------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Bin Laden's nuclear secrets found
Bush's lead in arms cuts irks Russia
British Energy wants to stop N-fuel reprocessing
Good website for DU info
US used depleted uranium munitions against Taliban
German police mass to see nuclear convoy home
History of nuclear power controversy in Germany
GERMANY: HEAVY GUARD FOR NUCLEAR WASTE
Bush, Putin Differ on Missile Defense
Debt Forgiveness for Moscow
Russia to build 10 nuclear reactors in next decade
Russia's inner chaos a threat to the West
United Nations presses test ban ratification
NTS training proposal to be discussed
NCRP report on terrorist events with rad matl
Ariz. PV Unit 3 nuke suffering turbine vibrations
Idaho
USEC, union contract on table
Calvert to Retest Sirens Near Nuclear Plant Today
Baltimore Prepares Fallout Shelter
Additional Budget Cuts as States and Cities Address Safety Issues
Nuclear Plant Plans to Add Gas Power
DOE seeks progress on contractor's safety plan
Bechtel taxes could pay for services
Yucca guideline unveiled
Bill orders terror plan for Yucca
We Can Only Guess What Secrets Bush Is Keeping

MILITARY
Taliban brass talk of handing over terrorist
U.S. jets zero in on pockets of Taliban resistance
Southern tribes help fight Taliban
Alliance 'has broken' Geneva code of war
Alliance Force, in Charge, Tries to Ease Fears
U.S. Policy Towards Taliban Influenced by Oil - Say Authors
McDonnell Douglas to Pay $2.1 Million Fine in Export Case
Antibiotic overuse can silence medicine's big guns
Mayor criticizes FBI handling of anthrax scare
Britain Proposes Anti-Terrorism Measures
Consider a new Mideast option
Israel raids Gaza as Palestinians mark national day
Palestinian Authority Arrests Jihad Leader, Causing a Riot
Taliban Troops Move Across Border Into Pakistan
White House fires at critics
Bush Names Budget Expert as Administrator of NASA
SUDAN: BUSH ENVOY ON PEACE MISSION
EAST TIMOR: MORE SECURITY MEANS FEWER TROOPS
'With or against us' war irks many UN nations
Rapid Changes on the Ground
Special Forces Hunt Al Qaeda on the Ground
Deployment of National Guard at Capitol to begin
FAA: Navy jet crashes on Olympic Peninsula
Seizing Dictatorial Power
Cheating History

ENERGY AND OTHER
Nebraska
Oil Prices in Flux as OPEC Decides Against Cut in Output
A Trade Deal in Doha
U.S. Industries Largely Favor Decision on Global Trade

POLICE / PRISONERS
FBI not sharing info, Florida says
War is Hell (On Your Civil Liberties)
Military tribunals: Swift judgments in dire times
States: New Hampshire, Wisconsin
Senior Administration Officials Defend Military Tribunals
Ashcroft Says I.N.S. Will Be Split
White House Push on Security Steps Bypasses Congress
Closer Look at New Plan for Trying Terrorists
YUGOSLAVIA: RESIGNATIONS IN WAR-CRIMES DISPUTE
States React to Terror
Militants charged with plotting terrorist acts in Egypt

ACTIVISTS
New Murder Trial Granted for Fugitive
Protect Liberties



-------- NUCLEAR

Bin Laden's nuclear secrets found
Times reporter finds blueprint for 'Nagasaki bomb' Singed files left by fleeing terrorists

The Times
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 15 2001
FROM ANTHONY LOYD IN KABUL
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001390014-2001395995,00.html

OSAMA BIN LADEN'S al-Qaeda network held detailed plans for nuclear devices and other terrorist bombs in one of its Kabul headquarters.

The Times discovered the partly burnt documents in a hastily abandoned safe house in the Karta Parwan quarter of the city. Written in Arabic, German, Urdu and English, the notes give detailed designs for missiles, bombs and nuclear weapons. There are descriptions of how the detonation of TNT compresses plutonium into a critical mass, sparking a chain reaction, and ultimately a thermonuclear reaction.

Both President Bush and British ministers are convinced that bin Laden has access to nuclear material and Mr Bush said earlier this month that al-Qaeda was "seeking chemical, biological and nuclear weapons".

The discovery of the detailed bomb-making instructions, along with studies into chemical and nuclear devices, confirms the West's worst fears and raises the spectre of plans for an attack that would far exceed the September 11 atrocities in scale and gravity.

Nuclear experts say the design suggests that bin Laden may be working on a fission device, similar to Fat Man, the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. However, they emphasised that it was extremely difficult to build a viable warhead.

While the terrorists may not yet have the capability to build such weapons, their hopes of doing so are clear. One set of notes, written on headed notepaper from the Hotel Grand in Peshawar and dated April 26, 1998, says: "Naturally the explosive liquid has a very high mechanical energy which is translated into destructive force. But it can be tamed, controlled and can be used as a useful propulsive fuel if certain methods are applied to it. A supersonic moving missile has a shock wave. That shock wave can be used to contain an external combustion behind the missile . . ."

The document was one of many found in two of four al-Qaeda houses which had been used by Arabs and Pakistanis and even reportedly by bin Laden himself. The houses - two in the Karta Parwan district and the others further to the east - were abandoned on Monday as Taleban units and their allies fled the city.

Attempts had been made to burn the evidence, but many documents still remained. They included studies into the development of a kinetic energy supergun capable of firing chemical or nuclear warheads, external propulsion missiles, preliminary research on the creation of a thermonuclear device, as well as a multitude of instructions for making smaller bombs.

There were also studies into Western special forces' hostage rescue techniques, phone numbers for industrial chemical and synthetic producers, flight manuals, aerodynamic research, and advanced physics and chemistry manuals.

The houses were identified by local people. Looters had concentrated on more appetising objects, ignoring foreign language documents that were of no use to them.

