclear arsenal and whether to continue the testing moratorium.

Bush supported the Senate's 1999 rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, saying a permanent global ban on nuclear testing would be unverifiable.

Many experts say returning to underground tests is unnecessary and could provoke a new nuclear arms race. These experts contend that the United States can continue to rely on the Stockpile Stewardship Program to evaluate its estimated 10,500 warheads.

Site near Las Vegas

The Nevada Test Site is in the desert northwest of Las Vegas and was the site of 100 atmospheric and 828 underground tests between 1951 and 1992. It still conducts ``subcritical'' tests of nuclear components -- tests involving nuclear materials but not actual nuclear explosions.

Tarter said the examination of the site's readiness to resume full-scale tests involves experts from the site, the Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories and a commission Congress appointed in 1999 to examine the nation's ability to maintain safe and reliable nuclear warheads without test explosions.

In a Feb. 1 report, the commission expressed grave concern about insufficient funding, crumbling infrastructure, low morale and other problems at the nuclear laboratories, nuclear weapons-production plants and the Nevada Test Site.

The panel, headed by John S. Foster Jr., a former weapons designer, found it would take the test site 12 to 36 months to prepare a test.

``It is the panel's view that such lead times are unacceptable,'' the report said. ``It seems prudent to take cost-effective steps to reduce lead times for testing to give future presidents a practical set of options for sustaining confidence in the stockpile. The panel believes that the NNSA should investigate a range of options to reduce lead times to, say, three to four months from the president's making a decision to proceed.''

``It seemed to us that three years kind of tied the president's hands,'' Foster said in an interview.

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

-------- colorado

Uranium Processor to Pay $16.3M

The Associated Press
Friday, June 29, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010629/aponline135548_000.htm

DENVER -- A uranium processing company has been ordered to pay $16.3 million to 32 people who suffered radiation poisoning and other health problems while living near its mill.

A jury reached the decision Thursday against the Cotter Corp. Three plaintiffs have died since the lawsuit was filed 10 years ago.

"I'm elated. Finally, the Cotter Corporation is being held accountable," said Joe Dodge, 67, whose wife, Thelma, died of radiation-induced leukemia. Dodge, the original plaintiff in the lawsuit, owned a ranch next to the mill outside Canon City, 115 miles south of Denver.

"This is justice for the death of our mother," his daughter Rhonda Butson said. "Cotter has been terrible. They still don't think they've done anything wrong."

The lawyer for Denver-based Cotter said the company would appeal.

"They will never see this money," John Watson said. "We feel completely confident that the 10th Circuit (Court of Appeals) will overturn this verdict."

This is the fourth trial involving pollution claims against the Cotter Mill, which produced uranium fuel for nuclear power plants around the world for almost 30 years. It was declared a Superfund site in 1984 and closed three years later.

Thirteen plaintiffs won a multi-million dollar lawsuit in 1998, but it was overturned on appeal and retried as part of this case. Another case in 1992 was settled and a case in 2000 is being appealed.

The mill ground uranium into a powder and formed it into "yellowcake" biscuits for shipment. Testimony during the seven-week trial showed the fine radioactive dust drifted across Dodge's horse farm, clotheslines, houses and into the soil and water.

The mill also handled heavy metals such as arsenic, cobalt, nickel and lead.

"People lost everything," said attorney Suzelle Smith. "Joe Dodge lost his wife and his horses. He lost his farm. People lost vegetables. They had birth defects, disfigurements."

Sonja and Don Luna's son Brett, 28, was born with a cleft palate, respiratory problems and mental retardation.

"I thought my heart was going to burst when they announced the verdicts," said Don Luna. "This is for Brett. We won't be around forever to care for him. He will have to have help all his life. He doesn't deserve what he has."

"I cried for two days," said juror Sandy Todd. "We just tried to do the right thing."

-------- nevada

U.S. Studying Nuclear Test Site

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nuclear-Testing.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Energy Department is studying ways to improve the Nevada Test Site's readiness to resume nuclear weapons trials in case the Bush administration decides testing is needed, officials said Friday.

Joe Davis, a department spokesman, said there has been no change to the requirement, set in 1994, to be capable of resuming testing within 24 to 36 months of a presidential decision to test. He said the department is reviewing whether the readiness level can be improved, for the sake of efficiency.

Some have concluded from reports on the review that the administration is contemplating resuming nuclear testing.

``It would be wrong to interpret it that way,'' he said.

Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, on Friday said the administration does not plan to order a resumption of testing, which was halted in 1992. He could not rule out that it might one day be necessary.

``I'm not aware of a need to resume testing at this time,'' Wolfowitz said in an interview with radio reporters. If questions arose about the reliability or safety of nuclear warheads and underground blasts were required to resolve those questions, the administration would contemplate testing, he said.

That also was the policy of the Clinton administration, and it is the reason why the Energy Department is required by Congress to maintain the scientific and other capabilities to resume testing.

Prior to the U.S. decision in 1992 to place a moratorium on nuclear testing, it was the Pentagon's view that periodic testing was an indispensable tool in ensuring that nuclear weapons were reliable. But rapid advances in computer simulation and other technologies have made it possible to collect vast amounts of safety and reliability data without testing.

Asked about the matter on Thursday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said it the review of the Nevada Test Site's readiness was strictly a technical matter.

``It does not have anything to do with resumption of nuclear tests,'' Fleischer said. ``The president is going to continue the moratorium.''

The secretaries of defense and energy are required by law to certify to the president each year whether there are nuclear weapons safety or reliability concerns that would require a return to nuclear testing.

John Gordon, head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, an arm of the Energy Department, said in testimony to a House Armed Services subcommittee on Wednesday that the most recent assessment confirmed that the nuclear weapons stockpile is safe and reliable and that no nuclear testing is needed.

Gordon said confirmation was possible because of technological advances, which can also help maintain the readiness of the Nevada Test Site, a protected federal range of 1,350 square miles situated 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

``During this next year, we will look hard again at improving test readiness and will review whether an appropriate level of resources is being applied to this vital element of stockpile stewardship,'' he told the panel.

Darwin Morgan, a spokesman for the Nevada Test Site, said Friday the readiness of the site is under constant review to ensure that the lead time for nuclear testing does not exceed the 24-36 month standard.

``If we can reduce the lead time, great,'' but it would be done for the sake of improving efficiency, not in anticipation of a presidential decision to resume testing, Morgan said.

--------
Plan to study Yucca routes fails
Leaders say it's too soon to focus on shipping

DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU,
Friday, June 29, 2001
Las Vegas Review-Journal
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Jun-29-Fri-2001/news/16433056.html

WASHINGTON -- A Nevada effort to draw attention to routes where nuclear waste might be shipped for burial at Yucca Mountain failed on Thursday when the House of Representatives killed a call for transportation studies in the next year.

An amendment setting aside $500,000 for highway and rail studies was defeated 321-102 after a 15-minute debate. Several influential leaders said it was premature to focus on nuclear waste shipping when the government has yet to recommend a repository. Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas is the only place being studied.

Ninety-two Democrats, nine Republicans and Vermont independent Bernard Sanders voted for the amendment. It was sponsored by Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., who tried to attach it to a $27.3 billion energy and water spending bill.

Reps. Sonny Callahan, R-Ala., and Peter Visclosky, D-Ind., leaders of the energy and water subcommittee, urged its defeat. If Yucca Mountain is recommended, "we'll have six, seven, maybe nine years, ample time to advertise and study the transportation possibilities," Callahan said.

"It seems to me that doing it that way is bass-ackwards," Berkley responded. She said people should know before a repository is designated whether nuclear waste might be shipped through their communities.

"This is an issue of the public's right to know," she said. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., voted for the amendment. "People have not been apprised of routing through their cities and they need to be," he said.

Among other programs, the energy and water bill adds more than $141 million to renewable energy development programs cut by President Bush, including a $13.1 million increase for geothermal energy over the president's request and $19.5 million more for wind energy.

Nevada is home to nine geothermal power plants that provide about 200 megawatts of electricity to 200,000 homes in the state and California.

The energy and water bill contained other Nevada projects, including:

o $400,000 for a feasibility study to restore the lower Las Vegas Wash wetlands. An additional $1 million was earmarked for the Bureau of Reclamation for resource management at Lake Mead and the Las Vegas Wash.

o $25 million for on-going stabilization of the Tropicana and Flamingo washes west of Las Vegas.

o $500,000 for planning at Truckee Meadows.

o $200,000 for a Walker River Basin conservation study.

o $6 million for resource management and $2 million for facilities maintenance within the Bureau of Reclamation for Lahontin Basin.

-------- new york

NUCLEAR OPERATOR APPROVED

June 29, 2001
Metro Business Briefing
Robert Worth (NYT)
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/29/nyregion/29BBRF.html?searchpv=nytToday

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has given final approval for Entergy Nuclear Inc. to operate the Indian Point 3 and James A. FitzPatrick nuclear plants, dismissing a petition by a citizens' group to block the sale. The federal agency initially approved Entergy's purchase of the two plants from the New York State Power Authority for $967 million last fall, and Entergy has been operating the plants since then. But final approval for the transfer of the plants' licenses was delayed by the New York Citizens Awareness Network, which filed a petition raising questions about financing and safety. Indian Point 3 is in Buchanan, in Westchester County, and FitzPatrick is in Scriba, in Oswego County.

-------- pennsylvania

Groups fear nuclear waste moving through Pa.

By Akweli Parker,
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Friday, June 29, 2001
http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer/2001/06/29/business/29NUKE.htm?template=aprint.htm

Pennsylvania's distinction as the "Keystone State" is a dubious one when applied to the state's pivotal role in hauling deadly nuclear waste, according to some nuclear energy opponents.

Because of Pennsylvania's location, nearly 20-percent of the nation's spent, highly radioactive uranium from nuclear power plants could traverse state rail lines and highways, according to consumer and environmental groups who spoke at a news conference today.

Public Citizen - the Washington-based consumer group founded by Ralph Nader, the Pennsylvania Public Interest Research Group, the Pennsylvania Environmental Network and Citizen Alert are trying to call public attention to a plan that would ship thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste through New Jersey, Pennsylvania and other states on the way to a proposed dump in Nevada.

"If there are any accidents" in shipping the waste, "Pennsylvania is likely to be where they occur," because of its rugged terrain, said Mike Ewall, of the Pennsylvania Environmental Network.

Shortly after 11 a.m. today, Ewall and a few others fired up a suitcase-sized Honda generator and used it to inflate a 20-foot by 9-foot replica of a nuclear waste container next to City Hall.

Called a cask, the fake container resembled an oversized, poly-vinyl dumbbell.

The debate over the fate of nuclear waste has simmered between environmentalists and nuclear advocates for several years, but is heating up since the Department of Energy will likely recommend this year a permanent resting place for spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.

Right now, thousands of tons of waste is piling up on concrete storage "pads" located near nuclear power plants.

For years, the nuclear energy industry has been pressuring the government to find a home for this waste, as nuclear operators are running out of room at their facilities.

Akweli Parker's e-mail address is aparker@phillynews.com.

-------- us nuc politics

Historical Omissionism

By Lloyd Grove
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 29, 2001; Page C03
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61590-2001Jun28?language=printer

When Nobuyuki Idei, chairman of Sony, asked Howard Stringer, chairman of Sony America, to set up a little dinner for various Washington VIPs next month, Stringer enlisted his old friend Sally Quinn, our Post colleague, to help pick a venue and organize a guest list.

Quinn suggested using the newly refurbished former presidential yacht Sequoia, docked at the Washington Marina. But when she toured the 106-foot vessel a few weeks ago, she spotted trouble: A framed photograph commemorating Japanese Emperor Hirohito and Empress Nagako's 1975 cruise with President Ford was accompanied by a brass plaque bearing the inscription: "In 1945, President Harry Truman reportedly decided, while on the Sequoia, to drop the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, Japan."

Guests won't have to see this display while partying aboard the Sequoia.

Quinn immediately asked that the offending plaque be removed, and a new plaque -- omitting the reference to Hiroshima -- was ordered from a Capitol Hill framing shop. Yesterday, after dinner organizers got wind of our inquiries, the order for the new plaque was canceled; instead the whole display will be hidden away. Quinn told us: "My initial reaction was that the whole point of entertaining people is to make them feel comfortable, and it seemed this would be a little insensitive to the guest of honor."

One problem resolved, another cropped up during last week's inspection by a Sony advance team: The onboard television set is a Sharp. We hear that the Sony folks demanded that it be replaced with one of their own models, but Sony Vice President Anne Murfogen told us she merely asked that the Sharp be stowed. "Nobody will be watching TV," she said. We guess a screening of "Pearl Harbor" is out of the question.

Stringer, meanwhile, told us: "We're throwing a party for the chairman of Sony, who has rarely been in Washington, and we thought it was a great opportunity for him to meet politicians, business leaders and journalists -- that's all." Among the invited guests, we hear, are Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Secretary of State Colin Powell, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), AOL Time Warner chairman Steve Case and PBS anchor Jim Lehrer. "I don't know anything about captions on pictures," Stringer said. "That's not an issue with me or the Japanese executives."

-------- us nuc power

[Big bank-er Greenspan muddling about in nuclear politics? Chilling. et]

Greenspan urges nuclear growth

By Patrice Hill
June 29, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/business/default-20016290553.htm

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan yesterday urged Congress to consider ways to expand nuclear power and expressed optimism that the marketplace is resolving the nation's energy problems without legislative action.

In a speech to the Economic Club of Chicago last night, Mr. Greenspan strongly advocated free-market policies like those pushed by the Bush administration over the price controls and other government-induced solutions pushed by Democrats as the best way to break up bottlenecks and bring down energy prices.

Nuclear power is "an obvious major alternative to coal" that has "obvious environmental advantages" because it generates no emissions, he said. "The time may have come to consider whether we can overcome the impediments to tapping its potential more fully."

Before nuclear power can be expanded, however, the country must find "an acceptable way to store spent fuel and radioactive waste," he said, and it must be made more economical.

With nuclear and other energy sources, Congress and the public face some "trade-offs" between expanding development and protecting the environment, he said.

"But those concerns should be addressed in a manner that, to the greatest extent possible, does not distort or stifle the meaningful functioning of our markets."

Mr. Greenspan was optimistic that high prices for gasoline, oil, natural gas and electricity in the past year already have produced the desired effect: a dramatic increase in drilling and huge amounts invested in new power generation.

In recent weeks, the increased development activity has worked dramatically to lower high prices, he said, and that's good news for pinched businesses and consumers as well as the economy.

"Overall energy prices paid in April and May were down from the levels of the first quarter, suggesting some easing in pressures on profit margins" for businesses, he said.

The drop in the last month of the run-up in gasoline prices should help to boost the purchasing power and confidence of consumers, he added.

Despite extensive efforts to control power prices in California, Mr. Greenspan said that even there the market signal sent by higher power rates instituted since the beginning of the year has spurred increased generation and started to lower prices.

While the retail power rates paid by consumers and businesses are set to rise as much as 50 percent by December, the skyrocketing wholesale power prices paid by the state recently have fallen to their lowest levels of the year

----

Greenspan Discusses Energy Crisis

By Martin Crutsinger
AP Economics Writer
Friday, June 29, 2001; 2:43 a.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010629/aponline024353_000.htm

WASHINGTON -- While the last three U.S. recessions were preceded by a sharp spike in energy prices, the country should be able to escape its current problems without long-term harm, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan believes.

Greenspan said recent declines in the price of gasoline and natural gas and increased supplies of those fuels give hope that the worst may be over for the country.

"The short-term energy problems we are experiencing for gasoline, natural gas and electric power will be resolved, one hopes, without any further adverse impact on our economy," Greenspan said in a speech Thursday night to the Economic Club of Chicago.

But he warned that California, which already has experienced rolling blackouts because of insufficient electric power supplies, faced more problems until increased generating capacity is brought on line.

"To assume that California is going to be able to avoid serious problems as the full brunt of demands for energy mount this summer would be foolhardy," Greenspan said.

Because California accounts for one-eighth of the total U.S. economy, problems in that state could have spillover effects on the overall economy, Greenspan said.

But at least so far, he said, "the overall effects on the California economy and on those of its neighboring states seems to have been modest."

Greenspan spoke one day after the central bank cut interest rates for a sixth time this year in a continuing effort to keep a yearlong economic slowdown from pushing the country into a full-blown recession.

