------- Index of Articles
NUCLEAR
Secret Files Expose Tokyo's Double Standard on Nuclear Policy
Storms Hit Divers Preparing to Lift Russia's Kursk
China concerned with Bush's plan to disregard ABM
Treaty should be amended, not buried
Explosion Takes Out Last Missile Silo
Plutonium Shipments in S.C. Suspended
South Carolina Wins a Delay on Plutonium
Naming Myers, Bush Challenges Pentagon
MILITARY
Exit of armies leads to hope
NATO, Macedonia Dispute Weapons
U.S. Delays Drug Plan in Colombia
Meth Production Reaches 'Epidemic' Level on Coast
2 Palestinians Die in Attack on Israeli Outpost
Military jets collide in Texas; student pilot killed
OTHER
Worried Scientists Are Told Ample Stem Cell Lines Exist
Rights Panel Hears Alaskan Natives' Complaints of Bias
Satellite Agency Has Tradition of Secrecy
Spy Case Chronology
6 Charged In Plan To Bomb U.S. Site
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- japan
Secret Files Expose Tokyo's Double Standard on Nuclear Policy
By YOSHITAKA SASAKI
Asahi Shimbun
August 25, 1999 http://www.nautilus.org/nukepolicy/Nuclear-Umbrella/asahi_update.html
http://www.nautilus.org/nukepolicy/Nuclear-Umbrella/082599as.pdf
As many people may have long suspected, the Japanese government employed a double standard in espousing "three non-nuclear principles" under the "nuclear umbrella" offered by the United States.
A U.S. aircraft carrier based in Yokosuka would carry nuclear weapons until the early 1990s, while Japan was in the front line of U.S. contingency plans in the case of a global nuclear war, according to a report released by the California-based think tank Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable Development. In a research paper titled "Japan Under the Nuclear Umbrella," the nonprofit Nautilus Institute said its findings were based on declassified top secret documents related to U.S. nuclear policy in Japan.
Nuclear weapons were removed from the aircraft carrier homeported in Yokosuka after the U.S. government declared in 1991 it was withdrawing all nonstrategic nuclear weapons. However, scrutiny of the documents shows that the situation was so serious that it should not be forgotten out of hand. The institute used the U.S. Freedom of Information Act to uncover more than 500 pages of confidential papers about U.S. nuclear war planning in Japan. Particularly noteworthy is the disclosure of "command histories" of the commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Command (USCINCPAC). They cover the Asia-Pacific theater, forward deployed aircraft carriers and U.S. forces stationed in Japan and the Republic of Korea (South Korea). They project an overall picture of U.S. nuclear weapons deployment and strategy involving Japan.
Homeporting of aircraft carrier armed with nuclear weapons CINCPAC Command History (1972, top secret)
"The carrier plan had still not been briefed to the Japanese government when key Foreign Office officials were advised of the deployment possibility at the Hawaii talks on Aug. 31, 1972. Some conflict continued, however, between the State Department and the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) regarding housing of additional personnel in the Yokosuka area and treatment of nuclear weapons problems. While the Japanese government had tacitly accepted nuclear weapons on ships entering and departing Japanese ports in the past, homeporting could surface the issue to a degree that would not permit continued tacit approval. The State Department had indicated that carrier weapons should be removed prior to entry into a port; this suggestion was operationally unacceptable to the CNO."
The U.S. government reached this conclusion on homeporting as a result of internal discussions. Although it is not known whether Japan was kept informed, in September 1972, the Japanese government announced it was studying the issue in accordance with its obligations under the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty and moved toward accepting the proposal. As a result, Yokosuka became the home port of the aircraft carrier USS Midway in 1973.
Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird's letter to Secretary of State William Rogers dated June, 1972 (Secret. Declassified in December 1998 and obtained from the U.S. National Archives by Professor Masaaki Gabe, University of the Ryukyus, in February 1999) "It would appear that the recommended approach would provide the government of Japan an opportunity to raise--and resolve--the matter of prior consultation in private if so desired. "... In his letter, (Undersecretary of State) Alexis (Johnson) requests an assessment of the possibility of homeporting in Japan a carrier without nuclear weapons aboard. We have examined this alternative carefully, but feel that it is neither militarily practical nor legally necessary. "To deny the nuclear mission to a Japan-based carrier would substantially degrade its military utility and create difficult operational problems for the remaining nuclear-capable forces in the theater. Such a degradation would be neither in the U.S. nor the Japanese interest. Moreover, from the worldwide U.S. perspective, a precedent set by acquiescing in Japanese pressure on this matter could lead to similar demands by other countries all around the globe--a development which might ultimately threaten the viability of a significant portion of our seaborne nuclear deterrent. Furthermore, unless we were prepared to reverse our long-standing `neither confirm nor deny' policy, there would be no way for us to take advantage of the fact that the homeported carrier in fact carried no nuclear weapons." In fact, prior consultation was not carried out and things proceeded as stated in Laird's letter.
Laird's letter and the 1972 CINCPAC command history also agree on the point that the Japanese government tacitly accepted the passage and calling of U.S. warships armed with nuclear weapons at Japanese ports. The following White House document at the time of negotiations on Okinawa's reversion also gives an account to the same effect.
U.S. National Security Council "NSSM5--Japan," Part III Okinawa Reversion (April 1969, secret)
"Japan now acquiesces in transit by naval vessels armed with nuclear weapons. This right would extend automatically to Okinawa. (This is sensitive and closely held information.)"
The document also makes reference to the fact that safety and license inspections indispensable to warships equipped with nuclear weapons were carried out onboard.
USS Midway Command History (1978, secret)
"As scheduled, Midway transited to the Subic operation area (in the Philippines) and received a defense nuclear surety inspection (DNSI) conducted by Chief Inspector for Weapons, Commander Naval Air Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet, during the period Nov. 19-24. Upon completion of the DNSI, Chief Inspector for Weapons assisted by Inspection Board member from Nuclear Weapons Training Group Pacific inspected all remaining areas necessary to complete the Navy Technical Proficiency Inspection and Nuclear Safety Survey. The objective of the inspection was to evaluate and recertify Midway's capability to perform assigned nuclear tasking."
CINCPAC Command History (1965, top secret)
"During September, (U.S. Strategic Air Command's new airborne command post aircraft) Blue Eagle and teams visited Clark Air Base (in the Philippines), Yokota Air Base and Kadena Air Base. The above bases were designated Blue Eagle dispersed operating sites."
U.S. bases in Japan CINCPAC Command History (1974, top secret)
"New in 1974 was a deployed ground alert concept in which the CINCPAC Airborne Command Post (ABNCP) initiated random 24- to 48-hour ground alert watch periods in conjunction with bi-monthly deployments in the West Pacific. ABNCP ground alert periods were randomly scheduled among Clark Air Base in the Philippines; Ching Chuan Kang Air Base, Taiwan; and Kadena (Okinawa) and Yokota in Japan. From those locations, which bordered the submarine patrol areas, the ABNCP could rapidly enter an operational orbit within Very Low Frequency/Low Frequency and High Frequency range with the capability to relay Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) emergency action messages to the submarines."
SIOP is a comprehensive U.S. nuclear war plan that brings together under unified control all nuclear weapons that spread to such vehicles as surface warships, submarines, bombers and ground-launched missiles. In accordance with SIOP, CINCPAC's air command is always in a state of readiness to cope with serious emergencies such as nuclear wars. Yokota and Kadena served as dispersed operating bases for this purpose.
