------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
NUCLEAR ARMS
Today in History
Train Wreck Stirs Fear Over Nuclear Freight
Congo Takes Pride in Clunky Nuclear Reactor
Powell Urges Resumption of N. Korea Talks
Missile defense fever A need to proceed cautiously
Chinese Unswayed as Powell Pushes U.S. Missile Shield
Divers Cut Holes in Kursk Sub's Hull
U.S. Alliance Overrides Treaty Problems - Australia
State gets ready for shipments
Center opening for Hanford's ill
U.S., China Set For More Talks Powell Raises Rights, Arms Issues
Powell: China Seeks Stronger Ties
Russia, China and What's Really on the Table
To Russia with love and $15bn

MILITARY
Pentagon rates N. Korea, Iraq as top threats
DNA Database May Unite Balkans
EPA Stalled Resolution on Spraying in Colombia
Rice: US Will Be Resolute With Iraq
Bush Aide Says Saddam Is on U.S. 'Radar Scope'
Israeli police, Muslims battle at Jerusalem mosque
Islanders to Vote on Vieques Bomb Drills
Vieques Residents Vote to End Bombing
Congressman Proposes Space Weapon Ban
Rumsfeld Faces a Fight on Closing More Bases
'US used hallucinogenic weapons against Iraq'

OTHER
Rival bills on cloning head for vote in House
The Bondage of Poverty That Produces Chocolate
Brazil Weighs Replacing Police Strikers With Troops
Algerian Report Criticizes Police
Test of Strength
Report: Hanssen Key Leader in Spy Unit
Officials sound alarm over 'Code Red' worm

ACTIVISTS
BOGUS ARREST AT SPACE CENTER FLORIDA


-------- NUCLEAR

NUCLEAR ARMS
If U.S. Dumps Test Ban Treaty, China Will Rejoice

July 29, 2001
Los Angeles Times
By HUGH GUSTERSON,

Hugh Gusterson is an associate professor in MIT's Program on Science, Technology and Society and author of the forthcoming book "Simulating Armageddon."

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- According to recent news reports, President Bush is looking for ways to bury the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and has directed the nuclear complex to move into a higher state of readiness for a nuclear test. Chinese President Jiang Zemin and hardliners in his government must be getting ready to break out the champagne, since no country stands to gain as much from a resumption of testing as China--except perhaps Russia, India, and Pakistan. The country with the most to lose is the United States.

When the CTBT was being negotiated in the mid-1990s, some Pentagon officials and scientists within the U.S. nuclear-weapons complex pushed for a treaty that would allow small nuclear tests of a few hundred tons. The Russian and Chinese delegations to the test-ban talks also wanted a treaty that permitted some testing: China wanted to exempt "peaceful" nuclear explosions (for canal and dam construction); the Russians wanted a treaty that allowed tests of a few hundred tons, thinking that this would make it easier to ensure that their aging nuclear weapons still worked and to maintain expertise at their nuclear-weapons laboratories. After an extensive interagency debate, the U.S. government decided to hold out for a complete test ban. The U.S. concluded that it was much easier to verify a such a ban than a treaty that permitted, say, 200-ton but not 300-ton tests. U.S. defense officials also decided that, with 1,030 nuclear tests under its belt (versus 715 by the former Soviet Union and 45 by China), the U.S. had a well-tested and reliable nuclear stockpile that could not be greatly improved. The U.S. feared that further nuclear testing might enable other countries to catch up and hoped that a global ban on nuclear testing would be a daunting obstacle to countries seeking to develop anything but the most primitive and unreliable nuclear weapons. This decision, endorsed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was made not by starry-eyed antinuclear idealists, but by hard-headed realists in the defense bureaucracy, who saw a test ban as in the vital interest of the U.S. Retired Gen. John Shalikashvili, former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was commissioned by the White House last year to reevaluate that decision. He concluded that "an objective and thorough net assessment shows convincingly that U.S. interests, as well as those of friends and allies, will be served by the treaty's entry into force."

Conservative critics of the test ban treaty say that it prevents us from knowing if our weapons still work. While it is true that detonating a weapon provides the most literal assurance that a weapon works (or did until it was destroyed by the test), such tests were infrequent even in the heyday of nuclear testing, when they were mainly used to validate improvements to the arsenal. However, as part of a bargain within the defense bureaucracy, the Clinton administration replaced nuclear explosive testing with a handsomely funded program for simulated testing and non-destructive surveillance of the stockpile. This Stockpile Stewardship and Maintenance Program currently receives about $5 billion a year. No other country's nuclear-weapons establishment comes close to this. When the CTBT was negotiated, the Russians and the Chinese grumbled that it put the U.S. at an unfair advantage because its nuclear test experience and top-of-the-line simulation technology would enable it to care for its nuclear stockpile while theirs crumbled.

If the U.S. kills the CTBT, Russia and China will be able to test again. This will make it easier for the Russians, who cannot match the U.S. weapons stewardship program, to ensure that their poorly maintained weapons work and to train a new generation of weapons scientists. It will also make it easier for the Chinese, who currently have only single-warhead missiles, to perfect new missiles with multiple warheads. These will, of course, be a valuable asset against the Bush administration's cherished ballistic missile defense system.

Meanwhile, India, which tried to block the CTBT in the United Nations in 1996, would also welcome a resumption of testing. India's 1998 tests revealed design flaws in its hydrogen bombs, and Indian scientists are eager to test again to find out whether they have succeeded in correcting these flaws. If India tests, Pakistan will follow.

If the U.S. resumes nuclear testing, it will also run the risk of being perceived as what it likes to call a rogue state. When France broke its self-imposed testing moratorium in the early 1990s, it was surprised to find itself the target of protests and boycotts all over the world. President Francois Mitterand hurriedly cut short the series of tests. One of the reasons the five official nuclear powers agreed to surrender nuclear testing in the mid-1990s is that the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970--one of the few arms control treaties the Bush administration has not attacked--committed them to "pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the arms race at an early date." By 1995, the non-nuclear powers, running out of patience, were threatening not to extend the Non-Proliferation Treaty indefinitely without a test ban. In exchange for their extension of the treaty, the nuclear powers made a commitment to end nuclear testing. It would be no small thing to renege on this commitment.

Finally, a resumption of nuclear testing could well reawaken a sleeping giant at home--the domestic anti-nuclear movement. The Reagan administration's intensification of the arms race in the 1980s brought hundreds of thousands of people into the streets of New York City for a protest in 1982--the largest street demonstration in American history. On a single day the same year, 1,300 people were arrested for civil disobedience at one of the three nuclear weapons laboratories in the U.S. Does the Bush administration want to return us to those days?

If the Bush administration buries the CTBT, it will enable the Russians, the Chinese, the Indians and the Pakistanis to narrow the gap between their nuclear stockpiles and ours, it will exacerbate international perceptions that the U.S. government lectures others on their behavior while doing as it pleases, and it threatens to unleash social unrest at home. This is a high price to pay for being a little more certain that the greatest nuclear arsenal on earth is still reliable.

--------

Today in History

The Associated Press
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010728/aponline200027_000.htm

Today is Sunday, July 29, the 210th day of 2001. There are 155 days left in the year.

Today's Highlight in History:

... Ten years ago: President Bush arrived in Moscow for a superpower summit with Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev that included the signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

Five years ago: China detonated a nuclear test explosion that it promised would be its last, just hours before international negotiators in Geneva began discussing a global ban on such testing.

----

Train Wreck Stirs Fear Over Nuclear Freight

By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 29, 2001; Page C01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1261-2001Jul28?language=printer

For Baltimore, it was a colossal disaster.

But for a band of lawmakers and anti-nuclear activists, the freakish train derailment in a tunnel beneath Maryland's most populous city has become a potent symbol for their message, at a pivotal moment in the debate about nuclear power.

"The Baltimore accident is a poster for the dangers of transporting nuclear waste," said U.S. Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who has led the fight in Congress to prevent a nuclear waste dump from opening in his home state and receiving thousands of train-loads of radioactive trash from power plants across the country.

Imagine, Reid and others say, if the CSX freight train that was engulfed in a blistering fire near Camden Yards had been carrying radioactive cargo.

The notion is not entirely far-fetched. Preliminary routes suggested by the Department of Energy show the same rails under downtown Baltimore could one day carry flat cars loaded with spent radioactive fuel from the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant in Southern Maryland.

And when fire from the July 18 wreck burned for days, generating searing heat, conditions in the Baltimore tunnel may at times have exceeded the severity of test fires set to gauge the strength of the 200-ton steel casks the government approved for transporting nuclear waste.

Although some activists call the Baltimore wreck a warning shot, others in Congress and in the nuclear power industry see only a crass attempt to capitalize on a calamity.

"The fire in Baltimore shouldn't be used as a scare tactic in the debate," Sen. Frank H. Murkowski (R-Alaska), a leading backer of plans to open the Nevada nuclear waste site, said in a prepared statement.

"Efforts to exploit situations like the Baltimore fire point up the fact that it's a political debate, not a technical one," said Steve Unglesbee, a spokesman for the Constellation Energy Group, which runs the Calvert Cliffs plant.

In 3,000 nuclear fuel shipments since 1964, he said, there has never been a serious accident. And, he said, tests have proved that the specialized rail cars used in transporting nuclear materials are as solid as bank vaults.

Promotional videos released by the industry show images of rail cars slamming at 100 mph into solid concrete walls, dropping from three stories to the hard earth and being engulfed in flames accelerated by jet fuel.

But not everyone is convinced the transport casks are impervious.

Marvin Resnikoff, a physicist from the New York consulting firm Radioactive Waste Management Associates who has studied the casks, said the industry "should not dismiss a leak as impossible. It would have to be a severe accident, but we know that on occasion, those do happen."

The threat of fire, in particular, caught the attention of activists who had been reading newspaper accounts of the Baltimore crash. The transport casks are built to withstand a fire of 1,475 degrees for 30 minutes. The Baltimore fire -- fueled by a tanker loaded with 12,000 gallons of flammable liquid -- burned for days at temperatures that at times approached 1,500 degrees.

"It scared me even more than I already was," said Kevin Kamps, a Prince George's man who has been touring the country trying to raise awareness of the potential dangers of carrying nuclear cargo onto the nation's highways and rail lines.

Given recent efforts by the Bush administration to generate interest in nuclear energy and progress by the industry in gaining approval to open the national waste dump at Yucca Mountain, Nev., Kamps agreed that the timing of the Baltimore wreck has proved oddly fortuitous.

On recent stops in Kansas City, Mo., and Lincoln, Neb., the 31-year-old activist, with his "No Nukes" lapel button, said he was able to capitalize on reports of the Baltimore wreck and fold them into his standard stump speech.

"Suddenly, this was on the minds of people who weren't already thinking about the integrity of the containers," Kamps said. "It put the issue in focus."

In Washington, the wreck was frightening enough to prompt legislation ordering a federal study of the risks associated with the transportation of hazardous chemicals and radioactive materials throughout the country. It passed the Senate 96-0.

Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley said he would welcome such a study. In the hours immediately after the wreck, the dazed mayor told reporters he thought he'd been sucked into the plot of a Hollywood adventure movie. The scenario playing out seemed terribly unlikely -- the train wreck, the leaking toxic chemicals, the stubborn fire, all stewing together beneath crowded downtown streets and near a half-full baseball stadium.

"In this day and age, with the amount of hazardous materials that go right by Baltimore, right through Baltimore and right under Baltimore, I think it's high time we look at it," O'Malley said.

For their part, CSX officials have said that kind of rare, spectacular accident would be even less likely involving a train carrying nuclear waste.

Although the locomotive in the July 18 derailment was towing nine separate tanks of hazardous chemicals, a train with nuclear waste would not carry any other dangerous cargo -- and certainly nothing flammable, said Robert Gould, a company spokesman.

Department of Energy spokesman Joseph H. Davis noted that any route would be thoroughly checked by federal inspectors before a train set out with a radioactive load.

"If there's any question about safety, we don't move," he said.

But Reid and others remain convinced that any shipment of nuclear material raises questions about safety. "At this stage there isn't any mode of transportation I'm comfortable using for this purpose," the senator said.

Staff writer Raymond McCaffrey contributed to this report.

-------- africa

Congo Takes Pride in Clunky Nuclear Reactor

Sunday, July 29, 2001,
By TIM SULLIVAN
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.sltrib.com/07292001/nation_w/117538.htm

KINSHASA, Congo -- A hand-held Geiger counter tapped out a steady beat as Patrick Kanyinda -- looking decidedly uneasy about having a visitor in his small, windowless workroom -- stood at the edge of a circular pool and pointed into the water.

Above him, fluorescent lights buzzed and flickered, casting a faded light onto moldy walls. Below, submerged in the brackish water, beneath a padlocked metal grate and splotches of floating scum, about two dozen metal rods were lined up in neat rows.

"It's safe," insisted Kanyinda, chief technician in this all-but-forgotten facility on the fringes of the University of Kinshasa.

The water, he explains, cools the rods; heavy locks keep burglars at bay; armed guards keep watch outside, just in case.

He paused, then added: "But I wouldn't suggest staying here long."

Few would disagree.

The rods, about 2 feet long and triangular, hold one of the most dangerous substances on the planet: uranium.

In a crumbling concrete building on the edge of one of the world's most dysfunctional cities, in a program that traces its roots to a Belgian priest and America's Cold War "Atoms for Peace" program, a few Congolese scientists nurse along Africa's oldest nuclear reactor.

In Congo -- a nation savaged by decades of inept, deeply corrupt rule, poverty and a long stream of wars -- the reactor is a point of pride, proof that, for all its problems, this Central African nation can also harness the atom.

But elsewhere, the reactor is a concern. The reasons are evident.

The reactor sits on an erosion-prone hill, the electricity gives out regularly and the decades-old control panel looks as if it was stolen from the set of a 1950s Buck Rogers movie. Gardens are sprouting out back, right next to a garbage pit.

The front entrance is marked only by a poster taped to the door advising: "How to Recognize and Quickly Treat Accidental Radioactive Burns."

And all this is in Kinshasa, a city famed for its sprawling slums, car-swallowing potholes and paucity of regular services, from fire departments to telephone wiring. The past decade has seen the city engulfed twice by military pillaging.

The facility's budget is confidential, but cannot be very large. The Congolese government is broke and ensnared, yet again, in war.

The reactor is small, capable of producing less than 1 percent of the energy of a nuclear power plant, and the uranium is not believed to be sufficiently refined for weapons manufacturing. But an accident could spray radioactivity across a good part of the university, or poison the water supply for much of the city.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. organization that monitors nuclear facilities, won't discuss specifics, but makes clear the Kinshasa facility is in trouble.

"It's in poor condition because of the economic conditions down there," said David Kyd, spokesman for the Vienna, Austria-based agency. "It's not a high priority," for the Congolese government.

American officials have repeatedly tried to get the fuel, both used and unused, shipped to the United States for storage.

The scientists who run it, though, have no intention of stopping their work. They insist they are doing important peaceful research: creating nuclear isotopes and looking at atomic uses tied to agriculture and mining.

The program took root in the late 1950s when Congo was a Belgian colony. Monsignor Luc Gillon, a Belgian priest and nuclear physicist based in Congo, devoted much of his energy to bringing a reactor here, according to Malu, his protege.

He succeeded just before Congo's 1960 independence. TRIGA-Mark I was built in 1959, but is now used to store the spent fuel. TRIGA-Mark II has been operational, on and off, since 1972.

While stories differ on the facility's history, both the reactors and the fuel apparently came from the United States, compliments of President Eisenhower's "Atoms for Peace" plan. That program traded U.S. help for peaceful atomic research for agreements not to develop nuclear weapons.

Although Congo's soil holds enormous uranium reserves, the country turned to the United States for the fuel in refined form.

These days, though, America wants the uranium back, and U.S. Department of Energy officials have been negotiating with the Congolese government for permission to remove the nuclear fuel.

The Congolese, though, have little interest in turning it over.

Fortunat Lumu, a nuclear chemist, hints that America might get back some of the fuel as long as it buys Congo another reactor.

If not, Lumu said there's enough fuel for another 10 to 15 years of Congo atom-splitting.

-------- korea

Powell Urges Resumption of N. Korea Talks
U.S. Expresses Strong Support For S. Korean 'Sunshine Policy'

By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 28, 2001; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61603-2001Jul27?language=printer

SEOUL, July 27 -- Secretary of State Colin L. Powell appealed today to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il to visit South Korea before the end of the year and resume substantive talks with the United States on its nuclear weapons development and missile proliferation.

"We can meet at a time and a place of the DPRK's choice and we have no preconditions," Powell said, using the initials of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

On the fifth day of a swing through Asia, Powell also pledged President Bush's "strong support" for South Korean President Kim Dae Jung's "sunshine policy" of reconciliation and engagement with the isolated, Communist-run North Korea.

[Powell arrived in Beijing on Saturday for a one-day visit in China.]

Powell's comments in Seoul were aimed at jump-starting talks with North Korea that stalled while the Bush administration conducted a policy review earlier this year. Since that review reaffirmed a negotiating strategy, there have been low-level meetings in New York. On Thursday in Hanoi, Powell said, "We are waiting for an official response from [North Korea] to our overture."

With his unqualified endorsement of Kim Dae Jung's sunshine policy, Powell also sought to repair damage done earlier this year when Bush cast doubt on the wisdom of that strategy by questioning the trustworthiness of the North Korean leader and his ability to live up to agreements. Bush's comments, made March 7 during a visit by Kim Dae Jung to the White House, were widely seen as undermining the South Korean president's position and as poor treatment of a key U.S. ally. Today, however, Kim was all smiles during a photo session with Powell.

"I think this is knitted up and we are moving together," Powell said.

Powell today also urged Russian President Vladimir Putin to use his influence with the North Korean leader, who is traveling to Moscow by train, to encourage resumption of U.S.-North Korea talks and a summit between the peninsula's two leaders, which was supposed to have taken place this summer.

"I think it would be very useful if President Putin . . . would point out to Chairman Kim the importance of resuming discussions with the United States, that his economy is in a very terrible state, and he has a variety of problems," Powell said at a news conference with South Korea's foreign minister, Han Seung Soo. "Those problems can only be dealt with as he reaches out and begins a dialogue both by accepting the invitation to come to the South and responding to the U.S. willingness to begin discussions."

Given the opaque nature of the North Korean government, U.S. officials said privately they were trying to decipher the significance of the North Korean leader's visit to Russia, which came as a surprise. The trip could indicate unwillingness to engage the United States or South Korea, or it could be for consultation with a longtime ally before pushing ahead with a new round of contacts, officials speculated.

"I don't think we've ever had a problem with North Korea reaching out in the world," said a senior State Department official. "We've always expressed our hope that they would, and that includes China and Russia."

It has been just over a year since South Korean President Kim went to the North Korean capital of Pyongyang for the first summit between leaders of the divided peninsula. Kim, who won the 2000 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts, has been pressing for the North Korean leader to pay a return visit to Seoul and keep the reconciliation process moving. But despite a small increase in contacts since the Pyongyang summit, the North Korean Kim, citing uncertainty over U.S. policy, put off a trip to the South.

Now the Bush administration is hoping for a return summit before the end of the year, before the South Korean leader and his Millennium Democratic Party become embroiled in campaigning for the presidential election at the end of 2002. Kim Dae Jung, a longtime political prisoner and opposition leader who won a five-year term in 1997, is barred from running again and will increasingly become a lame duck, many policy experts fear, further hampering engagement efforts.

Powell also sought to address criticism that the Bush administration, while saying it was seeking talks with North Korea, had set demands that North Korea could not meet, thus preventing the resumption of talks. Although the administration said it wants to discuss conventional forces as well as the development and proliferation of nuclear weapons and missiles, Powell said the United States was ready for dialogue "without preconditions," adding, "We are prepared to respond to North Korea's broad agenda as well."

-------- missile defense

Missile defense fever A need to proceed cautiously, not arrogantly

Sunday, July 29, 2001
http://www.bergen.com/editorials/miss20010729.htm

FOR NOW AT LEAST, Russian President Vladimir Putin seems willing to talk to the Bush administration about the missile defense shield and reducing nuclear arms. This past week, Mr. Putin's defense minister even signaled a new willingness to consider changes in the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 that President Bush wants to scrap.

Russia's more conciliatory tone has also toned down some of the opposition to the shield among our European allies and some Senate Democrats, although they still worry -- correctly -- that developing the missile defense program could spark a dangerous return to the arms race.