While he made no mention of the Fed's rate cuts in his speech, private economists said his view that energy prices have begun to retreat could explain why the Fed chose to cut rates by only a quarter-point on Wednesday, rather than the larger half-point moves the Fed had been making.

"Because energy prices have fallen a bit, the Fed doesn't feel the need to supply as much in rate reductions to get the economy moving again," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Bank One in Chicago, who was in the audience for Greenspan's speech.

She said that as he has in the past, the Fed chairman emphasized how much the run-up in energy prices contributed to the economic slowdown, particularly by raising costs for businesses.

While some economists are still looking for the Fed to cut rates by one more quarter-point at its Aug. 21 meeting, Swonk said she believed this week's move could well be the last, given Greenspan's views that energy prices have begun falling and the belief of many analysts that an economic rebound is underway.

Other analysts who believe the Fed's rate cuts are coming to an end pointed to the Fed's release earlier Thursday of the minutes of its May 15 discussions. In that debate, some Fed policy-makers already were beginning to caution that the central bank ran the risk of raising inflation pressures when economic growth rebounded if it overdid its credit easing.

Asha Bangalore, an economist at Northern Trust Co. in Chicago, said the discussion revealed in the Fed's minutes indicated the Fed is "most likely at the end of the easing cycle."

In his Chicago speech, Greenspan said the Federal Reserve has been paying close attention to the big jump in the price of gasoline and natural gas throughout the country and the electric power shortages in California, because of the crucial role energy plays in business and consumer spending decisions.

But Greenspan said since the start of the year there had been a number of favorable developments including a significant drop in spot prices for natural gas, recent declines in gasoline prices following two years of increases and dampened demand for electric power in California.

Greenspan said the decline in gasoline prices was especially important for the economy because in previous energy crises, the jump in gasoline costs not only reduced the amount of money American consumers had to spend for other products but also shook consumer confidence.

Greenspan also used his energy speech to sound many of the same themes of increased production that were reflected in the energy plan President Bush sent to Congress on Thursday.

Greenspan said it was important for the country to pursue increased production of all kinds of energy from oil and coal to nuclear power and renewable energy sources.

He also warned against imposing price caps on energy, saying that allowing the market to set prices was critical to promote conservation and also to spur energy companies to search for increased supplies.

--------

Abrams Named to NSC

Washington Post,
June 29, 2001
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61474-2001Jun28?language=printer

As expected, former assistant secretary of state Elliott Abrams, most recently head of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, has been named senior director of the National Security Council's office for democracy, human rights and international operations.

It's Official

President Bush has tapped Donald R. Schregardus, former head of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency, to be assistant EPA administrator for enforcement and compliance assurance. Enviros are said to be taking a close look at this one.

H.T. Johnson, a retired Air Force general and Base Closure Commission member, is Bush's choice to be Navy assistant secretary for installations and environment.

Browner Joins Albright

Former Environmental Protection Agency administrator Carol M. Browner has signed on with the Albright Group, an international business strategy advisory group headed by former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright. Browner becomes the fifth and final partner in the company, which includes former top State Department top officials Wendy Sherman and James C. O'Brien and international commercial lawyer Edward H. Lieberman. The group, just now getting off the ground, is not expected to be officially launched until the fall.



-------- MILITARY

Iraq's errant missile

Inside the Ring
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough Notes from the Pentagon.
June 29, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010629-4489394.htm

The Iraqi government charged earlier this month that U.S. and British warplanes patrolling the skies over Iraq killed 23 persons in the northern part of the country as part of a deliberate attack on civilians.

But U.S. intelligence officials tell us the deaths and injuries, which were shown on Iraqi television June 19, were caused by an Iraqi SA-6 surface-to-air missile that had been fired at the patrolling jets.

A Pentagon spokesman at the time denied any attack that day. "While coalition aircraft did patrol the northern no-fly zone ..., they did not engage any targets," said spokesman Dave Lapan.

The Iraqis claimed that the jets attacked a sports field several hundred miles northwest of Baghdad and that Iraqi forces fired on the jets. Neither the Pentagon nor Baghdad revealed that the surface-to-air missile caused the casualties.

There he goes again

The buzz among defense staffers on Capitol Hill yesterday was that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld had done it again.

Mr. Rumsfeld failed, the aides said, to give lawmakers the heads-up that he planned to cut the fleet of 93 B-1Bs bombers, a bulwark of President Reagan's military buildup, to 60 aircraft. The cut, which must be approved by Congress, means the Pentagon will be closing installations in Georgia, Kansas and Idaho.

Sen. Pat Roberts, Kansas Republican and a Senate Armed Services Committee member, was one of those kept in the dark. Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, Mississippi Republican, is getting calls from fellow Republicans asking him, "What's up?" Worse yet, some Air Force generals are telling Congress they did not know the B-1B cut was coming.

Republican leaders thought they had settled the issue of Congress-Pentagon communication after Mr. Rumsfeld met last month with Mr. Lott and other senators. But then on June 14, President Bush changed his mind on the Vieques training range and decided to close it. Someone in the White House leaked the decision, according to Hill and Pentagon sources, before lawmakers were briefed. And now, the B-1B surprise.

"This is another incident where Rumsfeld is not making points," said a senior Republican defense staffer. "The Republican members are really getting upset."

China slates ALCM test

China is moving ahead with testing of its new air-launched cruise missile -- Beijing's answer to the sea-launched Tomahawk land attack cruise missile.

U.S. intelligence officials said a second test of the new ALCM is set to take place soon. "They are moving ahead with the cruise-missile program," said one defense official. "It is a significant step forward for them."

The new cruise missile will be test-fired from a B-6 bomber over northern China. The first Chinese ALCM was tested in May and was assessed to be capable of carrying a 1,100-pound warhead. Its exact range could not be learned, but defense officials said it would be able to travel much farther distances than current China cruise missiles, which primarily are anti-ship weapons.

Out of step

Douglas Paal, who is said to be the leading candidate to become the top U.S. diplomat in Taiwan, is in trouble with congressional Republicans.

House and Senate staffers told us they were astounded by a recent speech by Mr. Paal broadcast in China. The former National Security Council aide in the first Bush administration said President Bush "misspoke" about doing "whatever it took" to defend Taiwan against a mainland attack.

Mr. Paal, who has a reputation for being pro-Beijing in the dispute over Taiwan, said "we also believe that when the president misspoke or stated his policy about defending Taiwan in a new fashion, that they had also shown moderation in reverting to the one-China policy in subsequent formal statements."

According to Mr. Paal, the reason U.S.-China relations are strained is not the result of China's holding 24 American service personnel hostage for 11 days after the aerial collision, or other belligerent Chinese actions and statements. "A lot of the problem in the relationship comes from the fact that the new administration feels they have to make a difference with the previous administration," he said.

Mr. Paal also took an indirect potshot at current senior Bush administration officials such as Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

He said the current "tension" with China is because "quite a few of the newest office holders in the new administration are people who had their formative experiences in dealing with China in 1982, 1983, 1984" after Secretary of State Al Haig was removed for being "overly solicitous of China."

Mr. Paal also said he believes China has a "more pluralistic" political system -- despite mounting evidence that the regime in Beijing is growing less democratic.

He then said the United States is "replacing the Soviet Union as the largest source of concern on the planet."

The speech angered Republican aides in the House and Senate who questioned why Mr. Paal is even being considered for the sensitive Taiwan post when his views appear to be so out of step with those of the president. For the record, Vice President Richard B. Cheney made clear in a television interview several days after the president's tough statement that there would be no backtracking on what has become the administration's new defense commitment to the island.

Intercepts

Some soldiers are complaining that the Army's new black berets can't be stuffed into one's briefcase like the old garrison cap. And many soldiers still don't know how to wear them.

Then there's the beret humor overheard in the Pentagon. When a soldier wears the beret atop his head, he's the "French painter." Tilted to one side, you are the "Monica." And when it's worn with a slight inflation, you are the "Q-tip."

For those reading tea leaves, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld will meet with Air Force Gen. Ralph E. Eberhart, head of U.S. Space Command, during an upcoming trip out West, a defense official tells us. Gen. Eberhart is considered one of several front-runners to become the next Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman on Oct. 1.

Gen. James Jones, the Marine Corps commandant, was conspicuous by his absence Wednesday during a high-powered hearing on the Vieques training range before the House Armed Services Committee. The assistant commandant filled in.

Congressional sources say Gen. Jones, a candidate for the job of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is not happy with President Bush's decision to vacate Vieques, which is prime Marine training ground. A Jones spokesman said the commandant was in the Pacific region this week, attending a conference of Pacific Rim Marine leaders and then visiting 17,000 Marines stationed on Okinawa, home of the 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force.

Peter Brookes is all but assured of getting the key China policy post at the Pentagon, as deputy assistant defense secretary for east Asia. His detractors in the Pentagon and on Capitol Hill point out that he opposed passage of the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act and favored continued engagement with North Korea -- positions conservative Republicans hoped would be rejected by the new administration.

-------- balkans

Milosevic Is Given to U.N. for Trial in War-Crime Case

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By MARLISE SIMONS with CARLOTTA GALL
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/29/world/29HAGU.html

THE HAGUE, the Netherlands, Friday, June 29 - Slobodan Milosevic, the Yugoslav leader blamed for starting four Balkan wars and impoverishing and isolating his country, was delivered early this morning to a prison cell and eventual trial by the United Nations war crimes tribunal here.

Mr. Milosevic, who was indicted during the 1999 war over Kosovo on charges that his security forces committed war crimes in that province, was the first former head of state delivered by a government to face an international war crimes court.

The decision to send him to trial abroad caused deep divisions in Belgrade, both among the democratic leaders elected to replace him last fall and Serbs in general.

The transfer was executed swiftly by the Serbian government without even informing Mr. Milosevic's successor as Yugoslav president, Vojislav Kostunica. On a downtown Belgrade square that had been the scene of many pro- and anti-Milosevic demonstrations through his violent 13 years of power, thousands of his supporters gathered to vent their anger.

On Thursday evening, as Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic of Serbia was announcing the surprising transfer, Mr. Milosevic was whisked in a police van from his Belgrade jail and flown on a Serbian government helicopter to an American air base in Tuzla, Bosnia, and from there to a military airfield near The Hague, the seat of the tribunal.

From there, a helicopter took him to a large jail compound, where hundreds of bystanders, many of them exiles driven by war from the former Yugoslavia, applauded outside the prison walls.

Mr. Milosevic was transferred exactly 10 years after the outbreak of war in Slovenia and Croatia, which had declared independence from the old Communist Yugoslavia, and on the fated Serbian holiday of Vidovdan, or St. Vitus's Day, the date in 1389 when Serbs lost a key battle in Kosovo. It was on the 600th anniversary of that battle, on June 28, 1989, that Mr. Milosevic addressed close to a million Serbs in Kosovo, promising to defend their interests, through war if necessary.

There was an immense international outpouring of relief that Mr. Milosevic was in the hands of those who hold him responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people in the last decade of war in the Balkans.

"Obviously this is an incredibly important moment in the life of this institution," Jim Landale, the spokesman for the tribunal, said as he confirmed that Mr. Milosevic was now officially in its custody. "It is now closer to fulfilling the mission for which it was set up, that is, to deal with the commanders and the architects of the policies that wrought so much havoc and caused so much misery to the people of the Balkans."

In Belgrade, the leaders who pushed through the transfer appeared quietly jubilant, if deeply aware that the move caused divisions that may lead to the fall of their young, fragile and virtually bankrupt government.

Prime Minister Djindjic went on television, telling Serbs that the government had been forced to take a "difficult but morally correct" decision to protect the interests of Serbia. The government badly needs the money only the West - and particularly the United States - can offer, and Mr. Djindjic and the Yugoslav deputy prime minister, Miroljub Labus, the country's leading economist, had been the main advocates for handing over Mr. Milosevic.

"To stop the cooperation with the Hague tribunal or to postpone this cooperation would have had major negative consequences for the present and future of our country," Mr. Djindjic said.

The United States had exerted strong pressure that Mr. Milosevic, who was ousted as president in October in a popular uprising, be detained - as he eventually was on April 1 - and then delivered to The Hague tribunal.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell spoke with Mr. Djindjic twice in the last week, and warned him that the United States was prepared to boycott a conference in Brussels today if Mr. Milosevic was not delivered to The Hague, a senior State Department official said. The new Yugoslav leaders hope to raise some $1 billion in aid at the conference - a goal they cannot meet without American participation.

"We made it quite clear that we want to help them," the official said. "But they had obligations, and they had to meet those obligations, and the secretary never wavered from that."

In Washington, President Bush issued a statement calling Mr. Milosevic's transfer to The Hague a "very important step by the leaders in Belgrade."

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said, "We are witnessing one of the most significant events in postwar European history, where a nation has voluntarily turned over to an international tribunal for trial one of the most dangerous and maniacal European leaders since Hitler."

Richard C. Holbrooke, who negotiated intensively with Mr. Milosevic to reach the 1995 Dayton accords that ended the Bosnian war, said he was very pleased that the former Yugoslav leader "is on his way to a well-deserved detention and trial."

Mr. Holbrooke said the tribunal should now expand its inquiry into Mr. Milosevic's role in Bosnia between 1992 and 1995, including the massacre in Srebrenica in July 1995, where as many as 7,000 Muslims are thought to have been killed after Bosnian Serb forces took over what was supposed to be an enclave with United Nations protection.

The commander at Srebrenica, Gen. Ratko Mladic, and the Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic - each indicted twice by the tribunal on charges of war crimes and genocide - remain at large, most likely in Bosnia, despite the presence of tens of thousands of NATO troops.

Mr. Holbrooke and the tribunal's chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, each said on Thursday night that Mr. Karadzic and General Mladic must be arrested and brought to The Hague.

Timothy McFadden, the chief of the tribunal detention center, said in an interview this week that the former president would be isolated at least initially from other inmates. It was not clear when Mr. Milosevic would be brought to court and formally charged, but that hearing was expected within days.

Mr. Djindjic, noting that Mr. Milosevic basically called Serbs to war in his famous Kosovo speech 12 years ago, said this led only to "12 years of wars, catastrophe and ruin for our country."

The transfer decision was intended to save Serbia "not so much for ourselves and for our parents, but for our children," the prime minister said. "With this decision, we are saving the future of our children."

The Serbian government took things into its own hands on Thursday afternoon after the Yugoslav Constitutional Court ruled that a government decree adopted on Saturday and committing the country to cooperating with the Hague tribunal was unconstitutional.

The government leaders had anticipated the court ruling; Mr. Djindjic called a cabinet meeting and used an article in the Serbian Constitution - ironically written in on Mr. Milosevic's orders when he was president of Serbia in 1990 - that allowed it to override the Yugoslav ruling.

Fifteen ministers voted to transfer Mr. Milosevic to The Hague, and one voted against, Mr. Djindjic said. Of the six ministers who were absent, five supported the move, and one opposed it, he said.

The Constitutional Court that declared the decree on cooperation with the Hague illegal was the same court that tried to annul the election results in September when Mr. Kostunica, leader of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia, defeated Mr. Milosevic in Yugoslav presidential elections.

The decision to move Mr. Milosevic sharpened the differences between Mr. Kostunica and the rest of the leaders in the multi-party alliance. Mr. Kostunica, who has criticized the Hague tribunal for anti- Serb bias, had been slow to draft a law on cooperation with it, to the point that he has been accused of jeopardizing financial aid and the international standing of the country.

Mr. Kostunica went on television later last evening to address the nation, calling it an "extremely difficult and fateful moment for our country."

He said that the problem had been "unnecessarily and unwisely created," and that the removal of Mr. Milosevic could not be considered legal or constitutional. He likened Mr. Djindjic's tactics to the "lawless and hasty acts" of the Milosevic regime and warned that the consequences were dangerous. Those indicted at The Hague deserved a chance to appeal in their own country, he said.

"Yugoslavia deserves better," he said. "Those measures endanger our country, its citizens, and also the damaged peace in our region."

Dragoslav Ognjanovic, one of Mr. Milosevic's lawyers, arrived at the Belgrade prison where his client had been held on Thursday night only to find the former leader gone. "This behavior is savage," he said.

