------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
German nuclear waste reaches French plant
German EnBW gets go-ahead for nuke waste storage
US-built nuclear waste site opens in Russia
Rice Aims for New Russia Framework
Gephardt Launches an Attack on Bush's Foreign Policy

MILITARY
Tribunal in The Hague Finds Bosnian Serb Guilty of Genocide
Germ Warfare Group Suspends Talks
Bioterrorism Summit Mulls Scenarios
War With an Absent Army
United States Reports Improved Air Defenses in Iraq
Navy Resumes Vieques Exercises Despite Pleas From Opponents
Tensions Flare Over Bomb Exercises
Vieques Not Needed For Navy Maneuvers
Pentagon Proposes a Plan for Closing Domestic Bases
More Okinawa Anger Vs. U.S. Troops
Rumsfeld Warned Not To Cut Size Of Army
Jumper confirmed as next Air Force chief
Military control possible

OTHER
In the End, Energy Bill Fulfilled Most Industry Wishes
McCain, Lieberman Criticize Bush
FBI to Probe Suburban D.C. Police
Montesinos Wants CIA's Help


-------- NUCLEAR

-------- europe

German nuclear waste reaches French plant

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
FRANCE: August 3, 2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11886

ROUEN, France - The biggest-ever shipment of spent German nuclear fuel arrived at a processing plant in France yesterday only slightly delayed by environmental protests, officials said.

A spokeswoman for the French nuclear processing agency Cogema said the convoy containing some 100 spent fuel rods reached the La Hague plant near Cherbourg at around 1:00 p.m. (1100 GMT), some two hours behind schedule.

Greenpeace and Green Party activists blocked the nuclear rail shipment on at least two occasions as it headed across northern France by chaining themselves to the tracks. Police quickly cut them free, allowing the train to pass.

On Wednesday evening, five activists chained themselves to the tracks at the Bischeim train station, close to France's border with Germany, but were swiftly moved on.

The original shipment from Germany comprised 12 wagons, but three were uncoupled in France and taken to the port of Dunkerque, where they will be loaded on to a ship and taken to a reprocessing plant in the British town of Sellafield.

The Cogema spokeswoman said the nine-wagon shipment for La Hague was larger than normal because a convoy planned for last month was cancelled and subsequently hitched on to the August batch.

"It is the largest shipment of its kind, but safety has never been put in jeopardy," she said, adding that it would take "several years" to reprocess the waste before it could be returned to Germany.

French nuclear regulators ASN and OPRI said in a joint statement that tests carried out on the train had shown radiation levels were below legal limits and had been safe.

The transport of German nuclear waste for reprocessing abroad started again in April after a three-year interruption.

The restart followed the so-called Atom Consensus agreed between the German federal government and the local power industry on the abandonment of nuclear energy by 2020.

As part of the deal, the reprocessing of fuel rods abroad will be allowed until 2005. In return, Germany has agreed to take back the reprocessed waste.

-------- germany

German EnBW gets go-ahead for nuke waste storage

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
GERMANY: August 3, 2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11897

FRANKFURT - German utility EnBW said yesterday it had received official approval to store nuclear waste in an interim storage facility on the site of its Philippsburg nuclear power plant.

"The Federal Radiation Protection Agency (BfS) has granted legal approval for the interim storage facility on the site of EnBW's Philippsburg nuclear power plant," EnBW Kraftwerke spokesman Stephan Gabard told Reuters.

"We expect to move the elements from the rail wagon in which they are now stored at the plant into the interim facility in the next few weeks," he added.

Karlsruhe-based EnBW uses two types of Castor containers - five/19 and five/52. The five (V) refers to the five years that fuel elements must be stored in water before they can be transferred to a Castor container.

The storage will at first include 12 Castor V/19 containers, in each of which 19 fuel elements from (the reactor's) block II unit can be stored.

"The BfS decided for administrative purposes to allow storage at the interim facility in two stages - first for the five/19 containers and second for the five/52 containers, but we don't yet know when the second stage will be," Gabard said.

With the second approval stage, the number of Castor containers can be increased to 24 in the interim storage facility.

It will then be possible to store Castor V/52 containers, in each of which 52 fuel elements from the boiling water reactor will be able to be stored.

The storage approval has a duration of five years with the possibility of a two-year extension.

"We can use the interim facility for up to seven years, by which time we expect to have built a temporary storage facility, which can be used for up to 40 years," Gabard said.

Yesterday's go-ahead completes the approval process, which includes permission from the Karlsruhe State Council, which was granted in May.

The Castor containers will be stored in the interim storage facility under a structure with 40-centimetre (15.75-inch) thick walls of reinforced concrete with air circulating above them, which helps to cool them from a temperature of 70 degrees celsius.

The interim storage facility is located in the southern part of the plant's site near the block II reactor building.

Together with the shipment of nuclear waste to the reprocessing site in La Hague, France, the on-site facility safeguards the storage of spent fuel elements and ensures the undistrubed operation of the nuclear power plant units at Philippsburg, EnBW said.

-------- russia

US-built nuclear waste site opens in Russia

REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
RUSSIA: August 3, 2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11889

BOLSHOI KAMEN, Russia - Russia opened a nuclear waste treatment and storage site yesterday, built with U.S. funding to ensure the safety of spent fuel from Russian submarines in the Pacific Ocean.

The site was built by an international consortium led by Lockheed Martin at the Zvezda shipbuilding factory in the Russian far eastern town of Bolshoi Kamen.

"This complex, built in less than three years, will help minimise the quantity of secondary waste and also organise the process of its temporary storage in compact and safe form in modern reservoirs maintaining all systems of control and monitoring," the Zvezda factory said in a press release.

The safe decommissioning of submarines from Russia's nuclear-powered fleets in the Pacific, the Arctic and the North Sea is an important issue for environmental groups and nuclear non-proliferation specialists.

The Zvezda factory has dismantled 15 submarines since the 1980s, the factory said.

A similar waste reprocessing and storage site has been built in the Arctic port of Severodvinsk, base of the Russian Northern Fleet.

-------- us nuc politics

Rice Aims for New Russia Framework

New York Times
August 3, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/news/AP-US-Russia.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Russia might share defense plans with the United States and buy American missile technology if a new strategic framework is worked out in talks that open in Washington next week, President Bush's national security adviser says.

Even membership in NATO is not ruled out, Condoleezza Rice said in an Associated Press interview as she outlined the Bush administration's concept for converting a relationship rooted in Cold War hostility to one based on friendly cooperation.

``I am hopeful there can be a new day with Russia,'' Rice said. ``We are talking about a bigger issue than what we do about missile defenses and strategic weapons.''

In the talks next Tuesday and Wednesday and subsequent rounds in Moscow and New York, ``They will see we have laid out for Russia and most of the world a path of cooperation,'' Rice said Thursday.

She stressed Russia has not accepted the cooperative concept, and it must adopt stringent curbs on transfer of technology to Iran and North Korea before the United States would permit the Kremlin to buy American equipment.

``We still have a proliferation problem of significant proportion,'' Rice said.

The talks -- Rice prefers to call them consultations rather than traditional negotiations -- are the first in a series of three rounds designed to implement the agreement President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin reached July 22 in Genoa, Italy. It linked U.S. planning for a missile defense system with large cuts the Kremlin wants made in the two nations' still-massive nuclear weapons arsenals.

Russia's delegation will be headed by Col. Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, first deputy chief of the general staff, and the U.S. delegation by Douglas Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and Assistant Secretary of State John Bolton then would go to Moscow for a second round, and Secretary of State Colin Powell would meet in New York in mid-September with Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov.

``We've set up intensive consultations,'' said Rice, who held her own talks in Moscow after the Bush-Putin meeting. ``We believe there is a new strategic framework out there that permits missile defenses and involves offensive reductions.''

The administration's view is that both the United States and Russia have security reasons to begin a new relationship, she said. ``It is not built on implacable hostility, as it was with the Soviet Union,'' Rice said.

Putin has resisted U.S. overtures to accept a U.S. anti-missile program that runs counter to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, but his willingness in Genoa to have talks simultaneously on defense systems and missile cuts was welcomed by Bush.

A new relationship, Rice said, could include the United States and Russia sharing defense plans ``so they see what the other side is doing,'' holding joint warning exercises and sharing missile data, including permission for Russia to purchase American equipment.

``We will have our differences with the Russians,'' she said. ``But we are not strategic adversaries.''

Formal, protracted negotiations marked the Cold War and produced a raft of arms control treaties, some of which have not been implemented. Such exercises are not part of the administration's plan, according to Rice.

``What we don't want to have is a 12-year negotiation,'' she said.

--------

Gephardt Launches an Attack on Bush's Foreign Policy

New York Times
August 3, 2001
By THOM SHANKER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/03/international/03GLOB.html

WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 - Drawing clear battle lines with the White House on foreign policy, Representative Richard A. Gephardt accused the Bush administration today of an obsession with missile defense and of pursuing a unilateralist approach to world affairs that risks antagonizing Russia and undermining relations with Europe.

Mr. Gephardt, the House minority leader, vowed to unite Democrats and persuade Republicans to forge a bipartisan majority in Congress to block any missile defense system that would violate the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty. He also defended formal arms control negotiations as essential to maintaining the nuclear peace.

On Russia, Mr. Gephardt sketched his version of a framework for new relations, one that would reject ultimatums on missile defenses and warhead reductions but never shy from complaining about Russian failures to protect press freedoms, ethnic relations and religious tolerance. Eventually, he said, the goal would be to "extend to Russia the prospect of NATO membership."