The planned arms control talks between high-level U.S. and Russian officials are welcome. Ideally, they should slow down the Bush administration's headlong rush to abandon the ABM treaty and proceed with the still unproven and highly expensive missile shield. As the article on the front page of this section indicates, there are many ways other than a rogue missile for terrorists or other enemies to threaten or harm the United States with nuclear devices.

White House officials say they are eager to sit down with the Russians, but the administration's arrogant tone that disturbs much of Europe is still evident. Last week, John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, told a Senate committee that the talks with Russia will not delay the missile defense development, even if the United States has to violate the missile treaty.

"We hope that the Russians will see this is as part of the new strategic framework in a cooperative mode that is in both of our interests," Mr. Bolton said. "But we will move ahead on our own if need be."

Supporters would call that attitude an example of strong leadership on the part of the White House. But this is not a domestic issue. It has implications for the fate of the planet itself. It's reckless on the part of the Bush administration's band of Cold Warriors to consider unilaterally dumping the strategic weapons agreement that has prevented nuclear holocaust for the last 30 years.

Mr. Bush has called for both Russia and the United States to drastically reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons as part of any agreement on missile defense. It is certainly in Russia's interest to reduce its nuclear arsenal, which the economically strapped nation cannot afford to maintain. It is also in Russia's best interest to work with the United States as an ally, rather than confront it as an opponent.

But the Bush administration should not head into these talks with a brash take-it-or-leave-it attitude. It is in our interests to work with Russia and to evolve beyond Cold War posturing to a more cooperative approach to solving a problem of such great mutual -- and global -- significance.

----

Chinese Unswayed as Powell Pushes U.S. Missile Shield

New York Times
July 29, 2001
By JANE PERLEZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/29/international/29DIPL.html

BEIJING, July 28 - Secretary of State Colin L. Powell ended his first meeting with China's leaders today sounding upbeat and saying the two sides would talk more about human rights and weapons sales. But he made little headway in overcoming opposition to the Bush administration's plans for a missile shield.

The secretary met separately with President Jiang Zemin and Prime Minister Zhu Rongji in the Bush administration's highest-level talks yet with the Chinese leadership.

The meeting, intended to lay the groundwork for a visit by President Bush in October, came after months of tension with Beijing over the emergency landing of an American spy plane in China, American weapons sales to Taiwan, and China's arrest of several scholars with ties to the United States.

But with the release of two of those scholars, convicted on espionage charges, as Mr. Powell headed toward China, Beijing had paved the way for seemingly pleasant encounters with the secretary today.

After their meeting, both sides, using nearly identical language, said they looked forward to building "constructive" relations. But the administration's plans for a missile shield, which Beijing fears could undercut its small nuclear arsenal, clearly remained a big obstacle.

"I tried to make a comprehensive case of the president's strategy," the secretary said at a news conference after his day of back-to-back meetings with the leadership. "They listened carefully. I'm sure we will have many more conversations on this subject because they have a different view of it."

The secretary said he had tried to offer assurances that the missile defense system would not be designed to negate China's status as a nuclear power. "I told them that our plans with respect to missile defense are for a limited missile defense," he said. He also tried to persuade the Chinese that such a shield would not undermine the arsenals of either China or Russia.

The secretary's explanation was the highest-level presentation of the issue that China's leadership has heard.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Sun Yuxi, who attended all the meetings, did not repeat China's outright opposition to the plan, but said that if Washington was ready to continue with consultations, then China "is open to hearing U.S. views."

China's goal, he said, was for "constructive, cooperative relations."

The secretary himself helped set the stage for today's generally positive atmosphere in the last few weeks by conspicuously dropping reference to China as a "strategic competitor."

He said today that he represented the "advance party" for the first trip by President Bush to China in October, when Mr. Bush will attend an economic conference of Asian-Pacific leaders in Shanghai, and then proceed to Beijing.

Mr. Powell received a warm welcome from Mr. Jiang, who greeted him at the Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square by saying, "Your reputation goes before you."

But he chided his visitor for staying only a day and not visiting Shanghai and the city of Xian, where terra- cotta warriors created in 221 B.C. are a major attraction.

But any discomfort the Chinese felt about the brevity of the visit may have been overcome by the secretary's enthusiasm for all the new buildings he said he saw from his limousine window as he sped up and down one of Beijing's main highways on his round of appointments.

The new buildings, he said, illustrated the strides China has made since he last visited in 1983, and the "gifted, skilled political leadership that would move the country in that direction."

In another warm note, Mr. Powell said he had congratulated Mr. Jiang on China's successful effort to be designated host for the 2008 Olympics. "The United States looks forward to seeing the changes in the next seven years that this historic event is bound to stimulate," he said.

Along with congratulations, the statement implied the administration's hope that the Beijing government would feel impelled to improve its human rights record as the world's attention focused on China in the lead-up to the games.

The secretary said he brought up the issue of human rights at every meeting, and made a point of introducing his assistant secretary of state for human rights, Lorne W. Craner, to every leader.

But he said he did not raise the specific cases of people in detention, preferring to deal with the subject generically. It was more important, he said, to raise the broader question of the rule of law and the "whole issue of human rights."

"I don't think that message was missed by my interlocutors," the secretary said about his presentations on human rights.

A Chinese businessman with permanent residency in the United States, Liu Yaping, who has been in prison in Inner Mongolia since March 8, was hospitalized for the fourth time this week, said his wife, Zhang Pei, who lives in Connecticut.

The scope of the differences on human rights will be discussed in a formal dialogue that will be resumed in the coming months, Mr. Powell said. Such talks were held for a while during the Clinton administration and then suspended several years ago after the NATO bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade during the war with Yugoslavia.

Human Rights Watch said today, however, that it was unimpressed by the resumption of the talks, saying that in the past the dialogue had been "pro forma."

On China's sale of missiles and weapons technology to other nations - another major issue on which the secretary was looking for progress - the two sides agreed to hold more talks among experts on both sides, Mr. Powell said.

He said the administration was holding up the licensing of the sale of American communication satellites to China until Beijing improved its record on the issue.

Officials traveling with the secretary said specifically that China had failed to live up to pledges made last November to curb sales of missile components and technology. Once it did so, Washington would move forward with the satellite sales.

Secretary Powell said that he raised "specific transfers" of missiles and technology today, but declined to say which sales concerned him most. Previously, administration officials have said they were most concerned about China providing Pakistan with missile components.

The top Chinese leadership has insisted that it is committed to ending the sales but appears unable or unwilling to carry through on its pledges, a senior Bush administration official said before the secretary left Washington for Beijing.

The perennial question of Taiwan and American arms sales there was raised, too, officials said, with the two sides reiterating their opposing positions.

The secretary said that the sales gave Taiwan the "confidence" to engage China and that "hopefully, with that confidence, they can restart dialogue and discussions on cross- straits issues."

The Chinese spokesman, Mr. Sun, said that "the sales of weapons, especially sophisticated weapons, will inevitably benefit the Taiwan independence forces."

The secretary said that an economic commission, including the treasury secretary, Paul H. O'Neill, and his Chinese counterpart, would meet in Beijing in September. Later in the year, the Commerce Secretary, Donald L. Evans, will lead a delegation.

Additionally, a joint military committee, which was used by the administration to defuse the crisis over the American spy plane earlier this year, will hold a special meeting in August, the secretary said.

"So in the course of the day we have come to quite a few agreements on how we can move forward with our dialogue on a full range of issues that the two nations are interested in from trade, proliferation, to human rights to commerce," Secretary Powell said.

The one area notably absent from that list, however, was the administration's plan for a missile shield.

As the secretary embarked on his trip this week, influential Democrats on Capitol Hill suggested that the distance between the two sides could push China toward an aggressive buildup of its long-range ballistic missiles.

The chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, argued that if China feared that its small arsenal would be undercut, it would rapidly begin expanding it.

A recent unclassified Central Intelligence Agency report said that China could respond by multiplying tenfold its number of long-range ballistic missiles. It estimated that China currently had 18 such missiles.

Mr. Biden, too, warned of a similar outcome this week if the administration rushed forward with an "unproven missile defense program." He said the administration "must work much more closely with China" to ensure that it understood the White House's approach to building a new strategic framework.

Secretary Powell's visit today appeared to be a first step in that direction.

-------- russia

Divers Cut Holes in Kursk Sub's Hull

New York Times
July 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Russia-Nuclear-Submarine.html

MOSCOW (AP) -- Divers working at the sunken nuclear submarine Kursk have cut a hole in the outer hull of the vessel's fifth compartment and began clearing a space between the compartment's inner and outer hulls, the Russian navy said Sunday.

That hole and others will be used to attach steel cables to the sunken submarine, which will be raised by 26 hydraulic lifts anchored to a giant pontoon and towed to the Arctic port of Murmansk.

Divers also were working on cutting holes in the seventh and eighth compartments, prior to clearing a space between the compartments' walls, the Interfax news agency quoted Russian Navy spokesman Igor Dygalo as saying.

The Kursk was shattered by an explosion and crashed to the sea floor Aug. 12, 2000, during a training exercise in the Arctic waters. All 118 sailors aboard were killed.

Meanwhile, a giant barge loaded with equipment for cutting away the submarine's first compartment arrived in the Norwegian port of Kirkines on Sunday morning, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. It will be towed to the salvage site on Friday, the report said.

The front compartment, which may contain unexploded torpedoes, is to be left at the sea bottom when the Kursk is raised in mid-September.

The Kursk has two nuclear reactors aboard, but Russian nuclear experts have denied any possibility of a radiation leak during the salvage effort, saying the reactors would remain safe even if the steel cables break and the Kursk slams back to the sea floor.

In Murmansk, a memorial service was held for sailors who died in the Kursk sinking instead of a parade to mark Russian Navy Day, which is celebrated on the last Sunday in July.

-------- treaties

U.S. Alliance Overrides Treaty Problems - Australia

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

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Australia on Sunday for annual bilateral talks as Australia defended its most important ally against concerns it is becoming isolationist.

Rumsfeld flew in to the Australian capital early on Sunday and was met by his Australian counterpart Peter Reith.

Secretary of State Colin Powell, currently on a tour of Asia, is due to arrive from China later on Sunday.

Australia has said it will raise the importance of U.S. participation in global security agreements during the talks after the U.S. stepped back from a number of treaties.

But Reith and Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Australia was not worried that the United States was becoming isolationist.

``They have strong views and they are entitled to have strong views,'' Reith said of President Bush's administration.

Downer said that it was important for regional powers Japan, South Korea and Australia to maintain a strong relationship with the United States despite differences on specific issues.

``If you took the United States out of the Asia-Pacific region...then you would have a much more dangerous, much more uncertain Asia-Pacific security environment,'' Downer said.

Australia's conservative government has backed Bush's plans to develop a multi-billion dollar defense shield and Washington's rejection of the Kyoto protocol on climate change.

But Australia has also joined Canada in expressing regret over the U.S. decision to abandon efforts to strengthen a 30-year-ban on germ warfare.

``We are disappointed with what they've said on that and we'll be making a point of that,'' Reith told Channel Nine television.

Australian peace activists have called for rallies in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Perth and other cities on Monday to protest Bush's decision to go ahead with the missile shield.

Asia-Pacific security issues will dominate the bilateral talks on Monday. These include developments in Indonesia, where Megawati Sukarnoputri last week replaced Abdurrahman Wahid as president, and Jakarta's former territory of East Timor.

``You can imagine there'll be a lot of discussion about China, about the Sino-American relationship, about Indonesia, Southeast Asia and so on,'' Downer told Channel Ten television.

Reith said military training and operational cooperation will also be discussed, as will Australia's trouble-prone Collins class submarines.

Australia upset German and U.S. defense companies earlier this month when it abandoned a tender process for a new combat system for the submarines, opting instead to join forces with the U.S. navy to build a new system.

Monday's talks in Canberra coincide with the signing 50 years ago of the ANZUS military pact between Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

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

-------- nebraska

State gets ready for shipments

BY KEN HAMBLETON
Lincoln Journal Star,
July 29, 2001
http://www.journalstar.com/nebraska?story_id=3919&date=20010729&past=

Radioactive waste could become as common on Nebraska highways and rail lines as cattle going to market.

Sometime this summer, Nebraska will play a willing role in moving radioactive fuel rods from West Valley, N.Y., to Idaho. The 40-ton shipment on the Union Pacific rail line will travel through Southeast Nebraska near Fairbury, up to Interstate 80 and through Kimball to the Wyoming state line.

If plans proceed to open a new nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, Nebraska could be part of a route for thousands of tons of high-level nuclear waste shipments.

According to Kevin Kamps, a leading opponent of shipping nuclear waste, the shipments are disasters just waiting to happen.

According to Nebraska officials, there is more danger in the daily shipments of anhydrous ammonia, hydrochloric acid and many other substances.

Kamps, in Lincoln last week, said casks used for the shipments are obsolete and people along the routes should be concerned.

Federal Department of Energy information says the casks have been successfully tested - crashed into a 690-ton concrete block at 81 mph, hit by a 150-ton locomotive at 81 mph and burned at 1,800 degrees for 90 minutes.

"I don't feel there is any hazard because the casks are well-built," said Jon Schwarz of the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency. "The anti-nuke people say they are not adequately tested, but they are wrong."

Any concern, he said, is because of poor public relations and poor education by those who transport nuclear waste.

"There has never been an accident where radioactive material has leaked," Schwarz said.

But Kamps said it takes only one. He quoted Marvin Resnikoff, a nuclear physicist with Radioactive Waste Management Associates in New York City, as saying a release of high-level radioactive waste could cause scores of latent cancer cases and cost tens of billions of dollars to clean up.

Nebraska was already involved in a "first." In November 1997, a truck carrying two dismantled nuclear missiles slid off the road 40 miles south of Valentine.

Nebraska was not notified of the shipment in advance, other than receipt of a message that a classified shipment was heading from South Dakota to Texas. Experts note there is no risk of nuclear waste release from a deactivated nuclear warhead. Still, the towing company charged the Department of Energy $47,000 to get the truck out of the ditch.

Last year, DOE shipped 26 trains carrying radioactive material through Nebraska to dumping grounds in Idaho, Utah and Nevada.. Trucks carried 528 DOE shipments of hazardous materials last year along Interstate 80.

"We haven't had any problems, and I feel the coordination of efforts has paid off with a very good system," said Nebraska State Patrol Major Bryan Tuma.

"We could be seeing up to 80 percent of all the rail shipments of nuclear waste and 60 percent of all the highway shipments of nuclear waste coming through the state in the years to come," he said. "We are as ready as we can be."

In 1986, Gov. Bob Kerrey stopped a train in Kansas for four hours until he was satisfied the State Patrol was ready, but other than that Nebraska has seen little protest over transport of waste through the state. Kerrey, former Gov. Ben Nelson and Gov. Mike Johanns have all requested they be notified if shipments are coming through the state, and State Patrol escorts of shipments through Lincoln and Omaha has been policy since the mid-1980s.

But the special rail shipment of high-level radioactive waste expected soon is different from past shipments and already has sparked small protests.

The shipment could be the start of moving more than 40,000 tons of used uranium fuel across the country rather than storing it onsite at power plants.

The shipment's date has not been announced publicly for security reasons.

Johanns spokesman Chris Peterson said the state is ready.

"We have been briefed on the route, the security measures, the emergency procedures and what the state can do if there is a problem," Peterson said.

He said the governor is pleased with the precautions, the training and the information system used by the DOE.

Nebraska has been in training for the high-level radioactive waste shipment for 2 1/2 years.

Said Schwarz: "We have done training across the state, with local officials, hospitals and other first-response personnel. We believe we are ready for any problems."

First response in Nebraska includes the following guidelines:

Provide first aid to the injured.

Secure the accident site.

Notify state authorities.

Stay upwind of the accident.

Detain non-injured people until they are monitored and found clean of contamination.

Take defensive actions such as building cofferdams to prevent runoff of hazardous material.

Officials in most of the towns along the rail route for this summer's shipment have been trained and provided with monitoring kits to detect radiation. The cost for the kits and training seminars, usually conducted by the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency, is eventually borne by the DOE.

Nebraska's Health and Human Services System issues regulations and recommends actions. Among other actions, it suggests steps to determine whether the food chain and water have been affected.

The state Department of Environmental Quality determines the long-term effects of radioactive pollution and alerts downstream users if surface and groundwater are affected.

The DOE pays for and completes any cleanup.

Nuclear power plants, many in the eastern United States, are storing more than 40,000 tons of nuclear waste and are to the point where they have to move it to new locations - all west of Nebraska.

Reach Ken Hambleton at khambleton@journalstar.com or 473-7251.

-------- washington

Center opening for Hanford's ill

Sun, Jul 29, 2001
Tri-City Herald
By Annette Cary Herald staff writer
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2001/0729.html

In 1962, after one of Hanford's worst accidents, Robert Colley of Richland was one of three men to volunteer to enter the contaminated plutonium finishing plant to make sure no one remained inside.

Employees on one shift had left a batch of a plutonium solution in a container inside the plant. Unaware, the next crew added more plutonium-laced liquid.

"That made a subcriticality, and it blew," Colley said.

Today Colley is fighting cancer that he fears might have been caused by that event or the many other times he was exposed to radiation as a senior radiation monitor for 33 years at Hanford.

He was the first person to sign up for compensation and medical coverage at the Hanford Area Resource Center in Kennewick, which was dedicated at a ceremony Saturday.

After decades of fighting claims by nuclear workers who feared their cancers or other illnesses were caused by on-the-job exposure, the federal government is paying ill workers or their survivors $150,000 and covering medical expenses. The law that makes the money available, called the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act, takes effect Tuesday.

"It's always good to remind ourselves what Hanford is about," said U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., at the dedication ceremony. "When it was conceived, we were in a hot war. We didn't know if Germany had technology to end the war."

The prototype of the first reactor, the B reactor, was not finished when thousands of workers began arriving in the Mid-Columbia to build it.

"Surely, mistakes were made," Hastings said. "After all, we were dealing with something you couldn't see."

But the work at Hanford helped win World War II and contributed to what could be considered a victory in the Cold War, too, Hastings said.

Colley, who's responding well to cancer treatments, said he had no regrets.

During the 1962 accident, he was 40 years old, making him one of the older people in his group. The three volunteers to enter the plant "didn't figure on having any more family," he said.

"We knew what we would be exposed to, and we knew how much time we had" inside the plant, he said.

They figured they had about an hour to check the plant, which would expose them to radiation totaling 25 rems, he said. Normally, they were limited to 3 rems a year.

Colley remembers signing a waiver saying he was willing to be exposed to the radiation but that the contractor must continue to let him work after he reached his dose limit for the year.

"It was a good job, and I had fine people to work with," he said.

He also credits Hanford with saving his life, and work-ing there, including entering the contaminated plant, was a way to repay that.

During World War II, he was a B-25 pilot. Before the Japanese surrendered five days after the bomb containing Hanford's plutonium was dropped on Nagasaki, Colley feared he was about to be sent on missions over the Pacific Islands.

"Most of the pilots ahead of me were killed," he said.

The resource center office, operated by the departments of Labor and Energy, will open Monday. But even as its employees were setting up office furniture and computers last week, they took time to help people such as Colley who showed up asking for help.

The office will be open 8:30 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. weekdays. Appointments are recommended and can be made by calling 783-1500 or 888-654-0014. Staff will make after-hour appointments for people who cannot come to the office during the day.

The office is at 1029 N. Kellogg St. There has been some confusion because a Labor Department hotline has been announcing an incorrect address on Clearwater Avenue.

Workers, retired workers and survivors can pick up forms at the office to apply for benefits and also get help filling out the forms. Forms also may be downloaded from the Internet at www.dol.gov.

Then they'll be submitted to the federal government, which will decide if workplace exposure caused the illness.

Hanford workers with any type of cancer or lung disease caused by breathing in beryllium are eligible for compensation. The office also can help workers and former workers apply for state benefits for those illnesses and others, including lung disease caused by asbestos.

The number of survivors eligible for a maximum $150,000 benefit in federal compensation is limited. Children of survivors, for instance, must have been dependent on the parent at the time of death to qualify.

"The main emphasis (of the legislation) is on those who were immediately affected," Hastings said. He's waiting to see how the program works as it is now, before considering any changes, he said.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the program will cost about $2 billion over a decade for workers at Hanford and other sites doing work related to nuclear weapons.

About 650,000 people nationwide have worked at sites covered by the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act.

Representatives from Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash., also attended the dedication.