--------

Yugoslav Prime Minister Resigns

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Yugoslavia-War-Crimes.html

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia (AP) -- Yugoslavia's prime minister resigned and thousands of angry supporters of Slobodan Milosevic rallied Friday to protest the snap extradition of the former president to the U.N. war crimes tribunal.

The resignations of Zoran Zizic and other former Montenegrin allies of Milosevic hastened the collapse of the government and threatened to lead to a split between Yugoslavia's two remaining republics, Serbia and the much smaller Montenegro.

About 6,000 supporters of Milosevic, some shouting ``Treason!'' and ``Let's Rise Up!,'' massed in front of Belgrade's federal parliament to protest the Serbian government decision to surrender their former leader.

``This is outrage. This is banditry. This is a blatant violation of all laws,'' said Miodrag Sekulic, 56, a retired teacher from Belgrade and a Milosevic supporter, as he painted a fresh banner saying: ``We will arrest the traitors.''

The protesters hurled plastic water bottles and vented their anger at television crews and passers-by who watched them with disapproval.

Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who had campaigned for Milosevic during the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, appeared at the rally.

``Not in my darkest dreams could I imagine that the Serbian government can engage in a criminal act of surrendering one of their greatest citizens,'' Clark said.

Ultranationalist Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj said that ``in the whole of Serbia's history, it never had such ruling traitors.''

He appealed to the army and police ``to prevent the future handover of our heroes to The Hague.''

In Greece, one of Yugoslavia's few allies during the Milosevic years, 3,000 supporters of the former president marched through Athens on Friday, chanting ``free Milosevic, free Milosevic.'' The march dispersed peacefully.

But in Belgrade the turnout was smaller than expected, and it showed how popular support for Milosevic has dwindled since his nationalist campaigns led to four Balkan wars. Most Serbs expressed relief at the prospect of putting his 13-year era of ruinous rule behind them.

``This is like removing a cancer,'' said Milica Vidojevic, 19. ``This man's mere existence in this country was poison to us all.''

The political resignations, however, meant the collapse of the Cabinet, which is made up of Serbia's pro-democracy officials and ministers from Montenegro. Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica can now propose a new prime minister, but if that is rejected in the parliament, he would have to call new federal elections.

The Montenegrin officials said Milosevic's extradition to the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, was ``illegal and unconstitutional'' and ``jeopardizes the functioning of Yugoslavia and its existence.''

Kostunica met army leaders to discuss the mounting tensions. A terse statement after the talks said the crisis ``must be resolved by political means.''

Zizic said he resigned because of the ``hasty and tactless decision'' to hand Milosevic over to the tribunal. ``The price was beyond any dignity. I cannot accept this in my name and in my people's name, and therefore I resign from the post of the federal prime minister,'' he said.

Milosevic was handed over Thursday by the Serbian government, which ignored a federal Constitutional Court ruling that banned his extradition.

The U.N. tribunal's chief prosecutor, Carla Del Ponte, said Friday that the indictment against the former Yugoslav president would be expanded and that other war crimes suspects must be brought to justice.

His Milosevic's lawyer, Branimir Gugl, said his client called his family from the tribunal's prison on Friday to proclaim his innocence on charges of crimes against humanity and to say he was ``fine and healthy.''

``He is denying any guilt. He has a clear conscience and says he had worked in the interest of the Serbian people,'' Gugl said.

Kostunica -- a staunch opponent of The Hague tribunal -- had described the Serbian government's move to hand Milosevic over as ``illegal and unconstitutional.''

Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, who pushed through the extradition, said Yugoslavia had no choice but to surrender Milosevic or face renewed international isolation and the loss of much-needed foreign aid.

The rift between Djindjic, a Western-educated technocrat, and Kostunica, a moderate nationalist, could unravel their pro-democracy coalition which ousted Milosevic in October.

Rewarding Djindjic's government for the move, international donors meeting Friday in Brussels, Belgium, exceeded Yugoslavia's appeal for funding by $30 million, granting a total of $1.28 billion in reconstruction aid.

But the timing of Milosevic's extradition, which coincided with the donors' conference, had many Serbs worried that he was sold for money.

``Basically his head went for $1.3 billion,'' said the Sarajevo-born film director Emir Kusturica.

--------

U.S. Envoy Sent to Macedonia

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Macedonia.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration is sending a U.S. envoy to Macedonia to help with peace negotiations between ethnic Albanians and the Slav-dominated government.

The State Department announced Friday that its European Bureau's special adviser, James Pardew, will head this weekend to Skopje, Macedonia.

Pardew, who is ``well-known and knows well the Balkans,'' will be working closely with his European Union counterpart, Francois Leotard, State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said.

Earlier Friday, NATO approved plans to deploy a 3,000-member task force to Macedonia to oversee a voluntary disarmament of Albanian rebels if a peace deal is reached.

Reeker said that while NATO is ready to help with the disarmament process, ``we need to see that political agreement coming into fruition.''

``There is no military solution to the problems in Macedonia. The violence there achieves absolutely nothing,'' Reeker said. ``Where they'll find solutions is where they found them over the last decade -- through a democratic process, through a process of peaceful dialogue.''

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz stressed that NATO troops would be sent to Macedonia to collect the rebels' arms only in the event of an agreement between the rebels and the government.

``We are a very long way from any such agreement,'' he said during an interview with radio reporters Friday.

``If and when that happens the U.S. will provide some support,'' he said, describing it as relatively modest contributions to NATO logistics, medical evacuation capabilities and intelligence.

The NATO agreement Friday was ``meant to be an indication of NATO support for implementing such an agreement if one takes place,'' he said, rather than in anticipation of an agreement coming soon.

He stressed that the administration was not planning to get deeply involved militarily in Macedonia.

``This is, in its nature, a temporary mission,'' he said, referring to the NATO plan for collecting the rebels' arms. He added, ``I know we've had other temporary ones that turned out to last a long time.''

-------- drug war

Drug czar clings to U.N. post

June 29, 2001
By Betsy Pisik
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010629-72670924.htm

NEW YORK - Embattled U.N. drug czar Pino Arlacchi said this week he hoped to stay in office for another term, despite a series of investigations that have undermined his support within the United Nations and among member states.

A series of leaked resignation letters and at least four official evaluations or investigations have tarnished the reputation of the Vienna-based U.N. Office of Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP).

"If it is possible, it would not be bad to continue the work I have started, and I think I will accomplish," Mr. Arlacchi, the ODCCP executive director, said in an interview on Wednesday.

"I have no other interests. I am at the top of my career. I am 50 years old and I can do what I think is to be done."

Mr. Arlacchi, visiting New York for an international AIDS conference, said he expressed this hope during a meeting with Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who appointed him to take over the drug and crime office four years ago.

In response to reporters' questions, Mr. Annan declined this week to say whether he had enough faith in Mr. Arlacchi to appoint him to another term.

"I am going through the required procedures and reviews before I make a judgment," he said, hours after winning an unusually hearty nomination from the Security Council for a second term.

Supporters say Mr. Arlacchi, an internationally recognized Mafia foe and left-leaning former Italian senator, has brought a new vitality to the stagnant agency.

A mediagenic and sometimes charismatic figure, Mr. Arlacchi has charmed wealthy nations into supporting his $75 million-a-year program and cajoled rulers as suspicious as the Taliban into cooperating with crop eradication efforts.

Two international conferences, one to fight organized crime and the other to crack down on the global drug problem, attracted international attention and generated new support for common goals.

But co-workers and ODCCP officials found him autocratic, mercurial and impulsive - complaints that were confirmed by a recent series of investigations by a board of outside auditors and the Office of Internal Oversight Services.

The OIOS reports, in particular, painted a picture of a remote leader who stripped senior staffers of decision-making authority. They called for greater transparency, accountability and management skills.

Two of the four reports remain confidential, fueling speculation that they contain evidence of fraud or corruption.

Senior U.N. officials have refused to comment on the most serious charge - that Mr. Arlacchi diverted donor money from legitimate programs to finance a round-the-world sailing trip by a Swedish tugboat captain who would hang an anti-drug banner from his boat.

Mr. Annan has received that report, but it is not clear when - or if - he will make it public.

Mr. Arlacchi said the project was brought to him in 1995 by a Swedish foundation, but was abandoned after questions arose about whether sailor Dennis Oren actually owned the boat. He said that less than $70,000 was spent, and that Mr. Oren had reimbursed some of it.

The executive director this week acknowledged his management mistakes, but said he and his staff were "totally exonerated" on the more serious charges.

In the interview at the ODCCP's New York office, Mr. Arlacchi said he had been the victim of lies, gossip and bad reporting.

"I think there is an effort to discredit me personally, and my reputation," he said. "They invented all sorts of foul things about me. ...

"The investigators went though all this and found not one single case of irregular recruitment. They went through everything, my taxi receipts."

The governments that underwrite ODCCP programs have been watching the investigations closely as they decide how supportive to be.

The Netherlands has suspended its $6 million contribution until the end of the year. Other nations - including the United States - are increasingly earmarking their contributions to specific programs.

-------- india/pakistan

Hindu council gives men arms training

June 29, 2001
By Janaki Bahadur Kremmer
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010629-3047464.htm

NEW DELHI -- The youth movement of the militant World Hindu Council, the Bajrang Dal, is providing extensive arms training it says is designed to protect the Hindu faith against "enemy forces."

About 100 young men between the ages of 21 and 26 gathered at a camp early this month in the northern city of Lucknow. There they learned how to fire guns and attack people with judo moves and knives.

Similar 10-day camps are being conducted in other Indian cities, attracting mostly unemployed Hindu men and young women from the lower sections of society.

The teachers insist that the training is "totally above board and not dangerous" because the air guns used at the camp do not require licenses.

However, said Ved Prakash Sachchan, a senior Bajrang Dal member and teacher, "A number of these young men and women do apply for proper gun licenses at the end of the training and go on to buy revolvers, or ... other sorts of guns."

The Bajrang Dal, often found to be connected to communal violence between Hindus and Muslims in India, was at the forefront of the demolition of a 16th-century mosque by a Hindu mob in the town of Ayodhya in December 1992.

They claimed that the mosque was built over a temple destroyed by Muslim invaders. The demolition unleashed communal violence across India and the case is still in court. But the Hindu extremists are determined that a temple will soon be built soon over the ruins of the mosque.

"By giving this gun training, we want to create the same sense of urgency and excitement in the youth that was there when the mosque was demolished but which has since frittered away," Mr. Sachchan said.

Critics of the Bajrang Dal believe that the training will only increase the fear of Hindu extremists within Indian society.

At the end of the 10-day session, one of the Bajrang Dal youths, Vikas Babu Mishra, told the Times of India newspaper that the training had taught him how to "beat those people who do not respect Hinduism."

In New Delhi, the leader of the World Hindu Council, Ashok Singhal, said in an interview that he believed that all Indians should be given arms training.

"What is wrong with that? It's good for the nation," he said, surrounded by three security guards armed with submachine guns.

"It's good that these unemployed young men are learning something. Otherwise, they would be out on the streets misbehaving with young women and creating havoc," said another World Hindu Council leader, Giriraj Kishore.

The Bajrang Dal plans in August to teach about 50,000 members how to fight with the trident, the symbol of the group.

"We are ready for the Muslims anytime, anywhere," said another trainee who declined to be named.

Mr. Sachchan insisted that the training was not intended to increase violence between religious communities.

"We are merely preparing them to face any eventuality. With the Pakistani intelligence spreading its tentacles, these people are really just being trained how to challenge anti-Hindu forces. Or would you rather we were sitting ducks ?"

With the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party leading the government, anti-Muslim groups have been gaining in confidence as well as in numbers throughout the country.

The Bajrang Dal says that it would like to see more than 200,000 members attending training camps by the middle of next year.

The Indian government has so far not reacted to the increasing presence of the camps.

----

India to Push for MFN Status at Pakistan Summit

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-india-p.html?searchpv=reuters

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India will ask Pakistan at their summit next month for a pledge to grant it most favored nation trading status as part of a push to help normalize ties between the two hostile neighbors, a government minister said.

Junior Commerce and Industry Minister Omar Abdullah said apart from the two countries' bitter dispute over the Himalayan territory of Kashmir, ``the first and foremost (issue in the way of normal relations) has to be the issue of MFN.''

India granted Pakistan most favored nation (MFN) status in 1995 but Pakistan has never reciprocated.

``We feel this is not the right way toward normalization of relations,'' Abdullah, son of Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Farooq Abdullah, told Reuters in an interview.

``We will raise the (MFN) issue (at the summit). I hope we will receive a commitment from Pakistan,'' Abdullah said.

The summit between Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is set for July 14-16 and will discuss Kashmir and other issues.

It will be the first summit meeting in more than two years between the two nuclear-capable neighbors.

Under World Trade Organization rules two countries can grant MFN status to each other for trade purposes.

Abdullah said he did not expect any formal trade agreement to be signed during the Pakistani leader's visit.

ADDRESS ISSUE

He said he would be happy if the MFN issue was addressed and the two countries were able to put in place a structure for future dialogue on trade.

Successive Pakistani governments have been reluctant to grant New Delhi such status for political reasons as well as in response to fears of domestic industry that cheaper Indian imports would flood the local market.

According to industry leaders, official trade between India and Pakistan stands at $200 million annually but the unofficial figure is estimated to be at least five times that amount.

Most trade between the two takes place through a third country or via smuggling that brings no revenue to the governments of either India or Pakistan.

Abdullah said the level of trade between India and Pakistan meant that trade links were still not so vital as between other countries like the United States and China.

``It has not reached that critical mass wherein political considerations will be outweighed by trade considerations, Abdullah said. ``India and Pakistan trade is still at a nascent stage.''

----

Musharraf Defends Presidency Takeover
Pakistani Looks to India Talks, Kashmir Resolution

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, June 29, 2001; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59302-2001Jun28?language=printer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, June 28 -- Fresh from two sets of tennis, Gen. Pervez Musharraf exuded confident ease and determination tonight as he defended his controversial decision to take over Pakistan's presidency eight days ago and looked ahead to his mid-July summit with the prime minister of India, Pakistan's neighbor and nuclear rival.

But the general, 57, also complained to a group of foreign reporters that he felt misunderstood by the world, and he professed to be "embarrassed" by the necessity, as he saw it, to acquire more personal power in the pursuit of what he called "the nation's interests."

"People still don't understand me, and that has been my disappointment," he said, referring to Western criticism that he has increasingly acted like a dictator since seizing power as army chief in October 1999. "I am not an intriguer, I have no hidden game plan. I am a very straight and open man, and the interests of Pakistan are my only guideline."

Musharraf, who has been meeting with various Pakistani leaders in recent days to seek their views on the summit, unexpectedly invited the journalists to his spacious military bungalow tonight, greeting them in a blue polo shirt and khaki slacks.

He conveyed a message of both sincerity and toughness, tinged with notes of plaintive exasperation at his critics, as he explained his sudden June 20 takeover of the presidency and vowed to seek a peaceful solution to Pakistan's protracted conflict with India over Kashmir, the troubled Himalayan border region both countries claim.

Musharraf repeatedly said he is determined to keep his meeting with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee focused on solving the Kashmir issue, and he claimed that the summit would be a "farce" if it became sidetracked by other issues that India also seeks to raise.

"There must be an absolute, unequivocal acceptance of the fact that Kashmir is the issue that has bedeviled our relations. . . . We have to resolve it," the general said. "I would be really disappointed if we follow the hackneyed path" of past bilateral meetings that have "bogged down" on other issues.

He refused to say what specific proposals he would make to Vajpayee on how to resolve the Kashmir problem. The turbulent region has been claimed by both countries and divided between them for half a century. In the past decade, fighting between Indian forces and Pakistani-backed insurgents in the Indian portion of Kashmir has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Musharraf predicted that "if both sides stick to their stated positions too rigidly, there will be no progress," but that if both are "sincere and open-minded," the Kashmir issue could be solved in less than a year. He said he was "cautiously optimistic" that the summit would be a success.

Until now, India and Pakistan have held opposing positions on Kashmir. India claims it is an "integral" part of its territory; Pakistani officials insist it is disputed ground, and that its inhabitants must be allowed to vote on its status under U.N. resolutions dating from the 1940s.

In recent months, India has constantly accused Pakistan of fomenting "cross-border terrorism" and said it would not open a dialogue until Musharraf reined in the fighters. Pakistan, in turn, has charged that Indian forces in Kashmir systematically abuse its civilian inhabitants.