The Missouri Democrat, widely seen as an undeclared candidate for his party's presidential nomination in 2004, recently returned from a visit to Europe and Russia, and said NATO allies "are worried that America is on the sidelines."

"They think the Bush administration has embraced a go-it-alone policy that undermines international security, hurts our economic and environmental interests and prevents us from seizing a historic opportunity for engagement with Russia," he said.

When Mr. Gephardt's speech, given to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace today, is added to recent statements from three Senate Democrats - Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the Armed Services Committee; Joseph R. Biden of Delaware, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee; and Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the majority leader - a consensus party agenda on international security comes sharply into focus.

While differences are inevitable, the Democrats generally unite in arguing that nuclear deterrence still works, even against Iraq and North Korea. They broadly agree that there is no need to rush deployment of missile defenses, although continued research and development, within treaty constraints, in pursuit of a limited system is a national interest.

The Democrats also hold that President Bush, by rejecting important treaties, is leading Americans into a new isolationism that will weaken their ability to pursue a broad range of global interests, and that the United States should return to negotiations on global warming and stick to peacekeeping commitments.

Mr. Gephardt focused his harshest criticism on the Bush administration's dealings with Moscow on arms control and missile defense.

Speaking of Russia, he said: "This is a country that is strapped financially in the most severe way. And they've got multiple thousands of warheads. How can they keep them in repair? How can they avoid accidents? Are we worried about their command and control, about something getting out of hand? So that to me is the major threat that we still face. And treating that in a sensible way is severely complicated by our obsession with going ahead with this missile defense plan, which we haven't proven can work, and we haven't developed, and that we certainly haven't worked out with the Europeans and the Russians."

The president's senior advisers say that the Bush administration will apply the standard of American national interest in determining whether to support or reject international accords. For example, in the case of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, administration officials say, the pact would damage the American economy and harm global financial health.

And on relations with Russia, the administration has stated that the ABM treaty is outdated and stands in the way of moving rapidly toward both historic reductions in arsenals and building a defense against ballistic missiles launched by an enemy - or accidentally by Russia.

Mr. Gephardt said the administration "has ratcheted up its unilateral rhetoric," which he said had led to "the largely symbolic, yet potentially destabilizing treaty between Russia and China, designed in part to counter U.S. global dominance." He was referring to a treaty of "friendship and cooperation" signed by the two countries last month.

Mr. Gephardt said the president's policies had already resulted in Russian threats to place more nuclear warheads on its missiles and a Russian decision to block American efforts to strengthen international sanctions on Iraq.

"These examples, I think, demonstrate a simple yet profound fact of international relations," he said. "One nation, acting alone, cannot possibly build a lasting strategic framework to which all other nations submit."

After the speech, Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, tossed the unilateralist charge back at Mr. Gephardt, accusing him of working to shackle the president's authority to negotiate trade deals and saying that he and other Democrats were thwarting the tenets of the North American Free Trade Agreement by trying to keep Mexican truckers off American highways.

"Given his isolationist record on Mexico, on Nafta, on free trade, the president hopes that Mr. Gephardt will pursue a more internationalist course this fall on trade promotion authority," Mr. Fleischer said.

Mr. Gephardt had anticipated that charge in his speech, saying that in order to get a trade agreement through Congress, "it's got to have enforceable provisions on labor and environmental matters" and on human rights.

-------- MILITARY

-------- balkans

Tribunal in The Hague Finds Bosnian Serb Guilty of Genocide

New York Times
August 3, 2001
By MARLISE SIMONS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/03/international/europe/03BOSN.html

THE HAGUE, Aug. 2 - A former Bosnian Serb general was found guilty of genocide today for his role in the systematic execution of more than 7,000 unarmed Muslim men and boys near the Bosnian town of Srebrenica in July 1995.

Today's verdict by the international war crimes tribunal was the court's first conviction on a charge of genocide in the wars that broke up Yugoslavia. The massacres in the fields of Srebrenica have become known as the greatest atrocity in Europe since World War II. The former general, Radislav Krstic, 53, was sentenced to 46 years in prison. It was the longest sentence yet issued by this United Nations tribunal.

Reading in French from the unanimous decision of the three tribunal judges, Judge Almiro Rodrigues of Portugal, said the general was "guilty of the murder of thousands of Bosnian Muslims."

He told the defendant, "In July 1995, General Krstic, you agreed to evil. This is why the Trial Chamber convicts you today and sentences you to 46 years in prison."

The legal definition of genocide, according to court statutes, refers to "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."

In the dock, the general, who lost his right leg in a mine explosion and was allowed to remain seated for the verdict, glanced down and swallowed, looking gaunt and pained.

He was found guilty of all eight charges leveled against him, including extermination, persecution, deportation and other crimes against humanity.

The verdict today is likely to affect the current investigation of the former Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, who is jailed at the United Nations cell block, just a mile from the tribunal, on war-crimes charges related only to Kosovo. But prosecutors are seeking to include his support for the Serb military offensives in Bosnia. Summarizing the 255- page ruling today, Judge Rodrigues reviewed the events that occurred in Srebrenica, a United Nations enclave in eastern Bosnia overrun by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995 before the eyes of 300 Dutch peacekeepers. "In all, 7,000 to 8,000 men were captured by the Serbian forces," Judge Rodrigues said. "Almost all of them were killed."

"By deciding to kill all the men of fighting age, a decision was taken to make it impossible for the Muslim people of Srebrenica to survive," he read, slowly and deliberately. "Stated otherwise, what was ethnic cleansing became genocide."

Judge Rodrigues was flanked by two colleagues in crimson robes: Judge Fouad Riad from Egypt and Judge Patricia Wald from the United States.

During the 16-month trial, prosecutors set out to provide the most thorough historical record yet of the atrocities that took place between July 12 and July 19 in 1995.

Their evidence included the corpses from mass graves, and the accounts of survivors, reviving memories of the outrage stirred abroad by events at Srebrenica. The indignation stirred the West both to take tougher military action against the Bosnian Serbs and to pressure the warring parties to sign the Dayton peace accords in December 1995.

Today's verdict is likely to have particular echoes in the Netherlands and France. In both countries, parliamentarians and other groups are wrestling with the question of whether their failure to act more forcefully in some way enabled genocide.

Gen. Bernard Janvier of France, the overall United Nations commander for Bosnia at the time, ignored repeated warnings by Dutch peacekeepers that the Bosnian Serb military was preparing to invade Srebrenica, and vetoed, until the very last minute, NATO air strikes requested by the peacekeepers.

Critics of the Dutch peacekeepers, whose numbers had dwindled to 310 and who were overpowered and disarmed by the Serbs, argue that the soldiers should have worried less about themselves and their fellow soldiers held hostage, and done more to demand protection for the refugees they were supposed to guard. The results of investigations in France and the Netherlands will be published this fall.

Peacekeepers have appeared as witnesses in the starkly modern courtroom, but the judges today focused only on the Bosnian Serb plan to choke off the United Nations enclave, driving out and killing many of its longtime Muslim inhabitants, and the role played by General Krstic, the commander of the 15,000 member Drina Corps. They also singled out Radovan Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb president at the time.

On March 8, 1995, the judges summary said, Dr. Karadzic laid out his battle plan, and issued an order to separate the two United Nations protected enclaves of Srebrenica and Zepa. His orders for the Drina Corps were "By well-thought-out combat operations, create an unbearable situation of total insecurity with no hope of further survival or life for the inhabitants of Srebrenica and Zepa."

The ruling showed how the plan was meticulously carried out and how General Krstic was involved. He was named commander as the corps burst into Srebrenica. The judges said that while he may not have ordered the assault, he played a central role in the killings and deportations that followed.

Many of the horrors of the fatal days from July 12 to July 19 that year have been known and described in articles, books and documentary films. But proving the crimes in court has been long and complicated.

Witnesses at first were afraid to cooperate; there was no paper trail of orders, and for a long time Bosnian Serbs did not allow work on mass graves needed to provide evidence. But as NATO troops moved into Bosnia the climate gradually changed. Investigators, armed with court orders from The Hague and backed by NATO troops, scoured through Bosnian Serb military archives and seized thousands of documents.

"The Serbs went to great lengths to hide the evidence of the crimes," said Jean-René Ruez, who led the investigation. "But they did a sloppy job. They moved bodies from mass graves, but left behind many. They erased records and cleaned out archives. Binders from 1995 were missing. But they left some things. They did not remember to destroy the engineering logs showing how they used heavy equipment to dig the graves. We found timetables of the military police guarding prisoners."

Prosecutors said that the Krstic trial is the first international trial where forensic evidence has played such a crucial role. Such evidence was not produced during the trials in Tokyo and Nuremberg following World War II. It has been used, but to a lesser extent, during the trials dealing with the 1994 massacres in Rwanda. In Bosnia, dozens of international experts have worked for months, digging up 2,028 bodies and finding another 2,500, spread over more than two dozen sites.

Unlike the Rwanda tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, this court has little experience trying genocide. Earlier charges of genocide against two Bosnian Serbs were not upheld. "Judges have clearly sought to avoid ruling on genocide in the two cases that involved low-ranking people," said an expert at the court.

The Rwanda tribunal has convicted eight people, all of them on charges including genocide.