-------- us nuc politics

U.S., China Set For More Talks Powell Raises Rights, Arms Issues

By Steven Mufson and Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 29, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1523-2001Jul28?language=printer

BEIJING, July 28 -- During a one-day visit by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell today, China agreed to restart a formal dialogue with the United States on human rights and consult with American experts on weapons proliferation, two subjects that have dogged bilateral relations for more than a decade.

The two countries attempted to move beyond recent tensions and prepare for an October visit by President Bush. Chinese officials went out of their way to avoid criticizing the United States, and Powell tried to avoid describing China as a "strategic competitor," a phrase Bush used during his election campaign that worried Chinese leaders.

But clear and substantial differences remained between the two countries on both human rights and weapons proliferation as well as on U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, a Chinese missile buildup on its coast opposite Taiwan, and the Bush administration's plans to build a missile defense system that could neutralize China's small arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Powell, the most senior Bush administration official to visit China, met separately with three key Chinese leaders -- President Jiang Zemin, Premier Zhu Rongji and Deputy Prime Minister Qian Qichen -- and tried to convince them that the U.S. missile defense system would be limited in nature and would not threaten China's nuclear deterrent.

"They listened carefully and I'm sure we'll have many more conversations on this subject, because they have a different view of it. But that's why friends talk to each other," Powell said.

Powell also said he discussed human rights in every meeting. And he was allowed to tape a 24-minute interview that was broadcast on a state-run national television network on Sunday. In the interview, Powell reached out directly to the Chinese people, reassuring them that the United States was not their enemy, defending the missile defense plan, and urging China to address human rights concerns and establish a just legal system.

Asked whether he saw China as a partner or an enemy, Powell declined to use either word, saying both would be a simplification. But he said: "We view China as a very important nation that is going through a period of transformation. We want to help with that transformation. . . . We view China as a friend, not as an adversary."

Powell spoke at length about human rights, arguing that China should strive to meet international standards. But much of that portion of the interview was not broadcast.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Sun Yuxi declined to repeat China's long-standing objections to the missile defense plan, saying instead that the government's position had not changed but that China was willing to continue discussions on the subject. He also declined to respond to Powell's criticism of China's human rights record and legal system. Chinese officials usually condemn such criticism as meddling in the country's internal affairs and sometimes recite a laundry list of problems in American society.

The warm reception granted Powell appeared to be an effort by China to guarantee a smooth visit for the senior official most committed to maintaining a healthy Sino-American relationship in an administration replete with advocates of a tougher line toward Beijing.

"We attach great importance to your visit because it comes at a critical juncture of bilateral ties," Zhu said before meeting with Powell.

Powell emphasized the Bush administration's desire to build "constructive, forward-looking relations" with China. "China and the United States have a strong common interest in seeing a stable Asia and a world where economies can thrive and security needs can be met," he said.

His visit came as the two countries have been working to patch up relations frayed by the April 1 collision of a U.S. Navy surveillance plane and a Chinese fighter jet, whose pilot was killed, and by China's 11-day detention of the U.S. crew. In the week before Powell arrived, China released three scholars with U.S. ties who had been arrested on espionage charges.

In separate news conferences, officials of the two countries announced a series of bilateral meetings over the next few months on economic and trade issues as well as a meeting of a joint military committee to avoid what Sun described as "accidents" near the Chinese shore. China has avoided using that word to describe the April collision, arguing that the U.S. plane deliberately rammed the Chinese fighter.

But from the U.S. perspective, the most significant developments were China's decisions to hold expert-level talks on weapons proliferation and to restart the formal human rights dialogue that was suspended after the United States bombed China's embassy in Belgrade during the NATO action against Serbia in May 1999.

China and the United States have not held talks on weapons proliferation since November 2000, when China agreed not to help other countries build missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons. U.S. diplomats have filed formal protests with the Chinese alleging that they have violated the agreement numerous times by providing missiles or missile technology to Pakistan and other countries. Sun denied that China has violated the agreement, saying, "China keeps its word."

Chinese diplomats have said they should be allowed to fulfill weapons contracts signed before the November agreement, but a senior State Department official said Powell specifically rejected that argument and "made clear that no one should think there's an out."

"There are still some outstanding issues to be resolved and some places where we don't have full agreement," Powell said, adding that the United States might refuse to allow U.S.-made satellites to be launched in China as a result.

But Powell said China's willingness to meet with U.S. experts "moved the ball forward." He said China agreed to consult with the experts as it works to establish a clear set of regulations governing the export of missile technology. China has been promising to publish such regulations for years.

"It's a small step forward, but it's an important one," said Bates Gill, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who studies the subject. "This is an area of great sensitivity to the Chinese, the extent and scope of their export control system. If they are truly prepared to open up that system to American experts, that's a pretty strong indication that the Chinese are willing to be cooperative."

China linked the issue of nonproliferation to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing considers part of its territory. Powell said the arms were for defensive purposes only, and that China's buildup of missiles in the province opposite Taiwan would only increase the island's needs and make further sales more likely.

In response, Powell said, Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan denied that there was any such missile buildup. U.S. officials said it was the only jarring exchange of the day.

Though several American citizens and permanent U.S. residents remain detained in China on a variety of charges, Powell said he did not raise any specific cases in his meetings. "I think it's more important not to focus all the time on individual cases," he said. "I was more interested in raising the whole issue of human rights and the rule of law and treating people properly."

A senior State Department official said the administration does not expect rapid change in China's practices: "No one believes you will change the behavior of 100 million bureaucrats."

But another senior State Department official said the Bush administration would press for specific actions when the dialogue resumes. He said the department wants to move the focus of the talks away from issues like village elections and rule of law projects, and instead push for greater religious freedom, the release of people jailed for "counterrevolutionary" crimes no longer on the legal books, and the release of other dissidents.

China has jailed many people for religious reasons, including many Catholic priests and bishops loyal to the Vatican rather than to the official Communist Party-run church. The idea of freeing people convicted of counterrevolutionary crimes came up before President Clinton visited in 1998. It is not known how many people fall in that category, but U.S. officials believe it could run into the hundreds or low thousands.

----

Powell: China Seeks Stronger Ties

By George Gedda
Associated Press Writer
Sunday, July 29, 2001; 1:33 p.m. EDT
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/20010729/aponline133338_000.htm

CANBERRA, Australia -- Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday that China, eager for strong U.S. relations, wants to keep tensions over Taiwan at a minimum and also to avoid a repeat of the April 1 spy plane incident.

Arriving in the Australian capital after talks with Chinese leaders in Beijing, Powell said China has cut back on aggressive pursuit tactics that led to the midair collision four months ago off the Chinese coast. The incident severely strained U.S. relations with China for months.

Powell said China's conciliatory posture reflects the importance those leaders attach to close ties with Washington, primarily because of the crucial U.S. role in China's economic development.

"They have every incentive to put it (the relationship) back on the right track with us," he said, noting that 40 percent of China's exports go to the United States.

Powell is on the last leg of a five-nation tour of Asia-Pacific countries that concludes Monday with talks on security issues. Joining him in Australia is Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

While the two sides are supposed to hold annual discussions, there were no meetings in 2000, and Powell said it was doubly important that they take place this year. Australia has been a defense treaty ally for 50 years.

On Saturday, Powell met with Chinese President Jiang Zemin and other top leaders. The two sides agreed to hold consultations on trade, human rights and China's exports of sensitive technology, among other issues.

On Taiwan, Powell summed up the attitude of China's leaders by saying: "Let's not let this situation get out of control. Let's talk to each other. Let's consult and make sure everybody understands the volatility of the Taiwan issue."

The secretary registered concern with the leaders over what he described as a Chinese military buildup across from Taiwan. He said Chinese officials denied any such activity.

The United States has a keen interest in Taiwan because a China-Taiwan conflict can lead to U.S. military involvement on Taiwan's behalf.

In 1996, China fired missiles across the Taiwan Strait toward Taiwan. As a result, the United States to send two aircraft carriers to the area.

In the April 1 incident, a Chinese fighter plane collided with a U.S. EP-3E surveillance plane off the China coast, forcing the American aircraft to make an emergency landing on China's Hainan island. The Chinese pilot was killed.

In the months before the incident, Chinese jets repeatedly harassed the slower American reconnaissance planes, reflecting Chinese displeasure over the U.S. information gathering activities.

The United States has since resumed the reconnaissance flights and urged China to call off the pursuit tactics because they endangered young pilots from both countries, Powell said.

He said China apparently is paying heed to U.S. appeals. "We haven't seen anything like the kind of things we saw before," Powell said, referring to the China's pursuit of the U.S. planes.

The one issue still pending is reimbursement of China for services rendered during the three months the EP-3E plane was on Chinese soil. The Bush administration considers the $1 million bill presented by China to be excessive. Powell said he believes the issue will be resolved shortly.

He said in Beijing that military-to-military exchanges with China, suspended after the reconnaissance flight incident, may be resumed in a modified fashion.

Before leaving China, Powell was asked during an interview by Chinese Central Television whether it was appropriate for the United States to lecture China on human rights and other issues.

Powell replied, according to an official transcript, that there are international standards which, if China adhered to them, would benefit the nation.

"We point fingers at ourselves," Powell said. "America is a country that has had its problems over the years with respect to human rights. I am a perfect example of it. As a black man 40 years ago, it would have been unthinkable for me to dream about becoming secretary of state but here I am."

----

Russia, China and What's Really on the Table

By Constantine C. Menges
Sunday, July 29, 2001; Page B02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64193-2001Jul28?language=printer

Russian President Vladimir Putin's surprise agreement last week to begin a discussion with the United States on offensive and defensive strategic nuclear forces was widely praised. And indeed, it was good news. Putin's willingness to talk might in time produce the "new framework for peace" that President Bush seeks -- although, as national security adviser Condoleezza Rice correctly cautioned, talking does not guarantee final agreement.

But it was only part of a larger picture. This is the same Putin who on July 16 signed a treaty of cooperation with Chinese President Jiang Zemin at their summit in Moscow. While the treaty states that it "is not aimed at any third country," it explicitly seeks to promote a "new international order." This is the phrase China and Russia use to describe international politics when the United States no longer has or seeks what they call "unilateral military and security advantages." Since their first meeting a year ago, Putin and Jiang have met eight times to coordinate what the new treaty describes as their "work together to preserve the global strategic balance."

The two events clearly illustrate a dual-track strategy of Russia and China toward the United States. That strategy should worry the White House.

First, the two countries maintain a sense of normal relations with the United States and other democracies so that they will continue providing China and Russia with vitally needed economic benefits. (Bush noted that he and Putin had also discussed "economic cooperation" and that he would send Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill to Moscow "to discuss a wide range of topics." These might include concessions on Russia's $150 billion foreign debt. Meanwhile, China's yearly trade surplus with the United States is about $85 billion -- and growing.)

Second, Russia and China are using mostly political and covert means to oppose the United States on security issues and to divide America from its allies. This was the preferred KGB approach when Putin served there (1975-1991), and this has been China's approach during the Jiang years.

This month's China-Russia summit followed a little-noticed agreement signed on June 15 by the presidents of China, Russia and four former Soviet Central Asian republics establishing a political-military coalition, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Jiang called it the "Shanghai Pact," perhaps intending to evoke the former Warsaw Pact. He said that these six countries had agreed on political, military and intelligence cooperation for the purpose of "cracking down on terrorism, separatism, extremism" and to maintain "regional security." Moscow said the agreement would improve "global security." Then, for the first time in its history, China agreed to participate in joint military exercises, with its fellow Shanghai Pact members this fall.

Together, the Shanghai Pact countries have a population of 1.5 billion; they control thousands of strategic and tactical nuclear weapons, and this combined conventional military forces number 3.6 million. Iran, Mongolia and Turkmenistan hope to join the pact soon. They would add another 78 million people and bring the combined military forces to nearly 4.2 million.

Such an arrangement could grant protection to Iran, which continues to support terrorist attacks against Israel and other states. Iran recently sent 8,000 katyusha rockets to Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon. Iran could also link the Shanghai Pact with the Middle East, where Russia and China already provide political and military support to Syria, Libya and Iraq -- three former Soviet allies that might also be welcomed into the pact.

In addition, Putin reportedly hopes that India will join, while China would like Pakistan to participate. If all these countries became part of the Shanghai group, it would include 40 percent of the world's population and could still be open to North Korea, Cuba and the pro-Castro Chavez regime in Venezuela, which in May became a "strategic partner" of China and of Iran.

Judging by its initial public response, the Bush administration may believe that these new treaties are nothing more than symbolic acts -- or it simply may not have taken the time to explore this issue fully. The July treaty, according toState Department spokesmanRichard Boucher, "is a treaty of friendship, not an alliance. It doesn't have mutual defense in it or anything like that."

That view ignores two facts: first, mutual defense is implicit in the treaty, which states that "if a threat of aggression arises," the two sides "will immediately hold consultations in order to eliminate the emerging threat"; and second, China and Russia have another agreement for mutual defense in the Shanghai Pact, a point well made by a senior Chinese official who said candidly that the July treaty did not explicitly include military cooperation "because we have ample agreements on that issue."

The new China-Russia treaty marks a complete turnabout from 1992 and 1993, when the previous president George Bush and Russian president Boris Yeltsin met three times and agreed on the need for changes in the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 to permit missile defense against third states. Back then, Russia spoke of strategic partnership with the United States and kept communist China at a distance. After 1996, because of pressures from communists and ultra-nationalists in Russia and the failure of the Clinton administration to follow through on some of the Yeltsin-Bush initiatives, Russia and Chinaformed a strategic partnership, which China steered increasingly in an anti-U.S. direction. Putin has said this month's China-Russia treaty was Jiang's idea, and it seems clear that the Shanghai group was as well.

Over the past five years, the China-Russia alignment has had many negative effects on the United States. Russia has accepted much of China's anti-U.S. world view, and the relationship with China has strengthened authoritarian tendencies within Russia. The two countries have frequently issued joint statements opposing missile defense for the United States or its Asian allies. And the Russia-U.S. discussions proposed in Genoa are unlikely to change that. Moreover, Russia has sold about $18 billion in advanced weapons to China; some $30 billion more are scheduled for the next four years, all aimed at U.S. forces in the Pacific. Chinese and Russian aid to Iran, Libya and North Korea includes expertise and components for weapons of mass destruction and expertise.

Evidence of the potential new military risks to Washington and its alliescame this past February in the form of Russian military exercises that included large-scale simulated nuclear and conventional attacks against U.S. military units "opposing" a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, according to a report based on U.S. intelligence published in the Washington Times.

But significant challenge to the United States, at least early on, is more likely to come fromChinese-Russian political and covert actions aimed at reducing Washington's international role. Consider the recent defeat of the U.S. proposal for "smart sanctions" against Iraq: First China extracted economic concessions from Washington in return for not using its veto in the U.N. Security Council to stop the U.S. plan. Then Russia stepped in with a veto.

Broader examples of Russian-Chinese political cooperation may well include actions to oppose or delay U.S. missile defense plans; to intimidate and lure Taiwan into accepting China's terms; to continue the North Korean partial or pseudo-normalization; and to use Chinese economic opportunities for financially pressed Japanese businesses, in tandem with the possibility of Russian territorial concessions, to persuade Japan to begin moving away from its U.S. security alliance.

Two months ago, Russian and Chinese officials announced they would coordinate policy toward Colombia and Cuba.Russia and China have political and military relations with Cuba as well as electronic monitoring bases aimed at the United States. This joint policy might well include more help for Castro as he works with the Chavez regime to support anti-U.S. radical groups seeking to take power in Colombia and other Latin American countries, now even more fragile due to the global economic slowdown. Jiang and Putin might see this as a way of keeping the United States occupied near its borders and less involved in Eurasia.

The Clinton administration ignored early signs of strategic cooperation between Beijing and Moscow. There is no need for a public sense of crisis at this stage, but the Bush administration should avoid repeating that mistake. It should give the China-Russia axis its immediate attention.

Constantine Menges, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, was special assistant for national security affairs to President Reagan and is the author of the forthcoming "The United States, Russia and China: Geopolitics in the New Century."

-------- us nuc waste

To Russia with love and $15bn
The US answer to worries about what Moscow might do with its radioactive rubbish is simple - send it more

Inside corporate America
Gregory Palast Observer
Guardian Unlimited
Sunday July 29, 2001
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4230068,00.html

Here's a hot idea: why don't we send 10,000 tonnes of high level uranium waste to Russia? You'd rather not? Not until you buy your lead suit?

OK, we send 10,000 tons of radioactive garbage to Russia and throw in $15 billion for Vladimir Putin. For this, Putin solemnly promises to store the potential bomb-making material safely and keep it out of the hands of Iranians and the IRA.

Just when I thought the Bush administration had adopted every crack-brained idea that could threaten Mother Earth, along comes another. The send-uranium-to-Russia scheme is the creation of something called the Non-Proliferation Trust (NPT) a Washington group that grew out of 'extensive dialogue with the arms control and environmental communities'.

If by 'arms control community' you're thinking Greenpeace, you're wide of the mark. The chairman of NPT is Admiral Daniel Murphy, once deputy director of the CIA and Bush Senior's chief of staff. The other seven executives include the former director of the CIA, two nuclear industry executives, a former Nixon administration insider, a general who commanded the US Marines, a top Masonic official and one certified greenie tree-hugger.

It may not be your typical save-the-world line-up, but their idea is worth a hearing. Russia has a huge 'hot' pile of 'fissile material' - bomb fixings and old nuclear plant rods - in polluted Siberian towns whose very names, like Chilyabinsk-14, sound radioactive. NPT's idea is that if we send Russia even more radioactive garbage, plus some cash, Russia will have the means and obligation to store theirs, and ours, safely.

This month the scheme got a big boost when the Duma, pressured by Putin, abolished a Russian law barring the nation from importing most foreign nuclear waste.

NPT's assemblage of ex-spooks and militarists (and their lone green) control the operation through three non-profit trusts. But non-profit doesn't mean no gain.

This self-described charity will pay a British-American dealmaker, Alex Copson, some unidentified percentage of the deal. NPT has been reluctant to give details of Copson's potential gain from the success of NPT - it took several calls and pointed questions - possibly because the polo-and-sports-car aficionado with the posh accent lacks the diplomatic gloss appropriate to this sensitive enterprise. Copson notoriously described the natives of the Marshall Islands 'fat, lazy, fucks' when they nixed one of his nuke dump schemes. Copson is kept well away from NPT's Russian operations.

Contractors will share a few billion, including a German power consortium, Gesellschaft für Nuklear-Behalter (GNB). Dr Klaus Janberg of GNB is director of NPT International.

But the real winner, should NPT succeed, would be the moribund nuclear industry. Bush may want to bring nuclear power back from the crypt, but there is one huge obstacle: waste.

Used fuel disposal can cost more than the reactor itself - and no one wants it in their back yard. At $15bn, dumping in Russia is a bargain. And since Russia is already a nuclear toilet, who would notice a little more hot crud?

Russia's environmentalists noticed, and didn't like it. But objections from Russia's Ecological Union are smothered by the endorsement by the nuclear issues director of America's richest environment group, the Natural Resources Defense Council. NRDC's Thomas Cochrane, sits on the board of NPT's MinAtom Trust, painting the project a deep shade of green.

What on Mother Earth drove the NRDC to promote NPT? The Washington-based Non-Profit Accountability Project has a theory. Director Bernardo Issel has sent me a copy of NPT's May 1999 draft, 'Long-term Fissile Materials Safeguards and Security Project'. On page 18, one finds arrangements for a $200m Russian 'environmental reclamation fund' to be administered by the NRDC for a fee of up to 10 per cent of expenditures, a cool $20m. Cochrane insists that NRDC would never accept such a role. An NPT spokesman says this clause has been removed from the new contract. It would be wrong to see this as another case of greens selling out for greenbacks. NRDC's Cochrane is as straight a shooter as you'll ever meet.

The problem here is not payola but philosophy. NRDC represents the new wave of environmental organisations enchanted with market mechanisms, mesmerised by can-do entrepreneurs, and sold on the pleasant, if naive, idea that the profit motive can be bent to the public good.

NRDC and other pro-market environmentalists are always on the hunt for what their god in human form, Amory Lovins, calls 'win-win' cases, in which corporate interests and the environment both gain.

The NPT scheme is the quintessential public-private partnership that business greens find irresistible. For Cochrane, the attraction of the dumping scheme is NPT's promise to provide billions to clean up radioactive hell-holes such as Lake Karachay. It has also promised $50m for the Russian Orphans Fund.

Environmental clean-up, non-proliferation and orphans. How could Russia's green activists turn away? The answer, says Vladimir Slivyak of Russia's Social Ecological Union, is MinAtom, Russia's ministry of atomic industries. This is, of course, the agency that created the nuclear mess in the first place. Can MinAtom be trusted to safely handle the nuclear fuel and faithfully use the billions for environmental clean-up - not to mention orphans?