But last month, Vajpayee suddenly invited the Pakistani leader for talks on Kashmir and other issues, saying he sought to "pick up the threads" of his 1998 negotiations with former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif, whom Musharraf ousted. Those talks were scuttled after Pakistani-based fighters invaded Kashmir's Kargil mountains, setting off a 10-week border war.

India hopes that the July 14-16 summit can lead to progress on an array of bilateral issues raised in the 1998 talks, including nuclear risk reduction, border disputes and trade. Both countries tested nuclear devices in 1998. While agreeing to include Kashmir as a topic for discussion, Indian officials hope to curb the violence there without making significant concessions on its status.

But Musharraf, while reiterating tonight that he plans to be "flexible" in his meetings with Vajpayee, insisted he will not allow the summit to be frittered away on what he called "minor irritants," saying all other problems can be fixed easily once Kashmir is resolved. "I am hopeful we will not beat around the bush this time," he said.

Musharraf brushed aside questions about whether he would rein in armed Islamic groups that support fighters in Kashmir, insisting that the Kashmiri insurgency is "indigenous." He recently asked Islamic groups to tone down their anti-India rhetoric, however, and said he would seek new national laws against terrorism.

"The hawks and the doves in Pakistan are all saying with one voice that I must go and discuss a peaceful resolution" to the Kashmir conflict, he said. "It is more India that has a problem of hawks and doves," he added. "I go with my hands strengthened by the people of Pakistan." Some hard-line Hindu groups in India oppose negotiations with Pakistan on Kashmir.

In the past week, Musharraf has met with a variety of Pakistani politicians, religious leaders and journalists, seeking their views on Kashmir and the summit. However, Pakistan's two major political parties, which are respectively loyal to former prime ministers Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, did not participate in the meetings.

Musharraf did receive a major boost Wednesday when the leaders of six Islamic parties, several of which support the armed insurgency in Kashmir and all of which share deep enmity toward Hindu-dominated India, agreed to endorse his visit to India and said he should seek to resolve the conflict peacefully.

Qazi Hussain Ahmed, leader of the largest religious party, Jamiat-e-Islami, said Wednesday night that the religious groups supported his trip but demanded that he should discuss only Kashmir and that he "should not deviate from the principle" that India must accept Kashmir's status as disputed territory.

Perhaps most important, some analysts here said this week, is that Musharraf has strong backing from the Pakistani army for his mission to India. Although the Kashmir cause has been both a major rallying cry and a source of generous funding for the military, they said, military officials also worry that it has become a drain on the country's ailing economy.

In defending his decision to dismiss Pakistan's civilian president and assume the post himself, Musharraf said he had "taken the decision in the nation's interest, irrespective of any concerns from anywhere." He reiterated his pledge to "have an elected government in place" by October 2002, as ordered by Pakistan's supreme court.

-------- iraq

Iraq: U.N. Spends More on Sniffer Dogs Than People

New York Times
June 28, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iraq-un.html

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Accusing the United Nations of corruption, a senior Iraqi official on Thursday said the world body spent more on sniffer dogs in heat than feeding ordinary Iraqis suffering under decade-old sanctions.

In a more than two hour address to the U.N. Security Council, Riyadh al-Qaysi, an undersecretary in Baghdad's foreign ministry, demanded an audit for U.N. officials, alleging they were skimming off and wasting funds in managing the oil-for-food humanitarian program for Iraq.

He said the program had spent more on sniffer dogs sent to uncover mines in the north than Baghdad was able to spend on food per person. The 28 dogs, he said, needed trainers, two guides, a vet and ``bitches so they can allay their sexual desire'' after ''suffering from inertia.''

The oil-for-food program allows Baghdad to sell oil, an exception to the sanctions imposed when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. The oil revenues are used to purchase food, medicine and a host of other supplies for ordinary Iraqis.

But the council vets the goods and the United Nations pays suppliers from oil sale monies deposited in escrow accounts, which can hold as much as $12 billion a year.

Al-Qaysi said some suppliers were not paid for 30 days while oil revenues moved from one account to another.

``So many Garfields and they are getting fatter,'' he said. referring to the chubby lasagna-eating cartoon cat.

In response, U.S. representative James Cunningham said al-Qaysi's speech was full of blustering, denial, attacks on the Security Council and attacks on the U.N. secretariat.''

``Rather astonishing, I thought... from a country and a regime that tried to annihilate a member of the United Nations and extinguish its existences, stole its historical records and looted the country,'' Cunningham told reporters after the second day of a public discussion on Iraq in the council this week.

Al-Qaysi came to New York to argue against a U.S.-British plan to revamp sanctions under the oil-for-food program. The two countries want to ease restrictions on civilian goods and attempt to curtail smuggling routes.

Russia, one of five permanent council members with veto power, has rejected the plan and wants to speed up steps toward suspending the sanctions, contending the new resolution only tightens the embargoes.

Council members must renew the oil-for-food program by Tuesday. If Russia maintains its objections, the council is expected to extend current program but it is not known for how long. Iraq suspended oil sales on June 4 to protest a British-drafted resolution on the overhaul of sanctions.

``The so-called 'smart sanctions' are but a new facet of neo-colonialism. We refuse,'' al-Qaysi.

During the meeting, Canada's U.N. Ambassador Paul Heinbecker encouraged council members to support the new resolution. Australian Ambassador Penny Wensley said it would ``make a difference to the lives of ordinary Iraqi citizens.''

But the council is at loggerheads over both interim and long-range plans. British Prime Minister Tony Blair called Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday on the sanctions dispute but apparently made no headway.

Secretary Colin Powell called his French and Chinese counterparts in an effort to ease their objections to the resolution, the State Department reported on Thursday.

Tracing the history of sanctions year by year, al-Qaysi said U.N. arms inspectors, checking on Iraq's weapons of destruction programs, were not allowed back into the country because they distorted what they found.

He contended that in the autumn of 1998 the inspectors had investigated 427 sites and experienced ``incidents'' at five of them. But former chief U.N. inspector Richard Butler still reported Iraq had not cooperated, thereby unleashing five days of bombing by the United States and Britain in December 1998.

Return of the inspectors is a key condition for the council moving toward the suspension of sanctions.

--------

Powell Pessimistic About Russia on U.N. Sanctions

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iraq-us.html

PARIS (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell cast doubt on Friday agreement could be reached with Moscow over revamping U.N. sanctions against Iraq but said he would speak to Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov shortly.

``Mr. Ivanov has been consistent over time that they would have problems with this,'' Powell told reporters on a flight from Amman, Jordan, following a tour of the Middle East.

The Russians, he said ``were always looking for a solution the Iraqis would agree to. But I found that any solution they would agree to would not be a solution that we would find acceptable.''

``It's proving to be difficult,'' he said. ``Whether we have another win right now I don't know.''

At issue is a U.N. Security Council resolution that seeks to ease restrictions on civilian goods, retain bans on military hardware and review a lengthy list of ``dual use'' supplies that can be used for both military and civilian purposes.

It also aims to stop smuggling, worth about $1 billion a year, and have the money paid to a separate account rather than to Baghdad directly under the U.N. oil-for-food program.

Ivanov, in a weekend letter to Powell, virtually threatened to veto the British-drafted resolution because it did not move toward suspending sanctions and would harm Russia's economic interests, diplomats said.

Powell said he spoke to British Foreign Minister Jack Straw on Thursday evening. ``I haven't spoken to Ivanov this week but I'll speak to him over the weekend,'' he said.

Negotiations went on at the United Nations throughout the week but diplomats said a final decision on a resolution probably would not be made until Monday. The U.N. oil-for-food program has to be renewed on July 3.

LIST OF GOODS

U.S. officials, however, said they had got agreement on the list of goods, a key controversial point in the resolution, from France and China as well as Britain. The three nations, along with the United States and Russia, are permanent members of the Security Council with veto power.

``I don't know if we'll get it through by July 3 and we'll have to do something by July 3,'' Powell said of the council's deadline. ``We've had some progress over the last 24 hours with the French and the Chinese but I'm not saying they're all aboard yet.''

Iraq has cut off oil supplies to protest the plan. Its undersecretary for foreign affairs, Riyadh al-Qaysi, told a news conference at the United Nations in New York oil flows would not restart as long as the U.S. plan was under consideration.

``The answer is a categorical no,'' he said.

Powell said Russia's economic interests, which include a debt Iraq owes to Moscow, were a large consideration.

``The Russians, I think, have strong commercial interests which they don't think are adequately protected and they have a different view than we do of what it takes to determine whether the Iraqis are complying with the resolution or not,'' he said.

``We have a higher standard than the Russians do. But I think it's mainly their concern over commercial interests,'' Powell said.

Of his meetings with Jordan's King Abdullah in Amman on Friday, Powell said he was most aware that the resolution would create difficulties for Iraq's neighbors. Iraq has threatened to cut off oil to Jordan if it cooperates with the United States on the new sanctions plan.

``I've been aware all along that this is going to create economic difficulties for frontline states, especially for Jordan and we did talk about that,'' he said.

``They are supportive of what we are trying to do in general. We are trying to arrange the resolution to minimize the impact on Jordan and not give them an immediate problem,'' Powell added.

But, he said, ``I'm really concentrating on those lists and less on the requirements for the frontline states. We'll get to that at a later time.''

-------- japan

Koizumi aims to 'lighten' troops

June 29, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010629-94275936.htm

ITOMAN, Japan (AP) -- Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi says he wants to "lighten the burden" on residents of Okinawa who resent the heavy U.S. military presence on the island.

At a ceremony here honoring troops from both sides who died in the 1945 Battle of Okinawa at the end of World War II, Mr. Koizumi said he was considering steps that would reduce U.S. troops and move an airport and training exercises to other locations.

"My Cabinet views this as a major issue," he told 5,000 people Saturday at Peace Memorial Park. "We are doing our utmost to find ways to lighten the burden on the people of Okinawa."

A recent series of crimes and embarrassing remarks by U.S. troops and officers stationed here has triggered resentment toward American forces. Mr. Koizumi is expected to ask President Bush about military cutbacks when they meet at Camp David tomorrow.

Last week, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell reportedly told Japanese Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka that the United States would keep only the minimum number of troops in Japan needed to ensure security in Asia.

Okinawa, 1,000 miles southwest of Tokyo, hosts about half of the 47,000 U.S. military troops stationed in Japan.

It was the site of the final land battle between U.S. and Japanese troops in the closing months of World War II. A quarter million people died, including at least 12,500 Americans and roughly one-third of the 450,000 civilians on the island.

----

Japan Police Question U.S. Soldiers Over Rape

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Japan-Okinawa-Rape.html

OKINAWA CITY, Japan (AP) -- An American Air Force sergeant was under suspicion Friday in the rape of a Japanese woman on Okinawa island -- an attack that fueled resentment here ahead of a meeting between President Bush and Japan's prime minister.

As many as seven other U.S. servicemen also were questioned about the attack, most as possible witnesses.

The rape occurred a day before Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and Bush hold talks at Camp David in which the reduction in the U.S. military presence on Okinawa was expected to be a main topic of discussion.

Residents of Okinawa, 1,000 miles southwest of Tokyo, have been outraged by a recent series of crimes by American servicemen -- many involving sexual assault -- and cranked up demands on the United States to take stronger preventative action.

The victim of the attack, who is in her 20s, told authorities she was surrounded by several foreign men early Friday and that one of them raped her, said Shoichi Shinzato, a spokesman for the Okinawa prefectural (state) police.

The attack took place in a parking lot in Chatan town in an area of restaurants and bars known as ``American Village,'' not far from several U.S. military bases.

An unidentified passer-by told police that several other men -- apparently U.S. servicemen -- also participated in the attack before the group of assailants fled in a vehicle, Shinzato said.

Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis said an Air Force technical sergeant assigned to the 353rd special operations group at Kadena Air Base was suspected of the rape. He said the man and the woman had been drinking together prior to the 2:10 a.m. incident.

Davis said the suspect was questioned by Okinawa police and returned to U.S. military custody without being charged with a crime. He declined to identify the suspect.

As many as seven other American service personnel from the Air Force and Marines were also questioned by Okinawan police, most as possible witnesses, Davis said. He said Okinawan police told U.S. officials some of the servicemen questioned apparently tried to stop the attack.

In Washington, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said initial reports about the number of people involved in the attack ``may have been a little bit exaggerated, that at the very least a number of servicemen came to the rescue of the individual involved and may have helped to calm this incident down, which speaks well of those people.''

Koizumi has promised to make Okinawan demands for a U.S. military cutback a key issue for his administration, and the newest allegations were likely to increase pressure on him to achieve some concession from the United States.

Koji Omi, the Cabinet member in charge of Okinawa, on Friday said: ``If the reported case is true, it's greatly regrettable and we should lodge a strong protest, and necessary steps must be taken.''

But diplomatically, that would touch a raw nerve. The United States is reluctant to significantly reduce its deployment in Okinawa, as the island hosts one of its most important overseas strategic installations.

Nearly two-thirds of the 47,000 U.S. military personnel stationed in Japan, including the largest contingent of Marines outside the United States, are stationed on the island.

The United States government immediately deplored Friday's alleged attack.

``The kind of behavior alleged is entirely unacceptable, and U.S. military officials are cooperating fully with Okinawan government officials and police to determine the facts of this incident,'' said Lt. Gen. Earl Hailston, the commander of U.S. forces on Okinawa.

For Okinawans, the attack was the latest in a series of troubles.

``These incidents happen again and again. There seems to be no end to crimes against Okinawans,'' said Hagu Kido, a 25-year-old computer salesman who works near Kadena Air Base, the largest U.S. defense facility in Asia.

In one of the most explosive crimes by U.S. servicemen to shake Okinawa, two U.S. Marines and a sailor in 1995 raped a 12-year-old schoolgirl in 1995, sparking the biggest anti-U.S. demonstrations in Japan in decades.

Last year, just before an official visit by then-President Clinton, an American soldier was arrested after entering the home of a Japanese family on Okinawa island in the middle of the night, getting into the bed of a young girl and molesting her. The U.S. military responded by imposing a drinking ban and a late-night curfew on all service members.

That case also sparked protests on the island and demands for the reduction in U.S. military bases here, prompting Clinton to express regret for misconduct by American service members.

On Friday, Marines Corps commander Gen. James L. Jones was in Okinawa reviewing troops. Kadena Air Base was also about to begin an annual weekend festival in which the base would be opened to thousands of Japanese to promote goodwill and friendship between the community and U.S. forces.

-------- puerto rico

Three Politicans Freed From Jail

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/nyregion/AP-Vieques-Protests.html

NEW YORK (AP) -- Three city politicians who were imprisoned for their protest of U.S. bombing exercises in Puerto Rico were freed Friday morning after spending 37 days in jail.

State Assemblyman Jose Rivera, 65; Bronx County Democratic Party chairman Roberto Ramirez, 51; and New York City Councilman Adolfo Carrion Jr., 40, walked out of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn shortly before 9 a.m. flashing the ``V'' for victory sign before a tearful reunion with relatives.

Their fellow prisoner, the Rev. Al Sharpton, must remain in prison until Aug. 15.

``Until Rev. Sharpton comes home ... until the United States Navy stops the bombing in Vieques, we will not be free,'' said Ramirez, who spoke for the three.

Rivera, Ramirez and Carrion were sentenced to 40 days for trespassing on Navy property in May in a protest aimed at stopping bombing on the island of Vieques. They were released three days early for good behavior.

Sharpton was given a 90-day sentence because of a prior arrest for civil disobedience.

``We owe a debt of gratitude'' to everyone who supported the Vieques four, Ramirez said. ``We feel the issue of Vieques is paramount.''

Sharpton, Rivera and Ramirez participated in a month-long hunger strike, ingesting no solid food, while in detention. Each lost about 25 pounds.

Carrion, who ended his fast June 4, said the others ate food for the first time Thursday night. Asked how it was, he said, ``It was prison food. It was horrible.''

President Bush announced two weeks ago that bombing exercises on Vieques will be stopped by May 2003.

-------- space

Johns Hopkins Lab To Build Spacecraft

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-BRF-Hopkins-Spacecraft.html?searchpv=aponline

LAUREL, Md. (AP) -- The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab has been awarded a $600 million contract to build and operate a fleet of spacecraft that will study the sun and its impact on Earth.