Hans Kristensen, the author of the Nautilus research paper, wrote: "Facilities in Japan were routinely used for nuclear command and control operations to exercise SIOP. ... The new evidence described in this report of the use of Japanese facilities for nuclear war planning, therefore, reveals the depths to which a non-nuclear country can find itself involved in nuclear arms rivalries--whether it is aware of it or not--by accepting the security guarantees of a nuclear-armed ally." Withdrawal of nonstrategic nuclear weapons In September 1991, the administration of then-President George Bush declared it was withdrawing nonstrategic nuclear weapons deployed outside the United States. The declaration put an end, for the time being, to the practice of bringing nuclear weapons in to Japan.
By July 1992, nuclear weapons were completely removed from U.S. naval surface vessels and attack nuclear submarines. In reviewing the U.S. nuclear posture in 1994, the Clinton administration decided to dismantle the nuclear capability of warships, including aircraft carriers.
Still, this does not mean the United States will not bring nuclear weapons in to Japan in the future as the U.S. declaration carries a provision to the effect that it only applies "under normal circumstances."
If another country challenges the United States with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, the situation is certain to change quickly. Furthermore, the 1994 review assumed that attack nuclear submarines alone may be equipped with nuclear Tomahawk cruise missiles and decided to continue drills and operational planning for that purpose.
Moreover, submarine-launched ballistic missiles carrying strategic nuclear warheads continue to be forward deployed. Although the "command histories" disclosed this time are only up to 1992 editions, reference to SIOP appears virtually every year.
CINCPAC Command History (1992, secret)
"ABNCP training was again conducted in November 1992. The ABNCP visited Wake Island, Kadena Air Base, Japan, and Osan Air Base, (Republic of) Korea. Battle staff training covered all facets of the SIOP and site surveys were conducted at each location to determine the feasibility of using those locations during alternate command facility operations. Although logistics support for the deployment at Kadena was considered outstanding, support at Osan was only marginally satisfactory." "Such nuclear command and control exercises (using U.S. military bases in Japan) continued well into the 1990s, and probably continue even today," Kristensen wrote.
--
Time to Press for Nuke-Free Zone in Northeast Asia
Asahi Shimbun
August 25, 1999
Top secret documents that show Japan in the forefront of U.S. nuclear strategy are sure to continue to be unveiled one after another under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act that characterizes U.S. democracy. Each time such a document is made public, the double standard of the reality of the U.S. "nuclear umbrella" and Japan's official "three non-nuclear principles" of not making, possessing or bringing in nuclear weapons will be brought to light.
The Japanese government's official interpretation of the term "bringing in" is both "introduction" and "transit," while that of the United States excludes "transit." The double standard must be corrected. To do so, we must weaken and eventually eradicate the raison d'etre of the nuclear umbrella.
For now, the quickest way to do so is to turn the Japanese archipelago, the Korean Peninsula, northeastern China and Far East Russia into a nuclear-free zone following the post-Cold War trend for nuclear disarmament.
Instead of the stated "three non-nuclear principles," Japan may opt to adopt "2.5 non-nuclear principles" by banning the introduction of nuclear weapons while recognizing their passage and transit. In fact, it has been pointed out by some historians that such a secret agreement existed between the Japanese and U.S. governments at the time of the 1960 security treaty negotiations.
But passage and transit may lead to the introduction of nuclear weapons on Japanese land and contravenes the basis of the three non-nuclear principles. If a secret agreement exists, it must be abolished without delay.
The Japanese government has maintained that since the bringing in of nuclear weapons is subject to prior consultations and since no prior consultations have been held, nuclear weapons have not been brought into Japan. But such rhetoric provides no solution.
It is time that Japan talked concerned countries, including the United States, China and Russia, into accepting the idea of creating a nuclear-free zone in northeastern Asia. With the Cold War a thing of the past, what better time is there than now to move forward?
-------- russia
Storms Hit Divers Preparing to Lift Russia's Kursk
August 25, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-russia-kursk.html?searchpv=reuters
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Deep-sea divers working on Russia's sunken Kursk submarine have cut most of the holes through which heavy cables will be attached to raise the vessel from the bottom of the Barents Sea, the navy said on Saturday.
The divers are racing against time to complete preparations for the salvage operation as the Arctic weather turns increasingly nasty, threatening to close the window of opportunity provided by relatively calm seas in the summer.
Divers resumed work on the Kursk, lying at about 330 feet off Russia's Kola peninsula, on Thursday afternoon after being forced to return to their floating base by high seas, the navy said in a press release.
They have now cut 20 of the 26 holes needed to start attaching cables to raise the submarine.
Savage storms start raging in the area in late September and a September 20 deadline has been set for the Kursk's body to be transported to a dry dock where experts are due to examine the wreck for clues as to what caused Russia worst naval disaster.
Officials have said it was a faulty torpedo that last August set off a series of explosions that destroyed one of Russia most modern nuclear-powered submarines and killed all 118 people on board. But what caused the initial blast remains a mystery.
President Vladimir Putin, who came under fire for failing to break off his Black Sea holiday when the disaster took place, has promised hundreds of grieving relatives to lift the Kursk this year.
Russia has contracted Dutch heavy transport firm Mammoet, shipping services company Smit and Norway's Norse Cutting and Abandonment to carry out the salvage operation, estimated to cost about $130 million. The navy is coordinating the work.
On Thursday, a Russian shipbuilder -- the same one that built the ill-fated submarine -- launched the first of two giant pontoons to carry the Kursk to the dock.
Apart from cutting the holes in the Kursk's hull, workers also have to saw off its mangled bow where the vessel's torpedo arsenal was stored before it ripped the craft apart.
Officials have said the torpedo bay, which most likely holds the answer to the Kursk puzzle, will be raised later and without foreign help.
One of the contractors has said cutting the holes and removing the bow was instrumental to preparations for lifting the 18,000 ton Kursk off the seabed before violent storms engulf the Arctic.
It said rescuers could then bide their time and wait for several days of calm weather to raise the wreck, which could happen as late as mid-October.
-------- treaties
China concerned with Bush's plan to disregard ABM
08/24/2001
Associated Press
BEIJING (AP) - China urged President Bush on Friday to heed international concerns and act cautiously after he said the United States would withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
Bush is pushing plans to build a system to protect the United States from missile attack. Such systems, however, are banned under the 1972 ABM treaty. On Thursday, Bush said he would withdraw from the treaty "at a time convenient to America."
That worries China, which fears a U.S. missile shield would undercut the deterrent effect of China's small nuclear arsenal.
"China's position on missile defense is clear-cut and consistent," the Foreign Ministry said Friday of Bush's planned withdrawal. "We hope the U.S. government will seriously consider the position of the international community and proceed with caution."
China, joined by Russia and other opponents of Bush's missile defense plans, has repeatedly urged Washington to uphold the treaty.
The 1972 treaty, signed by Washington and Moscow, banned systems that could effectively shoot down incoming missiles, preserving the strategic balance of nuclear deterrence during the Cold War. Many nations, including both Russia and China, still regard it as a cornerstone of international security.
Washington, though, says the accord is outdated and that it needs a shield to protect itself against feared missile attacks by terrorist nations.
Talks between U.S. and Chinese weapons experts over whether China is helping other countries develop missile technology ended with the American side wanting more answers, U.S. officials said.
The talks finished Thursday evening, a spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Beijing said Friday. But the embassy and China's Foreign Ministry refused to elaborate.
In Washington, the State Department said more talks were needed and that it was not "fully satisfied" with China's account of whether it is abiding by an agreement to control exports of missile technology.
Thursday's talks followed reports that Chinese firms provided missile technology to Pakistan and helped Iraq rebuild air defenses.