As soon as I heard the name 'MinAtom', I ran to my notes of The Observer's interview earlier this year with Joseph Stiglitz, one-time chief of Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers. During a tea break, the economist told me about an incident at the White House that disturbs him to this day.

In 1995, the Clinton administration privatised the US Enrichment Corporation, Usec. This turned out to be not very efficient at enriching uranium, but exceptionally efficient at enriching several of Clinton's associates. The law firm that defended Clinton in the Gennifer Flowers lawsuit picked up $15m for work leading to Usec's flotation.

Clinton's buddies at Usec promised their corporation would purchase and bring to the US all the enriched uranium that MinAtom could send. As with NPT, the sales pitch was that private industry, by taking over the government's enrichment processing plants, could reduce the amount of potential bomb-making material in Russia's hands - at no cost to the US treasury. Another public-private win-win.

But Stiglitz smelt a rat. As a hard-nosed economist, he couldn't fathom how a profit-making corporation could agree to take in unlimited amounts of uranium stock when the price of the finished product had few buyers.

The answer was it couldn't. In 1996, Stiglitz arrived at the White House to find an interesting document dropped on his desk: a memo indicating that MinAtom had demanded Usec take double the amount of uranium originally projected. Usec quietly arranged a payment to MinAtom of $50m to delay the costly deliveries. Stiglitz calls it 'hush money' - which forever soured him on public-private schemes. Usec says it was a legitimate pre-payment for the hot crud. However one describes it, MinAtom was more than happy to play along, for a price.

Yet NPT tells us MinAtom and US private enterprise can now form a trustworthy partnership to safeguard nuclear material for the next few millennia. At first, this puzzled me: NPT's board is led by the CIA and military men who pushed Star Warson the premise that Russia has probably let slip nuclear material to unnamed 'rogue states'.

But I think I've solved this puzzling conundrum. What we have here is the ultimate, green recycling programme: NPT ships America's uranium to the Russians, who lose track of it and some is slipped to Fanatistan or wherever, which returns it to the US perched atop an intercontinental ballistic missile, which is shot down by the trillion-dollar Star Wars system. Win-win for everyone.

gregory.palast@observer.co.uk

-------- MILITARY

Pentagon rates N. Korea, Iraq as top threats

July 29, 2001
By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010729-93585441.htm

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz says the Pentagon sees North Korea and Iraq as the leading military threats to the United States in the near future.

"Wars might happen tomorrow in Korea and Iraq," Mr. Wolfowitz said in a pretaped interview on CNN's "Evans, Novak, Hunt & Shields" that aired yesterday.

But he made it clear the Department of Defense views North Korea as the more serious threat, given the United States' defeat of Iraq in the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

"We face enormous conventional threats from North Korea," the department's second-in-command said, before being interrupted by one of the show's hosts.

Mr. Wolfowitz also identified the Middle East as a possible flash-point in the near-term. "Iraq is still a potent force. If the United States weren't there, Saddam Hussein could be in Riyadh [Saudi Arabia] tomorrow," he said.

"But we know what Iraq can do. We fought that war. We know their weaknesses. We know our strengths," Mr. Wolfowitz said.

In fact, he said, the United States "overestimated what we needed against Saddam Hussein" in the Gulf war, with one major exception.

That exception, said Mr. Wolfowitz, was this country's inability to "shoot down those primitive Scud missiles" launched by Iraq that "killed 24 Americans [in a military barrack] in Dhahran" and "that almost dragged Israel into the war."

"The one place where [Saddam] had more capability than we ever imagined was his ability to keep launching ballistic missiles," the deputy defense secretary said.

More than a decade after Operation Desert Storm, Mr. Wolfowitz said, the United States has "finally developed" the methodology to defend against Scud missiles."

"We're now developing means to intercept the faster missiles that would come in at intercontinental ranges," he said.

The Bush administration is seeking congressional approval of a limited national missile defense system to counter possible missile attacks from "rogue states." Many Democrats oppose the plan, fearing it would spark an arms race.

However, some leading Democrats have said they may withdraw their opposition because of an agreement reached last week between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two men agreed to enter negotiations that could remove a major international stumbling block to development of a multilayered missile defense program. If the negotiations are successful, it would free the United States and Russia from constraints imposed under the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty they signed in 1972.

The ABM Treaty outlaws the United States and the now defunct Soviet Union from building missile defense systems. But Russia now says it would let the United States employ a missile shield if the United States would reduce its offensive nuclear weapons stockpiles.

In the CNN interview, Mr. Wolfowitz was asked about claims made by some critics that the missile defense system Mr. Bush envisions might wind up costing $100 billion.

"The problem is we're in a development phase. ... Until we know what works and what doesn't work, I can't give you cost estimates," Mr. Wolfowitz said.

Nevertheless, he said: "These notions that the missile defense is going to cost hundreds of billions of dollars are figments of people's imagination."

Mr. Wolfowitz said he recognizes "it's going to be a battle" to get Congress to approve the $18.4 billion in added Pentagon spending the White House is seeking next year. The Pentagon brass wanted an additional $30 billion.

He listed readiness training, dealing with infrastructure problems, boosting military pay and investing in missile defense as top spending priorities for the Pentagon.

"As long as we were constrained by the ABM Treaty, we were limited from doing those things which would allow us to do missile defense most efficiently," Mr. Wolfowitz said.

-------- balkans

DNA Database May Unite Balkans

New York Times
July 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Balkans-DNA-Detectives.html?searchpv=aponline

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) -- Divided by war, Bosnia, Croatia and Yugoslavia may be united by death through a DNA database intended to help identify the remains of tens of thousands of victims of the bloody Balkan conflicts.

Scientists say the genetic sleuthing techniques -- which will compare DNA drawn from survivors with DNA extracted from bones unearthed from mass graves -- can help put names to the bagged bodies stacked in refrigerated rooms and the bits of bone stored in plastic 35-millimeter film containers.

The International Commission on Missing Persons wants the expanding database to serve as a ``warehouse of DNA information'' bridging the borders and mistrust separating the three nations, said Ed Huffine, director of the commission's DNA program.

``It's important because families who are missing family members very often live in different countries now from where the body is going to be recovered,'' Huffine said, citing the many ethnic Serbs who fled Bosnia and reside in neighboring Yugoslavia.

The bodies are the legacy of the wars that rocked the region between 1991 and 1999.

Last week, the commission took a major step in breaking down borders, signing an agreement with U.N. officials to allow investigators to collect blood and bone samples in Kosovo.

A preliminary agreement also is in place for the commission to work with existing labs in Croatia, and talks are under way in Yugoslavia -- where mass graves containing the bodies of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo are being unearthed -- to launch a program there within two months, Huffine said.

So far, the focus has been on Bosnia, where an estimated 30,000 are missing nearly six years after the war's end.

The magnitude of the problem is most apparent in Tuzla, where 4,419 body bags stacked in refrigerated rooms serve as grim reminders of the Srebrenica massacre that left 8,000 men and boys dead when the Muslim enclave fell to Serb soldiers in 1995.

Once stored in tunnels under the city, the remains were moved to their temporary resting place last year, but ``unfortunately, all is filled up already,'' said Rifat Kesetovic, the commission's chief forensic pathologist.

Scientists have tried to identify the remains using traditional forensic techniques, but so far that has yielded only 124 identifications. Many dental and medical records were destroyed in the war, and much physical evidence has deteriorated over time and exposure to the elements.

In addition, ``there was a deliberate attempt to mask evidence of crimes,'' with bodies unearthed from mass graves, moved, and reburied, leaving scattered remains, said Brenda Kennedy, the commission's forensic program director.

Now scientists are turning to nuclear and mitochondrial DNA analysis for help.

Nuclear DNA varies widely among individuals because half is inherited from the mother and half from the father. If both parents donate blood, it's easy to make a match. But nuclear DNA quickly deteriorates.

Mitochondrial DNA remains better preserved. ``It can be used for very damaged and very old specimens,'' Huffine said.

Because it is passed down through the maternal line, any relative from the mother's side of the family is a match.

In less than a year, more than 12,000 people have donated a pinprick of blood for the project. Investigators hope about 60,000 more will step forward.

``Once they have at least 100,000 samples, then we can expect that almost every body we find can be identified,'' said Amor Masovic, who heads the Muslim Commission for Missing People in Bosnia. ``One day, every result will be positive.''

In June, scientists in Tuzla began extracting DNA from the blood. The DNA is repeatedly replicated and then sequenced.

At a new lab scheduled to open in Sarajevo next month, sections of bone from the victims -- now stored in plastic 35-millimeter film containers -- will be pulverized and the DNA extracted and sequenced to compare with the blood sample results.

A third lab, planned to open later this year in the Bosnian Serb administrative center of Banja Luka, will do blood and bone analysis in cases where a tentative identification already has been made.

Ivan Gruic, head of Croatia's missing persons office, said remains of more than 3,000 Croats have been exhumed from mass graves in his country, and 80 percent have been identified, primarily using traditional forensic techniques.

About 1,500 Croats remain missing, as well as 1,000 ethnic Serbs.

Gruic is unenthusiastic about the new database. If Croatia needs information from other countries, ``there are bilateral agreements that enable us to get it,'' he said.

But in Kosovo, the commission's work is seen as a boon.

Susan Manuel, spokeswoman for the U.N.'s Kosovo mission, said war crimes tribunal experts exhumed the bodies of about 4,000 Kosovo Albanians, and about two-thirds have been identified.

For the 1,200 who remain unidentified, ``we're counting on it (DNA testing) to solve a lot of the mysteries,'' she said.

-------- colombia

EPA Stalled Resolution on Spraying in Colombia
Agent Orange, All Over Again

Village Voice
Week of July 25 - 31, 2001
Mondo Washington
by James Ridgeway
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0130/ridgeway.shtml

Washington, D.C.-For seven months, the Environmental Protection Agency sat on a call to investigate the coca-defoliation program in Colombia. Presented by one of the agency's own internal boards, the letter asked for a study of harm to people and the environment posed by the U.S.-backed spraying of Roundup Ultra, a chemical critics compare to Agent Orange.

When the resolution was proposed at a December 10 meeting of the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council, "there was a lot of eye rolling and clearing of throats among the EPA members," said one government employee. No one from EPA "thought it had a snowball's chance in hell" of reaching administrator Christie Whitman's desk.

Those EPA members may seem jaded, but for a long while they also appeared to be right. President Bush has kept the agency hamstrung, forcing it to do an about-face on global warming and to relax water-quality standards. Now the president is seeking yet more funding for Plan Colombia, which is supposed to cut off the supply of cocaine on the streets of New York by halving the 300,000 acres of coca fields in Colombia over five years. The U.S. has pledged $1.3 billion in this fiscal year to support the $7.5 billion scheme with army anti-narcotics training and helicopters.

So far, the attack hasn't worked. Over 38,000 hectares have been sprayed since this year alone, but coca production is shifting to other parts of Colombia and spreading into Ecuador. The program has become the pretext for a Vietnam-style counterinsurgency in which U.S.-trained units of the Colombian army link up with paramilitary death squads in a bloody drive against guerrillas. U.S. Special Forces, who are doing the training, are kept out of the fighting, but U.S. civilian contractors who fly the spray planes have been reported in the thick of firefights.

Meanwhile, the peasantry are getting drenched with Roundup Ultra. In one EPA study published in 1993, California doctors reported that the herbicide's active ingredient, glyphosate, ranked third out of 25 chemicals that caused harm to humans. Some observers say the aircraft blitzing Colombian coca fields are flying at too great a height to ensure surrounding villages and farms are kept safe from the spray. Lower flights would court direct hits by rebel troops.

"Our concern is the longevity of the effects of the spraying: If the farmers can't plant, they can't grow or eat," said Alberto Saldamando, general counsel of the San Francisco-based International Indian Treaty Council, who drafted the resolution. "This is going to affect the whole agricultural economy. We think it's a very serious health-damaging case. We are talking about indigenous people. They are poor; they are not aware of what can happen to their health."

After being approved at the board meeting, the request for an investigation went to the agency's Office of Environmental Justice, a sort of clearing house and rewrite operation for advisory-group resolutions before they are sent up to the administrator. Sure enough, the letter disappeared amid complaints it was full of typographical errors.

It never reached the outgoing Clinton administrator, Carol Browner, and the issue was temporarily set aside as Bush took control of the White House. Next, the letter was kicked over to the Office of International Activities, where bureaucrats argued pro and con.

Eventually the resolution was sent back to the advisory board for its approval. There it sat. Peggy Shepard, executive director of the West Harlem Environmental Action and chair of the board, said Monday she only got the letter two weeks ago. She then cleaned it up and forwarded it to Whitman. "The letter was not withheld," she explained. "I simply did not sign it because I thought it was weak grammatically and lacking factually and needed to be fixed." As for Whitman's expected response, Shepard said, "We have no idea. We have not had any interaction with the administrator since she's been appointed."

Roundup is sold widely in the U.S., and the EPA says it's safe for most commercial uses. According to the State Department's Web site, glyphosate is less toxic than common salt, aspirin, caffeine, nicotine, and vitamin A. In a report sent to the House Appropriations Committee in January, the State Department, with the concurrence of the EPA, claimed that "there are no grounds to suggest a concern for human health."

But in a 1996 out-of-court settlement, the manufacturer Monsanto admitted to certain reservations about such glyphosate-based herbicides. Monsanto withdrew claims that Roundup is "safe, nontoxic, harmless, or free from risk," and signed a statement, saying absolute claims that Roundup "will not wash or leach in the soil" aren't accurate. Roundup Ultra, the product used in Colombia, is a concoction boosted by other powerful chemicals manufactured by ICI and Exxon.

Sources within the agency doubt that Whitman will support the proposal to study the effects of Roundup on civilians and the environment. An EPA spokesman acknowledged that Whitman's deputy administrator, Linda Fisher, is a former Monsanto vice president, but said the EPA has no role in the spraying.

"We do not govern the use of Roundup in another country," the spokesman said. "Anything we say about the use of chemicals in another country is only speculation because we have no authority to check what they're doing."

For critics, the need for some kind of check is clear. "We demonstrated concern over Roundup that was being used without warning or telling people what was in it," Saldamando recalled. "There is a lack of public awareness in the U.S. and especially in Colombia. Children become sick and adults start getting rashes."

Plan Colombia has a short but dubious history. In 1999, the General Accounting Office concluded that "U.S. and Colombian efforts to eradicate enough coca and opium poppy to reduce the net cultivation of these crops have not succeeded to date." Despite fumigating 65,938 hectares of Colombian coca in 1998, the office wrote, the total number of hectares of coca under cultivation in Colombia grew from 101,800 to 122,500.

Defoliation merely sends production elsewhere. Successful eradication programs in Bolivia and Peru in the 1990s led to a sharp rise in production in Colombia. "The pattern has been that fumigation 'chases' coca cultivation from one area to another, while overall cultivation levels rise," noted a report last month from the Washington Office on Latin America. Fumigation does result in a short-term increase in coca prices, but, according to the Drug Enforcement Agency, hasn't caused any change in the price of cocaine in the U.S. And while the military aspects of the plan have been in full effect, promised alternative assistance to farmers has not begun, the report said.

Democratic congresswoman Jan Schakowsky, who represents the Chicago suburbs, is offering a measure-along with Democrats John Conyers of Detroit and Cynthia McKinney of suburban Atlanta-to stop funding for the fumigation project. In February, Schakowsky took a fact-finding mission to Putumayo Province, where she met with health ministers, governors, mayors, and police, all of whom reported Roundup's devastating effects.

"People told of rashes and intestinal problems," Schakowsky said. "There is an increasing number of internally displaced humans. It has destroyed legal crops and livelihood."

As for the overall effectiveness of the program, said the congresswoman, "We've seen no change in the availability or price of cocaine. Coca production simply moves. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that if demand is strong you move your operation. Fumigation is never going to get ahead of that."

Additional reporting: Ariston-Lizabeth Anderson and Sandra Bisin

-------- iraq

Rice: US Will Be Resolute With Iraq

New York Times
July 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/news/AP-US-Iraq.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush's national security adviser put Saddam Hussein on notice Sunday that the United States intends a more resolute military policy toward Iraq.

The warning from Condoleezza Rice came days after an Iraqi surface-to-air missile was fired at an American surveillance plane.

``Saddam Hussein is on the radar screen for the administration,'' Rice told CNN's ``Late Edition.'' ``The administration is working hard with a number of our friends and allies to have a policy that ... looks at use of military force in a more resolute manner, and not just a manner of tit-for-tat with him every day.''

She said the policy also will examine the use of economic sanctions so that their effects will be felt by the regime rather than the Iraqi people, and that the policy will have a role for opposition forces within Iraq.

Last Wednesday, a U.S. U-2 plane was fired upon, but was not hit. The intelligence aircraft was flying as part of Operation Southern Watch, a U.S.-British operation patrolling ``no-fly'' zones over Iraq.

Rice said the president ``has reserved the right to respond'' when the threat from Saddam ``becomes one that he wishes no longer to tolerate.''

She added, ``I think it's always best not to speculate about the grounds or the circumstances under which one would do that.''

The allied operation, in place since the Gulf War ended in 1991, is designed to protect Kurdish and Shiite groups from government forces. Iraq disputes the legitimacy of the flight-interdiction operations and regularly contests U.S. and British patrols by firing missiles and artillery guns.

Less than a week before, the crew of a Navy E2-C surveillance aircraft flying in Kuwaiti airspace reported seeing the plume of a surface-to-air missile fired from inside Iraq. That plane also was not hit.

--------

Bush Aide Says Saddam Is on U.S. 'Radar Scope'

Sunday July 29
Reuters
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20010729/ts/iraq_usa_dc_4.html

WASHINGTON - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is on the U.S. ``radar scope'' and the Bush administration will use military force against his government in a ``more resolute manner'' than in the past, a top U.S. official said on Sunday.

The official, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, declined to speculate on when President Bush might order an attack against Iraq, which last week nearly missed shooting down a high-flying U.S. U-2 spy plane.

``But I can be certain of this and the world can be certain of this: Saddam Hussein is on the radar screen for the administration,'' she said on CNN's ``Late Edition'' program.

The administration is working with friends and allies to craft a broad policy toward Iraq that among other things looks at the use of ``military force in a more resolute manner and not just a manner of tit-for-tat with them every day,'' she said.

Bush last week said Saddam remained a menace and a threat to U.S. and international security a decade after the Gulf War. Rice said the U.S. president ``has reserved the right to respond when that threat becomes one that he wishes no longer to tolerate.''

U.S. and British warplanes have been patrolling no-fly zones over Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War, when Baghdad was ousted from Kuwait by a U.S.-led coalition.

Iraq was banned from using all aircraft, including helicopters, in the air exclusion zones.

The zones were set up by Western powers to protect minority Kurds and Shiites in Iraq from attack by Saddam's military.

No allied aircraft have been lost, although the Iraqi military has repeatedly fired anti-aircraft guns and missiles at the warplanes, which have responded by dropping bombs and firing missiles at Iraqi air defense sites.

-------- israel

Israeli police, Muslims battle at Jerusalem mosque

USA TODAY
07/29/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/world/2001/07/29/mosque.htm

JERUSALEM (AP) - Hundreds of Israeli police on Sunday stormed the mosque compound that is Jerusalem's most contested religious site and tossed stun grenades at Muslims who were throwing stones at Jews worshipping at the nearby Western Wall.

At least 15 policemen and 10 Palestinians were injured inside the hilltop compound, the site where the current round of Israeli-Palestinian violence erupted 10 months ago during a similar confrontation.

The compound contains two mosques and is the third holiest site in Islam, known as the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims. The compound is built atop the ruins of the two biblical Jewish temples, the holiest site in Judaism, known as the Temple Mount to Jews.

The day's first confrontation took place when the large police contingent blocked about 30 members of an ultranationalist Jewish group from marching on the mosque compound.

Shortly afterward, Muslims inside the compound began throwing stones, bricks and bottles at hundreds of Jews praying down below at the Western Wall, which forms one exterior wall of the compound.

Many of the Jews, both men and women, fled the barrage, with some holding plastic chairs or prayer shawls over their heads for protection. The stone-throwing prompted police to rush inside.

"We're here to prevent the throwing of stones on Jewish worshippers," Jerusalem police chief Mickey Levy, who joined the operation, told Army radio. He said about 400 policemen took part, tossing stun grenades at the Muslims, driving most of them back inside the mosques.