The first craft to be built under the NASA-funded project will be the Solar Dynamics Observatory, set for liftoff in 2006.

Art Poland, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said the research will be useful for understanding how solar radiation affects things like pagers and navigational guides on Earth, as well as scientists in space, including astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

Scientists will also study how the climate on Earth is affected by long-term variations in the sun's energy.

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Spacecraft to Study Oldest Light

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Big-Bang-Launch.html?searchpv=aponline

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- A NASA spacecraft is set for launch this weekend on a mission to study the oldest light in the universe: the afterglow of the Big Bang.

``We're going to launch a mission that will take the ultimate baby picture,'' said Alan Bunner, a NASA science director.

Liftoff is set for Saturday afternoon. Thunderstorms, however, could force a delay.

Astronomers hope the full-sky pictures will tell them the precise age, content, shape and, of particular interest to Earth's inhabitants, fate of the universe.

Scientists believe that the universe began in a cataclysmic explosion called the Big Bang anywhere from 10 billion to 17 billion years ago, and that the universe has been expanding ever since.

The $95 million observatory, the Microwave Anisotropy Probe, will provide a picture of the universe as it looked roughly 400,000 years after the Big Bang. That is comparable to the first half-day of a human's life, said Charles Bennett, the NASA scientist in charge of the mission.

This so-called fossil light shows up as microwaves because the expansion of the universe has stretched the wavelengths.

``This background glow is a precious relic of the early history and, indeed, the architecture of the universe,'' Bunner said. ``We want to extract as many clues as we can from it.''

MAP will make its observations 1 million miles from Earth, on the opposite side of the sun. This point will provide an unobstructed view of deep space and will be free of any interference from the Earth and sun, crucial since MAP will be studying microwave radiation that is more than 1 billion times fainter than what is emitted by the Earth and sun.

``If you want to make really, really accurate and precision measurements, you have to get away from the Earth and away from that thing which is effectively a blast furnace compared to the tiny signals that you're trying to measure,'' Bennett said.

It will take three months for MAP to reach its destination, using the moon's gravity to catapult it toward its destination. MAP will circle a point in space for two years, taking temperature measurements. It is designed to measure the temperature to a stunning accuracy of one-millionth of a degree.

MAP, in many ways, is the most sensitive spacecraft ever built, according to scientists. The light to be studied is so faint that the spacecraft must be extraordinarily quiet, without any temperature or electrical variations. Even slight changes could contaminate the measurements.

To guard against this, MAP's single science instrument will be shaded by the solar-panel blanket. In addition, radiators will keep the instrument at a constant 300 degrees below zero.

The $145 million mission is a partnership between NASA and Princeton University. The spacecraft should have flown last November but was delayed in order to replace suspect electronic parts.

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

Lying About Vietnam

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By DANIEL ELLSBERG
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/29/opinion/29ELLS.html?searchpv=nytToday

The Pentagon Papers, published 30 years ago this month, proved that the government had long lied to the country. Indeed, the papers revealed a policy of concealment and quite deliberate deception from the Truman administration onward.

A generation of presidents, believing that the course they were following was in the best interests of the country, nevertheless chose to conceal from Congress and the public what the real policy was, what alternatives were being pressed on them from within the government, and the pessimistic predictions they were receiving about the prospects of their chosen course.

Why the lies and concealment? And why, starting in 1969, did I risk prison to reveal the documentary record? I can give a definite answer to the second question: I believed that the pattern of secret threats and escalation needed to be exposed because it was being repeated under a new president.

About the first question, I can still only speculate. Let me speak to the Johnson administration, in which I was a minor participant. The familiar answer is that in 1965, Lyndon Johnson was protecting his Great Society programs by concealing the scale of the war he was launching.

But there is also a much less famliar reason that explains Johnson's lack of candor during his entire term. Throughout the campaign of 1964, President Johnson indicated to the voters - contrary to his opponent Barry Goldwater - that no escalation was needed in South Vietnam. He sometimes added, almost inaudibly, "at this time."

As the Pentagon Papers later showed, that was contradicted as early as May 1964 by the estimates and recommendations of virtually all of Johnson's own civilian and military advisers. I believe he worried, not only in 1964 but over the next four years, that if he laid out candidly just how difficult, costly and unpromising the conflict was expected to be, the public would overwhelmingly want escalation on a scale that promised to win the war.

To this end, Congress and the voters might compel him to adopt the course secretly being pressed on him by his own Joint Chiefs of Staff. From 1964 through 1968, the Joint Chiefs continuously urged a litany of secret recommendations, including mining Haiphong; hitting the dikes; bombing near the Chinese border; closing all transportation routes from China; sending ground troops to Laos, Cambodia and the southern part of North Vietnam; possibly full-scale invasion of North Vietnam.

I think that this escalation would not have won the war. I suspect that Johnson thought this as well. But beyond that - as Johnson brought up repeatedly - the Joint Chiefs' course would have greatly risked war with China. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were ready to accept that risk. President Johnson was not.

But Johnson didn't want to get out either. We now know from memoirs and documents declassified after the Pentagon Papers that a number of his people, not only George Ball, an undersecretary of state, were urging him to do just that, to extricate us by a disguised withdrawal. But Johnson couldn't face being accused of losing a war. Instead, he stayed in and lied about the prospects. And that made for a prolonged war, an escalating war and essentially a hopeless war.

I do not believe that the war would have been less hopeless if the recommendations of the Joint Chiefs had been followed. It would have been much more bloody. It might well have involved a nuclear war or a major conventional war with China. That would have been even more catastrophic than what actually happened. So the worst was avoided. But at the cost of 58,000 American and several million Vietnamese lives.

I first learned of these debates in 1964 and 1965, when I was special assistant to John McNaughton, the assistant defense secretary. I read all the documents of that period that were later included in the Pentagon Papers, and I heard from McNaughton of his discussions with Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and President Johnson. I strongly regret that at that time, I did not see it as my duty to disclose that information to the Senate.

But then I was in Vietnam for two years from 1965 to 1967. I saw that our ground effort in South Vietnam was hopelessly stalemated, and I did not believe that increased bombing of the north would ever cause our adversaries to give up. Therefore I came to the belief in 1967 that we should negotiate our way out.

But in 1969, when I read the entire Pentagon Papers, covering 1945 to 1968, I became aware that every president from Harry Truman on had heard this advice from people more authoritative than me. And for some reason the presidents had always chosen to stay in. Their determination not to suffer the political consequences of losing a war outweighed, for them, the human costs of continuing.

Finally, I learned that Richard Nixon also refused to lose. In the fall of 1969, Morton Halperin, who had just given up his job as deputy to Henry Kissinger, informed me that Nixon really had a secret plan. It was widely thought he had no plan, that his campaign claim was just a bluff. Not true. His plan included secret threats of escalation unless there was a mutual withdrawal of North Vietnamese as well as United States forces.

I thought this plan would fail. From my experience in the government and in Vietnam, and from reading the Pentagon Papers, I thought the Vietcong would not give up, that the threat of escalation would be carried out, and that it would fail, with a great loss of life on both sides.

So my concern in releasing the Pentagon Papers was not simply, or even primarily, to get out the truth. I thought I would probably go to prison for the rest of my life. I wouldn't have done that just to set the record straight. I released the papers because I foresaw prolonged war and eventual escalation, including incursions into Laos and Cambodia, the mining of Haiphong and the bombing of Hanoi. I wanted to avert these events, but they all occurred.

I never had any sense that putting out these documents was likely to end the war, just that it might help. Maybe it did.

Daniel Ellsberg, who made the Pentagon Papers public, served in Vietnam and is a former Defense Department and State Department official.

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Cambodia PM Rejects UN Demand

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Cambodia-Khmer-Rouge.html

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) -- Prime Minister Hun Sen rejected a U.N. demand that his government sign a key agreement on a proposed genocide trial for Khmer Rouge leaders.

Hun Sen's comments Friday raised doubts about his government's commitment to creating a U.N.-assisted tribunal to bring to justice the surviving leaders of the Maoist Khmer Rouge whose 1975-79 rule left about 1.7 million people dead.

``It looks like the U.N. is forcing Cambodia to do whatever they want,'' Hun Sen said at a Cabinet meeting. ``It looks like the U.N. is trying to play Cambodia like a game.''

Hun Sen was reacting to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's statement Wednesday that the tribunal cannot come into existence until Cambodia signs a memorandum of understanding governing its relationship with the United Nations on the tribunal.

The Cambodian government agreed to the memorandum last year while debating a related legislation for the framework of the U.N.-assisted tribunal. The memorandum calls for discussions on determining the degree of U.N. involvement in the tribunal.

But ``if the draft law is adopted, we will not practice the agreement between the Cambodian government and the U.N,'' Hun Sen said.

If the United Nations is unhappy with the Cambodian government's attitude, it can withdraw from the tribunal, Hun Sen said. And if the United Nations decides not to ``join the tribunal, that would be great.''

U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia Kent Wiedemann said he was ``disappointed'' by the ``childish war of words'' between the United Nations and the prime minister. He downplayed the seriousness of the dispute, but acknowledged the entire trial could be at risk if relations between the two ``tribunal partners'' sour further.

Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot died in 1998, but most of his top deputies are still alive. No one has been brought before a court to account for atrocities committed during the Khmer Rouge regime.

Critics, including U.N. officials, say the government is reluctant to convene a tribunal because many of its members -- including Hun Sen -- are former Khmer Rouge fighters. They say the tribunal draft law falls short of international standards.

Last week, Hun Sen said the draft law would be passed by August, prompting Annan's caution that it ``has to be in conformity with a Memorandum of Understanding.''

No ``trials can start until the Memorandum of Understanding is signed and ratified,'' Annan was quoted as saying in a statement issued by his spokesman.

The memorandum has not been made public but it is believed to include logistical and practical details, including the financing of the tribunal.

Hun Sen responded by saying he was ``not happy with the words of the spokesman of Kofi Annan because they violate the rights and sovereignty of Cambodia.''

``It seems to me that the U.N. does not want Cambodia to proceed with the trial, so I want Kofi Annan to be careful with the sovereignty and the independence of a nation, and let's talk straight and be clear with each other. I am afraid of nobody.''

``This is a Cambodian issue. To join us or not is up to you,'' he said.

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

Hill Is Asked to Add 7% to Defense Budget

By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 29, 2001; Page A20
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A60343-2001Jun28?language=printer

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld yesterday urged Congress to approve the largest increase in defense spending since the mid-1980s as part of a fiscal 2002 budget that adds $3 billion for missile defense but cuts B-1 bombers and eliminates the MX missile.

Rumsfeld told lawmakers that he supported an Air Force proposal to retire all 50 MXs, also known as Peacekeepers, at a savings of about $70 million a year. He added that phasing out the MX, a legacy of the Cold War designed to knock out Soviet silos with as many as 10 warheads per missile, "will not even make the beginning of a dent" in the U.S. arsenal of 7,500 strategic nuclear weapons.

Testifying before the House and Senate Armed Services committees, Rumsfeld described his $328.9 billion budget proposal -- $26.6 billion higher than current spending -- as a first step toward addressing chronic underfunding of the military.

"Over much of the 1990s, the U.S. has simultaneously underfunded and overused the force, and it has taken a toll," Rumsfeld said. "Asked to do more with less, they have saluted and done their best, but it has been at the cost of investment in infrastructure, in maintenance and in procurement."

Rumsfeld's budget request for fiscal 2002, which begins Oct. 1, amounts to a 7 percent increase in real terms, after inflation. Yet, he said, it does not include funds for his forthcoming plan to transform the military.

Indeed, Rumsfeld projected that the fiscal 2003 budget would probably have to grow to $347.2 billion -- an $18.3 billion increase over his 2002 proposal -- just to keep pace with inflation.

The only way to cover operating costs while adding billions of dollars for new ships, planes, satellites and missile defense systems, Rumsfeld said, is by closing bases, trimming waste and eliminating Cold War weapons that do not meet 21st century threats.

"With those savings, we could increase ship procurement from six to nine ships a year" and maintain a Navy with 310 major warships, Rumsfeld said. "We could procure several hundred additional aircraft annually, rather than the [current] 189. . . ."

Army Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military has excess base capacity of 23 percent and could save $3 billion a year by launching a new round of closings.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) applauded Rumsfeld's proposed increases for military health care, pay and housing, but called other aspects of his budget request "puzzling."

Despite a $26.6 billion increase, Levin said Rumsfeld's proposal cuts procurement, basic research in science and technology, Army flying hours and tank training.

"It's clear that this budget places a huge increase for missile defense ahead of important programs in modernization, basic research and training time for Army units," Levin said.

Rep. John M. Spratt Jr. (D-S.C.) called Rumsfeld's proposed $3 billion increase for missile defense "lopsided and disproportionate" and said that sum could fully "recapitalize" the Navy.

Rumsfeld, however, held his ground on missile defense and chided lawmakers who questioned the technology, reminding them that skeptics in the 1960s doubted President John F. Kennedy's plan to put a man on the moon.

"Well, my golly, it's amazing -- things tend to work," Rumsfeld said. "And there isn't a doubt in my mind that if the United States decides it wants to develop that capability, that we can develop that capability. And we've already tested and demonstrated the ability to do important elements of what is required to achieve an effective ballistic missile defense capability."

House members also reacted skeptically to the prospect of further base closings, with Rep. Victor F. Snyder (D-Ark.) noting that such cutbacks, while never popular, will be particularly difficult in 2002, an election year. He proposed that the Pentagon at least take a large number of essential bases "off the table" so that "a lot of communities would be taken off the anxiety list."

----

Bush Defense Plan Questioned

By Robert Burns
AP Military Writer
Friday, June 29, 2001; 3:11 a.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010629/aponline031107_000.htm

WASHINGTON -- In defending the Bush administration's 2002 military budget, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld encountered lawmakers skeptical of its affordability and puzzled by its lack of support for the big-dollar modernization efforts President Bush has been promising.

Lawmakers also criticized Rumsfeld for blindsiding them with some of his proposed cuts - in B-1B bombers flown by Air National Guard units, in Peacekeeper nuclear missiles and in military bases.

"I am discouraged, I am frustrated, I am angry," Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., told Rumsfeld in a rising voice. His complaint: The Pentagon did not consult with the congressional delegations from Kansas or Georgia before deciding to scrap B-1B bomber units at bases in their states. Rumsfeld apologized.

To rebut the Pentagon's claim that the B-1B decision was not driven by politics, Roberts waved at Rumsfeld an internal Air Force document on "political impacts" of the decision on Texas and South Dakota, where B-1B bomber bases are least affected by the cutbacks. It noted that Texas is the home state of "POTUS," (President of the United States), and South Dakota is the home state of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a Democrat.

Rumsfeld testified before the House and Senate armed services committees Thursday on the administration's proposed $328.9 billion Pentagon budget for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. It represents a $32.6 billion increase over this year's budget and is $18.4 billion more than Bush had proposed in February.

Rumsfeld told the committee that the extra billions for the 2002 budget will go almost entirely to fixing problems of the past rather than investing in a military of the future.

"We cannot build a 21st century force quite yet," Rumsfeld said, "because the 20th century force we have is in serious need of repair."

That statement captured the essence of a dilemma the Bush administration faces at the Pentagon.

Bush campaigned on a promise to transform the military to meet new threats like computer warfare and longer-range ballistic missiles. Yet after achieving his top-priority $1.35 billion tax cut, Bush has left Rumsfeld far short of the billions he needs to fulfill the president's promise.

"Let's be clear that this increase, while significant - and we certainly need every cent of it - does not get us well," Rumsfeld told senators. He said the Pentagon would need another $18 billion budget increase in 2003 just to stay even, and that still would not be enough to advance the promised modernization effort.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the Senate committee chairman, told Rumsfeld he believes the administration will be unable to afford a serious military modernization effort without dipping into the Medicare surplus, returning the federal budget to red ink or cutting domestic programs - "none of which are acceptable alternatives."

"The bottom line is this: The administration strategy of first laying out a banquet of tax cuts leaves other programs, including our national security programs, in an extremely and unnecessarily precarious position," Levin said.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said he thought the $18.4 billion increase was too little. He asked Rumsfeld whether it was true that in negotiations with the White House he had not gotten all he wanted for defense.

"Seldom do," Rumsfeld replied.