Vann Van Diepen, an acting deputy assistant secretary of state who specializes in nonproliferation issues, led the U.S. negotiators.
Meanwhile, a U.S. envoy's meeting with Russian foreign minister Igor Ivanov ended Friday with no deadline set for when two nations must reach an agreement that overcomes their differences on the treaty.
--------
Treaty should be amended, not buried
Saturday, August 25, 2001
The Irish Times
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2001/0825/wor2.htm
The US is to unilaterally abrogate the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Melvin Laird, a former US secretary of defence, says President Bush should not isolate the US
US: An alternative does exist to the US unilaterally burying the present Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty so it can pursue a national missile defence.
It is this: the Bush administration proposes only a defence against a limited missile attack by rogue nations or terrorists. Russia has indicated a willingness to negotiate the current defensive prohibitions in the ABM treaty - provided that changes are coupled with reductions in the numbers of offensive missiles. That is the alternative that should be pursued.
The Russian military wants to reduce its strategic missile force because of high costs of maintenance and military manpower. We can reduce our offensive missile force, but these reductions should be considered in connection to negotiating amendments to the ABM treaty. There's no need, while reducing our nuclear forces (even if unilaterally), to abandon the clear benefits that derive from the treaty's provisions for verification, transparency and confidence-building negotiation processes.
For almost 30 years, the ABM treaty has preserved strategic stability and kept the peace by restricting strategic ballistic missile defence systems. Those restrictions, in turn, have ensured that both Washington and Moscow could retain confidence in their respective retaliatory capability.
It appears that both the US and Russia plan to maintain sizeable numbers of strategic nuclear weapons for the indefinite future. So mutual deterrence is an inescapable element of a stable relationship between the world's two major nuclear powers, whether they see each other as strategic partners or potential adversaries.
The concept of mutual deterrence is less a function of policy than of the reality that both Russia and the US will continue to have enough strategic weapons to destroy each other many times over. If mutual deterrence is to remain with us, it's essential that an amended ABM treaty remain with us as well. It's the key to maintaining stability between the two largest nuclear forces.
Thus, an amended ABM treaty remains as relevant to peace and security today as it was 30 years ago. It ensures that the relationship of mutual deterrence is stable and predictable. Burying the treaty instead of negotiating amendments would only create a less stable and less predictable deterrent relationship.
The Russians and Chinese have already said they intend to maintain their retaliatory capabilities. They state unequivocally that their response to a unilateral abrogation of the ABM treaty would be to build up their nuclear stockpiles, a reaction that would significantly decrease international stability.
The administration has hoped to minimise this reaction by unilaterally reducing the number of US strategic weapons. While such plans would not harm the international security environment, they are unlikely to affect the actions of Russia and China to maintain their retaliatory capability.
It's not sufficient to contend that Russia or China can't afford offensive increases. They might try. Thus, the US would sacrifice stability without cause. There's no substitute for the predictability, transparency and irreversibility that come with formal arms reduction agreements. We shouldn't take the risk that missile defence, to be effective, will impose such high costs that we'll have to divert substantial resources from other national security needs.
We cannot let our country drift into a period of isolationism or unilateralism. We are the strongest country in the world, ethically, economically and militarily. The Senate was right in questioning the Kyoto accord, hastily signed up to by vice-president Gore, and President Bush is right in pursuing a course of amending these accords.
The biological weapons protocol initiated by the Nixon administration can and will be brought into line through strong negotiations. We can have a revised form of multilateralism in which all partners share not only in results but also in costs and resources.
We are at the threshold of great opportunities if we use our position as world leader with the skills and abilities we possess. There's no reason to abandon the clear benefits of the ABM treaty. We can have those benefits and at the same time pursue appropriate alternatives. - (Los Angeles Times-Washington Post Service)
Melvin Laird served for four years in the Nixon administration
-------- u.s. nuc weapons
Explosion Takes Out Last Missile Silo
August 25, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Last-Missile-Silo.html?searchpv=aponline
PETERSBURG, N.D. (AP) -- A rumbling explosion destroyed the last of the Minuteman missile silos marked for destruction under the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, leaving a 90-foot hole filled with broken concrete and twisted steel in a North Dakota field.
The treaty, signed by former President Bush and then-Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev, cut the long-range nuclear missiles stockpiled in the Cold War arsenals of the United States and the former Soviet Union.
It also created almost two years of work for the personnel at Grand Forks Air Force Base, which has been blasting and burying the Minuteman silos it once controlled in the state. On Friday, they destroyed the last of the 450 Minuteman missile silos marked for destruction under START I.
Grand Forks was one of three bases to lose their Minuteman wings, along with Whiteman in Missouri and Ellsworth in South Dakota.
Three other bases manage the remaining arsenal of 550 Minuteman and Peacekeeper missiles: Minot, in north-central North Dakota; Malmstrom, near Great Falls, Mont.; and F.E. Warren, near Cheyenne, Wyo., said Col. Tom Bradley, chief international affairs officer for Air Force Space Command.
Taking out a concrete and steel missile silo meant to withstand all but a direct nuclear hit is no easy feat.
It took hundreds of pounds of dynamite placed in 69 holes drilled through the concrete top and filled with diesel fuel and fertilizer to turn the silo into a 90-foot hole.
That hole will be filled with rubble, capped and left for 90 days so Russian satellites can confirm the destruction, said Steve Marback, a technical sergeant with Grand Forks Air Force Base.
After that, the ground will be offered to farmers.
Bradley said the silos' destruction proves they did their job of deterred nuclear threat.
``They succeeded brilliantly,'' he said.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
-------- south carolina
Plutonium Shipments in S.C. Suspended
August 25, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-BRF-Plutonium-Meeting.html?searchpv=aponline
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- Federal officials have promised not to ship surplus plutonium to South Carolina until the state and the U.S. Energy Department could work out a plan for when the radioactive metal would leave the state.
House Speaker David Wilkins, R-Greenville, and Lt. Gov. Bob Peeler said Friday that they had assurances from Energy Undersecretary Robert Card that no shipments would be made until the agency and the state had a written agreement for how long the plutonium would remain at the Savannah River Site near Aiken.
The dispute is over 50 tons of weapons-grade plutonium that is heading to the Savannah River Site. Under an agreement with the Clinton administration, that plutonium was to be turned into fuel for commercial nuclear power plants or processed into glass rods and buried in Nevada.
But Gov. Jim Hodges says the Bush administration has been backing off those very expensive processing plans, raising the fear that the federal government wants to bury that plutonium in South Carolina permanently.
--------
South Carolina Wins a Delay on Plutonium
New York Times
August 25, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/25/national/25PLUT.html?searchpv=nytToday
COLUMBIA, S.C., Aug. 24 - The Energy Department told South Carolina officials today that it would hold off shipments of weapon-grade plutonium to the Savannah River Site in the state until a long-term disposal plan for the material was devised.
Gov. Jim Hodges, a Democrat, had threatened to order the state highway patrol to block the trucks carrying the plutonium because he suspected that the Bush administration intended to store it permanently at the site, a nuclear processing and disposal complex near Aiken, S.C..
The shipments had been scheduled to begin in October.
In 1997, the department agreed to convert plutonium at the site to commercial reactor fuel or prepare it for permanent storage in another state.
-------- us nuc politics
Naming Myers, Bush Challenges Pentagon
August 25, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Myers-Way.html?searchpv=aponline
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Naming a supporter of space-based defense as his top military adviser was President Bush's challenge to the Pentagon to meet his demands for a modern missile shield.
Selecting a go-slow general who has earned the respect of all the services to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was his salute to the military.