"The Palestinians were just looking for an excuse for a party," Levy said. "I really hope the Palestinians will not try to ignite things again."

The operation took less than two minutes, he added. However, a tense standoff ensued, and the police remained inside the compound, though they did not enter either of the two mosques.

Because the compound is so sensitive, any incidents at the site can spark a much larger conflagration between Israelis and Palestinians.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited the mosque area last Sept. 28 - he was the main opposition leader at the time - and provoked outrage among Muslims. Violence broke out the next day when police clashed with Muslims inside the compound.

Tensions were running high Sunday, the Jewish holy day of Tisha B'Av, when observant Jews mark the destruction of Jewish temples at the site in the years 586 B.C. and 70 A.D.

Police were deployed by the hundreds to block the ultranationalist Jews, the Temple Mount Faithful, from reaching the compound and planting a cornerstone for a future Jewish temple.

In a compromise, police permitted the group to hold a short ceremony in a nearby parking lot outside the walls of Jerusalem's Old City.

After the ceremony, the cornerstone was taken from the area in a bid to ease tensions. The Temple Mount Faithful demonstrated near a gate leading to the mosques, but the much larger police force easily turned them back.

Muslim groups had called for worshippers to come to the mosques in large numbers, and several thousand turned out to prevent any attempt by Jews to enter the compound.

Ibrahim Sarsour, an Arab Israeli and leader of the Islamic Movement, warned that any radical Jews forcing their way onto the mosque compound would provoke a confrontation.

"If, God forbid, these people will break through the police blockades, we will defend the mosques with our bodies," Sarsour told Israel radio.

Israel claims sovereignty over the site, though the Waqf, an Islamic trust, has day-to-day control of the compound. Since the violence broke out, only Muslims have been allowed inside the compound.

The compound was one of the most contentious issues in the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations that collapsed amid the current fighting.

Meanwhile, two Israeli soldiers and two Palestinians were injured Sunday in an exchange of fire in the village of Surda near the West Bank city of Ramallah, according to Israel's military. The army said Palestinian gunmen opened fire, and the troops shot back.

Palestinian security instructed civilians in the area to evacuate the streets for fear of an escalation.

-------- puerto rico

Islanders to Vote on Vieques Bomb Drills

New York Times
July 29, 2001
By DAVID GONZALEZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/29/national/29VIEQ.html

VIEQUES, P.R., July 28 - The firing range that has been the make- believe battlefield for countless invasions on the eastern tip of this tiny island was silent. Instead, the only booming noises came from the bands and people who packed the town plaza Friday night and into this morning to demand that the United States Navy cease fire and leave immediately, not in May 2003 as President Bush recently announced.

The festivities were a prelude to the referendum on Sunday when Vieques residents will vote on whether the Navy should leave now, stay until 2003 or remain indefinitely. On one level, the nonbinding vote is about as real as the mock invasions that have taken place for 61 years here, since any decision rests with the United States government.

But in an atmosphere charged with the symbolism of self-determination, opponents of the Navy, who predict they will win easily, want to send an unequivocal message to Congress and President Bush. For many, Vieques's contribution to national security over the last six decades has come at the expense of land, jobs and health.

"How many more people will be affected?" said Ismael Guadalupe, a leader in the anti-Navy movement. "The Navy has destroyed our natural resources. We have to stop it now. It is necessary to have our land in our hands. It is an act of immorality to continue bombing for however long it may be."

Sunday's ballot, in which almost two-thirds of the island's 9,300 residents are expected to vote, is not the referendum that had been expected. An accord between President Bill Clinton and former Gov. Pedro J. Rosselló provided $40 million in economic development aid and a referendum, scheduled for November. But Puerto Rico's new governor, Sila María Calderón, called for a referendum this weekend as part of her campaign pledge to evict the Navy.

Ms. Calderón, who is the leader of the pro-Commonwealth party that supports the island's current status, which confers United States citizenship on Puerto Ricans but does not give them the right to vote in presidential elections, said the November referendum would be unfair. She said it would give voters only the choices of stopping the Navy military training on Vieques in 2003 or continuing indefinitely in exchange for $50 million in additional aid, but it shut out the option of an immediate withdrawal.

"I made a commitment to the people of Vieques to let them express themselves with three options," she said. "This may not have the force of law as in the United States, but it has a moral force and gives people a chance to express themselves freely. That is the importance of this vote, that the people's voice be heard in Puerto Rico, Washington and the entire world."

The loudest voices here in the weeks leading up to the vote have been from the opponents of the Navy, who have led vigils and protests from a makeshift village at the entrance to the firing range at Camp García. They have been there, coordinating acts of civil disobedience like trespassing, since a Puerto Rican security guard was killed in April 1999 on the range by a bomb that veered off course.

They have drawn throngs to their cause, including such well-known advocates as the Rev. Al Sharpton, the environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the labor leader Dennis Rivera of New York.

On Friday, Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, visited the island, where residents told him of their concerns over the environmental and health effects from the bombing runs.

Governor Calderón has kept her party officially out of the campaign, and she has insisted that the vote over the future of Vieques should not be politicized.

Puerto Rico's small independence movement has seen Vieques as a focal point for the larger issue of Puerto Rico's status, and they have the support of President Fidel Castro of Cuba, who welcomed a leading independence official in Havana a few months ago.

Such links have alarmed the Navy's supporters in Vieques.

"We need to save Puerto Rico from the Communists and terrorists," said Luis Sánchez, a leader of the pro-Navy faction who is also a security guard at the base. "The campaign against the Navy is directed by separatists who attack democracy and American citizenship." In recent days, fliers have circulated on the island with Mr. Castro's picture alongside that of Che Guevara and Robert Rabin, a leader of the Navy opposition.

"If the Navy leaves, we are left in the open and unprotected," said Juana Rivera, a statehood supporter who unsuccessfully ran for mayor last year. "Puerto Rico is the door to the Atlantic and the Americas. I am not going to give it to Fidel Castro on a silver platter."

Governor Calderón dismisses such talk, saying: "This is about human rights and justice for people who have been bombed for 60 years. I repudiate Fidel Castro. His government has nothing to do with this. Those who say so want to harm the people of Puerto Rico."

Political analysts agree that the Vieques vote has great resonance for Puerto Rico, which became a United States territory in 1898, at the end of the Spanish-American War.

"Vieques is a symbol for national affirmation against the United States," said Juan García Passalacqua, a political analyst. "The people have found a way to express their rejection of colonialism without having to choose between the options for political status."

On Friday night, hundreds of Navy opponents trekked up Mount Carmelo here to cheer the unfurling of the Vieques flag, a blue and white banner. As more than 50 people lifted the banner high, the Rev. Nelson López, the Catholic pastor of Vieques, sprinkled holy water and intoned a benediction.

"As we lift this flag, we lift our souls, our faith, our hope for a better Vieques without the Navy," he said. "A Vieques where people live in peace and love, developing themselves to earn their daily bread." He removed his stole and kissed it, then began a chant not taught in the seminary.

"Vieques sí!" he shouted. "Navy no!"

---

Vieques Residents Vote to End Bombing

By MICHELLE FAUL,
JULY 29, 18:09 EDT
Associated Press Writer
From: Guin <guinstigator@yahoo.com>

VIEQUES, Puerto Rico (AP) - Residents of Vieques voted overwhelmingly Sunday for the U.S. Navy to immediately stop bombing on this Puerto Rican island. The referendum is nonbinding, but the Puerto Rican government hopes it will influence Washington.

Sixty-eight percent of voters supported an end to the bombing and the Navy's withdrawal from the island that is home to its prized Atlantic range. About 30 percent voted for the Navy to stay and resume using live munitions, according to the electoral commission.

President Bush's plan to pull the Navy out of Vieques in 2003 and allow training with inert bombs to continue in the interim mustered less than 2 percent - 81 votes.

Islanders celebrated what they called ``a victory for peace in Vieques'' with whoops of joy, blaring car horns, and the waving of Puerto Rican and Vieques flags.

Puerto Rico Gov. Sila M. Calderon has said the results have no legal standing but do carry ``moral force'' that she hopes will influence the U.S. government.

But after the results were announced, the Navy said it would continue its training, due to resume on Vieques on Wednesday, and keep looking for an alternative for when it leaves the island in 2003.

``The outcome of this referendum, organized by Gov. Sila Calderon, will have no impact on the Navy or our focus,'' said Lt. Cmdr. Kate Mueller, a Washington-based Navy spokeswoman.

Dozens of people lined up outside polling stations that opened at 8 a.m. and 75 percent of the 5,900 registered voters had cast ballots within four hours, the electoral commission said.

Calderon's referendum was called to give islanders the option of asking for an immediate stop to the bombing that began six decades ago. A federal referendum scheduled for November only allows them to choose between the Bush plan and the Navy remaining indefinitely and resuming live bombing.

``From the time I was old enough to know what they were doing to my island I wanted them to leave,'' said Candido L. Felix, a carpenter, handyman and mechanic born in 1940, the year the Navy came to Vieques and appropriated two-thirds of the 18-mile-long island.

Felix blamed the Navy exercises for his poverty, Vieques' undeveloped fishing and tourism industries and the resulting split in families whose young members go to the mainland to find work.

``We want peace for Vieques and that means the Navy has to go,'' said Geraldo Vegerano, a construction worker who has to commute to neighboring Culebra island to work.

Decades of simmering resentment over the Navy's presence exploded in anger and protests after civilian guard David Sanes was killed in 1999 by two off-target bombs on the prized range.

On Sunday, not all of the Sanes' family voted to stop the bombing.

``People are afraid to come out here,'' Maria Sanes, a cousin of the victim, told the pro-Navy rally. ``But many of them are going to vote for'' the Navy to stay, she said.

The Navy says the Atlantic bombing range, which takes up one-tenth of the island on the eastern tip and is 10 miles from the biggest town, provides essential training that saves lives in combat.

Efforts to find an alternative have produced proposals for a patchwork of different sites for different types of training on the mainland all with one big drawback: nobody wants bombs dropping in their backyard.

Two weeks ago the Navy announced a program of compensation that would pay fishermen $100 for each day that bombing exercises prevent them working, and grants of up to $25,000 to start small businesses.

Many say that's too little, too late.

``If they gave me $100,000, I wouldn't take it,'' Felix said. ``All these years they never gave us anything but problems. Now they want to give us money? It's like trying to buy us.''

Anti-Navy activists say the bombing has damaged the environment and the health of islanders who say they have higher-than-normal cancer and infant mortality rates. The Navy denies causing health problems.

Supporters of the bombing warn that an anti-Navy vote could imperil relations with Washington and jeopardize $14 billion in annual federal aid.

-------- space

Congressman Proposes Space Weapon Ban
Canada critical of US space weapons

From: FlybyNews@aol.com
29 July 2001
http://www.flybynews.com/cgi-local/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid996388327,29733,

Things are shaping up in regards to the plan of action to ban space-based weapons. Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Cleveland) last Thursday announced his intention to introduce legislation to ban the weaponization of space. He declared, "We must work toward the elimination of all nuclear weapons, and an end to policies which cause this country to move toward the weaponization of space." Following a press release on these statements is an article that Canada's foreign minister stated that the U.S. plans to develop space-based weapons are dangerous. John Manley said, "I've made the point as strongly as could possibly be made that Canada is unalterably opposed to the weaponization of space.'' Manley said the U.S. plan encourages the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other responses that are unlikely good for global security. He said Canada is pushing for a treaty to ban weapons from orbit and has support from other countries.

The Global Network's support for international actions on October 13 to ban weapons in space is extremely timely. Right now 198 Organizations are endorsing this campaign, with 72 sites planned for demonstrations. Also, percolating on the side of peace, is the unlikely common interests of peace organizations and many military leaders, concerned that the Bush missile defense plan would lessen their abilities to preserve national (and international) security interests.

The UN's Outer Space Treaty was ratified by 95 States, (including the US), and signed by at least 27 additional states. You can review the "Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies" at the UN's Office of Outer Space Affairs website: http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/treat/ost/ost.html

For a scarier and more dangerous perspective, check out US Space Command's "Vision 20/20" http://www.spacecom.af.mil/usspace

To learn more on actions planned for October 13, visit the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. http://www.space4peace.org .

Please send Flyby News any press releases of any events planned on this day for peace and the banning of weapons in space.

1) Kucinich to Introduce Legislation to Ban Weaponization of Space

NEWS RELEASE July 26, 2001
CONTACT: Kathie Scarrah 202.226.8139, 703.845.2874

Kucinich to Introduce Legislation to Ban Weaponization of Space

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Cleveland) today announced his intention to introduce legislation to ban the weaponization of space. "The time has come to ban the further weaponization of space," Congressman Kucinich said. "We must work toward the elimination of all nuclear weapons, and an end to policies which cause this country to move toward the weaponization of space. I was pleased with the recent news from our neighbor to the north that Canada is ready to join an international effort to prohibit weapons in space. It is time for the United States to take the lead and end the weaponization of space."

Kucinich said the argument that supporters of weaponization use claiming our national security and commercial interests would be put at risk are fear tactics backed by greed. "We signed the ABM treaty nearly 30 years ago; which requires a reduction in strategic arms, nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament. Weaponization of space clearly violates that treaty. My bill will call for an immediate and permanent termination of research, testing, manufacturing, production and deployment of all space-based weapons systems and components by any person, agency or contractor of the U.S. government." Kucinich will introduce the Space Preservation Act of 2001 this autumn.

==

Please support Congressman Kucinich's Space Preservation Act that he plans to introduce this autumn, network this information and find addtional endorsers for October 13 to unite with the world and stop weapons in space and the expansion of the arms race; also, contact U.S. congressional representatives in support of such proposed legislation to transform from the direction of war to the direction of peace and disarmament of weapons of mass destruction.

The Congressional switchboard telephone number: 202-224-3121. Web Site: http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html For Senators' telephone, fax, web, and E-mail addresses see: http://prop1.org/prop1/senate.htm

2) Manley critical of U.S. plan for space weapons

CBC NEWS - Manley critical of U.S. plan for space weapons
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 11:51:45 -0400 (EDT)
From: CBCNEWS <nwonline@toronto.cbc.ca>

MANLEY CRITICAL OF U.S. PLAN FOR SPACE WEAPONS

HANOI--Canada's foreign minister says U.S. plans to develop space-based weapons are dangerous.

John Manley said, "I've made the point as strongly as could possibly be made that Canada is unalterably opposed to the weaponization of space.''

Manley made his comments Wednesday in a telephone conference call from Hanoi, where he was attending an Asia-Pacific economic meeting.

Manley said the U.S. plan encourages the proliferation of nuclear weapons and other responses that are unlikely to be good for global security.

He said Canada is pushing for a treaty to ban weapons from orbit and has support from other countries.

The Pentagon has said the planned missile defence system should include a mix of land, sea and space-based weapons.

Manley also criticized the U.S. for rejecting a protocol which would have enforced the 1972 convention on germ warfare.

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

Rumsfeld Faces a Fight on Closing More Bases

By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 29, 2001; Page A05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62020-2001Jul27?language=printer

The Pentagon has promised by week's end to send Congress legislation to close excess military bases that drain funds from expensive new weapons systems and annually cost taxpayers an estimated $3.5 billion.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Army Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee this month that the Pentagon maintains 25 percent more facilities than it needs, even after four rounds of base closings in the 1990s.

"I think after all is said and done and the legislation is submitted to the Congress and the Congress takes a good hard look at it - and this is going to be very much a subject of debate and a very public process - I think it will withstand the closest scrutiny," Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, the Pentagon spokesman, said last week.

But defense analysts and even leading Republicans on Capitol Hill question whether Rumsfeld can muster enough support to pass a bill, given the highly unpopular nature of base closings and strained Pentagon-Congress relations over issues from readiness to missile defense.

"This is going to be a very tough sell," said Loren B. Thompson, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute, a conservative think tank in Arlington. "This is probably the most controversial aspect of defense reform, because so many people lose jobs, and so few savings are realized in the near term. Base closings won't provide any savings on George Bush's watch."

Thompson credited Rumsfeld for even trying to jump-start another round of base closings. But the move, he said, is sure to cost President Bush politically. "If you want to run the Pentagon efficiently, this is something you want to do," Thompson said. "If you want to get reelected, this is an issue you would probably avoid."

Sen. John W. Warner (Va.), ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee and a proponent of additional base closings, agreed that Rumsfeld has his work cut out for him, especially after his deputy undersecretary for installations, Raymond DuBois, speculated last week about which bases would be closed.

Warner erupted after DuBois told USA Today that bases in the Southeast could be targeted for closing because of increased congestion in the rapidly growing region. He singled out the Norfolk area, with 150 military facilities, as a place likely to lose operations.

"I am dumbfounded that any official would make these observations - designating, for example, a specific geographic area in America, such as the Norfolk area, where there 'will be' base closures," Warner said in a Wednesday letter to Rumsfeld.

In an interview Friday, Warner said Rumsfeld stood no chance of success on base closings unless his bill makes clear to Congress that the recommendations of a base closing commission will be accepted by the White House without exception. The Clinton administration was criticized for intervening to save bases in Texas and California that were slated for closing in 1995 by contracting out many of their functions to private firms.

Warner said it will be up to Congress to define the criteria for base closings. "And I don't think that Congress is going to write criteria that says Norfolk has too many facilities," Warner said. "Over my dead body will it write such crite- ria."

Already, the House Armed Services Committee has indicated that it does not plan to include a base closing provision in its fiscal 2002 defense authorization bill, leaving it up to the Senate Armed Services Committee to carry the issue to conference committee, according to a Capitol Hill source.

Another said the administra- tion is considering a smaller base closing commission whose members would be named through a "consultative" process involving the White House and Congress, instead of a procedure used in the past in which the president and congressional leaders from both parties each got to name individual members. The source said Bush is also considering exempting certain essential bases from consideration and limiting base closings to one round.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), who has cosponsored his own base closings bill with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), said Friday that he intends to push for some type of closing provision in his panel's defense bill.

He said the chances for success were only 50-50 before DuBois made his "premature and inappropriate" remarks last week. But Levin noted that closing bases is one issue on which Rumsfeld and the uniformed services are united.

"The president is going to have to put his shoulder to the wheel on this," Levin said. "And so are the folks at the Pentagon."

Although some analysts argue that the political costs of base closings aren't worth the amount of money ultimately saved, McCain said wasteful spending on surplus bases is so egregious that "without a base closing commission, defense spending has no credibility."

McCain recalled how during the 2000 New Hampshire presidential primary he was asked in Portsmouth whether he favored additional base closings. He said he did, even though he knew his answer would be unpopular in the home of a large Navy shipyard.

"I carried Portsmouth in the primary," McCain said. "Politicians underestimate the patriotism of Americans."

----

'US used hallucinogenic weapons against Iraq'

SUNDAY, JULY 29, 2001
THE TIMES OF INDIA
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=67147283

Wouter Basson, the spy and mastermind behind the apartheid government's chemical warfare programme, claimed on Friday the United States had used hallucinogenic weapons against Iraq during the Gulf War.

Basson told the Pretoria High Court television footage shot during the war showed clearly that elite Iraqi troops who surrendered en masse were under the influence of hallucinogens.

He said their faces were expressionless, their pupils were dilated and they were drooling at the mouth - typical side effects of a particularly dangerous type of hallucinogenic drug.

Basson, a former military officer, was testifying about the 1993 destruction of hundreds of kilograms (pounds) of drugs such as cocaine, Mandrax and Ecstasy, manufactured or bought by the South African army for use in crowd control.

He told the court: "Analysis of video material showing surrendering (Iraqi) troops emerging from their underground bunkers show that they had dilated pupils, were drooling and had vacant stares."

"It appeared like the clinical profile of a BZ variant. The variant was also tested in laboratory animals in South Africa but it was stopped because it caused permanent damage to the subject.

"I had good reason to believe that America used a BZ variant against Iraq during the Gulf War." Basson said BZ was a hallucinogenic which altered a person's ability to act rationally.

It could either make somebody completely passive or uncontrollably aggressive, to the point where he would attack his own colleagues, he said.

Basson is facing 46 charges ranging from murder to fraud for acts allegedly committed while he was a high-ranking member of the apartheid-era military.

Dubbed "Dr Death", he was the mastermind behind the regime's secret programme to develop biological and chemical warfare capabilities and this week testified that he had bought a zoo to research the use of animal hormones to control crowds. ( AFP )

-------- OTHER

-------- genetics

Rival bills on cloning head for vote in House

07/29/2001
By Richard Willing,
USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/july01/2001-07-30-cloning.htm

WASHINGTON - Opponents and supporters of human cloning are headed for a showdown this week in the House of Representatives.