Bin Laden sees it as his "religious duty" to obtain a nuclear bomb. In an interview with a Pakistani journalist last week, he threatened: "If America used chemical or nuclear weapons against us then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons as deterrent."

Intelligence agencies already have indirect evidence from defectors, middlemen and scientists of bin Laden's obsession with obtaining or producing a nuclear device.

Al-Qaeda agents are known to have spent more than £1 million trying to obtain enough fissile material to make a "dirty bomb" that, if detonated with TNT in a populous area, could kill thousands and contaminate it for decades.

Intelligence sources told The Times last month that bin Laden and al-Qaeda had acquired nuclear materials illegally from Pakistan. And at least ten Pakistani nuclear scientists have been contacted by agents for the Taleban and al-Qaeda in the past two years, according to reports.

Fears that bin Laden has components for a nuclear weapon is believed to lie behind the warnings from President Bush and Tony Blair that he would commit worse atrocities than the suicide assaults in America if he could.The Prime Minister's spokesman said: "Bin Laden would have killed 600,000 people on September 11 if he could have done. This underlines again why he has to be stopped."

------

Bush's lead in arms cuts irks Russia

By Dmitry Zaks
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
November 15, 2001
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011115-85238009.htm

MOSCOW - Russia's army rumbled with discontent yesterday over President Bush's go-it-alone approach to nuclear disarmament, seen here as undercutting Moscow's leverage in future negotiations over missile defense.

Frowns surfaced in Russia's Defense Ministry building after President Vladimir Putin was unable Tuesday to get Mr. Bush to sign up to a bilateral long-range nuclear arms reduction agreement during their Washington talks.

As promised in advance, Mr. Bush announced a cut of 1,700 to 2,000 warheads from Washington's current arsenal of nearly 7,000 over the next 10 years. But he did so without reaching prior agreement with Mr. Putin.

Mr. Bush stressed that he was not in favor of "endless hours of arms control discussions. I looked the man in the eye and shook his hand. But if we need to write it down on a piece of paper, I'll be glad to do it."

The announcement meant that Mr. Putin had to play catchup later in the day by saying that Russia also would make cuts from 6,000 to 2,000 warheads or less.

But he gave no time frame for Moscow's cutbacks while stressing that discussion over "offensive and defensive" weapons would continue when the two leaders retreated to Mr. Bush's Texas ranch yesterday.

Mr. Bush's firm unilateral approach puts in flux the status of previous disarmament agreements between Moscow and Washington - which have been recognized under international law - and Russia's future bargaining position in strategic affairs.

The cut lays to waste Russia's repeated efforts to cast the United States as a military aggressor that is trying to "militarize space" by developing a futuristic missile defense program that one day may have attack capabilities.

It also leaves Moscow in the unenviable position of grumbling over a U.S. decision to eliminate a large chunk of some of the deadliest weapons on earth.

Representing the military hawks, one top Russia Defense Ministry general flatly called Mr. Bush's announcement "wrong."

Gen. Valentin Kuznetsov, who heads the Defense Ministry's international cooperation division, argued that only bilateral agreements could guarantee full control over nonproliferation and disarmament issues.

"Russia and the United States have gained great expertise in the area of verification and control over nuclear cuts, and it would be wrong to abandon" this process, Russian information agency Novosti quoted Gen. Kuznetsov as saying.

"The whole world should benefit from this," noted Varfolomei Korobushin, deputy head of Russia's Academy of Military Science.

"But the cuts must be made in a manner that does not leave the United States with an advantage" on the strategic defense front, Mr. Korobushin told ORT television.

The reductions announced by Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin are below the levels of the START II Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed by Moscow and Washington in 1993.

They mark the first time in the nuclear era that a military power has volunteered such radical cuts on its own - and leaves in doubt the validity of a host of other agreements to which Moscow has clung to for leverage in negotiating international affairs.

Most importantly, the announcement adds fuel to U.S. threats that it could unilaterally withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, and start developing a missile shield even if no compromise agreement with Moscow on the issue is reached.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin signed a joint declaration Tuesday, stating only that "on strategic defenses and the ABM treaty, we have agreed, in light of the changing global security environment, to continue consultations within the broad framework of the new strategic relationship."

-------- britain

British Energy wants to stop N-fuel reprocessing

by Matthew Jones,
Reuters:
15/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=13322

LONDON - British Energy , the UK's largest power generator, told a parliamentary committee this week that reprocessing nuclear fuel from its AGR power stations was uneconomic and should end.

"British Energy is calling for an immediate moratorium on the reprocessing of AGR (Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor) fuel. It is uneconomic and adds to the stockpile of plutonium," a company spokesman told Reuters.

British Energy wants the spent uranium fuel to be stored instead of sending it to state-owned British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) for reprocessing at a cost of 300 million pounds a year under contracts set up prior to British Energy's privatisation in 1996.

British Energy argues that storing the spent uranium, a policy favoured by some experts, would not only save it about 250 million pounds a year but also stop the growth of Britain's stockpile of plutonium which results from reprocessing.

British Energy's submission will raise fresh questions about the viability of BNFL which generates around 50 percent of its revenue from reprocessing - the extraction of plutonium from spent uranium fuel rods.

The government says it still intends a partial sell-off of BNFL although no dates have been set.

The first attempt to privatise BNFL was shelved in 2000 following a scandal over falsified nuclear fuel data.

British Energy, which has capacity to supply about 20 percent of the UK's electricity, made the submission to the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.

The committee is conducting a review of Britain's radioactive waste policy.

A Parliamentary select committee in 1999 recommended burying radioactive waste in deep underground vaults after a 250 million pound project to do just that failed in 1997 when planning permission from a local council was denied.