The two lawyers defending General Krstic said their client, who had pleaded not guilty to all charges, would appeal both the verdict and the sentence. Nenad Petrusic, the chief defense counsel, said that he and his client had not talked much about the sentence. "We had expected an acquittal," he said abruptly.

The appeals process at the tribunal typically takes many months and General Krstic is therefore expected to remain at the United Nations cell block where he has been since his arrival in December 1998.

Some lawyers and human rights workers who follow the court said they were shocked at what they called a short sentence. They compared it to the longest sentence so far, that of Gen. Tihomir Blaskic, a Bosnian Croat who was sent to prison for 45 years for crimes against humanity and war crimes.

"So genocide is worth only one extra year," said Avril McDonald, a lawyer at the Asser Institute for International Law in The Hague. "I'm appalled. To me genocide equals life in jail."

Mark Harmon, the chief prosecutor and an American from San Francisco, said he was satisfied because the judges upheld all the prosecution's charges. "I am gratified that genocide was recognized, especially in this case," said Mr. Harmon after the proceedings. "The perpetrators knew that in a patriarchal society, such as Srebrenica, the destruction of the male population would result in the destruction of the whole community."

Although he had demanded a life sentence, he said, he was not disappointed. "Forty-six years is a substantial sentence for a man of Krstic's age," he said "The essence is there. I don't want to quibble about figures."

Today's ruling will weigh heavily in the prosecution of other Bosnian Serbs indicted for genocide, two of whom are being held in The Hague. The other two, Dr. Karadzic and Gen. Ratko Mladic, his military commander, are fugitives.

In Sarajevo, military officials said today that three Muslim officers who served in Bosnia's army in the civil war had been arrested on war crimes charges and would be handed over to the tribunal in The Hague.

-------- biological weapons

Germ Warfare Group Suspends Talks

New York Times
August 3, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Biological-Ban.html

GENEVA (AP) -- A 56-nation group seeking to enforce a global ban on germ warfare agreed Friday to suspend negotiations indefinitely because of a pullout by the United States.

``Quite a number of delegations would be reluctant to engage in continued negotiations among themselves in the absence of a major negotiating partner, that is the United States of America,'' said Tibor Toth, chairman of the negotiating forum.

The group had been trying to devise a protocol on enforcement of the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, which has been signed by 143 countries, including the United States.

The United States shocked the other nations involved in the 6 1/2-year talks with its pullout announcement on July 25.

At the time, U.S. chief negotiator Donald A. Mahley said Washington had reviewed a draft accord on enforcing the treaty and decided that it was unable to accept the compromise text -- and that further negotiations could not fix it.

Some advocates of the draft protocol had suggested the other nations go ahead without the United States, as many nations did in approving an agreement last week to fight global warming even though Washington had pulled out.

But Toth said some delegations told him it would pointless to have an enforcement system which lacks U.S. commitment.

The forum agreed without objection to Toth's recommendation that they suspend their negotiating efforts for this year and move on next week to writing a report on where they stand after 6 1/2 years.

Toth, a Hungarian diplomat who has guided the talks from the beginning, told negotiators that ``the overwhelming majority'' of the delegates had been hopeful that an agreement on how to enforce the convention could be reached this summer. Unfortunately, he said, ``it is not possible to do that.''

In rejecting the draft protocol, the United States said it posed risks to U.S. national security and commercial secrets of the biotech industry and would be ineffective in stopping countries from developing a germ warfare arsenal.

When the treaty was created during the Cold War, negotiators left out enforcement details, but at the time no one seriously thought anyone would try to use germ warfare.

Under the rules of the negotiations, the 210-page draft protocol detailing inspection procedures and other features would have to be approved by consensus. Any one country could block approval.

Mexico told the forum it ``deeply regrets'' the U.S. decision to pullout, saying the announcement ``opens the door to situations of instability and uncertainty for the international community.''

Mexican Ambassador Gustavo Albin noted that the move for an enforcement mechanism began ``in a moment of crisis of international security,'' a reference to discoveries of Iraqi arsenals after the Gulf War.

Since then the science to produce biological weapons has advanced further, he said. ``To conclude the process without an agreement on a protocol is the worst possible scenario,'' Albin said.

France said it didn't regard the halt to the talks as final and that it expected the United States to come up with concrete new ideas on enforcing the anti-germ-warfare treaty so that negotiations could resume.

Iran said the United States was needed in any agreement because it has one of the most advanced biotechnology industries. ``The continuation of negotiation without the United States is not justified,'' said an Iranian statement.

The 143 nations that have ratified the convention are to hold a five-year review in November, when further decisions are possible.

--------

Bioterrorism Summit Mulls Scenarios

New York Times
August 3, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-ABA-Bioterrorism.html?searchpv=aponline

CHICAGO (AP) -- In an America that guards its civil liberties, police can't just shut down cities, make mass arrests and quarantine thousands of people. Or can they?

Current and former federal officials said Friday that if there is a terrorist attack with biological weapons, private rights would quickly be swamped by the need to protect the public. State borders could close, vaccines could be rationed or commandeered, the Army could even take over cities within weeks of a deadly attack, an American Bar Association panel predicted.

``To an extent, people are going to do what needs to be done and worry about the legal niceties later,'' said Suzanne Spaulding, a former top lawyer for the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The ABA panel, part of the annual meeting of the 400,000-lawyer organization, played out an imaginary terrorist campaign to infect Americans with the plague -- from the first tips by an FBI informant in New Mexico to closure of the Minnesota borders and riots in Cincinnati.

Along the way came word that a rogue Russian scientist and the Iraqi military were involved. Eventually, the FBI, CIA, National Centers for Disease Control, the White House, Pentagon and governors of several states were also involved -- each with broader power than many people probably know they have, participants said.

Under the hypothetical scenario, law enforcement could do little when a would-be terrorist shows up at a Santa Fe emergency room with a case of the plague. The investigation intensified, and the FBI got much broader authority, when several people died of the plague after attending a concert in Minneapolis.

Political pressure intensified, with a demand from 20 senators of the opposite political party from the president that the White House declare a national state of emergency. Then came word that the terrorists planned another attack during a street festival in Cincinnati.

Under this scenario, the FBI could go to a special court for permission to investigate foreigners, but could not begin stopping everyone in downtown Cincinnati who resembles a tipster's description of a suspected terrorist, said Eugene Bowman, deputy general counsel for the FBI.

Nor could the FBI order the downtown area cordoned off and every building searched, Bowman said. Agents would need warrants based on better specifics than those offered in the hypothetical terrorist attack.

But local police could do what the FBI cannot, so long as it was based on the need to protect public health, said Terry O'Brien, legal consultant to a national notification network tracking infections diseases.

``The idea is to prevent the epidemic,'' not to catch and punish a wrongdoer, O'Brien said.

The president could declare martial law and federalize state National Guards, said Michael Wermuth, head of a group advising the government on how well it is preparing for nuclear, chemical or biological terrorism.

The attorney general and the defense secretary could also invoke a federal law that lets them call in soldiers to keep order if police or other law enforcement cannot, Wermuth said.

``The military can be engaged directly in arrests, search and seizure and intelligence collection for law enforcement purposes,'' Wermuth said. ``There's very raw authority to use the military to do any number of things that (look) like law enforcement, or to assist public health authorities by (enforcing) quarantines.''

The government would also have the legal power to force people to be immunized, although as a practical matter it is probably impossible, O'Brien said. ``What are you going to do, go into somebody's home and tie them up?''

On the other hand, the government could take control of vaccine supplies, even if it meant overriding state governors bent on hoarding their in-state stockpiles, the panelists said.

The hypothetical exercise ended short of the president declaring nationwide martial law, and without the arrest or trial of the terrorists.

-------- colombia

War With an Absent Army
In Contested Region, Colombian Government Finds Some Towns Too Dangerous to Protect

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, August 3, 2001; Page A01
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61705-2001Jul27?language=printer

COLOMBIA -- Along the Medellin-Turbo Highway, the road curves through terraced coffee crops and dips into deep valleys where wisps of clouds blow through like smoke, hiding rebel camps and daytime troop movement through thick jungle.

In the villages around Peque, a town at the bitter end of a dirt track that branches off from this highway as it runs north to the sea, the number of dead from a massacre by paramilitary forces last month is still being determined. Waiting a week for the army to arrive, frightened villagers were told by the paramilitary troops not to bury family members. They had to kill more than a dozen of the town dogs to keep them away from the corpses.

The young men and women of Colombia's guerrilla armies and rival paramilitary force are present here in greater numbers than in any other part of the country, strung out along a highway as old as the four-decade war itself. Twice as many kidnappings occur in this part of Colombia -- more than 500 last year -- than in any other. Tens of thousands of refugees walk out of these towns, seeking safety in the cities of Medellin and Bogota.

Even more telling is what is not here: the Colombian government. A defining feature of the war, the absence of government has left a vacuum in which armed groups flourish across the country. The state's abiding weakness is an element of Colombia's war often overlooked in Washington, where the focus on eradicating drug trafficking has been dominant.

Although less than 150 miles away in Bogota, the central government exerts the slimmest influence in these heartland towns of red-tile roofs and broad plazas, leaving the coffee and bean farmers to improvise survival in a war zone where neither side represents the legitimate state. As the war has intensified, the central government has hastened its own disappearance, withdrawing permanent security forces from dozens of towns it has declared simply too dangerous to protect.