At issue are rival bills, one of which would impose a$1 million fine and 10-year prison term on any scientist who creates a human embryo by cloning. That bill, sponsored by Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Fla., also would ban the importation of cloned embryos from the few other countries that permit cloning.

The second bill, sponsored by Rep. James Greenwood, R-Pa., would ban cloning designed to produce a human baby but would let cloned embryos be created for research purposes.

The Bush administration supports the total ban. Bush's secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, said on Fox News Sunday that permitting cloning for medical research would create a "slippery slope."

Cloning mimics fertilization by transplanting an adult cell into an egg cell from which the nucleus has been removed and stimulating it with electricity. The cell divides and creates an embryo with the same genetic makeup of the original cell.

Scientists have cloned mammals, including Dolly the sheep in Scotland in 1997. No examples of a cloned human being are known to exist, though this month, a Massachusetts company announced plans to produce cloned human beings for research from donated cells. Human cloning is banned in 29 European countries; Great Britain permits it for research purposes.

Anti-abortion lawmakers represent the core of support for a cloning ban. They say creating human embryos and then destroying them for research is immoral. The ban has also attracted support from others who say that cloning could lead to commercial "embryo farms," the exploitation of women for their eggs and, ultimately, efforts to change basic characteristics of babies by altering the genetic makeup of embryos.

Supporters of the bill that would permit cloning for medical research say it is necessary for science to reach its full potential.

"Cloning for research purposes (could) open the door to the development of cures ... for unmet medical needs like diabetes, stroke and diseases of aging," says Michael Werner, bioethics counsel for the Biotechnology Industry Organization. "Cloning is the way we can figure out how to turn valuable insights from stem-cell research into products that are transplantable into patients."

Scientists hope to extract stem cells, the all-purpose cells that can grow into any of the body's tissues or organs, from embryos produced by cloning. President Bush is deciding whether to allow federal funding of stem-cell research.

Tissues grown from cloned cells, Werner says, theoretically could be used to replace damaged tissues without being rejected by a body; both would contain the same genetic makeup.

Weldon says most scientific benefits that could be derived from human cloning could also be gotten from cloning animals, which his bill does not forbid.

If a ban is approved by the House, it faces uncertain prospects in the Senate, where a similar proposal died in 1998. Weldon says changes in cloning research since then, including the proposed beginning of commercial cloning in Massachusetts, might cause senators to view cloning more harshly.

Contributing: Kathy Kiely

-------- human rights

The Bondage of Poverty That Produces Chocolate

The New York Times
July 29, 2001
By NORIMITSU ONISHI
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/29/international/29CHIL.html

LOGBOGBA, Ivory Coast - One week after leaving his village in neighboring Mali for the first time, Yacouba Diarra, then 14, fell into the hands of a trafficker of children and was smuggled across the border into Ivory Coast's cocoa-producing heartland.

He was with another boy of the same age, both drawn by the promise of $135 each for a year's labor. "I did not know what kind of work I would do," Yacouba said. "I did not even know we were coming to Ivory Coast."

Once here, Yacouba was taken to a village of mud houses, miles from the nearest paved road, where he worked every day on a cocoa plantation, hacking brush with a machete and slicing ripe cocoa pods from trees. But after a year in the village, Petit Tiémé, the owner paid him only $13 - or about 4 cents a day, he recalled.

He walked away from his employer at Petit Tiémé in late spring, he said, and settled nearby, here in Logbogba, where he had chanced upon a friend from the same village back home. His only concern was to get paid his back wages.

Yacouba's story is like that of many boys and girls in West and Central Africa, who leave their homes to work in foreign places, sometimes separated from their families for years.

Some children fall into the hands of rings of smugglers and end up exploited. Others are reputed to end up in outright slavery. But most often parents send their children away to earn money or learn a trade, in keeping with an age-old tradition.

Child labor does retain deep roots but it is hard to measure, and the line between slave trading and the bondage of poverty is sometimes unclear.

A recent weeklong journey through this country's remotest cocoa plantations, reachable only by driving on flooded and crater-filled dirt roads and hiking for miles though dense forests, revealed only a handful of children brought here this way - not hundreds. Almost all hired hands were adults from Mali and Burkina Faso.

Only a visit to the hundreds of cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast would be comprehensive. But the discovery of just a few foreign children during visits to dozens of plantations suggests that children who are smuggled by a stranger for profit do not make up a significant share of the cocoa work force here.

But reports of widespread abuse in Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa exporter, have generated accusations and anger, all the way to Europe and the United States.

In Britain, groups have tried to organize a consumer boycott of chocolate. And in Washington, the House passed a bill that proposed a voluntary labeling system identifying the origin of the cocoa in chocolate. The label would read "No child slave labor."

The use of children forced to work this way was more common just a few years ago, according to interviews with workers, plantation owners, cocoa industry officials and traffickers themselves.

Since 1998, they say, a drop in cocoa prices and political instability here have made it extremely difficult for foreigners to live in Ivory Coast. The government also pointed to the effects of a bilateral agreement, signed last September, that allows Ivory Coast to repatriate Malian children found working here.

According to a 1998 report by Unicef's Ivory Coast office, children from Mali and Burkina Faso were systematically brought by traffickers to work here; the report contained no estimates of the number involved, effectively acknowledging that it was impossible to determine.

Unicef's office in Mali later estimated the number of foreign children working in Ivory Coast at 15,000. The figure, which was not based on research in Ivory Coast but only in Mali, has been widely cited by private organizations that deal with children and by the Western news media.

Ivory Coast acknowledges the traffic in children, but has angrily denied that it is widespread. "There are isolated cases of trafficked children whom we are trying to protect by arresting the traffickers," Henriette Lagou, the minister of family, women and children, said in an interview in her office in Abidjan.

Much of the confusion stems from the working conditions here. Backbreaking work for 50 cents a day is part of everyday life in much of Africa. Indeed, that wage puts plantation workers at a very low rung, but hardly at the bottom rung, of the ladder in Africa.

According to Unicef, 200,000 children are the victims of traffickers every year and are forced to work in brutal conditions. But experts concede that the figures are only broad estimates.

Just as economic factors push Mexicans into the United States, workers from Mali and Burkina Faso, two landlocked, semi-desert nations, have flocked to Ivory Coast. That this phenomenon includes children is a reflection of this region's enduring poverty, Ms. Lagou said. "People who don't live here can't understand our realities," she said. "You take a couple in Europe or in the United States. They have one or two children, and they can't understand why people traffic in children. But when you live here, you understand right away."

A father in Burkina Faso may have 40 children, she said. "Some of his children don't even know him. It's not the same situation over here."

Under Ivory Coast law, minors over age 14 are allowed to work, as long as the work is not dangerous and they have parental consent. Children brought by traffickers are not allowed to work at all, but the temptation is often too great because they are routinely paid about $165 a year for plantation work in Ivory Coast. The poorest of Malians, back home, could not make that sum in five years.

In Katiénou, a village north of here, Ibrahim Konaté, an 18-year-old Malian, was in the middle of his second working term in Ivory Coast. During his first, two years ago, Mr. Konaté stayed for 20 months and earned about $350 - a huge sum to him.

"It was enough to support my family for a year in Mali," said Mr. Konaté, the oldest son in a family of 10 children. "The money is so good here. That's why I came back."

-------- police / prisoners

Brazil Weighs Replacing Police Strikers With Troops

New York Times
July 29, 2001
By LARRY ROHTER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/29/international/americas/29BRAZ.html

RIO DE JANEIRO, July 28 - Facing a growing movement of strikes and other protests by police forces across the country, the Brazilian government is threatening to send in the army to replace the police.

The confrontation stems from a 13- day police strike this month in Bahia, a state in the northeast; it ended after the state gave a 21 percent pay raise to the strikers. The police then walked out in two neighboring states and threatened to strike in nine other jurisdictions, including the national capital, Brasília, and São Paulo, the country's largest state, with more than 35 million people.

"This is a situation more serious than the crisis in Argentina," said Tasso Jereissati, the governor of the state of Ceará. Other political leaders and press commentators have condemned the work stoppages and protests as "a mutiny" and a "rupture of the public order."

Gen. Alberto Cardoso, the federal government's senior national security official, said the problem had been exaggerated. "The scenes of hooded men with guns in their hands are spreading throughout the whole world, creating an idea that does not correspond to the country's situation," he said in an interview with the Rio daily O Globo this week.

Still, the federal government has said it plans to issue a decree within days to give the armed forces police powers in emergency situations. But the notion of army troops patrolling the streets and even making arrests has caused much debate and has quickly come under attack.

Dalmo Dallari, a leading constitutional lawyer, said the government plan was unconstitutional. The Constitution adopted in 1988 after more than 20 years of military dictatorship limits the role of the armed forces to defense of Brazil's borders and national sovereignty, he said, reserving the maintenance of public order to police forces.

"The army is trained to destroy enemies, and the people cannot be treated that way," Mr. Dallari said in São Paulo this week. He accused President Fernando Henrique Cardoso of "seeking to alter the Constitution by fiat."

Former Minister of Justice José Carlos Dias has also criticized the plan, saying that "the army does not know how to play the role of the police." He described the goverment's public security strategy as a step backward, saying "that is the way things were during the military dictatorship."

Many police units were under the control of the army until the democratic constitution subordinated them to the governments of Brazil's 27 states. And they were often accused, along with the armed forces themselves, of rights abuses during the period of harsh military rule that lasted from 1964 to 1985.

But as General Cardoso put it, "the central point is the low salaries" paid to police officers. In some states, police officers earn just $153 a month, which forces them to live in slum neighborhoods where they must hide their identities from drug traffickers and other criminal groups that control the areas.

As a result state police forces find it hard to attract recruits who are competent and well educated. The low salaries are also cited as factors in the corruption and the brutality that Brazilians complain about.

"The majority of governments haven't offered a raise in six or seven years," said Wilson de Oliveira Morais, president of the national police officers' association, which says it has 45,000 members. "If they gave us at least 5 percent a year, there wouldn't be any strikes whatsoever."

The government has promised low-interest financing for special housing for police officers, but warns that the current budget squeeze does not permit wage increases. "There is no possibility of any type of salary aid" to the police, Minister of Justice José Gregori said this week, "because that would mean breaking the fiscal equilibrium."

--------

Algerian Report Criticizes Police

New York Times
July 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Algeria-Violence.html

ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) -- A government report says police provoked protesters during the riots that left at least 60 people dead and 2,000 injured in eastern Kabyle earlier this year.

The preliminary report criticized police for shooting live ammunition into crowds, beating people up and shouting obscenities.

``If someone gave the order to start firing, no one gave the order to stop,'' it said.

Issued on Saturday, the report is the work of an independent commission set up by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika following bloody riots in April and May in Kabyle. The commission is headed by Mohand Issad, a respected expert in international law.

The Kabyle region has been in tumult since April, when a Berber youth died in police custody. Daily protests soon spread to the capital, Algiers, with 1 million people taking to the streets on June 14 to denounce alleged government abuse of power.

Berbers claim to be the original inhabitants of Muslim North Africa and have had tense relations with Algerian authorities for decades. Nearly one-third of the North African nation's 30 million people are of Berber origin.

Unrest in the Kabyle region comes on top of an Islamic insurgency now in its ninth year. The uprising erupted after the army canceled 1992 legislative elections that a Muslim fundamentalist party was poised to win.

-------- spying

Test of Strength

By Vernon Loeb
Sunday, July 29, 2001
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44781-2001Jul24?language=printer

For two years, Air Force general Michael Hayden has waged a secret struggle to overhaul the world's most powerful spy agency. Nothing's riding on his success but the future of America's national security.

The call came after dinner on a Monday night, as the general was watching the TV news at home. There was a computer problem back at the agency. A software failure had knocked out the network.

"Give me a sense," the general commanded the duty officer over the secure phone line. "What are we talking about?"

"The whole system is down," the duty officer said. A result of overloading. Plus, the network had become so tangled that no one really seemed to know how it worked. There was no wiring diagram anyone could consult.

It was January 24, 2000. Lt. Gen. Michael V. Hayden was still new on the job -- just finishing his 10th month as director of the National Security Agency -- but he did not need a duty officer to explain the implications of his computer problem. The agency's constellation of spy satellites and its giant listening stations on five continents were still vacuuming communications out of the ether. Their vast electronic "take" -- intercepted telephone calls, e-mails, faxes and radio signals -- still poured into memory buffers capable of storing 5 trillion pages of data at agency headquarters at Fort Meade. But once in house, the data froze. Nobody could access it, nobody could analyze it.

The NSA -- the largest and most powerful spy agency in the world -- was brain-dead.

Hayden called George J. Tenet on a secure phone and broke the news to the director of central intelligence. The nation's two top spymasters knew there was nothing they could do but get out of the way and let the technicians try to figure out what was wrong. The keepers of the nation's secrets now had another one to keep -- a secret Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden or some other enemy of the state could have surely used to great advantage.

The next morning, the only consolation Hayden had was the snow: A blizzard had blasted Washington and shut down the federal government, giving his gathering army of computer engineers and techies some time -- without the workforce around -- to bring the agency out of its coma. Hayden's despair deepened as two full days passed without progress. The mathematicians and linguists reported back for duty Thursday morning, only to find a handwritten message taped to doors and computer terminals: "Our network is experiencing intermittent difficulties. Consult your supervisor before you log on."

The crash had now become a security crisis. By noon, at a hastily called "town meeting," Hayden walked onto the stage of the agency's Friedman Auditorium and told thousands of employees -- in person and on closed-circuit television -- what had happened.

"We are the keeper of the nation's secrets," he said at the end of his grim presentation. "If word of this gets out, we significantly increase the likelihood that Americans will get hurt. Those who would intend our nation and our citizens harm will be emboldened. So this is not the back half of a sentence tonight that begins, 'Honey, you won't believe what happened to me at work.' This is secret. It does not leave the building."

Could all 30,000 employees live by the code of secrecy they'd grown up with?

To Hayden, a career intelligence officer who had served in the first Bush White House and had run the Air Force's cyberwar center, the computer crash seemed the perfect metaphor for an agency desperately in need of new technology. But the reality, he would quickly see, was actually worse. Antiquated computers were the least of the NSA's problems.

By virtue of its magnitude and complexity, the NSA invites superlatives and outsize comparisons. Its collections systems scoop up enough data every three hours to fill the Library of Congress. It employs the world's largest collection of linguists and mathematicians and owns the world's largest array of supercomputers. To power the supercomputers, it uses as much electricity as the city of Annapolis. To cool them, it maintains 8,000 tons of chilled water capacity. One of its most powerful computers generates so much heat it operates while immersed in a nonconducting liquid called Flourinert.

But beyond the gee-whiz factor lies an agency in need of reinvention.

Heir to America's World War II code-breaking heroics, the agency was created in secret by President Harry Truman in 1952. Signals intelligence -- SIGINT, in spy parlance -- has long been considered even more valuable than human intelligence or satellite imagery, because the quantity and quality of the potential take is so much greater. The NSA was intended to be the world's premier SIGINT agency, encoding American secret communications while stealing and decoding other nations'. Soon after its founding, the agency started growing into a juggernaut that would put listening posts around the globe, spy ships and submarines out to sea, and reconnaissance planes and satellites in the heavens.

The NSA rose to dominance in what were, in telecommunications terms, simpler times. Radio signals and microwaves were ripe for the taking as they bounced off the ionosphere or traveled straight out into space; to intercept them, one simply needed to get in their path. And the NSA did this better than anyone else, using everything from portable receivers that picked up vibrations off windowpanes to geosynchronous satellites 22,000 miles above Earth.

It was the NSA that first reported the presence of Soviet offensive missiles in Cuba in 1962. It was the NSA that first warned of the Tet offensive -- five days before the attacks commenced across South Vietnam in January 1968. All told, the NSA broke the codes of 40 nations during the Cold War and, through an operation code-named Gamma Guppy, intercepted personal conversations of Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev. In 1986, President Ronald Reagan went so far as to bomb Col. Moammar Gaddafi's Tripoli headquarters after NSA intercepts revealed Libya's role in a terrorist attack on a Berlin discotheque that had killed two U.S. servicemen and a Turkish woman.

Making and breaking codes requires absolute secrecy, and the NSA took secrecy to extremes. Most Americans had never even heard of the agency for decades after it was established. In 1975, a Senate select committee headed by Sen. Frank Church revealed that the NSA had far exceeded the foreign intelligence mission envisioned by Truman and had been spying domestically on the likes of Jane Fonda, Joan Baez, Benjamin Spock and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The revelations led to laws and regulations that strictly prohibit the NSA from spying on U.S. soil -- laws and regulations, agency officials say, they now strictly follow. But the agency's cult of secrecy proved far more resilient. Even after the Church committee's revelations, it was a standing joke at Fort Meade that NSA stood for No Such Agency or Never Say Anything. In 1982, when author James Bamford was writing his groundbreaking first book about the agency, The Puzzle Palace, the Reagan administration threatened to prosecute him for espionage if he did not return sensitive documents he had obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The administration ultimately backed down, but its treatment of Bamford was a sign of how secretive and arrogant the NSA had become. (By contrast, Hayden cooperated with Bamford on his second book about the NSA, Body of Secrets, which was published in May.)

The agency's high opinion of itself was backed up by its success throughout the Cold War, success that rested on three pillars: massive budgets, superior technology and the luxury of having a single main adversary -- the Soviet Union -- that enjoyed neither of those first two advantages.

Now, all those pillars have crumbled.

The NSA is still one of the largest employers in the state of Maryland, but it lost 30 percent of its budget and an equivalent slice of its workforce during the 1990s. And instead of one backward adversary, the agency found itself trying to deploy against elusive terrorist groups, drug cartels and rogue states, in addition to a full slate of traditional targets ranging from Russia to China to India to Pakistan. In 1980, the NSA focused about 60 percent of its budget on the Soviet Union. By 1993, less than 15 percent was fixed on Russia.

But if the end of the Cold War was hard on the NSA, the onset of the digital age was harder. More and more communications were moving through hard-to-tap fiber-optic cable. More and more were encoded with powerful new encryption software that was proving virtually impossible to break. By the late 1990s, NSA officials had given up a futile effort to limit the spread of encryption software, but they were left fearful of how their agency's capabilities could wither if, say, Microsoft started building powerful encryption algorithms into its operating systems.

More immediately, the NSA had to confront the exploding volume of global communications. In the 1950s, there were 5,000 computers in the world and not a single fax machine or cell phone. Today, there are more than 100 million hosts on the Internet serving hundreds of millions of networked computers, not to mention 650 million cell phones in use worldwide. And with broadband fiber-optic cable being laid around the world at the rate of hundreds of miles an hour (virtually the speed of sound), the speed for moving digital data down these slender pipes more than doubles annually -- faster even than computing power, which doubles every year and a half.

With more and more digital data moving across the Internet and bouncing off communications satellites, SIGINT has become more important than ever. Yet the interceptible data stream has threatened to drown the NSA's analysts in a roiling sea of 1s and 0s.

In this new context, private industry suddenly controls the technology that the NSA needs to keep pace. But the NSA has been isolated from the dynamism of the market by its own cult of secrecy. The agency has fallen farther and farther behind, unable to sort through a torrent of information streaming back into Fort Meade's computers and, to some extent, incapable of replacing its Cold War troops trained in radio intercepts and Russian with Internet engineers and Arabic speakers.

In 1999, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence declared that the NSA was "in serious trouble," desperately short of capital and leadership. Civil libertarians, Internet privacy activists and encryption entrepreneurs -- not to mention the European Parliament and thousands, perhaps millions, of ordinary Europeans -- question the continuing need for such an agency, describing the NSA as an "extreme threat to the privacy of people all over the world," in the words of an American Civil Liberties Union Web site.

But the U.S. government considers SIGINT so essential that one senior intelligence official recently called the NSA's possible demise the greatest single threat to U.S. national security. So, three years ago, when the House and Senate intelligence committees began sounding the alarm, the director of central intelligence began an all-out search for somebody to fill the NSA's leadership void. George Tenet turned to a man who lacked the innate spookiness normally associated with this spookiest of agencies. A small man with a crew cut and a bald pate. A man with a scholarly interest in history. A man who would show no fear of either the public or the agency he would have to overhaul.

Michael Hayden, 56, grew up in an era when the backbone of America's industrial might comprised steel mills and factories, in a neighborhood on Pittsburgh's North Side where men carried lunch buckets to work and proudly traced their ancestors to County Galway.