-------- depleted uranium

Good website for DU info

From: "Tara Thornton" <Tara@miltoxproj.org>
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2001

Here's a good site for info on DU
http://www.mint.gov.my/policy/nuc_disarm/issue_duweapons.htm

Tara Thornton Executive Director
Military Toxics Project
P.O. Box 558
Lewiston, ME 04243
(207) 783-5091 phone
(207) 783-5096 fax

--------

US used depleted uranium munitions against Taliban

UPI
From the International Desk,
UPI Hears . . .
11/15/2001
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=15112001-113529-9575r

WASHINGTON, Nov. 15, 2001 (UPI) -- Insider notes from United Press International for Nov. 15 ...

Ever since it opened its bombing strikes on Oct. 7, the United States has been using depleted uranium munitions against Taliban targets, especially in the north of the country. When depleted uranium was found to have been used in U.S.-led air strikes in Kosovo and prior to that in attacks on Iraq it caused a storm of controversy in the U.S. medical world, with many health experts saying that radioactivity was spread when the bombs caused a fire. Some scientists said the bombs can cause lung cancer, leukemia, blood cancer and birth defects among populations where the weapons are used. The uranium is used because of its weight, and its radioactivity is spread when the shells cause a fire. One specialist observed, "DU causes slow death."

-------- germany

German police mass to see nuclear convoy home

by Philip Blenkinsop,
Reuters:
15/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13306/story.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24965-2001Nov13?language=printer

GORLEBEN, Germany - Six containers of nuclear waste finally reached a storage site in northern Germany yesterday after three days of protests and one of the largest peacetime security operations the country has seen.

A force of 15,000 German police sealed off roads in the early hours of Wednesday morning, removing the last few hundred demonstrators from sit-down protests along the planned route.

Police said they had detained around 300 people. A medical tent dealt with 93 injuries, from baton bruises to dog bites.

By first light on a misty morning, the containers had sneaked out of the railhead at Dannenberg. The shipment moved at a snail's pace along the 20 km (12 miles) road to the storage site at Gorleben, the final stop of a 1,500 km (930 mile) trip back from a reprocessing plant in northwestern France.

The containers had arrived in Dannenberg by rail late this week as helicopters circled overhead, police sirens wailed and protesters, held 500 metres (1,600 ft) from the track, blew whistles.

Dannenberg was packed with police vans, armoured personnel carriers and water cannon vehicles.

Previous shipments have been hit by violence and disruption from Germany's anti-nuclear lobby. Police and protesters said fewer people than expected had joined the latest demonstration.

"Look at the way the police have limited people's movement, although I don't blame them. I think many of them would rather be on our side," said protester Detlet Puls, 51.

The shipments to the Gorleben storage site have become a ritual confrontation between police and anti-nuclear activists. They resumed in March after a break of three years. The policing bill to protect the last shipment in March was around 50 million marks ($22.5 million).

"You can imagine it won't be any less this time," said a police spokesman.

Nuclear power is a controversial issue in Germany, where government and industry agreed last year to gradually phase out all reactors by around 2025.

The government has also been re-examining the safety of nuclear convoys and power plants in the wake of the September 11 suicide plane attacks on New York and Washington.

----

CHRONOLOGY - History of nuclear power controversy in Germany

Reuters:
15/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13310/story.htm

LONDON - Germany mounted one of its biggest peacetime security operations this week to foil protesters' efforts to keep a shipment of nuclear waste from reaching a storage site in the north of the country.

Germany relies on nuclear power for around a third of its electricity and has a long history of protest against nuclear plants. Following are some key dates in the history of German nuclear power:

1960 - West Germany's first industrial nuclear power plant opens in Kahl. The plant closes in 1985.

1966 - Rival Communist East Germany begins operation of its first nuclear power plant, a Soviet-designed model.

1975 - Fire at the East German plant at Lubmin on the Baltic Coast almost causes the core to melt down.

1980 - The Greens, who became a nationwide force with their anti-nuclear campaign slogan "Atomkraft? Nein, Danke" (Nuclear Power, No Thanks), form a political party in West Germany. 1984 - West Germany begins first nuclear waste transports to medium-term storage in village of Gorleben - near the then East German border - amid protests.

1989 - Last of West Germany's 19 nuclear power plants begins operation. Germany decides against building its own nuclear waste reprocessing plant, relying instead on plants in La Hague in France and Britain's Sellafield.

1990 - Unified German government finishes closing down last of eight nuclear power plants in the formerly Communist east.

1995 - First nuclear waste transports to Gorleben in "Castor" containers (Casks for Storage and Transport of Radioactive Materials) from La Hague.

1997 - Huge demonstrations meet Castor transports amid biggest-to-date postwar police operation of 30,000 officers.

May 1998 - The government halts nuclear waste transports because of safety fears over Castor containers.

June 2000 - Coalition government including Greens agree with utilities to phase out nuclear power by the mid-2020s.

March 26, 2001 - Castor transport from French reprocessing plant resumes after government says it is safe. Protesters try to block rail line despite massive police mobilisation.

April 10, 2001 - Protesters delay the first transport of nuclear waste to France in four years by chaining themselves to tracks near a Bavarian nuclear power plant.

April 24, 2001 - Germany's first shipments of nuclear waste to Britain in three years commence after police clear away some 100 protesters blocking the road from the plant in Neckarswestheim.

May 9, 2001 - Some 6,500 German police escort a train carrying spent fuel rods from a Soviet-era power plant in Rheinsberg. Only about 20 anti-nuclear activists protest.

Nov 13, 2001 - Police mobilise 15,000 officers in one of Germany's biggest peacetime security operations as protesters try to stop a shipment of nuclear waste from France reaching a storage site at Gorleben.