In its place, irregular armies impose arbitrary rule. They control towns, keep a chokehold on food supplies and the sale of everyday items like batteries and boots, kill people at roadblocks based on where they live, and "cleanse" villages of drug users. Only a few towns here have police or courts. Village priests are frequently more powerful than the few remaining elected mayors, who, lacking protection from the central government, serve at the whim of the armed groups. Miracles substitute for health clinics: Signs on roadside waterfalls declare the cascading waters medicinal.

"The peasant has been abandoned by the government," said a priest in the town of El Santuario, where paramilitary troops have killed hundreds of presumed guerrilla sympathizers and drug users in the past year. "They want us all to leave the country for the cities to make their job easier. But I tell my congregation to stay, stay and remain impartial in this conflict. And so their lives become a game of Ping-Pong as one group enters, replaced by another. Where is the state?"

In attempting to negotiate a peace accord with guerrilla forces, President Andres Pastrana has singled out the drug trade as the primary source of Colombia's civil conflict. The country's various armed groups profit enormously from protecting and controlling the drug trade in some regions, a source of financing that Pastrana wants stopped to strengthen his hand at the negotiating table.

Based on that premise, the United States is sending $1.3 billion in aid, mostly in the form of military hardware designed to give the Colombian armed forces more offensive capability. Less than a tenth of the U.S. aid package is earmarked for programs designed to "strengthen the rule of law."

There are no coca crops or poppy fields along this stretch of highway, which begins in the capital, Bogota, and runs more than 350 miles through the country's mountainous northwest to the lush banana zone of Turbo on the Caribbean Sea. For almost four decades it has been the most consistently contested region of Colombia for its value as an arms-transport corridor used by a strengthening guerrilla insurgency.

According to religious, municipal and paramilitary leaders interviewed over a three-day trip along a 100-mile stretch of this highway, first east and then west from Medellin, eliminating the drug trade will do nothing to lessen the conflict in these towns, which have provided fertile ground for Colombia's armed groups since long before drug trafficking began.

San Luis: Deadly Reprisals

The road climbs east out of Medellin through cool mountains, then dips sharply into a valley of bean fields and banana orchards. Arriving in San Luis, a chipped and worn town sloping along a hillside, traffic is stopped at an army checkpoint.

It is a rare glimpse of the Colombian state. Four soldiers read newspapers while one frisks passengers and peers into car trunks. Following a guerrilla siege that killed half of San Luis's 16 police officers in December 1999, the army arrived and stayed four months. Then the soldiers left, along with the police, and now return only sporadically in small patrols.

The constant ebb and flow of security forces along the highway and the roads that feed it exacerbates violence in these communities. When the army withdraws, as it always does in a war of many battles but no front, residents suffer reprisals by the armed groups that move quickly to retake towns in the military's wake.

"I have seen many die -- some for a reason, some for nothing," said Eugenio Cano, a 55-year-old farmer wearing the white-straw hat of peasants from Antioquia province.

Cano has been displaced by the war. His brother-in-law was killed two months ago by guerrilla troops, who arrived on his farm and accused him of supporting the army and its paramilitary collaborators. "The army comes, the army goes," Cano said. "The [armed] groups remain to tell us what to do."

Two bridges spanning deep canyons to the west lie in pieces, destroyed by guerrilla bombs. A dozen displaced men, women and children gather at the bottleneck to collect coins from passing cars. Farther along, a bombed brick tollbooth has been replaced by a tin shack, a white flag fluttering above it in a hopeful plea to the guerrillas to be left alone.

Graffiti mark the shifting line of control between the guerrillas and the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, the 8,000-member paramilitary army known as the AUC that fights the insurgency on the same side as the Colombian military. Not a soldier is in sight.

San Carlos: A Way of Life

The road bends into San Carlos, where three years ago a guerrilla siege killed half a dozen soldiers. Ever since, the army and police presence has been minimal and temporary. In the last three weeks, the paramilitary forces and the guerrillas have killed at least six people in their seesaw conflict for territory and influence in the vacuum left by the government. Two of those killed were employees of the TransOriente bus service, which provided the only public transportation into a nearby paramilitary stronghold.

The bus service has ended, thanks to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the 18,000-member Marxist insurgency that coalesced from a collection of rural armed vigilante groups in 1964. Several thousand guerrillas from the FARC, as the insurgent army is known, have exercised control in many of these towns for decades.

The conflict in San Carlos dictates life in large and small ways. Last year, the local paramilitary command summoned every business owner to a meeting in a nearby village to set the local "vaccine," a kind of municipal protection tax shopkeepers are required to pay the paramilitary men for their services. "I'd send 40,000 pesos [$17] every month by messenger," said the owner of a dry goods store. "But business has died and I stopped sending it a few months ago. So far no one has said anything, but I'm waiting."

The paramilitary army prohibits the sale of propane gas canisters in town because the guerrillas pack the empty ones with glass, nails and other objects for use as bombs. But the canisters provide the only cooking fuel for most of the population, leaving many without any way to make hot meals. A canister on the black market now goes for $35, twice the going rate in Medellin.

In the past 18 months, Lucia Cardona's fish-farmer husband and unemployed daughter have been murdered. Cardona, a woman with pudgy arms and sad, watery eyes, hasn't been given her husband's body and so must wait two years before receiving a widow's stipend from the government. Her daughter left behind a 5-year-old girl. To provide for three children and a grandchild, Cardona recently joined 29 other new widows participating in a program sponsored by nonprofit agencies and the town government to train them on a variety of production-line machines. "Ask anyone who has had a husband killed: Who has come to investigate?" Cardona said. "The answer is the same for all of us: no one."

El Jordan: Peaceful Facade

As a rule, Colombia's most dangerous places are those being contested by one group or another. At sundown, doors are closed, windows are shut and curtained, and the streets are as dark as the jungle creeping up the mountain behind. But those in which the contest has been settled are relatively safe, and El Jordan has clearly been settled over the past year in favor of the paramilitary forces.

Commander Johnny, the No. 2 paramilitary official in the region, strolls through El Jordan with the swagger of a sheriff, a khaki-green holster and handgun on his waist, wearing a floppy jungle hat snapped up on the sides.

The streets are filled with the noise of television sets and children playing in the light of open doors late into the night. A crew-cut teenager approaches, stops and salutes: "Good evening, my commander." Johnny's own paramilitary boss huffs his way through a soccer game under the lights of the town field.

"When we arrived here, there was no police, no mayor, no nothing," said Johnny, his wispy mustache and smooth skin making him appear younger than his 32 years. "The people asked us to be here."

Johnny said El Jordan, population 2,000, is a model for what's in store for the rest of eastern Antioquia province. There are no police here or government services -- conditions that have helped this paramilitary force evolve since the 1980s, from a collection of small armed groups that protected drug lords and remote towns preyed on by guerrillas into an anti-communist populist movement with national reach.

The army concentrates most of its local forces at an important hydroelectric plant 15 minutes away, leaving Johnny and his young men with automatic rifles, ammunition vests and walkie-talkies to arrange the rules. They are not the government, but they govern.

"We tell the public when we arrive, 'Look, if you collaborate with the guerrillas, leave [this place] or stop [providing support].' If they don't, they face the consequences," Johnny said, sipping coffee at an open-air restaurant. "We have an intelligence network in each town -- including guerrilla informants. We know what we are doing."

Peque: In the Middle

Passing back to the west through Medellin, Colombia's commercial center, the road skirts vast shantytowns of war refugees whose flight has shifted 10 percent of the population from rural to urban centers over the past two decades. Cresting over hillsides that slope like giant green waves, the highway plunges through ferns, banana fields and dangling wild orchids into a hot, dry valley.

Off this highway, sitting in a deep valley formed by mountain cliffs, lies the town of Peque. Here also lies a tale of how Colombia's armed groups carry out their deadly fight to control the landscape, and the government's inability to stop it.

The guerrilla army uses remote towns like Peque as large grocery stores and supply stops, passing through on a nightly basis. To dry up these resources, the rival paramilitary forces have used brutal methods to empty rural villages, where 12 million Colombians live.

Last year, the town was forced to make a deal with local paramilitary commanders. The paramilitary forces had sealed off the only road into Peque, population 11,000, in an attempt to starve residents out of the area -- again without any attempt by the Colombian government to intervene. The town, desperate to end the blockade, agreed to restrict the products storekeepers could sell. No batteries. No canned foods. No rubber boots, among other supplies the guerrillas use in their war effort.

But the deal fell apart as guerrillas demanded the supplies at gunpoint, prompting a paramilitary reprisal that was carried out last month. "Storekeepers can't say no when armed men arrive and ask for these things," said Jesus Amado Sierra Montoya, the town priest who in the absence of a protected municipal government has become Peque's de facto leader.

On July 3, more than 50 paramilitary troops entered from the east, arriving at 6 a.m. on a square dominated by a yellow church and the shell of a police station abandoned three years ago. Residents were separated by sex in front of parish offices, now bearing the painted scrawls, "AUC Forever, Special Forces Northern Bloc."

The paramilitary troops then carried out a massacre that claimed at least seven victims, conducting their business patiently, unmolested by any local police force or other government presence. They sacked local stores, robbed the Agrarian Bank and scared off half the population. The square filled with farmers from nearby villages, fearing that because of where they lived, the paramilitary forces would take revenge on them, too.

"If they took a look at our lives, they would see we don't have even an egg to spare for anyone but ourselves," said Bernardo Antonio Sepulveda, who fled on arthritis-crippled legs from the village of El Agrio with his wife and three young children.