Air Force Gen. Richard Myers' extensive experience in Asia and the Pacific is vital as well to an administration that perceives China and North Korea as posing the greatest threat to American interests.
``He knows more about China and Asia than probably anyone else who would have been chosen,'' said Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, which will consider Myers' nomination.
The 59-year-old Myers, a former head of the U.S. Space Command, also served as commander of U.S. forces in Japan from 1993 to 1996. He once said the North Korean threat should spur Japan to raise its military profile.
Myers, now vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was a natural choice for Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, whose plans for a space-based anti-missile defense shield face resistance in Congress because of fears it could come at the cost of spending on troops. Critics also doubt the multibillion-dollar project can succeed.
In the announcement of the appointment Friday near Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, Rumsfeld acknowledged that Myers' space defense credentials were crucial in getting him the job.
``He's from Kansas, a man of the prairie, who's conquered the skies from service as a fighter pilot in Vietnam to commander of the U.S. Space Command,'' the Pentagon chief said. ``His career is the embodiment of the transformation with which he will be charged as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.''
Bush and Rumsfeld have been surprised by the degree of the military's resistance to the idea of shelving the venerable ``two-war capacity'' strategy and the possibility of cutting troop levels to pay for a missile shield defense.
In Myers, they have found an ally: He has been outspoken in his enthusiasm for the space-based defense system that has made skeptics of many others in the military.
Speaking last year at his alma mater, Kansas State University, Myers called satellite systems essential to modern warfare and cited ``the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the missiles that deliver them to our cities.'' He compared the airmen who guide the systems to World War II heroes.
Colleagues insist, however, that Myers is no ``yes man'' and his careful approach to issues could provide a counterweight to Bush and Rumsfeld.
``This is a guy the secretary can bang ideas and concepts off of,'' said retired Gen. Merrill McPeak, the Air Force chief in the early 1990s, when Myers was on his senior staff. ``It's important to work through the concepts before you throw money at them.''
Also important to Bush and Rumsfeld was Myers' reputation for keeping a close eye on spending. The president says he believes the launch into space-based defense can be accomplished within the tight budget strictures he has set for himself.
Bush predicted Myers will be a forceful advocate of Pentagon views, expecting him ``to make sure the military's point of view is always heard in the White House.''
The president selected Marine Gen. Pete Pace, now head of the U.S. Southern Command, to succeed Myers as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
Myers has always been careful to lavish praise on all branches of the military.
In his speech at Kansas State, he singled out the Army National Guard for praise for its work in Bosnia, and extolled the United States' peacekeeping role in the Balkans and elsewhere -- a position notable for its absence in Bush administration rhetoric.
That praise has earned him the respect of other branches of the service.
Gen. James Jones, the commandant of the Marine Corps and a member of the Joint Chiefs, and himself an early candidate for the chairmanship, was unstinting in his praise.
``They picked someone who really can be a successful advocate for the direction they want to take the department,'' Jones said, ``And on top of all his qualifications, he's a very decent guy.''
Myers earned kudos during his 1998-2000 Space Command term for keeping qualified people in the service through liberal promotions and good housing, said Hal Littrell, chairman of the Air Academy National Bank in Colorado Springs, Colo., headquarters of the Space Command.
``He doesn't shoot from the hip, he never played games,'' Littrell said.
-------- MILITARY
-------- africa
Exit of armies leads to hope
Washington Times
August 25, 2001
Agence France-Presse
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010825-16664808.htm
GABORONE, Botswana - Hope for peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo surged here early today as the Kinshasa government and the rebels fighting it committed themselves to the unconditional withdrawal of all foreign armies from the country.
The resolution came at the close of weeklong reconciliation talks at which the warring parties agreed to hold a long-overdue national peace dialogue in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Oct. 15.
Dialogue facilitator Sir Ketumile Masire said that the combatants in the former Zaire's three-year-old war had reached a "political consensus," which bodes well for a final peace agreement in the Ethiopian capital and puts Congo on the road to democracy.
"All warring parties must leave the DRC," he said, adding that rebel groups had not sought any conditions for the retreat of their allies "nor were any given here."
The question of the withdrawal of the rebels' Rwandan and Ugandan allies and troops from Namibia, Zimbabwe and Angola backing the government in Kinshasa had dominated the talks, even though it was not part of the agenda.
Mr. Masire, a former Botswana president, said some 70 representatives of the government, the rebels, Rwanda, the unarmed opposition and civil society had gone beyond their brief and had tackled the real obstacles to peace.
"This was meant to be a technical meeting, but it became much more. You introduced some very important aspects. You were instrumental in removing stumbling blocks," he said. "The road to a successful dialogue has now been opened. Your democracy begins here."
The upcoming dialogue is a key feature of the 1999 Lusaka, Zambia, peace protocol, which is widely considered as the only blueprint for peace in Congo, but has yet to be properly implemented.
Dialogue is intended to produce an agreement on free elections and the disarmament of all militia in the Congo and their integration into a national army.
The Rwandan-backed rebels of the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD) said the resolution on foreign withdrawal could end the war, which began largely because former President Laurent Kabila's government failed to guarantee the security of the Tutsi minority in Rwanda and eastern Congo.
"For the RCD, a chapter has been closed, and we welcome peace for our families and our children to come," RCD Secretary-General Azarias Ruberwa told reporters.
But Mr. Ruberwa said if the Kinshasa government did not manage to stop ethnic attacks by pro-government militia, the RCD members would be forced to defend themselves.
"Kinshasa has much more of a role in whether the fighting ends. If Kinshasa were to continue to support perpetrators of genocide, we will protect our people. It is our duty."
The leader of the rival Ugandan-backed Congolese Liberation Front (FLC) rebel groups, Jean-Pierre Bemba, had less to say. "I hope the fighting will end, maybe," he said.
The government and the rebels also committed themselves to ensuring freedom of movement throughout the divided nation and release of political prisoners in the country.
Observers here said these commitments and the decision on the venue and date for the dialogue came easily compared to the hard-won resolution on foreign withdrawal.
The rebels favored South Africa to host the upcoming talks, but bowed to pressure from the government, which sees Pretoria as being too close to Rwanda, that the dialogue take place in Addis Ababa.
"South Africa was the choice of the majority, but we agreed to Addis Ababa because we did not want to block the dialogue," Mr. Ruberwa said.
Congolese President Joseph Kabila has been credited with reviving the peace process since taking over as successor to his father, who was assassinated in January, and rebels said he had appeared open to reconciliation when he met with them at the start of talks Monday.
-------- balkans
NATO, Macedonia Dispute Weapons
August 25, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Macedonia.html
SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) -- NATO was moving forward Saturday with plans to collect weapons from ethnic Albanian rebels, but a possible stumbling block -- the number of weapons the rebels will turn in -- remained unresolved.
A firm number is crucial because the peace deal that allowed NATO into the country envisions a step-by-step process in which rebels voluntarily hand their weapon caches over to NATO troops in exchange for political reforms. The arms collection is supposed to start early this week, but a figure must be accepted before NATO launches the operation.
NATO announced Friday that it had agreed with the rebels on the number of weapons to be collected by the troops. Western diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the agreement called for the rebels to surrender 3,000 weapons.
But on Saturday, Macedonian Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski said weapons figures as low as 3,500 could hinder the peace process.
``We used to seize that quantity in a single raid,'' he said. ``I think it is ridiculous to speak about 3,500 pieces six months after the outbreak of crisis. I think that if that figure stays we will not achieve anything.''