----

GERMANY: HEAVY GUARD FOR NUCLEAR WASTE

World Briefing
New York Times
Desmond Butler (NYT)
November 15, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/15/international/15BRIE.html?searchpv=nytToday

A force of 15,000 police officers escorted a train carrying six nuclear waste containers to a storage site in northern Germany in one of the country's largest postwar security operations. Previous shipments had been disrupted by antinuclear protesters but this time the police encountered fewer demonstrators than expected. Some 300 people were detained and minor injuries were reported.

-------- missile defense

Bush, Putin Differ on Missile Defense

New York Times
November 15, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-US-Russia.html?searchpv=aponline

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- After a festive barbecue, intimate breakfast and one-on-one talks in between, President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin were wrapping up their three-day summit with differences over missile defense an ``enduring issue.''

The two presidents and their wives were visiting the high school in this one-stoplight hamlet Thursday before Putin and wife Lyudmila head on to New York City.

At Crawford High, students were given the rare opportunity to question the leaders whose talks at Bush's ranch and earlier in Washington left unanswered questions about the fate of Bush's missile defense plans.

Despite the snag over how those plans will proceed, White House officials said U.S.-Russia talks overall remained firmly on track, helped along by the wealth of personal time that the presidents shared on Bush's secluded, 1,600-acre spread.

With Putin riding shotgun, Bush took the wheel of a pickup truck and chauffeured his guests around the ranch for 45 minutes as soon as the Putins arrived Wednesday.

Thunderstorms chased their picnic dinner into one of the protected breezeways of the Bush ranch home, where a country-western swing band accompanied cowboys serving guacamole, mesquite-smoked beef and pecan pie.

Bush toasted Putin, saying, ``Usually you only invite a good friend to your home and that is clearly the case here. I knew that President Putin was a man with whom I could work to transform the relationship between our two countries.''

Putin returned the compliment when he raised his own glass and noted that this was the first time he had been invited into a foreign leader's home.

``It is hugely symbolic to me and my country that it's the home of the president of the United States,'' Putin said.

The party was small for such a summit between nations, just 29 people total, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, pianist Van Cliburn and pro-golfer Ben Crenshaw.

Thursday's breakfast was to be even more intimate: the two presidents, Laura Bush and Lyudmila Putin.

``It is that type of environment that leads to just stronger relations down the road that enable President Putin and President Bush to deal constructively with any other issues that come up,'' White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said. ``One of those enduring issues will be a new strategic framework between the United States and Russia.''

Bush and Putin are under pressure to reach accord on missile defense. The Pentagon is anxious to conduct tests, even though they would violate the current interpretation of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and Bush has told Putin he will seek to scrap the pact early next year if they can't reach agreement.

On the other hand, aides said Bush is considering visiting Russia in the first few months of 2002 -- a sign, perhaps, that the president may be willing to wait that long to strike a deal.

``This is one stop along the road. We'll make other stops after Crawford, but each stop is built on the positive results of the earlier meetings,'' Fleischer said.

The unusual ranch visit took place one day after Bush and Putin agreed at the White House to shrink their nations' strategic nuclear arsenals by two-thirds.

``If we act together, we will make the world a much safer place than today,'' Putin said during a stop in Houston en route to Crawford.

Bush had hoped that the cuts, promised during the presidential campaign, would entice Putin to accept the U.S. proposal on missile defense. Under Bush's plan, the United States would remain in the 1972 ABM treaty a while longer if Russia agreed to allow the Pentagon to conduct tests and research barred by current readings of the pact.

That proposal was a concession of sorts for Bush. He repeatedly has denounced the accord as a Cold War relic, and his conservative allies want him to scrap it.

Putin's public statements before coming to America suggested an openness to finding flexibility on the ABM issue.

Bush promised Putin on Tuesday that Russia would be informed of the tests, but Putin asked for more. U.S. officials said he suggested at one time that Russia approve the tests beforehand, a concession Bush refused to make.

Some Bush advisers played down the exchange, saying it was mentioned only briefly in the talks and was not a major factor. Indeed, one senior administration official said Bush and Putin seemed to reach an understanding -- if not a formal agreement -- that the United States would conduct anti-missile tests under the ABM, perhaps not long after Putin returns to Russia.

Other aides, generally more pessimistic of the talks, said they knew of no such accommodation. And yet, even these aides said it was more likely than not that Putin and Bush would come to terms -- but not necessarily here.

-------- russia

Debt Forgiveness for Moscow

WASHINGTON IN BRIEF
Thursday, November 15, 2001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31715-2001Nov14?language=printer

A Senate panel approved yesterday a proposal that would forgive portions of Russia's debt to the United States in return for concrete steps by Moscow toward the nonproliferation of weapons.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, meeting the day after President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to cut their nuclear weapons stockpiles by two-thirds, voted unanimously for a plan to reimburse Moscow for the costs of selected nonproliferation programs by forgiving an equal amount of debt to the United States.

"This is something that is very fertile ground and of considerable interest to the Russians," said committee Chairman Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), who developed the proposal along with Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.).

Biden said Moscow has about $3.5 billion in debt to Washington and about $30 billion to European nations and is interested in eliminating those debts to raise its standing with international lending institutions.

"I am very hopeful this is an idea whose time has come," he told reporters, describing it as a "slam dunk" even though he said the White House has been noncommittal.

----

Russia to build 10 nuclear reactors in next decade

Reuters:
15/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13305/story.htm

MOSCOW - Russia plans to boost its nuclear power output with the construction of 10 new reactors over the next decade, an Atomic Energy Ministry official told the lower house of parliament yesterday.

"Russia is making a structural shift towards nuclear power," First Deputy Minister Lev Ryabev said.

Russia is moving against the trend in much of Western Europe where many governments are planning to phase out nuclear power rather than boost it.

Germany, Belgium and Sweden have opted to get rid of nuclear power stations, largely on environmental grounds.

But Ryabev said building nuclear reactors made most sense economically and in terms of the environment.