News of the paramilitary occupation reached Colombian officials within hours, after the one bus into Peque was prohibited from entering. But it would be three days before paramilitary troops departed, with Colombian security forces still nowhere in sight.

The guerrillas reached Peque before the Colombian military. Commander Tomas of the FARC's Jose Maria Cordoba Bloc summoned Amado, the priest, and several other town leaders to a meeting in the mountains above the town. Although denied permission to enter the town, the guerrillas arrived soon afterward to address Peque's residents.

"He told them not to give up on the guerrillas, not to abandon them," Amado recalled.

The Colombian army arrived two days after the guerrillas departed -- a full week after paramilitary troops had first appeared on the square. Recently arrived police officials say they have received reports of dozens more massacre victims near Peque.

Many bodies have not been recovered because much of the thickly forested region is in the hands of guerrillas, and even some of those that have been recovered remain unburied because the armed groups have prohibited it. The residents of nearby Los Llanos and other villages have killed their dogs to prevent them from eating the exposed corpses.

Roberto Mira, Peque's 28-year-old public ombudsman, said the government should consider several steps to bring the town back into the state's fold. First, he said, the government should legalize plots of land now being farmed illegally by villagers. Eighty percent of the farmland around Peque has no legal title, making it impossible for farmers to secure vital credit at local agrarian banks.

"The poor are with the guerrillas here, but not out of conviction," Mira said. "Simply because of the circumstances of their lives."

-------- iraq

United States Reports Improved Air Defenses in Iraq

New York Times
August 3, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-iraq-us.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iraq has sharply improved its air defenses since U.S. and British warplanes pounded its anti-aircraft network in February, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Friday.

Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference the Iraqi military continued to install fiber-optic communications cables, boosting its potential to shoot down Western aircraft over two ''no fly'' zones.

But he declined to signal if another U.S.-British raid might be launched like the one on Feb. 16 in which radars, anti-aircraft sites and communications stations in southern Iraq and near Baghdad were attacked.

``The problem, in speaking from this podium, is that there are obviously multiple audiences. And so I will try to use measured words and phrases,'' the secretary said in response to questions.

``It does appear that Iraq has been successful in quantitatively and qualitatively improving their air defense,'' he said.

Asked if Chinese technicians were still helping provide fiber-optics to Iraq, as the Pentagon previously charged, he responded, ``I don't know if I care to answer that.''

The problem with raids to damage fiber-optic cables and other air defenses was that the cables could be replaced, the secretary said.

``If you're going to do something, the question is 'What's its value and for how long does it last?' One tends to want to do something that will have more lasting effect,'' Rumsfeld said.

He was asked about stepped-up attempts this year by President Saddam Hussein's military to shoot down U.S. and British warplanes, which have been policing the no-fly zones in the north and south of Iraq for nearly a decade.

Pentagon officials said Iraq came close to shooting down an unarmed U.S. U-2 spy plane over southern Iraq last month and have reported the Iraqis apparently fired a missile at a U.S. electronic observation aircraft in Kuwaiti air space.

``What happens is that itgoes up and then it is degraded, and it goes up and it is degraded,'' the secretary said of periodic bombing attacks on Iraqi anti-aircraft and radar installations in the no-fly zones.

Rumsfeld said regional U.S. commanders had the ability to order retaliatory strikes when aircraft were fired on, and ``to look at a host of other things that can be done,'' including perhaps changing flight patterns.

WATCHING OVER THE ZONES

``Our interest is in understanding what's taking place in that country,'' he said. ``And the extent to which you can do that (is) by the way you pattern your flights, by the way you pattern the types of platforms you use, by the way you connect the platforms you're using.''

U.S. and British warplanes have been patrolling the no-fly zones since just after the 1991 Gulf War.

Iraq was banned from using all aircraft, including helicopters, in the air exclusion zones, 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 in the patrols, although the Iraqi military has repeatedly fired anti-aircraft guns and missiles at the warplanes, which respond by dropping bombs and firing missiles at Iraqi air defense sites.

``I'm never comfortable when we have a situation where you have people getting shot at. But obviously that's the job of this department to balance those risks, and that's what being done,'' Rumsfeld told reporters.

-------- puerto rico

Navy Resumes Vieques Exercises Despite Pleas From Opponents

New York Times
August 3, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/03/national/03VIEQ.html?searchpv=nytToday

VIEQUES, P.R., Aug. 2 - A fresh round of Navy exercises involving about 23,000 sailors, marines and soldiers began today despite pleas from politicians and residents to stop using the island of Vieques as a target.

Even before the bombing, seven protesters broke into Navy grounds and headed for the bombing range in an effort to interrupt the exercises.

The Navy said there would be ship- to-shore shelling, air-to-ground bombing and beach assaults the biggest maneuvers since a civilian guard was killed by off-target bombs on the range in 1999. His death sparked islandwide protests.

The maneuvers began with the Vella Gulf, a guided missile cruiser, and another ship firing 70-pound shells at the range. The exercises are the final training for the Theodore Roosevelt battle group based in Norfolk, Va., which will probably head to the Persian Gulf or the Mediterranean next.

"If something were to happen in the Persian Gulf, this is the final step in training that prepares the troops to carry out an effective combat campaign," said Bob Nelson, a Navy spokesman.

Last week, 68 percent of Vieques residents voted in a nonbinding referendum for an immediate end to the bombing. The firing range is about four miles from inhabited areas.

Robert Rabin, an anti-Navy protest leader, said opponents' resources had been drained by the referendum but promised more civil disobedience.

"This time the acts of civil disobedience will be carried out with a firm base of support among the people of Vieques," Mr. Rabin said.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer who served 30 days in prison for trespassing on federal land in an effort to stop the Navy exercises in April and May, said he was embarrassed by the Navy's actions.

Mr. Kennedy was freed on Wednesday from a federal prison outside of San Juan. He immediately flew to Vieques.

"What the Navy is doing here is wrong," Mr. Kennedy said, "and it's arrogant, and it's bullying, and it's the worst face of America."

Residents say the exercises have led to increased health problems on the island, a contention the Navy denies.

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Tensions Flare Over Bomb Exercises

AUGUST 03, 14:39 EDT
By MARCELO BALLVE
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_package.html?FRONTID=WORLD&PACKAGEID=puertorico

VIEQUES, Puerto Rico (AP) - U.S. Navy security personnel fired rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters and journalists on Vieques island, sparking debate over the military's latest use of force and its resumption of maneuvers on the outlying Puerto Rican island.

Protesters tried to break into a restricted area on Thursday night, the Navy said, prompting security personnel to fire tear gas, bean bags and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. The projectiles were fired only after the protesters fired a flare toward the base, shined bright lights at the officers and tried to break into the fence, the Navy said.

Tomas van Houtryve, a photographer for The Associated Press, was hit in the arm by a rubber bullet as he ran away from guards firing tear gas. He had been covering the protests and the start of the maneuvers.

Van Houtryve said the protesters only shook the fence and yelled at the Navy when security personnel fired a flare, canisters of tear gas and then three rubber bullets at the fleeing crowd.

``There were people cutting the fence (on the range), throwing rocks at the security force and vehicles, and pushing on the fence,'' said Navy spokeswoman, Lt. Cmdr. Katherine Goode. ``As a result the security forces perceived this as threat to harm military personnel.''

But according to Van Houtryve, protesters didn't have any tools to cut the fence and didn't fire any flares. Photographers did use bright flashes to take pictures, he said.

``We are continuously getting second-guessed by people,'' said Navy spokesman Bob Nelson. ``The use of force was appropriate because a flare was launched at them, the protesters were tearing down federal property and rocks were being thrown. The Puerto Rican police department is supposed to help quell this but unfortunately we're not getting that.''

On Friday morning, authorities detained six protesters who were caught trespassing on Purple Beach, a restricted area on the northern coast of Vieques. The Navy said protesters had thrown homemade bombs and rocks at the base.

At least 21 protesters managed to invade Navy land bordering the bombing range to try to stop exercises, according to protest groups.

Some activists spoke out Friday against the Navy's use of rubber bullets and tear gas.

``This is another act of brutality and violence on the part of the Navy,'' said Robert Rabin, an anti-Navy activist. ``There was no doubt that this was an abuse of power because the military knew that there were journalists (in the crowd).''

The latest exercises, which could last until Aug. 10, involve ship-to-shore shelling, air-to-ground bombing and beach assaults, making the maneuvers some of the biggest since a civilian guard was killed by off-target bombs on the range in 1999. His death sparked island-wide protests on the 18-mile-long island of Vieques and on the main island.

The Navy has trained on Vieques for every major conflict from World War II to Kosovo, and today uses Puerto Rico as a base to fight drug traffickers.

On Sunday, nearly 70 percent of Vieques residents voted for an immediate end to the bombing. Thirty percent supported the Navy remaining indefinitely and resuming bombing with live munitions.

President Bush has promised the Navy will leave Vieques by 2003. But in the nonbinding local referendum on the bombing, only 1.7 percent of voters among Vieques 9,100 residents backed his plan.

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Vieques Not Needed For Navy Maneuvers

Friday, August 3, 2001
Newsday
by Eugene J. Carroll Jr.
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0803-02.htm

Vieques proves the old adage that the military always prepares for the next war by re-running the last war.