NATO had presented President Boris Trajkovski with a figure on Friday, and the continuation of discussions Saturday fueled speculation on the extent of the rebel arsenal. The alliance downplayed the dispute over weapons numbers, insisting the government has simply asked for clarification of figures NATO has suggested.
``We have great confidence that this process is going to move forward and that our numbers will be accepted as being realistic,'' said Maj. Barry Johnson, a spokesman for NATO forces in Macedonia. ``We have every confidence that ... the collection sites will be able to begin on Monday as planned.''
Fighting broke out along Macedonia's border with Kosovo in February, after ethnic Albanians launched an insurgency claiming they are fighting for greater rights. The government says ethnic Albanians, who make about a third of the country's population of 2 million, are fighting for a state of their own.
After an Aug. 13 peace deal, NATO's ruling council authorized a total about 4,700 troops to help with disarmament of the rebels. That includes about 3,500 actively involved in the collection of arms and others in administrative and logistic roles, the alliance said.
Despite the dispute over numbers, plans for the arms collection moved ahead Saturday.
NATO officials said Macedonian forces and ethnic Albanian rebels have agreed to pull back from sensitive areas ahead of the collection. Macedonian security forces said they would move to a distance of 3 1/2 miles from sites where troops will collect the arms, NATO said.
NATO hopes to collect about a third of the arms by the end of next week -- in time for a key parliamentary meeting to launch the procedures called for in the peace plan.
Elsewhere Saturday, U.S. forces said that NATO-led peacekeepers had detained 53 suspected ethnic Albanian rebels as they entered Kosovo from Macedonia in two separate incidents on Friday.
In the village of Gorance, five suspected rebels shot at the peacekeepers, who returned the fire, injuring one, the statement said. No peacekeepers were injured. In a separate action, peacekeepers detained 48 suspected rebels in the village of Zlokucane as they were entering Kosovo from Macedonia.
Kosovo is widely believed to be a main supply and transit route for Macedonia's ethnic Albanian rebels, the National Liberation Army.
Also Saturday, World Bank officials pledged to assist the troubled Balkan country, offering a fresh influx of cash provided a peace deal remains in place.
Christian Poortman, the World Bank coordinator for Eastern Europe, said he and Macedonian officials were meeting to lay the groundwork for a donor's conference called for under the peace accord. Bank officials are considering $15 millions in loans for the country's budget, and an additional $5 million in aid for new municipalities was discussed, Macedonian Finance Minister Nikola Gruevski said.
Still, Georgievski downplayed the willingness of Western bankers to help his country rebuild in troubled areas.
``At this moment I don't see extra dollars ... apart from what was agreed last year,'' he said.
A figure on how much was agreed to last year was never released.
-------- colombia
U.S. Delays Drug Plan in Colombia
August 25, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Colombia-Planes.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The State Department will delay plans to expand its fleet of drug spraying planes in Colombia after the planes' bankrupt manufacturer shut down its assembly lines this month.
Ayres Corp. of Albany, Ga., had won the contract without having to compete for it, despite a rival's claim that Ayres' shaky finances made it undependable.
The delay is a setback to the $1.3 billion, U.S.-funded plan to step up drug eradication in Colombia. Since the mid-1990s, State Department contractors have worked with Colombian police in fumigating coca and opium crops, the raw materials for cocaine and heroin.
Ayres halted production Aug. 3, just five days before it was due to deliver the first of nine single-engine, propeller-driven T-65 planes.
Those planes, along with three twin-engine OV-10 planes that the State Department is refurbishing, would have increased the 11-plane fleet to 23 planes by February.
The additional planes are ``extremely important because we're trying to go after an exploding amount of coca production and opium production,'' said Barry McCaffrey, the former White House drug policy director.
``You want to have a mass of spray aircraft that you can move around the country and attack these criminal operations all in one fell swoop and then move somewhere else,'' he said.
The State Department declined to provide specifics on the shutdown's effect. ``We will not be able to increase our support of the Colombian National Police's aerial eradication program as quickly as we had originally envisioned,'' the department said in a statement in response to an inquiry by The Associated Press.
Congress provided $20 million for the Ayres planes and the refurbished OV-10s. Fred Ayres, the president of the plane company, said Ayres' share of that was about $15 million.
Ayres' main creditor, GATX Capital Corp. of San Francisco, has taken over the company's assets and hopes to find a buyer soon, GATX spokesman Glenn L. Hickerson said. If it does, the first planes could be completed by year's end, he said.
It was not clear if the State Department would wait for the sale. The department said it is exploring its legal options and examining ways to get planes soon.
An Ayres rival, Air Tractor Inc. of Olney, Texas, planned to demonstrate a spray plane to State Department officials this week, said the company's president, Leland Snow.
In January, Air Tractor cited Ayres' finances when it challenged the State Department's decision to award the contract without allowing competitors to bid.
``Ayres is neither technically nor financially qualified to perform this contract,'' Air Tractor said in documents submitted to the General Accounting Office. ``Its production line is shut down for a lack of a work force and lack of operating capital.''
Air Tractor also claimed it could build a better plane for drug spraying missions and that the contract should have been open to competitive bidding.
The GAO rejected the protest in April, saying it was filed too late.
In a Sept. 7 document explaining why bids were not sought, Assistant Secretary of State Rand Beers said the Colombian National Police had been using Ayres planes since the early 1980s and was used to flying and maintaining them.
Fred Ayres said the Colombian government ``specifically requested our airplanes.''
``They didn't want to have a mix of different types of airplanes,'' he said. ``They didn't want to have to retrain pilots or retrain mechanics.''
Ayres' financial collapse stemmed from problems with subcontractors on an unrelated contract, Ayres said. The difficulties began about two years ago but ``didn't seem insurmountable'' until August 2000, Ayres said.
Ayres' company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November. The State Department contract was signed a month or two later, he said.
For months afterward, State Department officials told members of Congress they expected the planes to be delivered on time. As recently as July 11, Beers told a Senate panel that the first Ayres plane ``should be delivered in August.''
U.S. officials have advocated spraying as the best way of eliminating coca from fields that are often defended by leftist guerrillas who partially finance their insurgency by protecting traffickers.
Opponents say the spraying damages legal crops, threatens the environment and causes health problems -- criticism rejected by the State Department.
-------- drug war
Meth Production Reaches 'Epidemic' Level on Coast
Officials Consider California a Source Nation for 'Speed'
By Rene Sanchez
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 25, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59458-2001Aug24?language=printer
LOS ANGELES -- They stormed in after midnight, kicking down doors of homes and businesses around this county's desert fringe. More than 100 federal agents and local detectives took part in the raids, and by the time the sun came up they had nabbed yet another gang of suspected methamphetamine traffickers.
The raids this week culminated an 18-month investigation dubbed "Operation Silent Thunder" that led to the arrest of nearly 300 people on drug or weapons charges. Hundreds of firearms and explosives have been seized. More than a dozen large makeshift laboratories for manufacturing methamphetamine have been closed and quantities of the drug worth more than $2 million -- usually sold on the street in small amounts of powder or rock -- have been confiscated.
Law enforcement authorities acknowledge that the results are another sign of just how pervasive and sophisticated the illicit methamphetamine trade has become in many parts of the state. Once casually run, mostly by outlaw biker gangs, methamphetamine production is now a tightly managed big business, concentrated in California's hills and deserts and its vast, rural Central Valley.
So much methamphetamine is produced in California that federal officials now consider the state a "source nation" for the highly addictive drug, which is also known as speed, ice or crystal. Meth labs are flourishing more than ever in other western states such as Arizona, Nevada and Washington.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, about 2,700 meth labs were discovered in California in 1999. The state with the second-highest total, Washington, had about 600. Arizona had nearly 400.