While acknowledging the difficulty of gaining congressional approval for another round of base closures, Rumsfeld said he saw no alternative. He noted that many of the House committee members who questioned him Thursday had their own ideas on ways of spending more on the military.

"Where is it going to come from?" he asked rhetorically. "Together we're going to have to find ways to save money. There are too many urgent things that need money."

Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said studies have estimated the Pentagon can save $3 billion a year by bringing its base structure more in line with its force structure.

Rumsfeld said he would send Congress a base-closing proposal by the end of the year.

Rep. Joel Hefley, R-Colo., said the process used to determine which bases should be closed during the 1990s was corrupted by the Clinton administration and caused unnecessary turmoil across the nation.

"I have serious concern about us going through that, putting every community in America that has any kind of a military installation into an absolute froth of anxiety," Hefley said.

----

As Defense Secretary Calls for Base Closings, Congress Circles the Wagons

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/29/politics/29MILI.html

WASHINGTON, June 28 - Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld today urged Congress to begin the contentious process of closing excess military bases, warning that the federal surplus - shrunken by President Bush's tax cut - would not provide enough money to replace aging ships, aircraft and weapons.

But his entreaties met with instant skepticism from House Armed Services Committee members of both parties who questioned whether base closings yield significant savings and who reminded Mr. Rumsfeld that military bases mean jobs and votes in their districts.

"You refer to closing unneeded bases," Representative Rob Simmons, Republican of Connecticut, said to Mr. Rumsfeld at a hearing today. "I only have one base, and I do need it. I just want to make that clear."

Base closings have traditionally sparked bitter fights in Congress - which has tried to insulate itself by appointing commissions to recommend which installations should be closed - and caused communities across the nation to mount lobbying campaigns to protect their bases.

Weary from those battles, Congress last year rejected a proposal from the Clinton administration for two more rounds of base closings, with Republicans arguing that Mr. Clinton had politicized the issue by interceding to keep open facilities in Texas and California that had been recommended for closing.

Since 1988, 95 major military bases have been closed, saving $14 billion, the Pentagon says. Mr. Rumsfeld did not say how many bases he would like to close, but the Pentagon has argued that as much as a quarter of all its bases are unneeded.

But Representative Floyd D. Spence, Republican of South Carolina, said he doubted that the Pentagon saved any money from the most recent base closings because of hidden costs involved in shutting and cleaning up military installations.

"Here we go again," Mr. Spence told Mr. Rumsfeld. "My observation would be that it's going to be difficult to do all these things about building more aircraft and ships and all these kind of things with the money that won't come."

But Mr. Rumsfeld countered that the only way to pay for the weapons programs almost every member of the committee has requested money for would be through painful cutbacks, including base closings.

"I would prefer not to have a base closing round, needless to say," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

"But the shortfalls that the armed forces face need to be addressed," he continued. "And if you think of the comments of this committee today, almost every comment of concern has been about an area that needs more money: shipbuilding, airplanes, maintenance, infrastructure - you name it. Where's it going to come from? I mean, where is it going to come from? It can't constantly be more."

The Pentagon's search for additional money has been complicated by President Bush's $1.35 trillion tax cut, which has sharply reduced the surplus available for defense spending in the coming decade.

Mr. Rumsfeld said he believed there would be enough money to finance the $329 billion Pentagon budget for 2002 without dipping into surplus Medicare or Social Security funds. But he has acknowledged that the surplus is expected to be very tight starting in 2003, the year he wants to begin an expensive overhaul of major weapons systems.

Pentagon officials have said they intend to send to Congress this year legislation calling for one round of base closings, though many members say they were not sure Congress would be willing to vote on the bill before the 2002 elections.

Despite the opposition, many people in Congress say they think the Bush administration will prevail in closing bases. Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, strongly supports the idea, and Republicans will have trouble dismissing the process as politicized when its principle advocate is a president from their own party.

Still, Mr. Rumsfeld got a strong taste today of the kind of anger he will face if the Pentagon pushes ahead with the plan. During a hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senators Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, and Max Cleland, Democrat of Georgia, castigated Mr. Rumsfeld for not advising Congress that the 2002 budget would include plans to retire 33 B-1 bombers. Eighteen of those planes are stationed in Georgia and Kansas.

"I am discouraged, I am frustrated and I am angry," Mr. Roberts said. "These actions to cut or reshape major weapons systems must be part of an overall plan, and Congress must be included."

Mr. Rumsfeld replied: "I would begin with a very, very sincere apology to you and Senator Cleland. There is no question but that it was not handled well."

----

Pentagon: Osprey Records Falsified

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Osprey.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon has concluded that the commander of the Marine Corps' V-22 Osprey squadron falsified maintenance records but that the deception played no role in two fatal crashes of the tilt-rotor aircraft, Defense Department officials said Friday.

The Pentagon's inspector general also concluded that a small number of Marine officers at Marine Corps Air Station New River, N.C., knew of the falsification and took no action to correct or report it, the officials said.

Navy Capt. Timothy Taylor, a Pentagon spokesman, said the conclusions have been provided to Marine Corps headquarters and the full investigation report will be given to the Marines in early July.

The Osprey uses revolutionary technology to take off like a helicopter, rotate its propellers to a horizontal position and cruise like an airplane. Despite the crashes last year, the Marines say they are confident the technology works, and an independent panel that reviewed the program this spring agreed, although the panel recommended important design changes.

The records investigation was begun in January by the Marine Corps' inspector general but transferred to the Defense Department inspector general a short time later because of what the Marines said was the gravity of the allegations.

In an anonymous letter to the office of the secretary of the Navy on Jan. 12, a person who said he was an Osprey mechanic at New River wrote that aircraft unable to fly had been reported ``as being up, as in full mission capable. This type of deception has been going on for over two years.''

The squadron's commander, Lt. Col. Odin Fred Leberman, was relieved of duty the day the allegations became public.

Leberman has not commented publicly on the allegations against him and the Marine Corps has not said what possible charges could be brought against him. Taylor, the Pentagon spokesman, said the Marines would wait until they receive the full investigation report July 9 before taking any action.

An advance summary of the inspector general's findings contained several major conclusions, Taylor said:

-- Maintenance records and data on the Osprey fleet's operational readiness were falsified.

-- The falsification was done because Leberman perceived pressure from his superiors.

-- No evidence was found that any officer senior to Leberman directed or suggested that records be falsified.

-- The falsification occurred after the crashes and therefore ``clearly was not a factor in either mishap.'' The Marines said from the start of the investigation that they believed the doctoring of records had no bearing on either of the crashes. The first, in April 2000 in Arizona, killed 19 Marines and was blamed on pilot error. The second, last December in North Carolina, killed four and was attributed to a combination of factors including a hydraulics failure.

-- The falsification at New River started on Dec. 20, 2000, and lasted until Jan. 11, 2001.

-- A small number of Marine officers at New River knew of the deception and took no action to correct or report it. The advance summary provided on Friday did not identify these officers or their positions.

The inspector general's office conducted 700 interviews, including one with Leberman, and examined 3,000 maintenance documents during the course of its investigation. It also examined 38 computer hard drives, 125 network data tapes, numerous computer files and more than 219,000 e-mails.

The Osprey is built by Boeing Co. and Bell Helicopter Textron. It is considered a linchpin of the Marine Corps' aviation future, meant to replace a fleet of aging Vietnam-era helicopters.

All Ospreys have been grounded since the December crash.

-------- OTHER

-------- death penalty

Death penalty divides EU, U.S.

June 29, 2001
By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010629-78864412.htm

A string of recent high-profile cases has made the death penalty an increasingly sharp wedge in U.S. relations with its leading European allies.

A court in Rennes, France, yesterday approved the extradition of American fugitive James Kopp, charged with the 1998 murder of New York abortion doctor Barnett Slepian, but only after receiving assurances from U.S. prosecutors that "the death penalty will not be requested, pronounced or applied."

The ruling comes in the same week that the International Court of Justice in The Hague agreed with a German government complaint about Arizona's handling of the execution of two German nationals, and the Council of Europe threatened to revoke the observer status of the United States if it failed to curb state executions by 2003.

"It's not exactly a new issue, but it clearly has become much more visible and public in recent days," said Jacqueline Grapin, president of the European Institute, a Washington-based think tank that deals with U.S.-European issues.

"The human rights community and a number of movements on the left have used the specificity of the differences between the U.S. and European law on this issue to attack America more generally," Ms. Grapin said.

Clay Clemens, a specialist in European politics at the College of William & Mary, said he found himself talking more about the death penalty than about any other issue during a recent trip to Germany.

"In certain circles, it's become a way to talk about the general uneasiness they have about President Bush," said Mr. Clemens, who said the topic was much more likely to be brought up by journalists and academics than by the diplomats or government officials he met.

Eleven of the 15 European Union governments are run by center-left coalitions, although Mr. Bush also faced death penalty protests in Spain, where a conservative government is in power.

Mr. Clemens noted that criticism of the United States was far more muted under former President Clinton, who also supported the death penalty and oversaw numerous executions while governor of Arkansas.

Recent European criticism of America's use of the death penalty "is inseparable from the wariness they feel about George Bush on other grounds," Mr. Clemens said.

Mr. Bush's inaugural trip to Europe this month began as Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh was being executed by injection in a federal prison in Indiana. Mr. Bush was greeted by anti-death penalty demonstrators at numerous stops on his five-day European tour.

Mr. Bush's support for the death penalty while governor of Texas has fueled the protests.

The United States is one of 87 countries that still employ the death penalty, according to the human rights group Amnesty International. China is the world's leading user of the death penalty.

Robert Whiteman, congressional and parliamentary liaison for the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, said yesterday that European governments have appealed to other countries, including China, to protest individual executions.

European members of the U.N. Human Rights Commission earlier this year supported an effort to get a vote on a U.S. measure to censure China for human rights violations. But no EU government would co-sponsor the resolution with the United States, and the vote was blocked.

The public demonstrations and newspapers editorializing in Europe mask divided voter sentiment in many EU countries over the death penalty. Polls indicate that in countries such as Britain, Italy and France, popular support for reinstituting the death penalty ranges from 40 percent to 60 percent.

Editorializing about the German government's push in the International Court of Justice in the Arizona case, Berlin's Tagesspiegel wrote this week: "Putting the death penalty in the center of the trans-Atlantic relationship would only accelerate the process of alienation on both sides without changing anything."

•Anna Lea Flatow contributed to this report.

-------- energy

In Slap at Bush, House Votes to Bar Oil Drilling in Great Lakes

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By DAVID E. ROSENBAUM
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/29/politics/29SPEN.html?searchpv=nytToday

WASHINGTON, June 28 - In another slap at President Bush's energy and environment policies, the House of Representatives voted today to prohibit drilling for oil and gas in the Great Lakes.

The president has not taken a specific stand on exploration in the Great Lakes, but his energy policy is based on increasing domestic oil and gas production.

Last week, the House voted to ban drilling in the Gulf of Mexico off Florida and on the grounds of national monuments. And Congress has shown little interest in adopting the president's plan to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Although the Great Lakes prohibition had considerable Republican support, Representative Tom DeLay of Texas, the Republican whip, left no doubt this was a partisan matter.

"The Democrat leadership is constraining our economy," Mr. DeLay said, in an "energy straitjacket."

He accused Democrats of trying to "choke off every promising source of domestic energy" and added, "Their actual objective must be to eradicate America's energy security."

But Representative David E. Bonior of Michigan, the Democratic whip, said the main issue was protection of the environment.

"We depend for our drinking water, our recreation, the engine of our economy on the water in the Great Lakes," Mr. Bonior said. "We cannot afford to put our greatest natural resource at risk."

At the White House today, Ari Fleischer, the press secretary, said: "There is nothing in the president's energy plan that deals with the Great Lakes. That's a state matter."

Gov. John Engler of Michigan, a Republican and a Bush loyalist, is a strong proponent of exploring for oil and gas in the Great Lakes. He is not running for re-election, and Mr. Bonior is running to succeed him.

The prohibition against drilling in the Great Lakes was approved, 265 to 157, as an amendment to a bill that would allocate $23.7 billion in the next fiscal year for energy and water development projects. The overall bill passed by a vote of 405 to 15.

Seventy Republicans, one-third of those who voted, joined nearly all the Democrats in voting to block Great Lakes drilling. Among those in favor were 4 of the 7 Republicans from Michigan, 6 of the 11 from Ohio and 6 of the 10 from Illinois.

Democrats obviously feel they have found a good issue on which to contest Mr. Bush. The latest New York Times/CBS News survey found that more than two-thirds of respondents favored energy conservation over increasing production.

The bill illustrated the difficulty the president will have this year in holding down spending on popular programs. It would allocate $4.7 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers' water projects, $568 million, or 16 percent, more than Mr. Bush requested.

The measure also provided a stage for airing regional differences.

For instance, Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, a state not known for its seashore, offered an amendment that would have limited spending for beach restoration. The proposal was strongly opposed by lawmakers from coastal states and was handily defeated.

Representative Maurice D. Hinchey, a Democrat from upstate New York, where there are no nuclear weapons laboratories, tried to transfer $60 million from weapons research into projects for solar, wind and geothermal energy. But Mr. Hinchey also lost in the face of opposition from lawmakers from states like New Mexico and Tennessee, where there are large laboratories.

The biggest fight in this regard was over a section in the bill that would eliminate all money for processing federal permits for a gas pipeline that would begin in Alabama and run 750 miles into Florida. The section was inserted by Representative Sonny Callahan, an Alabama Republican who is chairman of the energy and water development subcommittee.

The matter has little practical significance. For one thing, the permits for the pipeline have already been issued. For another, Representative C. W. Bill Young, a Republican from the Gulf Coast of Florida, is chairman of the Appropriations Committee and will be chairman of the House-Senate conference committee that will write the final energy and water legislation. Mr. Young made it clear today that the pipeline section would not survive in conference.

But the debate threw into a spotlight the regional split on energy development and the environment.

Mr. Callahan conceded that he had put the section in the bill because his nose was out of joint over the vote last Thursday blocking oil and gas drilling off the Florida Gulf coast. Florida lawmakers from both parties oppose such drilling, but Mr. Callahan, like most other lawmakers from Alabama, Louisiana and Texas, favors it.

Six of Alabama's seven representatives were absent for the June 21 vote because they were with President Bush, who was giving a speech in Birmingham on energy conservation and could not "be here to defend ourselves," Mr. Callahan said.

--------

Conservation-Mindful Bush Turns to Energy Research

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By DAVID E. SANGER and LIZETTE ALVAREZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/29/politics/29ENER.html?searchpv=nytToday

WASHINGTON, June 28 - As President Bush toured the Energy Department today and sent Congress an outline of his program to meet America's hunger for gasoline and electricity, something unexpected cropped up: a presidential proposal for nearly $300 million to finance Clinton-era research programs on energy conservation, money that the administration struck from the budget earlier this year.

The proposal to restore the research money followed a series of polls showing that Americans believed that Mr. Bush's energy plans were primarily about helping oil companies and drilling in the Arctic rather than energy savings.

The White House maintained that polls had nothing to do with Mr. Bush's decision and that instead a "preliminary review" by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham showed that the research programs, on energy efficiency and the development of renewable energy, "may be supportive of the president's objectives."

Mr. Bush used his visit to the Energy Department today to talk extensively about conservation, a topic to which he has turned with increasing frequency. That focus runs contrary to earlier dismissive references by Vice President Dick Cheney, who previously suggested that while conservation was a sign of "personal virtue," it did not constitute an energy strategy.

In addition to the research funds, Mr. Bush today called for federal and corporate work on small devices called "vampire slayers" that could cut the power consumption of appliances that constantly draw electricity as they await use - copiers, fax machines, cell-phone chargers and the like.

"Vampire devices use about 4 percent of the electricity in the average home," Mr. Bush said. "And to put this on a national scale, if we multiplied the vampire devices' energy consumption across the country, we're talking about 52 billion kilowatt-hours of power a year, or the equivalent of 26 average-size power plants."

Environmental groups said Mr. Bush was neglecting conservation measures that could prove far more effective, like raising fuel-efficiency standards for cars. "Everything he did on the standby-power problem is good, but it is comparatively small potatoes," said David Nemtzow, president of the Alliance to Save Energy, which has been lobbying for more conservation measures.

Both mileage standards and a restoring of the Clinton administration's proposals on air-conditioner efficiency, Mr. Nemtzow said, would save far more power than anything the president discussed today.