Nuclear plants do not produce carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas targeted by environmental campaigners, but opponents point to the risk of explosions like that at Chernobyl in Soviet Ukraine in 1986.

Nuclear energy will make up 37 percent of Russia's total energy output by 2020, he said, rising from the current levels of between 15-20 percent.

He told deputies electricity output at nuclear installations would grow by five percent a year, twice the growth rate of thermoelectric and hydropower plants.

Ryabev added Russia would also help build six reactors outside its borders in Iran, India and China.

Russia currently has 10 nuclear plants and 30 functioning reactors.

----

Russia's inner chaos a threat to the West

November 15, 2001
David Satter
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20011115-5505081.htm

As President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin work out the framework of a new U.S.-Russian relationship, it is important to bear in mind that the U.S. needs not only cooperation in foreign policy from Russia but also measures to stem the inner lawlessness that has left entire sections of the country under the control of organized crime.

Russia today presents a serious danger to the U.S. because it has huge stores of poorly guarded weapons of mass destruction and powerful criminal syndicates prepared to sell anything to anyone, for a price.

The danger that Russian criminals may sell weapons of mass destruction to terrorists for use against the United States is the reason why some of the enthusiasm for Mr. Putin's turn to the West is misplaced. Russia's willingness to accept a U.S. military presence in Central Asia is very important but unless Russia also cracks down on its rampant lawlessness, it could join NATO and - by remaining a base area for Islamic terrorism - still represent a threat to the West.

Russia has enough plutonium and uranium to make 33,000 nuclear weapons. These materials are stored at 50 scientific centers guarded by soldiers who, in the past, have gone months without being paid. It also has vast quantities of nuclear waste that can be used to make crude bombs capable of contaminating large areas. It has the world's largest inventory of chemical weapons - 40,000 tons - and a wide variety of biological weapons, including drug-resistant anthrax, smallpox and plague.

At the same time, Russia's organized crime groups have a history of cooperation with terrorist organizations. Russian and Chechen criminal organizations cooperated in the transport and marketing of heroin from Afghanistan and, according to the Russian newspaper Izvestiya, after the Taliban came to power Osama bin Laden used these criminal organizations to launder money for the Taliban, receiving from $133 million to $1 billion a year.

In the sarin nerve gas attack by the Japanese doomsday sect Aum Shinri Kyo on the Tokyo subway in 1993, the only case where terrorists have ever used nerve gas successfully, the production design for the manufacture of sarin was given to the sect by Oleg Lobov, Russia's former first deputy prime minister, for $100,000, according to testimony by cult members at the trial of the group's leaders in Tokyo. There are some reports that Mr. Lobov, a close associate of former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, was given $100 million for his many services to Aum Shinri Kyo. The Japanese "businessmen" were allowed to train on Russian military bases and attended lectures at the Institute of Thermodynamics of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow where they studied the circulation of gases.

In recent weeks, it has been reported that bin Laden has bought several suitcase nuclear bombs from Russia which have not been used only because they are protected by Soviet codes that require a signal from Moscow before the bomb can be detonated. Izvestiya has reported that bin Laden has already spent considerable sums on the recruitment of Russian scientists and former KGB agents capable of helping him with the breaking of these codes.

The Russian authorities deny the existence of suitcase nuclear bombs, but organized crime has been involved in nuclear smuggling from Russia since 1992. Recently, smugglers were arrested in Turkey after trying to sell 41/2 kilograms of unprocessed uranium and 6 grams of plutonium. Russian gangsters have sold combat helicopters to Colombian drug dealers and have attempted to sell not only surface-to-air missiles and a Tango-class submarine.

Under these circumstances, it is just as important for the Russian government to crack down on organized crime as it is for the Muslim world and the West to eliminate any network capable of facilitating terror. In the case of Russia, this would be relatively easy. The activities of Russia's criminal syndicates have been exhaustively documented not only by the organs of law enforcement but also by the security services of their commercial competitors. For years, under Mr. Yeltsin, a massive crackdown on Russian organized crime awaited only a signal from the political authorities.

Unfortunately, that signal never came. Under Mr. Putin, the indifference to the role of organized crime continues.

In 1997, then FBI Director Louis J. Freeh, in testimony before the House International Relations Committee, said U.S. law enforcement agencies took very seriously the possibility nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of Russian criminal gangs and that Russian organized crime, by fostering instability in a nuclear power, constituted a direct threat to the national security interests of the United States.

Now, with the entire world under direct threat from Islamic extremists, the United States needs to ask our new ally, Vladimir Putin, to begin to eradicate this danger even at the expense of the system of robber capitalism that has grown up in Russia during the last decade.

David Satter is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His new book on Russia after the fall of communism is upcoming from the Yale University Press.

-------- treaties

United Nations presses test ban ratification

by Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent,
Reuters:
15/11/2001
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13308/story.htm

UNITED NATIONS - A U.N. conference this week formally exhorted all nations to ratify a global ban on nuclear testing, but a U.S. boycott severely undercut the appeal and its likely success.

Nevertheless, organizers predicted Washington would eventually change its mind and make it possible for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to take effect.

"I think if you keep up the pressure on the United States, they will come round," said Miguel Marin Bosch, a Mexican diplomat and conference president.

In a resolution approved after two days of speeches, the conference expressed concern that the pact, known as CTBT, had not entered into force five years after it was approved.

It urged countries that have not ratified the pact to do so and called on the United States - the leading nuclear weapons state - and other states with lesser nuclear capabilities to continue a voluntary moratorium in the meantime.

Despite a U.S. boycott, support for the treaty demonstrated by the conference was "very significant," insisted Olga Pellicer of Mexico, another conference official.

Participants decreed the treaty an "essential part" of the international non-proliferation regime. And while the voluntary testing moratorium observed by the United States and other nuclear weapons states is important, "it is not enough," she said.