After this week's raids, authorities said they were confident that they had crushed the remnants of an elaborate criminal enterprise. But they said there would be many more to contend with.
"We think we've put a huge dent in this organization," Lt. Ron Shreeves of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said after the raids. "But is someone else going to fill its shoes? Absolutely. There's too much money involved."
Federal narcotics officials say that use of the drug across the country has doubled in the past seven years. Much of the market, they say, is controlled by criminal groups based in Mexico that use California migrant workers to cook and transport the drug from shacks and trailers in the desert or barns in the fields of the state's agricultural midsection.
As the operations have become more organized -- some meth labs operate every day, authorities say -- production has greatly increased.
Ron Gravitt, the clandestine laboratory coordinator for the California Department of Justice, calls the state's methamphetamine problem "an epidemic." Law enforcement agencies in California are shutting down more than 2,000 meth labs each year, he said. And in some parts of the state, the tally has doubled or tripled over the past decade.
"Right now, we're just inundated with meth," Gravitt said.
California will spend $30 million this year to crack down on the methamphetamine trade, but just finding meth labs, some of which produce 50 pounds of the drug a week, is often difficult because they are remote.
Jose Martinez, a spokesman for the DEA's office in Los Angeles, said that sparsely populated areas are ideal for drug organizations to set up operations. "Because it's wide open space, a person can go out there and cook and it's not easy to detect," he said.
When law enforcement agents make a bust, they usually catch only front-line workers who know little about the larger criminal operation for which they work. Those workers, and the labs, are often quickly replaced.
Officials say the proliferation of meth labs is also creating serious environmental problems. The state is spending millions to clean up the toxic chemical waste dumped in water or spilled on soil during or after the often-crude manufacture of the drug.
The raids this week followed months of undercover investigation and targeted methamphetamine trafficking in the Antelope Valley on the eastern end of Los Angeles County, a high desert region that long has been a hub of the meth trade.
At a news conference this week, Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said the suspects are members of a drug ring that distributed methamphetamine primarily in the West. He said the organization is linked to Mexican drug traffickers and white supremacist groups in Southern California.
Agents seized a half-million dollars in cash and more than 100 high-powered weapons in the early morning raids, which took place at nearly two dozen homes and small businesses. The arsenal included assault rifles with bayonets and a grenade launcher.
Authorities said that some suspects had tattoos of Nazi swastikas and belong to a local gang called the "Untouchables."
"They were stockpiling a huge cache of weapons along with drugs," Shreeves said. "This was a sophisticated organization."
He said that investigators believe that nearly all of those arrested this week belonged to one of six drug distribution "cells" that are part of a large methamphetamine trafficking group. The other five cells, he said, also have been dismantled by the undercover operation.
"We think this was the last and most dangerous one," Shreeves said.
To avoid capture, some members of the alleged drug ring installed video surveillance equipment outside of their homes, spoke in code on telephones, and stayed in constant contact with each other about police activity in their neighborhood, authorities said.
"We knew we had to go after them all at once," Shreeves said. Most of the methamphetamine seized in the raids was pure, he said, and would have been quite addictive had it been sold on the street.
Special correspondent Jeff Adler contributed to this report.
-------- israel
2 Palestinians Die in Attack on Israeli Outpost That Kills 3 Soldiers
August 25, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html
KHAN YUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Palestinian militants killed three Israeli soldiers Saturday in a daring raid on an army outpost in the southern Gaza Strip, and three Israeli civilians were shot dead when their car was ambushed near Jerusalem.
The deaths prompted Israel to send tanks, armored personnel carriers and bulldozers into Palestinian areas in the Gaza Strip. The Israelis destroyed a security building and several security checkpoints before withdrawing early Sunday.
Three Palestinians were also killed -- the two militants who carried out the raid on the Israeli military outpost, and a police sergeant hit by Israeli tank fire during the subsequent incursion into Palestinian areas in Gaza, Palestinians said.
``Whether attacking Israeli soldiers in Gaza or attacking Israeli civilians on roads near Jerusalem, Yasser Arafat is escalating his war of terrorism against the state of Israel,'' said Israeli government spokesman Dore Gold.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had said that Israeli forces would respond swiftly to Palestinian attacks, and the army focused its attention on Rafah, a town in southern Gaza near the border with Egypt. The town is only a few miles from the Israeli military outpost in Marganit that came under assault early Saturday.
The Israelis briefly took over several small Palestinian security outposts, and bulldozers tore down the headquarters of Palestinian Public Security, according to residents and Rafah's Governor Majid al-Ajha.
The Israeli tanks and armored vehicles came under heavy Palestinian gunfire, and shot back with shells and machine guns, they added. The police sergeant, Alla Abu Bakra, was killed by shrapnel, and at least two more Palestinians were wounded, hospital doctors said.
At mosques in Rafah, calls went out over the loudspeakers urging residents to join a ``holy war'' against the Israeli forces.
``The people of Rafah are defending the city in order to teach the Israelis a lesson,'' said al-Ajha.
At around 3 a.m. Sunday, the Israeli forces began withdrawing from Rafah, residents and officials said.
On the eastern edge of Gaza City, Israeli forces flattened two Palestinian police outposts, Palestinian security sources said. At least a half-dozen Israeli helicopters hovered near Arafat's headquarters in Gaza City, but eventually left without firing.
The Israeli operations in Gaza appeared to be in keeping with previous incursions. In those instances, the Israelis destroyed Palestinian security offices, and then pulled out after only a few hours.
The Israeli military said the incursion was a response to the attack on its military post Saturday.
The Israelis say they hold Arafat and his security forces responsible for the attacks against Israeli targets. They say that Arafat has failed to rein in Palestinian militants, and that members of the security forces have participated in shootings.
On Saturday night, two Israeli men and an Israeli woman were killed and two children were wounded when their car was ambushed by gunmen on a road just north of Jerusalem, near the West Bank settlement of Modiin, the Israeli army said.
The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, made up of militants linked to Arafat's Fatah movement, claimed responsibility.
Saturday's violence began before dawn with one of the boldest and deadliest raids against Israeli forces.
Two Palestinian militants from the radical Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine climbed into the isolated Marganit military base in southern Gaza, killing three soldiers and wounding seven before they were shot dead.
Palestinian militants have targeted Israeli troops and Jewish settlers in Gaza throughout the current conflict. However, in most cases, the militants have fired from a distance or attempted roadside ambushes.
Saturday's direct assault on the fortified Israeli position appeared to catch the soldiers off guard.
The two attackers climbed over separate embankments in the dark, and both began shooting and throwing grenades at soldiers, the Israeli army said.
Soldiers shot back, killing one Palestinian at the base. The second man managed to flee, but was pursued and shot dead about four hours later while attempting to take cover at a greenhouse in a nearby Jewish settlement, the army said.
``It was a face-to-face battle and a very complicated battle,'' Israeli Maj. Gen. Doron Almog said of the shootout at the base.
The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine said the assault was in retaliation for Israeli attacks on Palestinians. The group's leader, Nayef Hawatmeh, has been based in Damascus, Syria, for years, and the movement had not previously played a major role in the current Mideast fighting.
In a videotape made before the attack, the two Palestinian militants were shown with Kalashnikov rifles seated in front of a Palestinian flag.
``I donate myself to God and our people,'' said Hisham Abu Jamus, 24. Abu Jamus and the other assailant, Amin Abu Hatab, 26, previously worked for the Palestinian security forces, but quit after the Palestinian uprising began last September, Palestinian security sources said.