Senate and House Republicans, meanwhile, stepped up the pressure on Democrats to push Mr. Bush's long-term energy plan. They accused Democrats of delaying action on an energy bill for the sake of political gain and vowed to explain to voters in their districts during the Congressional recess next week the urgency of passing comprehensive legislation. The Republican effort over the recess - complete with handouts, videos and talking points - is being coordinated with the White House.

Hoping to prod the process on Capitol Hill, Mr. Bush sent Congress today his energy plan's broadly written legislative initiatives, dealing mostly with conservation (including the restored research money), modernizing and expanding pipelines and tramission lines, drilling for oil and promoting nuclear energy. Many of the ideas are already addressed in Senate Republican energy legislation. The House is beginning work on a separate bill.

Republicans called on the Senate majority leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, to schedule floor debate on the legislation. For his part, Mr. Daschle said the Democrats planned to begin committee hearings in July. "It's a schedule that I think illustrates the degree to which we are taking the matter seriously," he said.

But Senator Frank H. Murkowski, the Alaska Republican who formerly headed the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said of the Democrats: "By refusing to take this matter up in a timely manner, they are setting a very dangerous precedent. Now I know they are playing politics. The longer they refuse, the more they can point out, `Well, this is a Republican problem, it's the Republicans that aren't solving it.' "

In pressing their message on energy, Republicans have tried to blunt the Democrats' political advantage on the issue. Taking Mr. Bush's lead, they are now quick to talk about conservation and protecting the environment before moving on to speak of a need for increased oil and gas production. Recent public opinion surveys find that voters prefer investing time and money in conservation and the search for cleaner-burning fuels than in drilling for more oil.

Like the Republicans, Democrats expect to talk about energy during the recess; their emphasis will be on the large campaign contributions that Republican leaders have received from the energy industry.

The president's energy plan "is heavy on rhetoric and short on action," said Representative Richard A. Gephardt, the House minority leader. "He brings out a glossy paper book four weeks ago, and they seem to be doing the opposite of what's in the plan."

--------

Brazil Gets $1.1B in Energy Auction

New York Times
June 28, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Brazil-Energy-Auction.html

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Brazil on Thursday sold eight licenses to build and operate eight hydroelectric plants in six Brazilian states for $1.1 billion.

``The auction was a success,'' said Jose Mario Abdo director of power regulator Aneel. ``It attracted companies from seven countries apart from our own local players, in a clear demonstration that investors have confidence in the Brazilian energy sector.''

He said the new plants would absorb investments of 3.5 billion reals ($1.5 billion), not including the price paid for the licenses, and add 2,282 megawatts of power to the national electricity grid.

International bidders included Belgium's Tractebel and Alcoa of the United States.

A consortium headed by mining giant Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, or CVRD, paid 18 million reals ($7.8 million) for the biggest project, a 840 megawatt plant to be built in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul.

CVRD has been investing heavily in such projects in a bid to guarantee the energy supplies it needs to operate its mining business in Brazil.

Brazil is currently grappling with its worst energy-crisis ever caused low levels at hydroelectric dams that supply more than 90 percent of the energy consumed in this country of 170 million

Facing the threat of blackouts, the Brazilian government implemented in early June an energy-rationing plan aimed at reducing power use by 20 percent.

-------- environment

Amtrak agrees to cleanup order

June 30, 2001
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/business/default-20016302373.htm

The Justice Department and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have reached an agreement with Amtrak, the nation's largest passenger railroad, to perform environmental audits at facilities nationwide and to make other environmental improvements.

The agreement, which includes projects to restore wetlands and reduce PCBs in locomotive transformers, settles claims that Amtrak violated requirements of the Clean Water Act at nine sites in New England.

Amtrak also agreed to pay a $500,000 civil penalty and spend $900,000 on environmental projects in New England after the settlement filed this week in U.S. District Court in Boston.

"This Amtrak settlement is a good example of industry and government working together to achieve a high level of environmental compliance," said EPA Administrator Christie Whitman.

"I commend Amtrak for its cooperation in this settlement and for the aggressive steps it has taken to correct the environmental deficiencies in its operations," Mrs. Whitman said.

The agreement requires Amtrak to undertake environmental compliance audits at 51 facilities and to disclose and correct any environmental problems it discovers, Justice Department spokeswoman Katie Biber said yesterday.

The audits, she said, will evaluate Amtrak compliance at facilities and help identify and correct violations.

The settlement stems from environmental violations EPA discovered in the late 1990s at Amtrak facilities in Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. EPA cited Amtrak for violating the Clean Water Act's storm water provisions.

Storm water discharges from rail maintenance facilities can carry oil, grease and metals into storm drains, compromising the health and quality of streams and waterways.

EPA has identified storm water runoff as a leading cause of poor water quality in the United States.

"Amtrak will undertake a broad management plan to comply with all federal environmental laws and minimize pollution that could be released into our water, air or soil," said acting Assistant Attorney General John Cruden, who heads the Justice Department's environment division.

Amtrak, Ms. Biber said, has begun to implement a companywide environmental management system at a cost expected to exceed $11 million. The program includes development of an audit program, a companywide environmental information system, enhanced compliance training and increased environmental compliance staffing.

Amtrak already has created 27 new environmental positions - a threefold increase from staffing levels at the time the EPA first discovered the Clean Water Act violations.

Ms. Biber said the agreement with Amtrak is the federal government's second nationwide settlement addressing storm water violations.

On June 7, the government announced a settlement with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to resolve charges that the retailer violated storm water requirements at 17 locations nationwide.

----

Japan's Koizumi Urging Bush on Kyoto

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Japan-US-Koizumi.html?searchpv=aponline

TOKYO (AP) -- Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said Friday that he plans to seek U.S. cooperation in reducing greenhouse gases when he meets with President Bush for their first summit.

Koizumi told reporters before departing Friday that he will urge the United States to adhere to the Kyoto climate treaty, which calls for reduced emissions of the heat-trapping gases believed to be warming Earth's atmosphere.

``The Kyoto protocol confirmed that many countries are worried about the environment. We would like to get U.S. understanding for the agreement,'' Koizumi said. The accord was reached by countries from around the world during a meeting in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997.

Bush has rejected the Kyoto pact, calling it ``fatally flawed'' and unfair to U.S. companies. The European Union has said it will continue backing the treaty, though none of its member nations has ratified it.

Koizumi said he would try to mediate an agreement between Europe and the United States on cutting emissions. He is scheduled to visit Europe next week to meet with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac before returning to Tokyo on July 5.

Koizumi's meeting with Bush at Camp David on Saturday will be his first overseas trip since he was swept into office in April on promises to revive Japan's moribund economy with painful but necessary reforms. Since then, he has become popular for promising to reduce the closed-door, back-room politics that have long defined his ruling party.

Bush will likely express support for Koizumi's plan to rid the nation's banks of their massive burden of bad loans, curb the ballooning national debt and eliminate regulations that hinder competition.

But the two allies face several potentially contentious issues, including Japan's neutral stance on U.S. plans to build a missile defense shield and the reduction of the U.S. military presence on Japan's southern Okinawa Island.

On Friday, a Japanese woman was raped in Okinawa, and police questioned several members of the U.S. Air Force after a witness said American servicemen appeared to have been involved in the attack, officials said.

Okinawa, 1,000 miles southwest of Tokyo, is home to most of the 50,000 U.S. servicemen based in Japan. Local residents have long protested their presence and a series of crimes against civilians by American soldiers.

Koizumi declined to discuss Friday's crime until the investigation was complete.

He said he would reaffirm the importance of the U.S.-Japan security relationship in his meeting with Bush but stopped short of endorsing U.S. plans to build the missile shield to protect itself and its allies from attack.

``The U.S. has to give serious thought to its own defense and the defense of its allies,'' Koizumi said. ``I hope we can have a frank exchange of opinions and cooperate where possible.''

His government has taken a neutral stand on the proposed defense shield, saying only that it understands U.S. concerns about improving its security.

--------

Canadian Greens Want U.S. - Style Toxic Waste Fund

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-environ.html

OTTAWA (Reuters) - A coalition of Canadian environmental groups on Friday urged the government to set up a special C$2 billion fund ($1.3 billion) to start clearing up around 10,000 toxic waste sites scattered across the country.

The 28 groups -- headed by the Sierra Club of Canada -- said Ottawa should create a ``Clean Canada Fund'' on the lines of he U.S. Superfund program, which has spent $14 billion (USD) and almost two decades tackling 1,200 badly polluted sites.

Canada has no national program to deal with contaminated sites and no one in the office of Natural Resources Minister Ralph Goodale was immediately available for comment. Sierra Club officials said federal and provincial governments had not even compiled an inventory of places to be dealt with.

``Until there is until a national clean-up fund for these sites they will continue to pollute the environment, harm Canadians and -- probably the most disgusting aspect of this -- to pass on this responsibility to the next generation of Canadians,'' said the Sierra Club's Daniel Green.

The environmental groups say Ottawa is responsible for around 5,000 of the sites, mainly abandoned forestry, military and mining sites. All contain various kinds of toxic waste.

Sierra Club deputy director Angela Rickman said the main priority should be given to sites in or close to towns.

``The initial fund that we're looking at would be C$2 billion which we hope would be replenished by securing deposits from industries which are likely to create pollution,'' she told a news conference.

``There would obviously have to be replenishment every year and that wouldn't necessarily take care of all the sites.''

One of the most notorious waste sites is the Sydney Tar Ponds in Nova Scotia -- pools containing 700,000 tons of toxic chemical sludge generated in a century of steelmaking.

Residents in the nearby town of Sydney say the toxins are damaging their health and demand to be moved. Cancer rates are soaring and there are many cases of heart disease and asthma. The government says it has already spent C$135 million to try to clean the tar ponds up.

Another potential time bomb is 240,000 tons of arsenic trioxide stored in abandoned gold mine shafts underneath the town of Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories.

``It's not just an academic exercise to want to see toxic waste sites cleaned up,'' said Sierra Club executive director Elizabeth May, who mounted a 17-day hunger strike last month to focus government attention on the Sydney Tar Ponds.

``If the arsenic that is currently pooled under Yellowknife went into the drinking water the extent of the catastrophe would be so striking that the public and other levels of government are not about to say 'We can understand the money wasn't there to deal with this problem','' she said.

The environmentalists said that, despite extensive lobbying in Ottawa they had had little success in persuading the Canadian natural resources ministry and other federal departments to pay attention to the problem.

``The public support is there and we just need to continue to build the support within government. This is something we realistically believe can be done. Canada is simply behind the pack,'' said May.

--------

Ex - EPA Head Accused of Files Purge

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-EPA-Files.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The same day a judge ordered her agency to preserve records, then-Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Carol Browner asked a technician to delete her computer files, according to testimony in a court case seeking contempt penalties against the government.

Browner says she hadn't been notified about the court order, routinely didn't use her computer for e-mail or other work tasks and simply was seeking to remove some games, which her son installed on her work computer, before leaving office with other Clinton appointees on Jan. 19.

``It didn't seem appropriate to leave behind a computer with kids' games,'' Browner said in sworn testimony filed in court this week in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

The conservative group that sued the EPA for documents on Friday asked U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth to hold Browner and other top staff in contempt of court because their electronic records were destroyed.

The Landmark Legal Foundation offered Browner's deposition -- as well as other testimony indicating a deputy erased his computer files on Feb. 2, two weeks after the court order -- as evidence the agency violated Lamberth's record preservation order.

``It is difficult to imagine a more thorough evisceration of the FOIA, and the court's authority in enforcing this statute, than this case,'' the group said in seeking civil contempt penalties.

But Browner's lawyer said Friday there is no evidence she violated the order. While the judge issued his ruling on the morning of Jan. 19, the first record that anyone was notified inside EPA came in the evening -- after Browner had left the office and long after she asked that her computer be wiped, the lawyer said.

``The motion is not supported, both in law and fact, and is contrary to the sworn deposition testimony of all the witnesses,'' attorney Amy Berman Jackson said. ``She did not use e-mail, did not use her computer and there was nothing wrong in deleting files to leave a clean computer for the incoming administration.

``We're confident the request will be denied when we have an opportunity to respond,'' she said.

The Freedom of Information Act guarantees Americans access to government records. Landmark sued EPA last fall seeking documents detailing agency contacts with outside groups concerning last-minute environmental regulations the Clinton administration was imposing before leaving office.

The government acknowledged this spring that computer files from Browner and other top staff were wiped clean despite Lamberth's order.

Government lawyers have blamed slow communications for the deletion of records. EPA's inspector general, its internal watchdog, is investigating.

Lamberth issued a protective order on Jan. 19, as the Clinton administration was heading out of office, that instructed EPA to preserve all documents that might be relevant to the Landmark FOIA request.

That same day, computer technician contractor Kevin Bailey testified, Browner came to him and asked that her computer be purged.

``She needed her files deleted; she wanted her files deleted,'' Bailey testified in the Landmark lawsuit. '``I would like my files deleted. I want you to delete my files.' Something like that.''

Browner acknowledged making the request, but said she wasn't sure of the exact terms she used.

At the time, she added, she did not know about the judge's order. Browner said she doesn't think her request affected the case because she seldom used her computer -- except for occasional word processing or travel reservations -- and shunned e-mail entirely.

Browner said she asked the technicians ``to clean up the computer, and in my particular instance, it meant my son's computer games. I had no idea what else may have been on that computer since I didn't use it regularly.''

Browner said she simply wanted the EPA to be courteous during the transition to the new Bush administration and that staff, as part of the routine, removed personal items that had apparently accumulated on their work computers.

``People generally told me they were taking their personal matters off of their computers, which caused me to remember the games,'' she said in a deposition last week.

-------- human rights

ACTION ALERT: Why Wasn't Kissinger Asked About War Crimes Charges?

June 29, 2001
From: "FAIR-L" <FAIR-L@FAIR.ORG>

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was summoned last month to appear at the French Palace of Justice to answer questions about murders and disappearances in Chile in the 1970s. While the story was carried by major European news outlets, it has received relatively little coverage in U.S. media.

French authorities wanted to ask Kissinger, who was visiting Paris, about Operation Condor, the terror network set up by the governments of Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador and Bolivia. Evidence that the U.S. government was aware of and lent support to Operation Condor has been available for years (see The Nation, 8/9-16/99; New York Times, 3/6/01). The French magistrate who summoned Kissinger was particularly interested in what light he might shed on the disappearances of five French nationals who disappeared in Chile during or shortly after the U.S.-supported coup there in 1973.

But the French courts would learn nothing from Kissinger, who left town the day after being summoned without answering any questions.

After the episode in France, Kissinger did a lengthy, one-on-one interview with PBS's Charlie Rose (6/20/01). Kissinger also appeared alone with CNN's Wolf Blitzer (6/21/01) and Fox News Channel's Paula Zahn (6/13/01). None of the interviews even mentioned the French attempt to question Kissinger about human rights abuses. Nor did any of the journalists bring up the question of whether Kissinger might be indictable on war crimes charges, as journalist Christopher Hitchens argued in a two-part Harper's magazine article (2/01, 3/01).

Was there an agreement that the interviewers would avoid raising such uncomfortable issues for Kissinger? Charlie Rose was recently accused of making such an agreement with Roger Ailes, the chairman of Fox News Channel. In an interview with the New York Times Magazine (6/24/01), Ailes claimed that he had written assurance from Rose that he would not be asked about "politics" during his May 22 interview. Yvette Vega, the executive producer for the Charlie Rose Show, told FAIR that she was unaware of any such deal with Ailes.

But Kissinger himself seemed to have this kind of agreement with the National Press Club in Washington, DC, where Kissinger spoke on June 21. Noting that none of the questions asked of Kissinger, chosen from written questions submitted by the audience, dealt with war crimes or human rights investigations, journalists Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman asked Press Club moderator Richard Koonce if there was some sort of arrangement to avoid these topics.

According to Mokhiber and Weissman, Koonce explained that there was a "definite sensitivity" to those kinds of questions, and that Kissinger "was afraid that if we got into a discussion of that, for the vast majority of people that, it would take so much time to explain all of the context, that, you know, he preferred to avoid that."

Which raises the question: If a former Secretary of State receiving a summons about his knowledge of murder, torture and disappearances is not news, then what is?