Strong pressure on the United States came from Russia, the other major nuclear power, and the European Union.

Russia challenged U.S. objections and said disrupting the CTBT could lead to crisis and the "uncontained spread of nuclear weapons."

Moscow dismissed U.S. concerns that the pact would threaten the safety of U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals and offered to work on new verification measures beyond treaty requirements.

The treaty, banning all nuclear blasts in the atmosphere, in space and underground, has been signed by 161 states. Of those, 87 have ratified it.

But the pact has not taken effect because it must be ratified by 44 specific states deemed nuclear arms-capable.

To date, 31 of those 44 countries including nuclear powers France, Russia and Britain have signed and ratified the pact.

Of the rest, India, Pakistan and North Korea have neither signed nor ratified the treaty while the United States, China and eight others have signed but not ratified.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, was the first world leader to sign the CTBT. But the Senate, then under Republican control, rejected it during the 2000 election.

Even before taking office, President George W. Bush, a Republican, made clear his strong opposition to the pact.

His administration has not publicly explained its decision to boycott the conference. But the Pentagon, hoping to hasten the treaty's death, for months argued privately in favor of the government sitting out the meeting.

Hard-liners wanted to go even further and have the United States take steps to cancel its signature.

Some administration officials believe the United States may have a need to test nuclear weapons in the future.

But Bosch said he has not given up hope the United States will someday ratify the treaty.

He noted that opinion in both the Bush administration and the U.S. Senate was divided on the CTBT, a dynamic that could eventually shift in the pact's direction.

Bosch said history was full of other seemingly lost causes in arms control, like the initial refusal of China and France to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Both are now members.

"These things have a way of weighing on the souls of countries," he said.

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

NTS training proposal to be discussed

Las Vegas Sun
November 15, 2001
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-other/2001/nov/15/512624327.html

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., planned to meet with Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham today to discuss a proposal to turn the nuclear bomb-scarred Nevada Test Site into a national counter-terrorism training academy.

Abraham has shown growing interest in the proposal, Reid's aides said. Nevada lawmakers touted the plan before the Sept. 11 attacks. But the attacks put the proposal in a new light for federal officials looking for creative ways to battle terrorism, the lawmakers have said.

Nevada lawmakers say the former Cold War testing ground for atomic bombs is a perfect site for modern-day anti-terrorism training programs, ranging from special operation forces training to bioterrorism simulations for emergency workers. Some of the site's usable underground tunnels would offer unique training conditions, Nevada lawmakers say.

The Test Site in recent years has been home to "weapons of mass destruction" training courses held several times a year for local, state and federal law enforcement officers and emergency response teams. Congress this year expanded the training, allocating $10 million.

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

NCRP report on terrorist events with rad matl

From: "Peter Diehl" <uranium@t-online.de>
November 15, 2001
www.ncrp.com

NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP) Releases NCRP Report No. 138, Management of Terrorist Events Involving Radioactive Material

The possibility that terrorists may try to use radioactive materials against the United States or other countries requires that public officials, emergency services, and medical facilities be prepared to identify and cope with a potentially wide range of problems, a new scientific report from the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements (NCRP Report No. 138) asserts.

"The new report provides a consensus of existing and proposed recommendations from federal agencies and scientific bodies and is intended as a guide for planning for various kinds of radiation- related events. It was drafted by an expert committee of NCRP scientists, consulting federal and state officials, and academic representatives prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks," said Charles Meinhold, President of the NCRP.

"Having studied the effects of the nuclear blasts in Japan in World War II and having examined the effects of subsequent nuclear weapons testing and the accidental release of radiation from disasters such as Chernobyl, we have a strong body of knowledge about radiation effects and how to minimize them. Our problems, if a terrorist group attempts to spread radioactivity, are to assess the actual extent of the release and to implement immediate and appropriate control activities," he continued.

"This report will be a timely resource for public agencies and should be helpful to the rest of us in understanding what might happen if some amount of radiation is released deliberately," Professor Meinhold said. "Short of the use of a nuclear weapon, the spread, or threat of a spread, of some amount of radioactive material probably will cause public concern far in excess of the actual or potential damage to a community or its people."

The most immediate problem for federal agencies relative to a possible radiation incident is to upgrade plans for prevention and response, train emergency personnel in detecting radiation, and to obtain necessary equipment for measuring the level of radiation exposure, the report declares. The report offers concrete suggestions about how to plan for these tasks. Various sections of the report cover: Considerations impacting response, Characteristics and consequences of terrorist incidents that involve radioactive materials, Medical management of radiation casualties, Psychosocical effects of radiological terrorist incidents, Public communication, Radiological consequence management considerations, Training and qualifications for personnel, and Appendices that provide sources of assistance and guidance.

The report suggests that a terrorist organization is more likely to release a small amount of radioactivity, possibly with an explosion, than it is to obtain and use a nuclear weapon. With the release of small amounts of radioactive material, the necessary containment and cleanup may be well within the capability of public agencies. Such an event could be "catastrophic but manageable," the report warrants.

"When an explosive device is used to disperse radioactive materials, treatment of casualties is more difficult because of the contamination and the complications associated with other trauma. The debris from the event and other normally harmless materials will be contaminated. The affected area may be much larger than the immediate scene of the crime. The radiological hazard, invisible and uncertain in terms of long-term health impacts, will engender public fear and concern."

"At the most basic level is the fact that one of the terrorist's chief aims is to cause psychological effects; to induce fear in a population. Such fear is further compounded when invisible toxins, such as radiation or radioactivity, are involved. People can neither see nor sense the presence of radiation, but they know that it is potentially hazardous," the NCRP report continues.

"It must be noted emphatically that radioactive contamination, whether internal or external, is never immediately life threatening and therefore, a radiological assessment or decontamination should never take precedence over dealing immediately with life- threatening initial injuries such as shock, compound fractures and bleeding wounds," the report stresses.