The Israeli troops in Gaza protect about 6,000 Jewish settlers who live in fortified enclaves surrounded by more than 1 million Palestinians.
The Palestinians want Gaza for a future Palestinian state, and have demanded that the Israeli troops and settlers leave the territory.
-------- u.s.
Military jets collide in Texas; student pilot killed
USA TODAY
08/25/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/08/24/jets-crash.htm
CROWELL, Texas (AP) - Two Air Force jets collided during a NATO training session Friday afternoon, and an Italian student pilot was killed.
The two T-38 jets from Sheppard Air Force Base collided about 4 p.m., CT, about 50 miles west of Wichita Falls, said John Clabes, spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
Second Lt. Marco Tosi, a student who was flying solo, was killed, base spokeswoman Laura McGowan said.
Capt. Marco Pojer, an instructor, and 2nd Lt. Paolo Papi, a student, ejected from the second jet and parachuted to the ground. They were in good condition at a hospital.
The three Italians were training with the Euro NATO Joint Jet Pilot Training program. The base trains European pilots from half a dozen nations as well as American pilots.
An eyewitness to the crash, David Broon, told the Wichita Falls Times Record News the two jets slammed into each other at a high altitude, causing a massive fireball. The planes hit the ground about 300 yards apart.
McGowan said she did not immediately have any information about what caused the collision.
-------- OTHER
-------- genetics
Worried Scientists Are Told Ample Stem Cell Lines Exist
New York Times
August 25, 2001
By NICHOLAS WADE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/08/25/science/physical/25CELL.html
Administration officials took pains yesterday to emphasize the wide opening given by President Bush for government-financed research on human embryonic stem cells, and to quell the fears emerging among scientists of various obstacles in their path.
Mr. Bush said on Aug. 9 that the research could go ahead, but only with cell lines - self-perpetuating colonies - that had already been established in laboratories. Yesterday, in Crawford, Tex., the president said in response to a question that existing stem cell lines "are ample to be able to determine whether or not embryonic stem cell research can yield the results to save lives."
Use of the human cells could lead to methods for regenerating the tissues lost in many kinds of disease, but is ethically problematic because it requires the destruction of some human embryos left over from in vitro fertility treatments.
Some scientists have welcomed Mr. Bush's decision, saying it may not be everything they wished but it gives them enough leeway to proceed. But others have voiced a range of fears, including that not enough usable lines exist, that the owners of such lines will impose unreasonable conditions on research, and that the existing lines' possible contamination with animal viruses would make them unusable for clinical research.
"Many of these concerns will prove to be unfounded and what we should focus on now is conducting the basic research for which the president has opened the door," said Jay Lefkovitz, general counsel at the Office of Management and Budget.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that "the critical issue up to now is that we haven't been able to study these cells with federal funds."
"So now that we can, let's make the best of it," Dr. Fauci said.
Private companies and university researchers supported with nongovernment money have been free to derive embryonic cell lines from human embryos. But because research is at such a basic stage, many scientists believe advances will be accelerated if the large number of university researchers financed by the National Institutes of Health are able to join in the effort. Until Mr. Bush's decision, federal financing of the research was blocked.
Scientists were surprised to hear that so many human embryonic stem cell lines have been derived, and several expressed doubt about the 60 lines the administration said exist. The lines were discovered in phone inquiries by the Office of Science Policy at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Lana Skirboll, director of the office, said last week that the owners of the lines would be published on the Web as soon as they gave permission to be named.
The best known stem cell lines, those first derived by Dr. James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin in 1998, belong to the university's intellectual property arm, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. The foundation licensed several principal uses of the cells to Geron, the company that financed Dr. Thomson's research, leading some scientists to fear that Geron would control their research.
But a spokesman last week stressed the foundation's interest in having biologists do research on the cells without restriction. Any commercial applications of such research would need to be negotiated with the foundation or with Geron for applications that fall within Geron's license, the spokesman said, but such negotiations are routine.
In a National Institutes of Health report issued earlier this month, and in articles on Friday in The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, concerns were raised over the animal cells to which human embryonic stem cells are exposed when being coaxed to grow in laboratory dishes.
Because of fears of introducing animal viruses into patients, the Food and Drug Administration has taken steps to restrict the use of animal cells and material exposed to them. Embryonic stem cells grown by present methods might not be looked on askance by the F.D.A. But Geron has cultured human embryonic stem cells without directly exposing them to the mouse skin cells.
"To say this is a showstopper is not reality," Dr. Fauci said.
Others have raised the possibility that more stem cell lines might be derived, but only if a compelling need should emerge.
"When and if it becomes clear the research is running into road blocks, because the existing lines are for one reason or another not adequate, let's come back and reconsider the question of deriving more lines at that point," said Dr. LeRoy Walters, an ethicist at Georgetown University.
-------- human rights
Rights Panel Hears Alaskan Natives' Complaints of Bias
By Yereth Rosen
Reuters
Saturday, August 25, 2001; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59740-2001Aug24?language=printer
ANCHORAGE -- No matter how you look at it, Alaska's Native peoples face a tougher life than others in this vast, mineral-rich state.
Eskimos, Indians and Aleuts, all known as Natives, make up 37 percent of prisoners in the state, although they are only 16 percent of the population.
Suicide rates for young Alaska Native males are high, and budget cuts imposed by the state legislature fall disproportionately on Native villages in the roadless rural areas, critics allege.
A string of slayings of Native women in Anchorage remains unsolved, making some people wonder if police are cavalier about crimes against Indians.
But it was January's attacks on Alaska Natives by three white teenagers -- who drove through downtown Anchorage one night videotaping themselves laughing and shooting frozen paintballs at Natives -- that spurred an investigation by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission.
Members of the commission came to Anchorage this week for a two-day hearing into racism in Alaska, prompted by pleas from the Alaska Federation of Natives, the state's largest Native organization.
Federation leaders told the Civil Rights Commission on Thursday that Alaska's indigenous peoples regularly face a "process of dehumanization," and sometimes worse. "This really is a matter of life and death for people in the state," Julie Kitka, president of the federation, told the panel.
Gov. Tony Knowles (D) agreed with the commission that the paintball attacks, which were shown on local and national newscasts, made many non-Natives understand the depths of racism in the state.
"Perhaps I should have organized a tolerance commission long before the paintball incident," the governor said Thursday, referring to a state panel he established recently to investigate racism. "But let that be a trigger, that from this point forward we can acknowledge that we have problems that are as deep-seated as they are."
While the Civil Rights Commission has no power to mandate policy, it makes recommendations to federal and state agencies. The commission's report on Alaska's problems is expected within a year.
"I hope that, at a minimum, the violence that's going on . . . [gets] some scrutiny," said Kitka. Natives want assurances that police are devoting sufficient time to protecting them, she said.
Knowles said his top priority was a resolution of the long-standing stalemate over "subsistence," the traditional method of food-gathering for Natives. He and Native groups have tried for years to persuade the legislature to pass a constitutional amendment that would allow a hunting and fishing preference for rural residents, in accordance with federal law.
"There is no issue more important, I believe, to achieving racial harmony in this state than protecting the subsistence way of life," Knowles told the commission.
The state has one big advantage over others in addressing social ills: a $25.8 billion savings account -- the Alaska Permanent Fund -- from years of oil revenue.
Said Knowles, "There is plenty of wealth in the state to address the needs."
-------- spying
Satellite Agency Has Tradition of Secrecy
Joint Defense-CIA Enterprise Uses Many Contract Employees Such as Alleged Spy
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 25, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59274-2001Aug24?language=printer
The once super-secret National Reconnaissance Office where alleged spy Brian P. Regan worked manages the design, construction and operation of the nation's intelligence and early warning satellites on an annual budget of about $6 billion.