ACTION: Please contact Charlie Rose and ask why he failed to ask Henry Kissinger about the newsworthy issues of human rights investigations and war crimes charges. You might also contact the National Press Club to voice your disappointment that journalists were not allowed to press Kissinger on these matters.

CONTACT:
The Charlie Rose Show mailto:charlierose@pbs.org Phone: 212-940-1600
National Press Club Melinda Cooke, Assistant to Club President Dick Ryan mailto:mcooke@npcpress.org Fax: 202-662-7537

-------- imf / world bank

Yugoslav Donors' Conference Pledges $1.28 Billion

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/world/yugoslavia-donors-ple.html

BRUSSELS, June 29 (Reuters) - The European Commission said international donors had raised a total $1.28 billion at a pledging conference on Friday to help rebuild the Yugoslav economy and it hailed the result as ``very, very positive.''

The figure narrowly exceeds the target of $1.25 billion which the Commission and the World Bank, co-sponsors of the conference, said Yugoslavia would need this year. The pledge, announced in a statement, came a day after Belgrade handed ex-president Slobodan Milosevic over to The Hague tribunal.

Commission spokesman Gunnar Wiegand told Reuters: ``This is a very, very positive result.''

Johannes Linn, Vice-President of the World Bank for Europe and Central Asia, said: ``This is a tremendous response by the international community.''

The same statement quoted Yugoslav Deputy Prime Minister Miroljub Labus as saying: ``Let us consider all the donations pledged as investments in the future of the region. These investments will create the framework for the peace and stability of (the Balkans).''

-------- police

GAO: FBI Official Misled Congress

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-GAO-Wen-Ho-Lee.html?searchpv=aponline
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58835-2001Jun28?language=printer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A top FBI official misled Congress about his confidence in part of the investigation into former Los Alamos nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee, government watchdogs say.

FBI Assistant Director Neil Gallagher told Senate committees in June 1999 that he had full confidence in an early Energy Department inquiry into Los Alamos. He told senators that the inquiry made a ``compelling case for focusing the espionage investigation at the Los Alamos National Laboratory to include Wen Ho Lee.''

That testimony was inaccurate and misleading, said Robert Hast, managing director in the General Accounting Office's special investigations office, in a letter to several senators Thursday.

The FBI's Albuquerque bureau had written to the national office in January 1999 saying they had serious concerns about the inquiry, giving Gallagher ample opportunity to know about its concerns, Hast said.

Gallagher admitted to not reading all of the briefing book -- which included the Albuquerque e-mail -- prepared for him before talking to Congress, the letter said.

``He said that had he read the January 22, 1999 electronic communication before he testified, his testimony would have been different,'' Hast said.

Gallagher told GAO investigators the mistake was inadvertent. ``Although we determined that Mr. Gallagher's testimony was inaccurate, we were unable to determine whether he intentionally misled the committee,'' Hast said.

Lee, a naturalized U.S. citizen for more than 25 years, was indicted on 59 felony counts for transferring nuclear weapons information to portable computer tapes. The charges stemmed from an investigation into possible Chinese espionage, but Lee was not charged with spying and denied giving information to China.

Lee eventually pleaded guilty to one felony count of downloading sensitive material. The judge in that case said he was misled by prosecutors and apologized to Lee for nine months he spent in solitary confinement.

Lee has sued the government for allegedly leaking information to the media to portray the Taiwan-born scientist as a Chinese spy.

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Indefinite detention ruled out for undeportable criminals

June 29, 2001
By Frank J. Murray
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010629-645302.htm

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that criminal aliens awaiting deportation to native lands that refuse to accept them, in violation of international law, cannot be kept locked up indefinitely even if they are deemed "dangerous."

The 5-4 decision affects almost 2,800 aliens in the United States who have committed serious crimes, have served sentences and are in detention, according to the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).

The high court set a limit of six months for most cases to be settled instead of "preventive detention that lasts for years if not for life," in the words of Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who wrote the majority opinion. After that, if the alien shows there is no likelihood of deportation, the government would have to justify further detention in court.

Justice Breyer was joined in the majority by Justices John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O'Connor, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote the dissent joined by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and, in part, by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

"The people involved in these cases cannot be repatriated, usually because we have no repatriation agreement with those countries, including Cuba, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos," said Karen Kraushaar of the INS.

"We definitely want to make sure that we proceed in a way that is within the framework of the decision and, at the same time, act responsibly," she said.

Though decisions on many cases hinge on yesterday's ruling, 40 percent of them involving aliens from Cuba and Southeast Asia, the court order directly involved refugees from two wars:

•Kestutis Zadvydas, 52, was born to Lithuanian parents in a displaced persons camp in Germany. His family came to the United States when he was 8 and he has a long record of convictions in Fairfax County involving drugs, robberies and burglaries. In 1994, he was ordered deported to Germany, which refused to accept the noncitizen.

•Kim Ho Ma, 24, was born in Cambodia and came to the United States when he was 7 through Thailand and the Philippines. He was ordered deported after serving two years for manslaughter in Seattle compounded by gang activity and misconduct in prison. A federal judge decided Cambodia would not accept Ma.

"Protecting the community does not necessarily diminish in force over time. But we have upheld preventive detention based on dangerousness only when limited to specially dangerous individuals and subject to strong procedural protections," said the majority opinion, which cited guidelines for post-prison confinement of violent sexual predators or individuals suffering from mental illness.

The court said constitutional safeguards of community protection against those in preventive detention require clear and convincing evidence of dangerousness, a lower standard than for conviction.

The court dismissed the government's other justification, that an alien would flee and hide to escape ultimate deportation.

"[That] justification - preventing flight - is weak or nonexistent where removal seems a remote possibility at best," the majority said.

The dissenting justices said hundreds of people who are flight risks or dangerous likely will be released as a result of the decision. They said the majority put itself in the position of supervising State Department negotiations with other nations instead of letting courts decide which aliens are likely to flee or pose a public danger.

"In the guise of judicial restraint the court ought not to intrude upon the other branches," the dissenting justices said.

-------- spying

INS Worker Gets 5 Years for Spying

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-INS-Espionage.html

MIAMI (AP) -- A U.S. immigration official convicted of spying for Cuba was sentenced to five years in prison Friday.

Mariano Faget, once the second-ranking immigration official in Miami, was convicted after an investigation that also lead to the expulsion of a Cuban spy.

Faget, 55, who came to the United States from Cuba as a teen-ager, worked for the Immigration and Naturalization Service for 34 years before his arrest by the FBI.

In the sting operation last year, Faget was told he had been given classified information about a Cuban spy who would be defecting to the United States. Minutes later, Faget called a childhood friend with Cuban intelligence contacts on his cell phone to pass along the information.

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U.S. Backed Peru's Decision on Spy

The New York Times
June 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Peru-Montesinos.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. officials backed Peru's decision to try to get former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos into custody in Venezuela without telling Venezuelan officials, a State Department official said.

But William Brownfield, deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said Friday that he had no evidence that President Hugo Chavez or other top Venezuelan government officials had been hiding Montesinos.

The arrest of Montesinos, South America's most wanted fugitive, has strained relations between Peru and Venezuela. Both countries have recalled their ambassadors.

Chavez says Peru sneaked agents into Venezuela to capture Montesinos. Peru has accused Venezuela of ``verbal aggression.''

Montesinos was arrested last weekend, hours after a U.S.-Peruvian plan to capture him seemingly went awry.

He started a hunger strike Friday to protest his transfer to a maximum-security naval prison he helped design for guerrilla leaders, Peru radio Radioprogramas quoted his wife, Trinidad Becerra, as saying.

FBI and Peruvian officials had arranged for Montesinos' own bodyguards to betray him and drive him to the Peruvian Embassy Saturday night. But the car carrying Montesinos never showed up. Montesinos turned up hours later in Venezuelan custody and was deported to Peru Sunday.

Peru hadn't told Venezuela about its plan to capture Montesinos, apparently wary that Montesinos would be tipped off. The United States agreed with the strategy.

``We did not challenge or did not disagree with the assessment of Peru that the most reliable method to deliver Vladimiro Montesinos to their custody was to deliver him directly to the embassy of Peru,'' Brownfield said.

Venezuela had been suspected of harboring Montesinos since he fled Peru in October. Chavez was seen as having a debt to Montesinos: In 1992, while Montesinos controlled much of Peru's security apparatus, Peru gave asylum to Venezuelan military officers involved in a Chavez-led coup attempt.

For months, Venezuela had denied Montesinos was in the country. Even after Montesinos' capture, neither the United States nor Peru has accused Venezuela of protecting Montesinos.

In Lima, however, Peruvian Interior Minister Antonio Ketin Vidal said Friday he was detained by heavily armed security forces for three hours while on an authorized trip to Venezuela in April to hunt for Montesinos. He questioned Venezuela's ``systematic and categorical'' denials of Montesinos' presence in Venezuela.

Brownfield said he was ``not aware that President Chavez or his government were aware of the whereabouts of Montesinos in Venezuela.''

Instead, Brownfield praised Venezuela's quick deportation of Montesinos.

``When confronted with the reality of having Montesinos in their custody, the Venezuelans did the right thing.''

In Caracas, FBI special agent Hector Pesquera said that cooperation between U.S. and Venezuelan police has been excellent for many years and that he hoped they would continue to be so in the future.

The United States has had a delicate relationship with Chavez. It has been annoyed by his friendship with U.S. foes such as Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Cuba's Fidel Castro. But it has played down differences, trying to avoid confrontations that could only boost Chavez's nationalist credentials. Venezuela is a leading supplier of oil to the United States.

Montesinos is accused of massive corruption while serving as President Alberto Fujimori's right-hand man during his 1990-2000 presidency. He faces 52 court cases on charges including murder, money laundering, drug trafficking, arms dealing and directing death squads.

A videotape of Montesinos bribing an opposition lawmaker led to Fujimori's downfall. He lives in exile in Japan, his ancestral homeland.

U.S. and Peruvian officials say they caught up with Montesinos after the FBI in Miami arrested one of his bodyguards, a retired Venezuelan intelligence agent, who was trying to withdraw money from an account controlled by Montesinos. To avoid U.S. charges, the bodyguard offered to help find Montesinos.

-------- terrorism

U.S. Tells Taliban to Control Bin Laden

New York Times
June 29, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-afghan-.html?searchpv=reuters

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The United States warned Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement on Friday they would bear responsibility for any attack on U.S. interests by Saudi militant Osama bin Laden, the Taliban ambassador said.

U.S. Ambassador William Milam delivered the warning about bin Laden -- who has been given shelter by the Taliban -- during an hour-long meeting at the Taliban embassy in Islamabad, Taliban Ambassador Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef told Reuters.

Milam was not immediately available for comment.

Bin Laden has been accused by Washington of a long list of attacks on American targets, including the bombing of two U.S. embassies in east Africa. It has offered a $5 million reward for his capture.

``The American ambassador expressed his concern about Osama attacking American interests,'' Zaeef said. ``He said the U.S. would blame the Taliban government if Osama attacked any U.S. interests.''

The United States launched cruise missile attacks against alleged training camps run by bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998 soon after U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya were destroyed by massive bombs.

Several people were killed by the U.S. attacks but bin Laden escaped injury.

TALIBAN ASSURANCE

Zaeef said he assured Milam that although bin Laden has been given sanctuary, the Taliban would not allow him to mount any attacks against U.S. targets from their territory.

``I told him categorically that we would never allow anyone to use our soil for attacks against America,'' Zaeef said soon after their meeting.

Washington has been angered at the Taliban's sheltering of bin Laden and has orchestrated the imposition of U.N. sanctions against the movement in an effort to force them to hand over the Islamic militant.

But the sanctions, which include restrictions of Taliban officials abroad and an arms embargo against their forces, have produced no change in the Taliban position that he is a guest.

They maintain Washington has produced no proof bin Laden was involved in the alleged attacks.

As well as the embassy bombings, U.S. officials suspect the veteran of the war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan is linked to the attack last year on a U.S. warship in Yemen and assaults early in the 1990s on Americans in Somalia.

Islamabad is one of the few places where U.S. diplomats have contact with Taliban officials because Pakistan is one of only three countries to recognize them as the government of Afghanistan.

Pakistan also maintains an embassy in Kabul but the other two countries to recognize the Taliban -- Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates -- have no representation inside Afghanistan.

The U.S does not recognize any government in Afghanistan and has said only a broad-based administration encompassing the Taliban and their opponents holding the northeast corner of the country could bring an end to the 21 years of war.

-------- activists

Activists detained over Red Square nuke protest

RUSSIA: June 29, 2001
REUTERS
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11382

MOSCOW - Anti-nuclear activists took their message direct to the Kremlin yesterday, using a protest on Red Square to urge President Vladimir Putin to veto a controversial law on importing nuclear waste.

Environmental group Greenpeace said 30 members were detained by police after unfurling banners saying "President: stop the nuclear invasion" beside Lenin's mausoleum and forming a human chain of protesters clad in white overalls.

Parliament approved a law on June 6 allowing the import of up to 20,000 tonnes of nuclear waste from countries like Taiwan, Japan, China, Iran and eastern Europe. Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev says the trade could earn Russian $20 billion over a 10-year period.

"Yesterday the law was sent to the president for signature", Ivan Blokov, Moscow representative of Greenpeace, told Reuters Television.

"According to public opinion polls, up to 80 percent of the population demand that President Putin veto this law. I hope he hears us. This is the only way we can try to reach him because no other means works," he said. Environmental campaigners accuse the upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, of failing to give the import bill the full reading it requires in law.

They say the bill will make Russia, whose own crumbling storage facilities are a source of concern to Scandinavian and other Western states, a nuclear dustbin.

Under the measure, the nuclear industry can import about 1,000 tonnes of spent fuel a year, roughly the amount produced now by Russia's own power plants and those in neighbouring Ukraine, which sends fuel for reprocessing.

----

Sharpton ends Vieques hunger strike

Around the Nation
June 29, 2001
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010629-78717152.htm

NEW YORK - The Rev. Al Sharpton and two other men detained in federal prison for their protest of U.S. military training in Puerto Rico said yesterday they were ending their 31-day hunger strike.

Mr. Sharpton, State Assemblyman Jose Rivera and Bronx County Democratic Party Chairman Roberto Ramirez have lost about 25 pounds each.

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Tourists to get lesson in D.C. civics

June 29, 2001
By Robert Treadway
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20010629-18202755.htm

Just days before the country celebrates its independence on the Fourth of July, D.C. activist groups and politicians kicked off a summerlong effort to restore the District's full voting rights in Congress at a rally outside the Capitol yesterday.

Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District's nonvoting congressional representative, Mayor Anthony A. Williams and other officials announced Freedom Summer -- a nod to the Civil Rights-era tours of the South meant to educate people about the second-class status of blacks.

For three hours every Saturday until Labor Day weekend, the city's elected leaders and volunteers will walk around the Mall telling tourists the District must have laws and budgets approved by Congress.

"Those visitors from the 50 states believe that D.C. residents have the same rights they have," Mrs. Norton said. "When told they do not, most American people say we should have the same rights they have. We need these people to tell their representatives to support our bills."

Mrs. Norton has introduced the Taxation Without Representation Act in the House, which would give the District full representation in Congress. Connecticut Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman introduced the legislation in the Senate.

The District had a full vote briefly in the early 1990s under the Democratic-controlled Congress. Mrs. Norton won the vote in the Committee as a Whole in 1993 when she submitted a legal memorandum, but Republicans -- who gained control of the House in 1994 -- stripped the city and other territories of avote in 1995, saying they were not states and therefore not entitled to it.

D.C. Council member Carol Schwartz, at-large Republican, said she became involved in the fight for D.C. voting rights when she came to the city more than 30 years ago.

"I always used to joke, 'Hopefully, in my lifetime.' I am now getting worried if it will happen in my lifetime," Mrs. Schwartz said.

Council member Phil Mendelson, at-large Democrat, said Republicans usually oppose such legislation because the District has a case of "the three toos."

" think of us as too liberal, too black and too Democratic," Mr. Mendelson said. "That would mean two more Democrats. We are too much of a threat."

Florence Pendleton has been a Democratic "shadow senator" for 11 years. She wants Congress to give her constituents the same rights as the rest of the nation.

"They elected me and I have been here 11 years and they haven't invited me into the club yet," she said.

"But I am going to stay there knocking on the door to get in the club that most of the guys down there have, called the Senate."



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