What else could explain the U.S. Navy's insistence on rehearsing for amphibious assaults on the island - whose inhabitants voted Sunday for an immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces - in exactly the same way famous battles were won in the Pacific during World War II? The sands of Iwo Jima ran red with the blood of heroic Marines storming ashore, but that certainly is not the way conflicts will be fought in the foreseeable future.

Proof of that was evident during Desert Storm in 1991. With enormous naval superiority in the Persian Gulf and major amphibious assault forces in position to invade Kuwait, not one Marine went ashore in the face of Iraqi defenses.

Why? Because casualties would have been unacceptably high. Modern defensive weaponry is capable of inflicting intolerable damage on lightly armored amphibious warships and slow-moving waves of assault craft; and the U.S. Navy lacks the sustained firepower today needed to suppress defending fire. In the Pacific campaign, the Navy employed 17 battleships plus countless cruisers and destroyers to pound defending forces for days with heavy-caliber guns before an assault began. There is not one heavy-caliber gun in service today.

Furthermore, more than 40 carriers were available to provide air support before and during the assaults, and today there are only 12 carriers and 11 air wings. In short, the Navy-Marine Corps team lacks the means to overpower defenders, and frontal amphibious assaults are no longer feasible against modern weapons.

This is why Vieques is no longer required for fleet readiness. The Navy should leave Vieques now - instead of waiting for the 2003 withdrawal date set by President George W. Bush.

The military should always practice operating in the same manner it intends to fight. Now, it is neither equipped nor planning to fight across heavily defended beaches.

This is the reason that the Marine Corps has waged a desperate battle to acquire the V-22 Osprey aircraft. Recognizing that its historic amphibious assault mission (which distinguishes it from the Army) is in jeopardy, the Marine Corps considers the V-22 necessary to restore the perception that such assaults are still feasible by avoiding enemy defenses.

In principle, the Osprey would give Marines the capability to fly around beach-area defenses and envelop the objective area with air- landed troops who would then move overland to engage enemy forces. Whether this proves feasible in the face of costly safety problems and program delays, it does demonstrate that the Corps recognizes the need to abandon the World War II tactics that are still being employed on the beaches of Vieques.

As for the necessary training of pilots in the delivery of ordnance, there is no shortage of facilities in the United States. Much better bombing ranges than Vieques abound in California, Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, Texas and Florida as well as overseas. These ranges permit live fire and close air-support training far more extensive than that available at Vieques, and in many cases instrumentation provides precise assessment of pilot performance and precision.

In purely military terms, there is no requirement for continued access to Vieques as a bombardment area. After being subjected for 60 years to abuse and sacrifice that no community in the United States would have accepted, it is truly time to achieve peace for Vieques.

Eugene J. Carroll Jr., a retired Navy rear admiral, is former vice president of the Center for Defense Information, Washington.

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

Pentagon Proposes a Plan for Closing Domestic Bases

New York Times
August 3, 2001
By JAMES DAO
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/03/politics/03BASE.html

WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 - The Pentagon announced plans today for closing a significant portion of the nation's 398 domestic military bases, initiating what is certain to be a contentious debate on Capitol Hill.

Pentagon officials said that legislation to be sent to Congress on Friday would create an independent commission that would recommend in 2003 a list of bases to shuttered by 2009.

The plan, intended to save the military billions of dollars, is likely to face stiff opposition in Congress, where many lawmakers view military installations as the economic anchors of their districts.

Even before today's announcement, Republican and Democratic members of Congress had begun questioning the need for another round of closures, arguing that previous rounds had not been proved to save money.

"The savings aren't there," Representative Joe Scarborough, a Republican from Florida who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said at a committee meeting on Wednesday. "And once we lose those bases, we'll never get them back."

The Pentagon says that closing 97 bases in 1988, 1991, 1993 and 1995 saved the government $15.5 billion. A fifth round would save an additional $3.5 billion a year by the end of the decade, officials said.

A report released this week by the General Accounting Office, an investigative branch of Congress, said that such estimates were difficult to confirm. But the report said that once the initial costs of shutting a base were recouped, base closures provided "substantial savings."

The Pentagon needs those savings to buy new ships, aircraft and vehicles, particularly now that President Bush's $1.3 trillion tax cut and the slowing economy have sharply reduced money available for defense programs, senior administration officials have argued.

"This is hard, and we all know it," Edward C. Aldridge Jr., the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, told reporters today. "We need to support our forces in the most efficient manner possible."

Senior officers have estimated that the military has excess base capacity in the United States of 20 to 25 percent. Mr. Aldridge said the Pentagon would also look to close bases overseas, but under a different process that does not require Congressional approval.

Under the Pentagon's draft legislation, the secretary of defense would draw up by March 14, 2003, a list of bases for closing. That list would be reviewed by a nine-member commission appointed by the White House and Congress, which could add or subtract bases.

By July 7, 2003, the commission would be required to send its recommendations to the president, who would have two weeks to suggest changes. By Aug. 18, 2003, the commission would submit its final list to the president, who would have just two choices: accept all of it or stop the entire process.

Once accepted by the president, the list would become law in 45 days unless Congress enacted a resolution rejecting it entirely. The legislation would forbid Congress to change the list.

The legislation is similar to the base-closing laws of past years except for two major provisions: one would reduce the role of Congressional leadership in selecting commissioners, and another would allow the secretary to veto additions to the closure list by the commission. In the past, the commission has had free reign to alter the secretary's list.

Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and a supporter of base closings, said in a statement today that the new provision would compromise the commission's independence and "inject politics" into the process. A Pentagon official said tonight that those provisions might be dropped.

The last round of closings was widely criticized after President Bill Clinton intervened to slow the closure of two bases in California and Texas on the eve of his re-election campaign. Republican lawmakers accused Mr. Clinton of politicizing the process and refused to approve another round of closings.

--------

More Okinawa Anger Vs. U.S. Troops

New York Times
August 3, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Japan-Okinawa.html

TOKYO (AP) -- Anger at crimes committed by U.S. military personnel is ``on the verge of eruption,'' Okinawa's governor said Friday, reiterating his call for a reduction of U.S. military bases on the southern Japanese island.

Opposition to the heavy American military presence on Okinawa flared in late June after a U.S. Air Force sergeant allegedly raped a Japanese woman in a parking lot outside a row of bars.

The alleged rape came on the heels of a series of crimes by servicemen that have heightened tensions between U.S. troops and Okinawans over the years, prompting calls for the withdrawal of American bases.

``The magma of Okinawans' anger is on the verge of eruption after the series of incidents and accidents,'' Gov. Keiichi Inamine told reporters. The ``reduction and realignment of military bases is the common desire of the people.''

Okinawa, about 1,000 miles southwest of Tokyo, is home to more than half of the 47,000 American troops stationed in Japan. The bases occupy about 20 percent of the island.

In addition to crime, residents have long complained of aircraft noise, pollution and danger from accidents such as crash landings.

In the latest incident, U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Timothy Woodland has been charged with the June 29 rape of the 20-year-old woman in the central Okinawan town of Chatan.

Okinawans' anger at the alleged attack was further stoked when U.S. officials waited four days to hand Woodland over to local police after an arrest warrant was issued on July 2.

U.S. officials said they wanted to protect Woodland's rights because he maintained that he was innocent, but many Japanese took that as an insult to the nation's justice system.

While the latest alleged sexual assault didn't spark the huge protests that followed the 1995 rape of a a 12-year-old girl by three U.S. servicemen, Inamine said organized opposition to the American military presence is growing.

Local governments in Chatan and Okinawa City adopted resolutions last month condemning the latest alleged crime and calling for a curfew on U.S. troops.

Also last month, the foreign affairs committee of the powerful lower house of Parliament adopted a resolution calling for a review of the bilateral Status of Forces Agreement, which sets rules for U.S. forces in Japan.

The pact says the United States doesn't have to hand over criminal suspects to Japanese authorities until they are formally charged.

``It is inevitable to have a drastic review of SOFA in order to protect Okinawan people's lives and properties from incidents, accidents and various problems deriving from the U.S. military bases,'' Inamine said.

U.S. officials have said all that is needed is an improvement in the working of the agreement.

---------

Rumsfeld Warned Not To Cut Size Of Army
82 Lawmakers Sign Letter to Pentagon

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 3, 2001; Page A08
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23430-2001Aug2?language=printer

In a sign of stiffening congressional resistance to the Bush administration's military reforms, a majority of the members of the House Armed Services Committee sent a letter to the Pentagon yesterday warning Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld against trying to cut the size of the Army.

"As you proceed with your review, we hope you will consider our strong opposition to any proposal that would seek to diminish the current levels of Army force structure," stated the letter, signed by 82 lawmakers, including 34 of the 60 members of the Armed Services panel.

The letter follows two votes this week by the Republican-controlled committee challenging recent moves on defense issues by the Bush administration. On Wednesday, it approved an amendment to the defense authorization bill blocking the Pentagon's plan to cut the number of B-1 bombers by one-third and move the remainder from bases in Georgia and Kansas.

The committee also approved a provision that would require the Navy to find another live-fire training range before it gives up bombing on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. Many members of Congress were riled by the administration's surprise decision in June to tell the Navy to stop using Vieques as a practice range by 2003.

Yesterday's letter, signed by 45 Republicans and 37 Democrats, is a more serious challenge to the administration. It preemptively attacks what could be one of the most important recommendations of Rumsfeld's review of how to reshape the military to deal with such 21st century threats such as terrorism, computer warfare and the spread of missile technology.