For limited releases of radioactive material, people in the area can reduce their exposure by taking shelter in homes or other buildings for hours or a few days until the radiation levels fall. Ventilation systems using outside air should be shut off and eating contaminated foods should be avoided. Radioactive dust can be washed off of the skin and contaminated clothing should be abandoned to reduce external exposures.

The report places emphasis on the need for public authorities and for scientists to be attentive to the psychosocial effects of terrorism involving the dispersal of radioactive material. The report also says that the release of a tentative "worst case" assessment may unduly alarm the public. However, delays in releasing such information are likely to create even greater public speculation and alarm. In addition, the public's perception of the radiation risks, radiation levels and areas affected could be worse than the responsible official's worst case assessment.

NCRP recommends that emergency teams and vehicles be equipped with radiation monitors which would allow detection of radiation at an explosion scene. Levels of radiation so detected would govern how public agencies respond in putting out fires, rescuing wounded, defining the area of concern, and informing the public about possibly needed actions, such as taking shelter or even evacuation of the area.

The first people likely to respond to a radiation emergency are the same firemen, hazardous material teams, emergency medical technicians, and law enforcement personnel who respond to other emergencies. They should be trained in coping with radiation and training should be extended to emergency physicians and other hospital personnel, to primary care physicians, to mental health experts, social service and disaster relief agencies, to civil affairs personnel and to local government officials.

The NCRP's committee was led by Professor John W. Poston, Sr., of the Texas A & M University in College Station, Texas. In addition, the other members of the committee were Cheri Abdelnour and Robert W. Brittigan (Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Washington), E. John Ainsworth (AFRRI, Bethesda, MD, Retired) Steven M. Becker (Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham), Ian Scott Hamilton (Texas A& M), Eva E. Hickey (Battelle - Richland, Washington), David A. Kelm (Illinois Dept. of Nuclear Safety), Fred A. Mettler (Univ. of New Mexico), Jay M. Thompson (Westinghouse - S. Carolina), Mark Wrobel (Bolling AFB, Washington) and Eric E. Kearsley (Staff Consultant, NCRP). Contributors to the report included scientists from the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Federal Emergency Management Agency, National Domestic Preparedness Office, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The draft report was reviewed by the 93 members of the NCRP and by committees of its sponsoring scientific and medical societies. Financial support for NCRP Report No. 138 was provided by the U. S. Department of Energy.

NCRP is a nonprofit corporation chartered by Congress in 1964 to collect, analyze, develop and disseminate in the public interest information and recommendations about (a) protection against radiation and (b) radiation measurements, quantities and units, particularly those concerned with radiation protection.

The NCRP believes that a copy of this report belongs in every hospital and with every emergency response organization at all levels of government in the nation. In addition, in the interest of public awareness, a copy of this report should be in every library in the nation.

Information on NCRP publications can be obtained at http://www.ncrp.com/ncrprpts.html. Also of interest may be NCRP Report No. 65, Management of Persons Accidentally Contaminated with Radionuclides.

-----

NCRP Report No. 138 Management of Terrorist Events Involving Radioactive Material

NCRP Report No. 138 on Management of Terrorist Events Involving Radioactive Material is 232 pages with 13 sections, eight appendices, a glossary, list of acronyms, conversions of conventional and International System of dosimetric quantities, and references. The Report's main emphasis is on guidance to "first responders" and "emergency medicine personnel" that would be involved in the management of terrorist events involving radioactive material. The sections of the report are:
1. Introduction (4 pages),
2. Considerations Impacting Response (7 pages),
3. Characteristics and Consequences of Terrorist Incidents that Involve Radioactive Material (15 pages),
4. Medical Management of Radiation Casualties (26 pages),
6. Command and Control (4 pages),
7. Public Communication (12 pages),
8. Dose Limitations and Guidance (16 pages),
9. Radiological Consequence Management Considerations (15 pages),
10. Planning and Critical Resources (6 pages),
11. Training and Qualifications for Personnel Providing Support in a Radiological Disaster (11 pages),
12. Research and Development Needs (3 pages), and
13. Summary and Recommendations (4 pages).

The following appendices then follow:
A. Medical Aspects of Radiation Injury (5 pages),
B. Current Command and Control Policies and Structures (9 pages),
C. Current Federal Communications Policy and Plans (4 pages),
D. Sample Joint Information Center Checklist (2 pages),
E. Sample Pre-Prepared Public Information Statements (16 pages),
F. Federal and State Resources for Emergency Response and Planning Assistance (7 pages),
G. Examples of Tables of Contents for a City Plan for Emergency Response (2 pages), and
H. Training Under the Domestic Preparedness Program (7 pages).

Note: The NCRP believes that a copy of this report belongs in every hospital and with every emergency response organization at all levels of government in the nation. In addition, in the interest of public awareness, a copy of this report should be in every library in the nation.

-------- arizona

Ariz. PV Unit 3 nuke suffering turbine vibrations

November 15, 2001
Reuters
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/13304/story.htm

LOS ANGELES - Utility Arizona Public Service said yesterday it was experiencing problems with vibrations of the turbines on the 1,270-megawatt Unit 3 at the Palo Verde nuclear power plant.

"We're monitoring the situation," a spokeswoman said, noting no decision has yet been taken on what action, if any, needed to be taken.

The unit returned to service last week after a 37-day maintenance and refueling outage.

APS, a unit of Pinnacle West Capital Corp., has a 29.1 percent stake in the plant.

The other owners are the Salt River Project (17.5 percent), Edison International's Southern California Edison (15.8), El Paso Electric (15.8), Public Service Co of New Mexico (10.2), Southern California Public Power Authority (5.9) and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (5.7).