The very existence of the NRO, which was established in 1961, was classified until 1992. Today it has a Web site, although its exact budget remains secret. The designs of its satellites and some of the intelligence they gather are classified as special compartmented intelligence, or SCI, a category beyond top secret.
Though formally part of the Defense Department, the NRO is run jointly by the director of the CIA, and its $300 million headquarters is in a complex of high-rise office buildings in suburban Chantilly.
A recent internal study described it as "simultaneously an intelligence organization, a defense organization, and a space organization."
Both the Pentagon and the CIA contribute people, funds and other support to NRO. In turn, the agency supplies intelligence both for national policymakers and for frontline military forces.
Because NRO works closely with private contractors, many of its headquarters employees are contract personnel working for companies such as TRW, which hired Regan after he retired from the Air Force.
The satellites that NRO manages provide many types of intelligence, including photographs taken from space that can show objects on the ground only inches in length. They also produce infra-red images, showing sources of heat; radar images, showing movement; signals intelligence, meaning intercepted radio and microwave communications; and measurement and signature intelligence, a new technology that can help determine the chemical composition of an object from far away.
The biggest intelligence satellites cost more than $1 billion apiece, but in recent years the NRO has been moving toward smaller ones. Some of the NRO's early photographs helped determine that there was no real "missile gap" with Russia. In the 1980s, its satellites were used to verify arms control agreements, and in the 1990s, the NRO provided key assistance in the Persian Gulf War. Today, many of its assets are used to support U.S. and allied troops abroad.
Recently, however, there has been concern that countries have learned to keep track of U.S. satellites and deceive their sensors. Many within the U.S. intelligence community believe that the Indian government, for example, was able to hide its preparations for nuclear tests because it knew when U.S. satellites would be overhead and what their capabilities were.
The most famous previous spy case involving satellites took place in the late 1970s, when Christopher Boyce and a partner, Andrew Daulton Lee, were arrested for selling the Soviet Union thousands of secret documents. The pair also worked for TRW, which was involved in designing satellites.
In 1978, William Kampiles, a CIA watch officer, sold Moscow the operations manual for the KH-11, at the time the most sophisticated U.S. photo satellite.
The latest U.S. imagery satellites provide a continuous flow of so much data that processing it, rather than collecting it, has become the key intelligence problem.
--------
Spy Case Chronology
August 25, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Spy-Case-Chronology.html
Events leading up to the arrest of retired Air Force master sergeant Brian P. Regan, who was arrested Thursday and charged Friday with conspiring to commit espionage. An FBI affidavit says:
2000: August:
Regan retires from the Air Force, gives up his high-level security clearance and his access to Intelink, a classified computer system for the U.S. intelligence community. His last assignment had been at the National Reconnaissance Office, the builder and operator of U.S. spy satellites.
October:
Regan Goes to work for military contractor TRW Inc., in Fairfax, Va.
Fall:
U.S. officials learn that a nation -- identified as Country A in the affidavit and said to be Libya by a government source -- had received classified U.S. national defense documents. They include electronic images taken by satellites, a CIA intelligence report and a secret document related to a foreign country's satellite capability.
Country A also received messages with details on how to communicate without being detected by the U.S. government; an offer to provide more classified information; and instructions to send responses to an e-mail address on a free e-mail service.
That e-mail account had been set up under the name ``Steven Jacobs'' on Aug. 3, 2000. The account was accessed nine times between August 2000 and January 2001 from computers at public libraries, most of them in Maryland near Regan's home.
2001: April:
Investigators search Regan's former office and computer at the NRO in Chantilly, Va. They find that Regan's password was used to access many of the documents received by Country A.
A search of electronic records shows that on the same day that Regan accessed a copy of a CIA report, he flew to Iceland and then to countries in Europe.
June:
FBI agents begin watching Regan. Also this month, Regan uses the Internet at a public library but does not sign off the computer. That allows the agents watching him to find out which Web sites he visited. One site contained the address for the diplomatic office of an unidentified country in Switzerland.
On June 21, Regan sends an e-mail from an account in his own name to his wife. The e-mail includes encryption information that is similar to the technique used in encrypted documents received by Country A.
Five days later, Regan flies to Munich, Germany. The FBI searches his checked suitcase and finds glue and packing tape.
July:
Regan is assigned to work at the NRO for his company as a civilian. His security clearance is reinstated.
Aug. 23:
FBI agents monitoring Regan's NRO office with a video camera watch him log on to Intelink to read a secret document. Reagan takes notes in a small notebook, which he puts in his front pants pocket.
At about 9 a.m., while Regan is in a meeting, the FBI searches his minivan. Agents find a bag containing encrypted messages and handwritten notes listing addresses and phone numbers for the diplomatic offices of an unidentified country in Switzerland and Austria. In a suitcase, they find a bottle of Elmer's glue and role of tape.
Regan had reservations to fly to Zurich, Switzerland, via Frankfurt, Germany. The father of four tells a co-worker he and his family are driving to Disney World. He writes ``Orlando, Florida'' on a board in his office suite to show where he would be while off.
At about 1 p.m., Regan arrives at Dulles International Airport near Washington. He checks his suitcase, which is later taken by the FBI. But Regan is bumped to a later flight. He returns to the NRO for a few hours and later goes back to the airport.
At about 5:30 p.m., FBI agents stop Regan as he was trying to pass through an airport security checkpoint.
FBI Special Agent Steven A. Carr questions him, and Regan denies knowing about cryptanalysis and coding. The agents then show him photos of documents found earlier in his bag.
``This is my stuff,'' Regan says, shortly before he is arrested.
The agents find in Regan's possession: the small notebook that he had been using in his office, three rubber gloves, a hand-held global positioning system device and a piece of paper in his shoe listing names and addresses in a European country.
-------- terrorism
6 Charged In Plan To Bomb U.S. Site
Police Say Embassy In India Was Target
Associated Press
Saturday, August 25, 2001; Page A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59852-2001Aug24?language=printer
NEW DELHI, Aug. 24 -- Indian investigators have charged suspected terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and five others with planning to bomb the U.S. Embassy here, senior police officials said today.
The charges -- filed in a city court on Aug. 14 and reported today in the Times of India newspaper -- are based on statements by two men who were arrested June 14 on charges of possessing explosives, Assistant Police Commissioner Rajbir Singh said.
Four of the suspected conspirators were being held in a jail in the capital. A fifth man, alleged mastermind Abdul Rehman Safani of Yemen, has fled India, Singh said.
Bin Laden, accused by the United States of planning the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people, lives in Afghanistan under the protection of the ruling Taliban militia.
In June, police in New Delhi arrested Abdel Raouf Hawas, whom they identified as Sudanese, and Mohammed Shamim Sarwar, whose nationality has not been disclosed, on charges of possessing 13 pounds of explosives, detonators and timers.
Two more men, Abbas Hussain Sheikh and Mohammed Arshad, both Indians, were arrested on charges they helped Hawas.
At the time of the arrests, Deputy Police Commissioner Ashok Chand told Indian news media that the group had been planning for two years to park a car bomb close to the visa section of the embassy. It is considered the most vulnerable part of the high-security building because hundreds of Indians seeking entry to the United States stand in line there for hours each day.
The police said Hawas told them that Safani was working for bin Laden.
U.S. Embassy officials declined to comment, as they have done since the arrests were reported in June.
------- OneList (submissions from subscribers)
------- Depleted Uranium Keeps On Killing!