The defense secretary has not actually proposed cutting the Army, which currently has 1.4 million people on active duty. But there has been widespread talk inside the Pentagon that Rumsfeld's aides have contemplated eliminating two of the Army's 10 active-duty divisions.

The Army fears that Rumsfeld's review soon will propose cutting conventional forces -- troops, tanks, ships and airplanes -- to fund Rumsfeld's priorities of missile defense, satellites and intelligence. Rep. John M. McHugh (R-N.Y.), chairman of the Armed Services subcommittee on personnel and one of the organizers of the letter, said Army generals have told him they believe that reducing the size of the Army is under active consideration.

Rumsfeld has hinted at such a move, repeatedly saying that no adversary is likely to challenge conventional U.S. military forces, and also that "tough trade-offs" will have to be made to prepare the military to meet new threats.

"This letter is a clear shot across the bow to the secretary of defense that this proposal could be dead on arrival with the Congress," said another signer, Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Tex.), a member of the Appropriations subcommittee on military construction. The letter was also signed by 11 other Appropriations Committee members.

Edwards added that lawmakers were worried that the notion of cutting two Army divisions was a "trial balloon" being floated at the Pentagon and that Rumsfeld had not shot it down.

Staff researcher Rob Thomason contributed to this report.

--------

Jumper confirmed as next Air Force chief

Air Force News Archive
August 3, 2001 by Master Sgt. Rick Burnham
Air Force Print News
http://www.af.mil/news/Aug2001/n20010803_1066.shtml

08/03/01 - WASHINGTON -- Gen. John P. Jumper, currently commander of Air Combat Command, was confirmed by the Senate Aug. 3 to be the Air Force's next chief of staff. Jumper was nominated by the president in July to succeed Gen. Michael E. Ryan who retires in September.

During the confirmation hearings, which concluded earlier in the week, Jumper sat before a committee that included Carl Levin of Michigan, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee; John Warner of Virginia; Max Cleland of Georgia; Ben Nelson of Nebraska; Jean Carnahan of Missouri; and Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma.

Accompanied by wife Ellen, the Paris, Texas, native answered questions on a variety of subjects from the group, ranging from upgrades of the B-2 bomber to use of GI Bill educational benefits by Air Force family members.

The general said his priorities for the force in the coming years would mirror those of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of the Air Force James Roche.

"I intend to follow the objectives put forth by Secretary Rumseld and Secretary Roche that include transformation, readiness, retention and recapitalization," he said.

"Transformation is, and always will be, a key issue because the Air Force is inherently transformational -- constantly adapting ourselves to new threats and leveraging new technology in order to posture ourselves to face the challenges of an uncertain future," he said. "Our greatest challenge remains the requirement to advance new capabilities while maintaining the robust readiness required to meet day-to-day warfighter requirements.

"It is imperative we develop our Global Strike Task Force, a kick-down-the-door force that will assure access and aerospace dominance for all our joint forces."

Along those lines, the general said readiness -- being ready to kick down the door if and when the requirement comes to do so -- is critical to any combat force.

"Readiness is the heart and soul of our ability to perform our mission on a day-to-day basis, and is the hallmark of our combat capability," he said. Unfortunately, he added, the readiness of today's force has declined from previous levels.

"Our overall Air Force readiness is lower than any time since June 1987. We are capable of winning today, but we're concerned about trends in readiness indicators such as aging aircraft, constrained resources and parts, and retention."

Improved retention rates, said Jumper, are key to the future of the Air Force.

"People are our most vital resource," he said. "We can only be successful through the energy and dedication of skilled and motivated personnel."

The general said today's airmen, particularly second-term and career airmen, have been over-tasked for a number of years.

"These airmen are the backbone of our enlisted force," he said. "They endure the increased load of having to train our new accessions plus carry out the day-to-day work required of experienced technicians."

A number of factors contribute to that burden, and if confirmed, the general said, those factors will be directly addressed.

"Wages, the high-operations tempo, quality-of-life issues and leadership are key issues our people consider when making the decision to reenlist," he said. "In addition, more must be done to improve not only quality of life for airmen, but also quality of service.

This is why recapitalization is also a key issue to today's Air Force, Jumper said.

"Quality of life issues are terribly important to attract and retain great people, but so is quality of service," he said. "Quality of service addresses the need to ensure we give our airmen the proper tools to do the tough jobs we ask them to do. We must recover from a decade-long spending hiatus to provide the tools our airmen need to fly, fight and win. Therefore, I will ensure an effective balance between quality of life and modernization spending is maintained."

--------

Military control possible if America faced bioterrorism attack

Associated Press
Army Times
August 03, 2001
http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-424290.php

CHICAGO - In an America that guards its civil liberties, police can't just shut down cities, make mass arrests and quarantine thousands of people. Or can they?

Current and former federal officials said Friday that if there is a terrorist attack with biological weapons, private rights would quickly be swamped by the need to protect the public. State borders could close, vaccines could be rationed or commandeered, the Army could even take over cities within weeks of a deadly attack, an American Bar Association panel predicted.

"To an extent, people are going to do what needs to be done and worry about the legal niceties later," said Suzanne Spaulding, a former top lawyer for the CIA and the Senate Intelligence Committee.

The ABA panel, part of the annual meeting of the 400,000-lawyer organization, played out an imaginary terrorist campaign to infect Americans with the plague - from the first tips by an FBI informant in New Mexico to closure of the Minnesota borders and riots in Cincinnati.

Along the way came word that a rogue Russian scientist and the Iraqi military were involved. Eventually, the FBI, CIA, National Centers for Disease Control, the White House, Pentagon and governors of several states were also involved - each with broader power than many people knew they had, participants said.

Under the hypothetical scenario, law enforcement could do little when a would-be terrorist showed up at a Santa Fe emergency room with a case of the plague. The investigation intensified, and the FBI got much broader authority, when several people died of the plague after attending a concert in Minneapolis.

Political pressure intensified, with a demand from 20 senators of the opposite political party from the president that the White House declare a national state of emergency. Then came word that the terrorists planned another attack during a street festival in Cincinnati.

Under this scenario, the FBI could go to a special court for permission to investigate foreigners, but could not begin stopping everyone in downtown Cincinnati resembling a tipster's description of a suspected terrorist, said Eugene Bowman, deputy general counsel for the FBI.

Nor could the FBI order the downtown area cordoned off and every building searched, Bowman said. Agents would need warrants based on better specifics than those offered in the hypothetical terrorist attack.

But local police could do what the FBI couldn't, so long as it was based on the need to protect public health, said Terry O'Brien, legal consultant to a national notification network tracking infectious diseases.

"The idea is to prevent the epidemic," not to catch and punish a wrongdoer, O'Brien said.

The president could declare martial law and federalize state National Guards, said Michael Wermuth, head of a group advising the government on how well it is preparing for nuclear, chemical or biological terrorism.

The attorney general and the defense secretary could also invoke a federal law that lets them call in soldiers to keep order if police or other law enforcement could not, Wermuth said.

"The military can be engaged directly in arrests, search and seizure and intelligence collection for law enforcement purposes," Wermuth said. "There's very raw authority to use the military to do any number of things that (look) like law enforcement, or to assist public health authorities by (enforcing) quarantines."

The government also would have the legal power to force people to be immunized, although as a practical matter it would probably prove impossible, O'Brien said.

"What are you going to do, go into somebody's home and tie them up?" On the other hand, the government could take control of vaccine supplies, even if it meant overriding state governors bent on hoarding their in-state stockpiles, the panelists said.

The hypothetical exercise ended short of the president declaring nationwide martial law, and without the arrest or trial of the terrorists.

-------- OTHER

-------- energy

In the End, Energy Bill Fulfilled Most Industry Wishes

By Eric Pianin and Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, August 3, 2001; Page A01
http://washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A23548-2001Aug2?language=printer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/onpolitics/transcripts/energyreport051701.pdf

There was nothing in President Bush's energy proposals in the spring to directly assist oil and gas companies, which were enjoying record profits, yet by the time the House finished work on the president's plan this week, Big Oil was the beneficiary of $13 billion in new tax credits and spending.

In similar fashion, Bush offered only modest incentives to the coal industry -- $2 billion over 10 years for research on clean coal technology. But the bill that emerged from the House early Thursday included three times that amount -- including millions more added by Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman W.J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-La.) to establish clean coal technology "Centers of Excellence."

The GOP portrayed the energy bill as a tool for stimulating domestic energy production after years of neglect by the Clinton administration. But Democrats and other critics saw it differently. They said the measure was designed primarily to reward the oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries for their cooperation in the spring, when they helped to ease passage of the president's tax cut bill by not insisting that it include tax breaks of their own.

By winning more than $30 billion in tax incentives -- three times the president's request -- in the energy bill, industry received much of what it wanted. But its success raised questions about how lawmakers and the administration plan to pay for it in a period of declining budget surpluses, according to lawmakers who opposed the bill and budget analysts.

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said yesterday that, while the president did not propose any tax incentives for oil and gas production or many of the other provisions that turned up in the legislation, "we're pleased with the overall bill."

"There were some different things in the House bill as it relates to the tax incentives . . . and we're going to continue to work with the Congress as the bill moves through the Senate," Buchan said. "But it reflects the priorities the president put forward."

But Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.), a member of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, complained that House GOP leaders went overboard in responding to industry's pent up demand for tax breaks. "The purpose of this bill is to reward those businesses that got behind the Bush tax package who couldn't get involved in round one," he said.

The 511-page bill that passed the House 240 to 189 early Thursday includes $33.5 billion in tax breaks over 10 years and other incentives for the power industry aimed at increasing oil and gas exploration, developing new coal-burning technologies and promoting nuclear energy. It also includes funding for conservation efforts and the development of alternative energy sources.

The bill would open up the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil and gas exploration, a top priority of the Bush administration. House Republicans pushed through an amendment that would limit the area open for exploration to 2,000 acres, down from the 1.5 million acres outlined in the president's energy proposal.

But opponents of Arctic drilling said the amendment was merely an attempt to put an environmentally friendly gloss to the bill, arguing that since he released his energy plan in May the president himself has focused on plans to use no more than 2,000 acres as a staging area for probing the coastal plain.

Senior Democrats, including Sens. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), vowed yesterday to block the drilling plan when the Senate takes up its energy bill. "I will filibuster any effort to drill in the refuge," Kerry told reporters. "It will never pass the Senate."

A Democratic analysis of the tax provisions of the energy bill concludes that only 17 percent of the total would go for strictly conservation efforts while the remainder would go to oil, gas, coal and nuclear power interests.

Administration officials have expressed some concern about the overall cost of the bill's tax provisions, estimating that they would reduce the budget surplus by at least $30 billion over the next decade.

While the bill would put the budget in technical noncompliance with rules that require tax cuts to be offset with spending cuts, Congress in recent years has routinely waived those rules.

Still, some budget experts say the bill continues a pattern this year of passing additional tax cuts with long-term implications when the near-term budget picture is looking increasingly uncertain with the slowing economy. The budget surplus this year may be as low as $160 billion, leaving little room if the administration wants to meet its pledge of not touching the surpluses generated by Social Security payroll taxes. The situation for fiscal 2002 looks even more problematic.

Some Democratic and Republican lawmakers and environmental groups monitoring the energy debate say the problem has been exacerbated by the approval of narrow special-interest provisions or provisions that were conceived as important environmental efforts but were altered at the last minute as a favor to industry.

One of the tax credits, for energy-efficient appliances, would reduce revenue by nearly $300 million and benefit essentially four companies -- Maytag, General Electric, Whirlpool and Frigidaire. The provision would pay the manufacturers $50 or $100 per clothes washer or refrigerator if they met certain production and energy-efficiency thresholds.

Douglass C. Hortsman, a Maytag lobbyist, said the provision grew out of negotiations last year between the appliance industry and environmental groups on setting higher standards for the energy efficiency of washers and refrigerators. He said it was designed to encourage the companies to develop the appliances earlier than the 2007 effective date for the new standards. "It is more expensive to produce a more energy-efficient machine," he said, but companies are so competitive that they "rarely are able to pass the costs through in price increases."

Environmental leaders thought they had an agreement with the auto industry and lawmakers over more than $2 billion in alternative motor vehicle credits to encourage long-term fuel efficiency and lower fuel consumption. But they complained yesterday that the industry extracted last-minute concessions that drastically reduced the effectiveness of the credits.

"They weakened it to the point where we can't be assured public health will be adequately protected or that large amounts of the credits won't flow to inefficient vehicles," said Kevin Mills, a lawyer with Environmental Defense.

-------- environment

McCain, Lieberman Criticize Bush

New York Times
August 3, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/news/AP-Global-Warming.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican Sen. John McCain and Democrat Joseph Lieberman teamed up Friday to criticize President Bush's approach to dealing with global warming, calling for mandatory limits on greenhouse gases.

The two senators said that regulations for carbon dioxide and other emissions that are believed to be changing the earth's climate are needed because voluntary measures -- favored by Bush -- will not work.

In the clearest signal yet that the Senate is determined to pursue a separate climate agenda from the White House, the two senators will introduce legislation imposing a nationwide ``cap and trade'' system on greenhouse emissions.

Otherwise, they argued, American businesses will suffer as the rest of the industrial countries begin trading emission credits under the Kyoto climate agreement recently rejected by the Bush administration.

``The current situation demands leadership from the United States,'' said McCain. He said purely voluntary approaches ``will not be enough to meet the goal of preventing dangerous effects on the climate system.''

In an interview, Lieberman acknowledged that the proposal will likely unleash ``a big fight'' in the Congress. But he said he and McCain are ``committed to this'' and plan to press it aggressively.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan did not respond specifically to the McCain-Lieberman proposal, but said the administration has ``a shared goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in a truly global approach that would not exempt developing countries and won't harm America's economy.''

A Cabinet-level working group on climate change is developing alternatives to the Kyoto accord, he said.

Fred Krupp, head of Environmental Defense, an environmental advocacy group, called the Lieberman-McCain alliance a ``stunning leadership step'' that demonstrates ``there is an emerging movement on Capitol Hill to move beyond the failed voluntary approaches of the past'' in dealing with global warming.

In abandoning the Kyoto climate treaty earlier this year, Bush expressed his opposition to mandatory restrictions or regulation of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases, saying such controls would be too costly and harm the economy.

While the administration has provided no specific program to deal with climate change, Bush has said his approach would rely on voluntary actions by industry and development of new technologies to capture carbon releases and reduce energy use.

Lieberman responded, ``Voluntary programs, unfortunately, do not work.''

The two senators warned that U.S. businesses stand a chance of being left out of an international trading program of greenhouse gases under the Kyoto protocol unless a domestic trading scheme is put in place.

While details are still being worked out, the legislation would establish a ceiling, or cap, on the amount of greenhouse gases that could be emitted nationwide. Caps also would be imposed for specific economic sectors such as power plants and transportation.

Companies that exceed the limits could purchase credits from other entities whose emissions are lower.

The Lieberman-McCain announcement was among several actions taken recently that demonstrate the Democratic-controlled Senate is intent on pressing its own climate agenda.

On Thursday, legislation advanced that would pump nearly $5 billion into research technologies to combat global warming. It was cleared by the Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Lieberman.

A day earlier, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously approved a resolution urging Bush to reconsider his rejection of the Kyoto treaty.

At the same time, Sen. Jim Jeffords, the independent from Vermont whose defection from the Republican Party put Democrats in control of the Senate, said he was intent on getting a bill passed to regulate carbon dioxide along with three other pollutants.

-------- police / prisoners

FBI to Probe Suburban D.C. Police

New York Times
August 3, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-FBI-Police-Probe.html

UPPER MARLBORO, Md. (AP) -- The FBI has begun investigating seven more cases involving Prince George's County police, including the shooting of four unarmed men and the beating deaths of two others.

The new probes, including the death of a teen-ager shot 13 times in the back while laying face down, bring to 32 the number of cases involving police officers in the suburban Washington county that the FBI is investigating.

The agency's findings will be forwarded to federal prosecutors, who will decide whether to seek indictments against the officers, FBI spokesman Peter A. Gulotta Jr. said.

Royce D. Holloway, a police spokesman, said the department ``will cooperate fully in these investigations,'' but he declined to comment further.

The seven cases were detailed last month in a series of articles in The Washington Post. Since 1990, Prince George's officers have shot 122 people, 47 fatally. County police officials have concluded that each of the shootings was justified.

About half of the 32 FBI investigations started since May 1999 into possible civil rights violations by Prince George's officers remain open, Gulotta said.

Only one case has led to criminal charges. Two Prince George's officers are on trial in federal court, accused of violating the civil rights of an unarmed, unresisting homeless man by allowing a police dog to attack him.

-------- spying

Montesinos Wants CIA's Help

New York Times
August 3, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Peru-Montesinos-CIA.html

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- Peru's former spy chief wants two CIA agents to testify on his behalf against charges that he masterminded a clandestine arms pipeline to Colombian guerrillas, a judge said Friday.

Judge Jimena Cayo said Vladimiro Montesinos' lawyer gave her the names of two CIA agents who the former spymaster claims will vouch for the fact that he had nothing to do with a ring that parachuted at least 10,000 assault rifles to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Montesinos says the CIA agents came to his headquarters ``to tell him that they had discovered the arms trafficking between Peru and Colombia,'' Cayo said. She declined to name the agents.

Montesinos' position is that if he had been involved in the arms trafficking, the CIA would not have told him about it, Cayo said.

No formal request had yet been made to obtain sworn statements from anyone in the CIA, she said.

Montesinos' lawyer, Gloria Aguero, could not immediately be reached. An official at the U.S. Embassy declined to comment.

A year ago, U.S. State Department officials said they had alerted Peru to the arms smuggling after Colombia's military captured scores of weapons traced back to a 1998 arms transaction between Peru and Jordan.

Cayo is one of six special anti-corruption judges investigating dozens of charges against Montesinos, ranging from influence peddling to running a paramilitary death squad, during his 10 years as disgraced ex-President Alberto Fujimori's top aide.

Peruvian investigators say Montesinos and his cronies in Peru's military amassed more than $260 million in illicit profits, mostly from alleged kickbacks on shady arms deals.

Also Friday, Attorney General Nelly Calderon's office said in a statement that she has opened an investigation into Fujimori and 22 former and current congressmen for corruption and ordered their banking secrecy lifted.

The investigation is based on Montesinos' statements to a judge that his intelligence service paid 18 ex-legislators to switch allegiances to Fujimori's party and that it helped finance the campaigns of four pro-Fujimori congressmen, the statement said.



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