His father, Harry Hayden Sr., was a welder at Allis-Chalmers, a plant that made giant electrical transformers. Harry worked the 3:30-to-midnight shift, leaving his wife, Sadie, to raise their three children almost by herself. But he remembers how, when he would awake before dawn and walk to the bathroom, the light would always be on in Michael's room at 5:30 in the morning. The boy was studying.

Michael was a standout student, and an athlete as well. "We never had to talk about Michael," says Harry, now 81. "Everybody else was."

As early as grade school, Michael showed a talent for impressing talent spotters. His football coach at the St. Peter's parochial school says Hayden clearly had "the smarts" to play quarterback -- no small judgment, coming as it does from Dan Rooney, son of the founding owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers and now the franchise's president. In time, however, Hayden distinguished himself most in the classroom, graduating near the top of his class at North Catholic High School and at Duquesne University, where he majored in history.

One day, he surprised his father by coming home from college and announcing that he had signed up for Air Force ROTC. It was 1967, when a lot of young men were burning their draft cards to protest the Vietnam War. "He wanted to travel, and I guess there wasn't a better way to do it," Harry says. Still, after graduating, Michael married his college sweetheart, a Chicagoan named Jeanine Carrier. She typed and proofread his master's thesis in American history at Duquesne while he drove a cab, worked as a night bellman at the Duquesne Club and coached St. Peter's to a football title.

Then he started his service in the Air Force, as an analyst and briefer at the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. Harry Hayden Jr. figures his older brother joined the service because he had read everything he could about American history and wanted to start participating.

A decade into his Air Force career, Michael held the rank of major and was chief of intelligence for a fighter wing at Osan Air Base in South Korea. The director of operations, Col. Chuck Link, a fighter pilot, detected the same leadership qualities Dan Rooney had recognized years earlier. So did Hayden's men. Gene Tighe, a young intelligence officer, remembers Hayden more as a mentor than a commanding officer. "He thought it was a great thing to be out and about and getting this opportunity overseas," Tighe recalls. "He wanted us to see the temples, the rice paddies, go shopping in Hong Kong. He took a vested interest in making you feel important."

After Osan, Hayden spent six months studying at the Armed Forces Staff College in Norfolk and 18 months learning Bulgarian before he became an Air Force attache to Sofia.

Two years later, he came home without a new assignment, but Link quickly recruited him to a job on a prestigious policy and planning staff inside Air Force headquarters at the Pentagon. Soon Link's boss, Gen. Chuck Boyd, the Air Force's director of plans, took notice of Hayden's ability to think conceptually and put his thoughts down on paper.

"He's got the soul of a historian, he really does," Boyd says. "He thinks things are explainable on the basis of how things have been. It's a scholarly bent, combined with an exceptional sensitivity to human behavior."

One day in the summer of 1989, Boyd told Hayden to go down to the National Security Council and see two men, an Air Force general and an arms-control expert. Hayden took the Metro across the river and reported to an office on the third floor of the Old Executive Office Building. Only then did he realize that he'd been sent to a job interview.

He spent the next two years as the NSC's director for defense policy and arms control, where he wrote national security adviser Brent Scowcroft's annual policy document on strategy, then two more years at the Pentagon running a policy staff for the secretary of the Air Force. In 1993, Boyd, then commander of the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, asked Hayden to head its intelligence directorate as the United States was becoming directly involved in the Balkans. From his attache days in Bulgaria, Hayden probably knew the region as well as anyone in the U.S. military.

On June 2, 1995, Hayden walked into the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade to learn that an American F-16 piloted by Air Force Capt. Scott O'Grady had been shot down over Bosnia. The news marked a turning point in Hayden's thinking as a soldier.

Serb Gen. Rathko Mladic had been saying publicly that he would deny Serb airspace to NATO. Operations officers at the European Command had dismissed the threat, but Hayden was familiar with Mladic and did not see him making idle threats. As an intelligence officer, he had informed the operational commanders of Mladic's statements and relayed his impression that the general was not to be trifled with. But he didn't believe it was his place to voice further objections -- until after O'Grady was shot down.

"Maybe I [should] have picked up the phone and told the air commander, 'Every time I see that orbit on your morning slides, I get nervous,' " Hayden says. "But I didn't."

The incident forced Hayden to see the obsolescence of the military's traditional hierarchy, in which intelligence was seen merely as a support function. Increasingly, Hayden realized, intelligence was becoming so essential to make use of and counter sophisticated weaponry that it had become as much of a weapon in its own right as any bomb or missile. "It was a kind of redefinition of self, as a professional," he says. "It's not about intelligence successes or failures; it's just successes or failures."

Hayden's next assignment, as commander of the Air Intelligence Agency at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, gave him plenty of opportunity to further hone his thinking. Kelly is where the Air Force works on its plans for cyberwar -- attacks designed to take down adversaries' computer networks. Hayden next served as deputy chief of staff for the United Nations Command and U.S. Forces Korea. To those inculcated in military culture, this move sent a message. He crossed the divide between the bookish world of intelligence into the front-line world of operations. In the words of one senior intelligence official, "Here you've got an intel weenie who the four-star operator recognized as something special."

Late in 1998, he was leading a military delegation negotiating with a group of North Korean generals at Panmunjom, where talks at that high a level had not taken place in seven years. He was in Seoul when Tenet, searching for a new NSA director, summoned him for an interview. They met at the Wye Plantation on Maryland's Eastern Shore, where Tenet was attending Arab-Israeli peace talks hosted by the Clinton administration. After a relaxed interview in which Tenet asked Hayden about his views on life and change, Hayden flew back to Korea with a clear signal from Tenet that the NSA job was his. Given the job's normal three-year term and his lack of SIGINT expertise, Hayden knew he'd been handed the most challenging assignment of his career. Still, he returned to Seoul in a celebratory mood. He took his wife to the movie theater at Yongsan Army Garrison, which was playing a new movie starring Will Smith, "Enemy of the State."

The film opens with a scene in which a rogue NSA official (played by Jon Voigt) assassinates an influential congressman (Jason Robards) who refuses to back a bill expanding the agency's power to spy on Americans. From there, the movie portrays the NSA as a lawless band of high-tech assassins who try their best to kill a Washington lawyer (Smith) who just happens to witness another NSA assassination on streets around Dupont Circle.

As Hayden watched, surrounded by GIs whooping it up in the theater, he sank lower and lower in his chair.

In real life, the NSA's image problems were a bit more complicated.

In 1997, the European Parliament had commissioned a report on Echelon, a global communications system. That report had concluded that the NSA was capable of intercepting every fax, phone call and e-mail in Europe. The conclusion was wrong -- Echelon is actually a relatively small system through which the NSA and its electronic spy partners in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand divide responsibility for processing intercepted satellite communications -- but it did not matter. The European Parliament's anxieties flared into a controversy that wouldn't go away, fueled by the lawmakers' suspicions that the NSA was stealing European companies' secrets and passing them on to their American competitors, a practice NSA officials say they do not engage in.

Beyond industrial espionage, the Europeans also worried about individual privacy, because the U.S. laws and regulations that keep the NSA from spying on Americans provide no similar protections for foreigners. By 1999, this controversy had attracted the attention of civil libertarians in the United States who were concerned about possible NSA spying against Americans on the Internet, which the agency is prohibited by law from doing.

While all this was brewing, the agency's boosters on Capitol Hill were becoming alarmed that the NSA was in serious trouble because of new communications technologies -- fiber-optic cables that couldn't be tapped, encryption software that couldn't be broken and cell phone traffic too voluminous to be processed.

Hayden was keenly aware of the irony: He was inheriting an agency that was simultaneously being accused of omnipotence and incompetence. And then, almost as soon as he arrived at Fort Meade, Hayden discovered another wrinkle: The NSA director didn't really run the agency. The agency, Hayden soon came to understand, had been diffused into five directorates that ran as fiefdoms unto themselves. The bureaucratic overlap was staggering, and no one had a picture of the whole. There were 68 different e-mail systems at Fort Meade, and 452 internal review boards of one sort or another.

It wasn't as though the bureaucracy was actively trying to sabotage him -- "that would have required them to unify," Hayden says. Rather, he couldn't get the senior leadership to agree on anything, "from whether or not we should invest $2 billion in a new collection system to whether we should serve grilled cheese" to visiting delegations.

Early in his tenure, Hayden began plotting an internal coup, naming two review teams -- one made up of NSA insiders, the other private-sector experts -- to tell him what was wrong with the agency. The results were startling.

The insiders' report blasted Hayden's predecessors and the NSA's senior civilian managers, saying the agency "has been in a leadership crisis for the better part of a decade . . . the legacy of exceptional service to the nation that is NSA is in great peril. We have run out of time."

The outsiders cited the agency's "reluctance" to move from "legacy targets to newer targets" and said that NSA had already become "deaf" to concerns from its customers -- military commanders, White House policymakers and the CIA. "Right now, when stakeholders tell NSA that 'NSA doesn't get it,' the agency simply repeats itself and talks louder," their report said.

But Hayden remained cautious, painfully aware that he was no expert in signals intelligence. He thought he saw what needed to be done but didn't feel sure, especially when many of his senior managers who were SIGINT experts were reluctant to move.

Then the computers crashed in January 2000, confirming his worst fears about the agency's antiquated technology and its leaden bureaucracy.

Michael Hayden, 56, grew up in an era when the backbone of America's industrial might comprised steel mills and factories, in a neighborhood on Pittsburgh's North Side where men carried lunch buckets to work and proudly traced their ancestors to County Galway.

His father, Harry Hayden Sr., was a welder at Allis-Chalmers, a plant that made giant electrical transformers. Harry worked the 3:30-to-midnight shift, leaving his wife, Sadie, to raise their three children almost by herself. But he remembers how, when he would awake before dawn and walk to the bathroom, the light would always be on in Michael's room at 5:30 in the morning. The boy was studying.

Michael was a standout student, and an athlete as well. "We never had to talk about Michael," says Harry, now 81. "Everybody else was."

As early as grade school, Michael showed a talent for impressing talent spotters. His football coach at the St. Peter's parochial school says Hayden clearly had "the smarts" to play quarterback -- no small judgment, coming as it does from Dan Rooney, son of the founding owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers and now the franchise's president. In time, however, Hayden distinguished himself most in the classroom, graduating near the top of his class at North Catholic High School and at Duquesne University, where he majored in history.

One day, he surprised his father by coming home from college and announcing that he had signed up for Air Force ROTC. It was 1967, when a lot of young men were burning their draft cards to protest the Vietnam War. "He wanted to travel, and I guess there wasn't a better way to do it," Harry says. Still, after graduating, Michael married his college sweetheart, a Chicagoan named Jeanine Carrier. She typed and proofread his master's thesis in American history at Duquesne while he drove a cab, worked as a night bellman at the Duquesne Club and coached St. Peter's to a football title.

Then he started his service in the Air Force, as an analyst and briefer at the headquarters of the Strategic Air Command at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. Harry Hayden Jr. figures his older brother joined the service because he had read everything he could about American history and wanted to start participating.

A decade into his Air Force career, Michael held the rank of major and was chief of intelligence for a fighter wing at Osan Air Base in South Korea. The director of operations, Col. Chuck Link, a fighter pilot, detected the same leadership qualities Dan Rooney had recognized years earlier. So did Hayden's men. Gene Tighe, a young intelligence officer, remembers Hayden more as a mentor than a commanding officer. "He thought it was a great thing to be out and about and getting this opportunity overseas," Tighe recalls. "He wanted us to see the temples, the rice paddies, go shopping in Hong Kong. He took a vested interest in making you feel important."

After Osan, Hayden spent six months studying at the Armed Forces Staff College in Norfolk and 18 months learning Bulgarian before he became an Air Force attache to Sofia.

Two years later, he came home without a new assignment, but Link quickly recruited him to a job on a prestigious policy and planning staff inside Air Force headquarters at the Pentagon. Soon Link's boss, Gen. Chuck Boyd, the Air Force's director of plans, took notice of Hayden's ability to think conceptually and put his thoughts down on paper.

"He's got the soul of a historian, he really does," Boyd says. "He thinks things are explainable on the basis of how things have been. It's a scholarly bent, combined with an exceptional sensitivity to human behavior."

One day in the summer of 1989, Boyd told Hayden to go down to the National Security Council and see two men, an Air Force general and an arms-control expert. Hayden took the Metro across the river and reported to an office on the third floor of the Old Executive Office Building. Only then did he realize that he'd been sent to a job interview.

He spent the next two years as the NSC's director for defense policy and arms control, where he wrote national security adviser Brent Scowcroft's annual policy document on strategy, then two more years at the Pentagon running a policy staff for the secretary of the Air Force. In 1993, Boyd, then commander of the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany, asked Hayden to head its intelligence directorate as the United States was becoming directly involved in the Balkans. From his attache days in Bulgaria, Hayden probably knew the region as well as anyone in the U.S. military.

On June 2, 1995, Hayden walked into the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade to learn that an American F-16 piloted by Air Force Capt. Scott O'Grady had been shot down over Bosnia. The news marked a turning point in Hayden's thinking as a soldier.

Serb Gen. Rathko Mladic had been saying publicly that he would deny Serb airspace to NATO. Operations officers at the European Command had dismissed the threat, but Hayden was familiar with Mladic and did not see him making idle threats. As an intelligence officer, he had informed the operational commanders of Mladic's statements and relayed his impression that the general was not to be trifled with. But he didn't believe it was his place to voice further objections -- until after O'Grady was shot down.

"Maybe I [should] have picked up the phone and told the air commander, 'Every time I see that orbit on your morning slides, I get nervous,' " Hayden says. "But I didn't."

The incident forced Hayden to see the obsolescence of the military's traditional hierarchy, in which intelligence was seen merely as a support function. Increasingly, Hayden realized, intelligence was becoming so essential to make use of and counter sophisticated weaponry that it had become as much of a weapon in its own right as any bomb or missile. "It was a kind of redefinition of self, as a professional," he says. "It's not about intelligence successes or failures; it's just successes or failures."

Hayden's next assignment, as commander of the Air Intelligence Agency at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, gave him plenty of opportunity to further hone his thinking. Kelly is where the Air Force works on its plans for cyberwar -- attacks designed to take down adversaries' computer networks. Hayden next served as deputy chief of staff for the United Nations Command and U.S. Forces Korea. To those inculcated in military culture, this move sent a message. He crossed the divide between the bookish world of intelligence into the front-line world of operations. In the words of one senior intelligence official, "Here you've got an intel weenie who the four-star operator recognized as something special."

Late in 1998, he was leading a military delegation negotiating with a group of North Korean generals at Panmunjom, where talks at that high a level had not taken place in seven years. He was in Seoul when Tenet, searching for a new NSA director, summoned him for an interview. They met at the Wye Plantation on Maryland's Eastern Shore, where Tenet was attending Arab-Israeli peace talks hosted by the Clinton administration. After a relaxed interview in which Tenet asked Hayden about his views on life and change, Hayden flew back to Korea with a clear signal from Tenet that the NSA job was his. Given the job's normal three-year term and his lack of SIGINT expertise, Hayden knew he'd been handed the most challenging assignment of his career. Still, he returned to Seoul in a celebratory mood. He took his wife to the movie theater at Yongsan Army Garrison, which was playing a new movie starring Will Smith, "Enemy of the State."

The film opens with a scene in which a rogue NSA official (played by Jon Voigt) assassinates an influential congressman (Jason Robards) who refuses to back a bill expanding the agency's power to spy on Americans. From there, the movie portrays the NSA as a lawless band of high-tech assassins who try their best to kill a Washington lawyer (Smith) who just happens to witness another NSA assassination on streets around Dupont Circle.

As Hayden watched, surrounded by GIs whooping it up in the theater, he sank lower and lower in his chair.

In real life, the NSA's image problems were a bit more complicated.

In 1997, the European Parliament had commissioned a report on Echelon, a global communications system. That report had concluded that the NSA was capable of intercepting every fax, phone call and e-mail in Europe. The conclusion was wrong -- Echelon is actually a relatively small system through which the NSA and its electronic spy partners in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand divide responsibility for processing intercepted satellite communications -- but it did not matter. The European Parliament's anxieties flared into a controversy that wouldn't go away, fueled by the lawmakers' suspicions that the NSA was stealing European companies' secrets and passing them on to their American competitors, a practice NSA officials say they do not engage in.

Beyond industrial espionage, the Europeans also worried about individual privacy, because the U.S. laws and regulations that keep the NSA from spying on Americans provide no similar protections for foreigners. By 1999, this controversy had attracted the attention of civil libertarians in the United States who were concerned about possible NSA spying against Americans on the Internet, which the agency is prohibited by law from doing.

While all this was brewing, the agency's boosters on Capitol Hill were becoming alarmed that the NSA was in serious trouble because of new communications technologies -- fiber-optic cables that couldn't be tapped, encryption software that couldn't be broken and cell phone traffic too voluminous to be processed.

Hayden was keenly aware of the irony: He was inheriting an agency that was simultaneously being accused of omnipotence and incompetence. And then, almost as soon as he arrived at Fort Meade, Hayden discovered another wrinkle: The NSA director didn't really run the agency. The agency, Hayden soon came to understand, had been diffused into five directorates that ran as fiefdoms unto themselves. The bureaucratic overlap was staggering, and no one had a picture of the whole. There were 68 different e-mail systems at Fort Meade, and 452 internal review boards of one sort or another.

It wasn't as though the bureaucracy was actively trying to sabotage him -- "that would have required them to unify," Hayden says. Rather, he couldn't get the senior leadership to agree on anything, "from whether or not we should invest $2 billion in a new collection system to whether we should serve grilled cheese" to visiting delegations.

Early in his tenure, Hayden began plotting an internal coup, naming two review teams -- one made up of NSA insiders, the other private-sector experts -- to tell him what was wrong with the agency. The results were startling.

The insiders' report blasted Hayden's predecessors and the NSA's senior civilian managers, saying the agency "has been in a leadership crisis for the better part of a decade . . . the legacy of exceptional service to the nation that is NSA is in great peril. We have run out of time."

The outsiders cited the agency's "reluctance" to move from "legacy targets to newer targets" and said that NSA had already become "deaf" to concerns from its customers -- military commanders, White House policymakers and the CIA. "Right now, when stakeholders tell NSA that 'NSA doesn't get it,' the agency simply repeats itself and talks louder," their report said.

But Hayden remained cautious, painfully aware that he was no expert in signals intelligence. He thought he saw what needed to be done but didn't feel sure, especially when many of his senior managers who were SIGINT experts were reluctant to move.

Then the computers crashed in January 2000, confirming his worst fears about the agency's antiquated technology and its leaden bureaucracy.

With the snow outside headquarters still being cleared, Hayden strode off the stage in Friedman Auditorium. His challenge -- This does not leave the building -- was still ringing in everyone's ears. In a room off the agency's operations center, he called all of the agency's top technicians and engineers together and told them just how serious the meltdown had become. Tenet was still giving them plenty of room to fashion a solution, Hayden said, but pressure was building "downtown."

Hayden has no trouble remembering the day's events. That Thursday happened to be his 32nd wedding anniversary. That night, with the system showing some signs of life, he took Jeanine to an inn west of Frederick called Stone Manor for dinner. On the drive home, Robert Stevens, the NSA's deputy director for technology, called to say that he needed to talk to Hayden "secure." Hayden called him back on a secure line as soon as he got home.

The system had been dysfunctional for more than 72 hours. It was back up to about 25 percent capacity, Stevens said, but he didn't think the techies were on the right path. He wanted permission to take the entire system down and start all over again.

By then, a team of NSA engineers and contractors had pinpointed an outdated routing protocol as the cause of the failure. With the system completely shut down, they began installing a massive hardware and software upgrade. And by Friday morning, the system was coming back to life, node by node. Deeply relieved, Tenet drove over to Fort Meade that night and personally shook the hands of dozens of disheveled, unshaven techies, many of whom hadn't been home since Monday.

Hayden, feeling much better about life the following afternoon, went cross-country skiing with his wife on the Fort Meade gold course. Soon, he noticed that he was being shadowed by an NSA patrol car. Trudging through the snow, an officer asked Hayden to take off his skis and come with him back to the operations center. George Tenet needed to talk to him -- ABC News had the story.

Tenet told Hayden to talk to the reporter, John McWethy, on the record so he would get the story right. Hayden said fine. He knew McWethy, and knew where he was based -- the Pentagon. The leak had come from there, not Fort Meade. "You held the line," Hayden later told his own people. "You kept it secret while it had to be secret."

But with Hayden's relief came a realization about the larger task ahead: The price he would pay for moving too cautiously would greatly exceed whatever he would pay for being too bold.

He would be bold.

Hayden's internal coup began with an innocuous act: He hired a chief financial officer. Without one, he had no way of making strategic decisions based on how much money was being spent across the entire agency on line items like research and development, information technology and security. So Hayden hired Beverly L. Wright, a Wellesley College graduate with an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a solid reputation as CFO at the old Baltimore investment bank of Alex. Brown.

For an agency that had always promoted its own and promised lifetime employment, hiring from the outside was a radical act.

Then Hayden did it again, hiring a former GTE telecommunications executive named Harold C. Smith to take control of the agency's information technology. In doing so, he wanted to extend a powerful metaphor he'd drawn from his experience in the Air Force. He had come to see the service as the military expression of the American aviation industry and American culture -- its dynamism, its risk taking, its proud individualism. He believed that the NSA had to become the intelligence expression of American technology and American culture. It needed to embrace the innovative, flexible, entrepreneurial spirit that had come to define the digital age. "We can no longer provide to America what we need to do so isolated from America," he says. "To end the isolation, America needs to know us better."

And so, as his housecleaning began, Hayden also launched an openness campaign, appearing in April 2000 at a rare public session of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. With the European Parliament continuing its Echelon investigation and the American Civil Liberties Union voicing similar concerns, Hayden told the committee that NSA employees took great care "to make sure that we are always on the correct side of the Fourth Amendment."

"Let me put a fine point on this," Hayden testified. "If, as we are speaking here this afternoon, Osama bin Laden is walking across the bridge from Niagara Falls, Ontario, to Niagara Falls, New York, as he gets to the New York side, he is an American person. And my agency must respect his rights against unreasonable search and seizure."

Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) pressed Hayden on this point. "Does NSA spy on the lawful activities of Americans?" she asked.

"No. The answer is we do not," Hayden said.

"Do you inadvertently collect information on U.S. citizens?" asked Rep. Tim Roemer (D-Ind.).

Yes, Hayden replied. But, he said, "if it is not necessary to understand the foreign intelligence value of the information collected, it is not reported, it is destroyed. And it is destroyed as quickly as we can do that."

Back at Fort Meade, Hayden's grand plan for rebuilding the agency for the digital age was slowed by his inability to pick a deputy. He had departed from tradition again, appointing a search committee instead of simply anointing one of the bureaucracy's nominees. He was intrigued by the notion of picking an outsider, even though retired Adm. Bobby Ray Inman, a legendary past NSA director whom Hayden frequently called for advice, strongly objected. "What I thought he couldn't do was go to somebody who didn't know the business," Inman recalls. "The learning curve is too long, and you'd get waited out."

Ultimately, Hayden resolved the conflict by picking an insider who had worked as an outsider.

William B. Black had spent 38 years running some of the agency's spookiest operations before retiring in 1997 and going to work for Science Applications International Corp. He was, by training, yet another Russian linguist. But Black had served a tour as chief of an elite unit focused on Russian communications. More important, he had run the Special Collection Service, the joint NSA-CIA operation that works out of foreign embassies and fuses the talents of human spies and ultra-high-tech eavesdroppers to get very close to particularly difficult targets. Most telling was Black's final NSA assignment: special assistant to the director for information warfare. In that role, he had established the government's preeminent cyberwarfare unit -- and alienated so many NSA bureaucrats by poaching on their cherished turf that resignation was his only viable option.

Hayden liked Black's expertise and his reputation as an iconoclast. In July 2000, he invited Black to his house for dinner. Over couscous and roasted vegetables the director had prepared himself, Hayden made it clear that he wanted a deputy who could help change the system, not end-run it. Black's one-word answer -- "Exactly" -- convinced Hayden that he had his deputy.

With Black onboard, Hayden was ready to move. Last October, he rolled out his reorganization plan, wresting control of the agency from its own bureaucracy. All the NSA's support services would be centralized under Hayden's chief of staff. And where there were five overlapping directorates, Hayden would have just two: one for information security (the agency's codemakers) and another for signals intelligence (its codebreakers).

Now, he hoped, senior managers could focus on going after bytes.

A decade ago, a single NSA collection system could field a million inputs per half-hour. Automated filtering systems would winnow that to 10 messages that needed review by analysts. With today's explosion in communications traffic, multiply a million inputs per half-hour by a 1,000, or 10,000, and 10 messages needing review becomes 10,000 or 100,000. Cutting-edge fiber-optic systems now move data at 2.5 to 20 gigabits per second. The latest Intelsat satellites can process the equivalent of 90,000 simultaneous telephone calls. A single OC3 line on the Internet transmits 155 million bits per second -- the equivalent of 18,000 books a minute.

From an operational standpoint, the NSA's Cold War vacuum-cleaner approach is no longer tenable -- there's just too much to be collected, and it's too hard to process. The only way for the NSA to remain relevant in this environment is to target the individuals and organizations whose communications are most valuable -- and targeting now is more complicated than programming a target's telephone number into a computer. To succeed in the digital age, NSA analysts must understand how a target communicates, what its Internet protocol addresses are, and how its traffic is routed around the world.

And with so many conceivable targets in the world, the only way to zero in on the most important ones is to ask White House officials, Pentagon commanders and CIA officers to identify the targets they're interested in. The days when NSA officials sent the White House whatever interested them are over.

Now, SIGINT requires the agility to move from system to system and adapt to new technologies. If that can be done, the potential for electronic spying is enormous. Sophisticated Internet surveillance techniques now make it possible to acquire data "in motion" across the network -- and data "at rest" in computer databases, the new frontier.

"The world has never been more wired together than it is today," says Stewart Baker, who served as the NSA's general counsel from 1992 to 1994. "It's the golden age of espionage. Stealing secrets is going to get even easier for people who employ technologically advanced tools and are willing to work aggressively at it."

Even so, the challenges are formidable. The NSA is known to be hard at work trying to gain access to fiber-optic cables. How it is doing is not publicly known. One means would be tapping undersea cables or placing interception pods over "repeaters" that periodically boost fiber-optic signals. But even if the lines can be tapped, transmitting the torrent of intercepted data from the depths of the ocean to Fort Meade in anything close to real time would be far harder still, possibly requiring the NSA to lay its own fiber-optic lines from the tap to some sort of relay station.

The most recent European Parliament report on Echelon concluded that such links would be far too costly. The report also said that new laser regenerators used to amplify fiber-optic signals cannot be tapped the way repeaters can, meaning that "the use of submarines for the routine surveillance of international telephone traffic can be ruled out."

(The Navy's decision to spend $1 billion to retrofit its premier spy submarine, the USS Jimmy Carter, would suggest American policymakers believe otherwise.)

Another challenge facing Hayden's NSA is to decode communications encrypted with powerful -- and widely available -- software. When Hayden became director, the deputy he inherited told Congress that the encryption software would make the job of decoding encrypted messages "difficult, if not impossible," even with the world's largest collection of supercomputers.

One alternative is to steal 1s and 0s before they are encrypted, or after they are decrypted. This requires classic espionage -- as practiced by the Special Collection Service, the top-secret joint CIA-NSA operation. In the Cold War, American spies recruited Soviet code clerks. Now the targets of choice -- the people paid to sell out their governments or organizations -- are systems administrators and other techies capable of providing encryption keys or planting electronic "trapdoors" in computer systems that can be accessed from computers on the other side of the world.

The irony amid all this new technology is that human beings -- old-fashioned spies -- are suddenly as important as ever.

With his organization laid out and his mission clarified, Hayden began updating his human resources last December. He freed up enough slots and cajoled additional funds from Congress to hire 600 people this year -- three times what the agency had been hiring annually. Sixty senior managers accepted early retirement incentives, giving him enough headroom to reach down a generation in selecting new managers. Maureen A. Baginski, a member of the insiders team that produced the scathing management assessment for Hayden back in 1999, headed the class.

She would run the newly created directorate of signals intelligence. Now, an operations officer targeting a terrorist cell could team with an engineer who could help him figure out how the cell's communications were routed around the world. And though Baginski, too, is a former Russian linguist, she clearly understood the challenges ahead. "You could literally stare for 25 years at the Soviet land mass and never have this kind of volume problem," she says. "They were slow, so it was okay if we were slow. Today, it's volume, it's velocity and it's variety."

Her management style, too, is more current -- more attuned to the idea of empowering the people beneath her. When a U.S. Navy EP-3 reconnaissance aircraft -- an NSA asset -- crash-landed on China's Hainan Island this spring after colliding with a Chinese fighter jet, an operations officer called Baginski at home late on a Saturday night, told her what had happened and said, "You will want to come in."

Baginski replied: "No, I will not want to come in." Her reasoning was that the agency already had a person charged with running an emergency response operation. "Why should I do it in a crisis if someone else does it every day?" Baginski said.

As Baginski was settling in, Hayden was busy looking outside the NSA for new people to work for her -- and soon found the agency swamped. In February, the home of No Such Agency and Never Say Anything held a job fair to recruit computer scientists, mathematicians, linguists and analysts to become new spooks. Seventeen hundred people registered in advance -- and hundreds of walk-ins dressed in dark business attire showed up and waited in a line that snaked through the parking lot. Hayden's openness initiative was paying dividends.

Soon, he advertised in the outside world to fill eight other top jobs, including chief information officer, chief of legislative affairs, deputy associate director for research and chief of SIGINT systems engineering. All of the jobs paid between $109,000 and $125,000, well below salaries for commensurate jobs in the private sector. But, as Black is fond of saying, "patriotism still works on occasion."

By the end of March, the NSA began its first major push to involve the private sector in development of new SIGINT technology with an initiative it called Trailblazer. A total of three contracts, worth about $10 million apiece, were awarded to corporate consortia led by Booz Allen & Hamilton Inc., Lockheed Martin Corp. and TRW's systems and information technology group.

Skeptics wonder whether it will all be enough, given the speed with which technology is moving. They also question whether there is enough top technical talent still left at the NSA to manage complex relationships with contractors so that the contracts result in real gains instead of white elephants. The Federal Aviation Administration, after all, hired IBM in the late 1980s to design a new air traffic control system -- and ended up abandoning the project at a cost of $500 million.

But analysts on Capitol Hill and other close observers in the private sector say Hayden, Black, Baginski and company appear to be getting their message across that the NSA must take risks if it is ever to "own the virtual," as one industry analyst put it.

James Adams, a British journalist turned Internet security executive who serves on a panel of outside advisers created by Hayden, says the agency's workforce breaks down into three distinct camps: 25 percent are enthusiastic about Hayden's program, 25 percent are threatened and dead set against it, and 50 percent are sitting on the fence waiting to see who wins.

Sometime this summer, Hayden plans to publish reduction-in-force procedures to deal with the naysayers, if need be. He will keep offering retirement incentives, preferring the carrot to the stick, but now accepts that layoffs may be necessary.

They would be the first in the agency's history.

With all the changes, Hayden may be making enemies among his agency's old guard, but he's also building a powerful constituency elsewhere. "We went deaf for 72 hours because of an antiquated system that should have been upgraded years ago," says Tim Sample, staff director of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. "When you're at that point in an organization, it takes a monumental effort over a sustained period to get back up to speed. They needed a leader -- and that's what they got."

Sample's boss, Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), the committee's chairman, recently floated the idea of promoting Hayden to a four-star general and extending his three-year tour, now less than a year from completion.

Tenet has gone even further. "My personal view is, Mike Hayden must stay out there for five years -- he has got to have time on target," Tenet says. "He's thinking out of the box. He's engaged. He's not afraid of opening up the NSA. He's not afraid of the American public. And he knows what has to be done."

Hayden is willing to stay on, if that's what Tenet and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld desire. There is, he knows, much work still to be done. His personal focus this summer -- now that the computers seem to be working again -- is people. Specifically, promotions. Six months ago, Hayden got rid of all regulations requiring employees to spend two years at one pay grade before they get promoted to the next. Now he's trying to make sure that the agency's hidebound promotions panels start taking advantage of that freedom. If the right people don't advance, Hayden believes, nothing else really matters.

He says he feels more and more confident about the course he's charted. But there's a certain fatigue in his voice. "I feel tired," Hayden allows. "But I see points of light more frequently."

Vernon Loeb covers intelligence and defense for The Post. He will be fielding questions and comments about this article at 1 p.m. Monday on www.washingtonpost.com/liveonline.

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Report: Hanssen Key Leader in Spy Unit

New York Times
July 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/news/AP-FBI-Spy.html

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- While former FBI agent Robert Hanssen was selling secrets to Moscow, he also was a key supervisor in a 1980s domestic program that questioned the loyalty of Americans in an effort to thwart Soviet spy activity, according to a newspaper report.

The program monitored peace and anti-nuclear activists and other groups that the White House worried could be manipulated by Soviet propaganda. Its stated goal was to uncover Soviet attempts at altering U.S. policy by influencing targeted groups.

Hanssen's initials appear on numerous files among 2,815 pages of formerly classified documents recently obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.

``It's astonishing that the very guy who was going after dissenters was in fact working for the Soviets,'' said Michael Ratner, vice president of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, a left-leaning political group that has been monitored by the FBI in the past.

As federal agents spent thousands of hours collecting political intelligence over a decade, Hanssen was giving his Soviet and Russian handlers a host of U.S. secrets on defense plans, nuclear weapons systems and American intelligence gathering.

In a plea agreement reached this month, Hanssen, 57, admitted to 15 criminal counts, including 13 of espionage and one of attempted espionage. Under the agreement, Hanssen will give a full confession of his spying activities in exchange for a life sentence without parole, thus avoiding the death penalty.

Hanssen's former boss, David Major, confirmed that Hanssen was ``one of a handful of experts'' on Soviet political influence operations inside the United States. Major is retired from the FBI and works as a counterintelligence consultant.

Hanssen's assignment to the bureau's Soviet counterintelligence unit has been reported, but the documents disclosed in April show that he also was a key supervisor in the political intelligence operation.

Hanssen declined to be interviewed and the FBI declined to comment further about the confessed spy's activity within the bureau.

According to the files, the Soviet Analytical Unit would evaluate information collected about Soviet spies in the United States, analyze raw intelligence reports regarding alleged subversion and provide conclusions to the intelligence community and government officials.

Major said Hanssen, who was deputy chief of the unit from 1987 to 1990, ``played a fundamental role in producing the final product. He was significantly involved in the process.''

And even though Hanssen was not head of the unit, he often was left in charge when its chief was supervising other matters. Some documents confirm this by showing Hanssen signing off for his boss.

-------- terrorism

Officials sound alarm over 'Code Red' worm

USA TODAY
07/29/2001 - Updated 08:57 PM ET
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/2001-07-29-code-red.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - In an unprecedented show of force against an extremely virulent Internet attack, government and private officials on Monday will implore worldwide organizations to protect themselves from the "Code Red" worm.

Representatives from the White House, FBI, Microsoft and others have decided to take the step in the face of one of the largest ever dangers to the Internet. The worm, similar to a virus, could cause widespread slowdowns and sporadic outages.

"The Internet has become indispensible to our national security and economic well-being," said Ron Dick, head of the National Infrastructure Protection Center, an arm of the FBI. "Worms like Code Red pose a distinct threat to the Internet."

Along with posting various warnings on their Web sites, government officials and representatives from Microsoft were holding a news conference Monday afternoon to publicize their efforts.

The government routinely works with private companies to issue warnings about new hack attacks and viruses, but never before have they made such a high-profile stand.

While the actual infection rate is unknown, it is believed to be in the hundreds of thousands of Internet-connected computers. In just the first nine hours of its July 19 outbreak, it infected more than 250,000 systems.

The government-funded Computer Emergency Response Team said the worm is predicted to start spreading again Tuesday at 8 p.m. EDT.

"This spread has the potential to disrupt business and personal use of the Internet for applications such as electronic commerce, email and entertainment," a CERT advisory warns.

The officials are frustrated that even though a software inoculation was made available over a month before the worm's first attack, many computers are still defenseless. The patch, which will protect computers, can be found on Microsoft's Web site.

The worm defaces Web sites with the words "Hacked by Chinese." While it doesn't destroy data, it could be modified to do so. At least two mutations have already been found.

Code Red exploits a flaw discovered in June in Microsoft's Internet Information Services software used on Internet servers. It is found in Windows' NT and 2000 operating systems.

Only computers set to use the English language will have their Web pages defaced and users of Windows 95, Windows 98 or Windows Me are not affected. For the first 20 days of every month, the worm spreads. From the 20th on, it attacks the White House Web site, trying to knock it offline.

The White House took precautions against it, changing its numerical Internet address to dodge the attack.

Even though the target has moved, the infected computers will still launch their attack. This, officials said, could slow down the Internet causing sporadic but widespread outages.

Last week, the Pentagon was forced to shut down public access to all of its Web sites temporarily to purge and protect them from the Code Red worm.

Because Code Red spread so quickly, security companies have not been able to figure out who wrote and released it.

Code Red also can damage smaller networks by affecting a certain type of Internet routers, made by Cisco Systems, used for data traffic control.

Steve Lipner, head of Microsoft's security response center, said the company is looking for new ways to distributing patches more efficiently.

The government relies on Microsoft and other technology companies to secure everything from defense networks to financial systems.

"The protection of the Internet requires a partnership with the government, private companies and the public as a whole," NIPC's Dick said.

-------- activists

BOGUS ARREST AT SPACE CENTER FLORIDA

Sun, 29 Jul 2001
from: globalnet@mindspring.com

It's no surprise that Bruce Gagnon likes to demonstrate. To celebrate his birthday, he invited friends to join him at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on July 28 to hold some banners at this most popular tourist facility.

Some background is necessary. Last month, eight of us did the same thing. We stood in an area close to the booth where people pay their entrance fee. We weren't there five minutes when NASA security police were all over us, insisting we stand at the "designated protest area." The spot turned out to be a decent one, a grassy walkway with trees that hundreds of tourists passed on their way to and from the ticket entrance.

Although uninvited, NASA security read Bruce's e-mail birthday invitation. They were prepared for us. In the morning, they switched the parking lots so that the areas around the "designated protest area" were full by the time we got there. The "main entrance" for entering tourists was now way out of sight of the "protest area." So we went to the "new" active entrance. We were a dozen people. All but one of us stood with our banners in full view of tourists, without blocking access. There was a steady flow of people. Wil Van Natta (West Palm Beach) stood in the midst of the flow of people, greeting those who passed by showing them an enlargement of the Space Command's "Vision for 2020."

We had just unfurled our banners when NASA security police arrived to tell us we needed to move to the designated area, or we would be arrested for trespassing. They called for the Brevard County Police. We stayed put, holding banners that said "Keep Space for Peace," "No Weapons in Space," and "No Nuclear Power in Space."

A few people stopped to listen to what Wil had to say about the Space Command and its plans to dominate space. One of the security officers approached, told him he was under arrest, and handcuffed him. Wil remained calm and respectful; others of us questioned the appropriateness of this arrest in every way we could.

Soon thereafter, most of us went over to the "designated protest area." We were shocked to see that they had constructed a "corral" for us - a small metal cage you would expect to see fencing in cows or pigs. We refused to enter. Security police maintained a steady presence near us for two hours videotaping, taking pictures, talking into their radios. Some even hovered around our cars in the parking lot.

Meanwhile, our friend Beth Ehrlich (Daytona Beach) stayed behind with some others to observe what would happen with Wil. She engaged in conversation with a woman tourist who was waiting for friends. When asked by this woman for some written information, Beth handed her a newsletter. Immediately a security officer appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and grabbed the newsletter. All three of them tugged on the paper for a moment before the tourist finally insisted this newsletter belonged to her. He let go of the paper and left.

There's the image, friends: NASA "security", defining their jobs as securing the area from any ideas or written materials they don't approve of. A tourist having to "fight" for the opportunity to read a newsletter. Restricted access to any ideas not bought and paid for by NASA and the aerospace corporations. An expression of their deep fear that a simple slogan on a banner might encourage tourists to open their minds and think before they enter the front door. Their "security," paid for by taxpayers' dollars, is about keeping freedom of expression corralled, marginalized, ridiculed, punished.

Wil was taken to the county jail and booked for trespassing. They eventually waived bond and he was released eight hours later. He has a court appearance scheduled in three weeks.

We will return to KSC on October 13, in greater number. We will not be silenced.

Mary Beth Sullivan

Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, PO Box 90083, Gainesville, FL. 32607, (352) 337-9274, http://www.space4peace.org, globalnet@mindspring.com

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