-------- idaho

Idaho

States
01/11/15
http://www.usatoday.com/news/states/all50.htm

Idaho Falls - The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory began laying off more than 100 employees as a result of less federal support. Waste cleanup commitments kept the layoffs from being even larger. The layoffs shrink the work force to about 7,500. A decade ago, nearly 13,000 people worked at the high desert installation.

-------- kentucky

USEC, union contract on table
The temporary agreement expires Thursday, but the union has given plant operators until Monday before it strikes.

The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky
Wednesday, November 14, 2001
By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2001/nn11466.htm

Negotiators will resume talks Monday trying to resolve issues that have left nearly half the 1,500 employees at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant working under a temporary agreement for 2-1/2 months.

Although the union could strike after the agreement ends Thursday, its officials have agreed to at least a four-day continuance, said Donna Steele, president of Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers (PACE) Local 5-550.

"We've given (company officials) an extension until Monday at midnight. They called us and wanted to meet with us," she said. "I'm going to do that before we go out on the street. I'm hoping this is a positive sign and I've told the company that."

The union represents about 700 workers at the plant, operated by USEC Inc. to enrich uranium for nuclear fuel.

"I think there's a more positive feeling with the work force," Steele said. "We want a contract and we want it badly."

Joe Bock, a facilitator with extensive experience representing both union and management in contract issues, will attend Monday's meeting as a USEC consultant, said USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle.

The seven-point pact set to expire Thursday was reached Aug. 29. It provided a 4 percent hourly wage increase retroactive from July 31 when the old five-year contract expired, and no strike or layoffs of hourly workers. If a contract was not reached, the union had the right to strike and wages reverted to the old contract.

When the agreement was announced, union officials said USEC agreed to return in 30 days with an outline on how to make the plant self-sustaining.

"We gave the outline for the viability plan back about the time it was due and we've continued negotiations with the union about the plan since then," Stuckle said Tuesday.

The company also pledged to have a contract proposal between Oct. 1 and Nov. 15 for the union to accept or reject, union officials said earlier.

Asked if USEC has provided a new proposal, Stuckle said, "Not as such. We're in discussions about the contract. Our discussions continue to try to arrive at a contract that's suitable for all of us."

The two sides deadlocked Aug. 2 when the union soundly rejected the last contract offer. Calling wage and benefit provisions substandard, union leaders said they staunchly opposed language that the contract would expire after a year if USEC did not achieve any of three major goals related to buying Russian uranium.

USEC says blending the cheaper Russian material with the more expensive plant-enriched uranium holds down costs and preserves the life of the plant, which has expensive, outdated technology. Controlling the flow of the Russian material helps stabilize market prices, the company says.

Although the Russian issue was not a part of the temporary agreement, union and management officials had hoped the extension would buy enough time for the Bush administration to make decisions about the Russian deal and the overall U.S. uranium enrichment business.

No decision has been formally announced, but recent union memos indicate the primary White House plan would give USEC the option to remain exclusive agent for the Russian uranium in return for specific commitments to keep the plant running for 10 years at minimum production levels while deploying replacement gas centrifuge technology.

If USEC is unable to run the Department of Energy-owned Paducah plant for the balance of the 10 years, the government would assume operation, contingent on support from Congress and the Office of Management and Budget, memos show.

Stuckle declined comment on whether the Russian deal will remain on the bargaining table. "USEC is in almost daily conversation with the administration regarding the Russian issues, seeking a resolution soon," she said.

-------- maryland

Calvert to Retest Sirens Near Nuclear Plant Today

By Raymond McCaffrey and Michael Amon
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, November 15, 2001; Page SM02
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25022-2001Nov13?language=printer

At noon today, county officials will retest the emergency sirens within 10 miles of the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant.

The plan is for each siren to sound for three minutes.

Testing is being repeated because during a Nov. 5 check of the 72 sirens within the radius, the 49 in Calvert County failed to sound. The remaining sirens -- 17 in St. Mary's County and six in Dorchester County across the Chesapeake Bay -- worked as planned, according to Karl Neddenien, a plant spokesman.

"The ones in St. Mary's County and Dorchester County will not be sounded because they passed the test," Neddenien said of today's drill.

Calvert County Commissioners President David F. Hale (R-Owings) said last week that the sirens failed because of a computer problem at the county's Emergency Operations Center.

The plant conducts weekly and quarterly testing to identify individual sirens that might need maintenance, according to Neddenien. The full siren system is tested annually on the first Monday in November. In the test a year ago, all the devices worked properly, he reported.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission mandates testing of the sirens, which are designed to alert the public in an emergency to tune to a particular radio station for information.

----

Baltimore Prepares Fallout Shelter

By John Biemer
Associated Press Writer
Thursday, November 15, 2001; 5:40 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A32911-2001Nov15?language=printer

BALTIMORE -- A poster on the wall of the underground bunker reads: "Are you ready for the next disaster? Civil Defense for you, your family and America."

What's old is becoming new again as Baltimore rapidly modernizes a relic of the Cold War days - a fallout shelter 5 miles north of downtown that will serve as the city government's emergency operations center. Other cities are doing the same in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks and the threat of bioterrorism.

"During a potential attack, we need a center of command with redundant modes of communication and a secure flow of information," Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley said. "The bunker is a perfect fit."

The fallout shelters, built under federal guidance during the Cold War, became the responsibility of state and local officials when the Federal Emergency Management Agency was formed in 1979 with an eye toward natural disasters.

A FEMA spokesman said the agency does not know how many cities are converting old fallout shelters, but many may be reviewing their plans after considering New York's experience. Its emergency control center, located on 23rd floor of 7 World Trade Center, was destroyed on Sept. 11.

"There are a bunch of bunkers that are just there, many of which can be resurrected," said Milton Copulos, president of the National Defense Council Foundation, an Alexandria, Va.-based think tank. "I know an awful lot of (cities) are looking at what they have in place and looking at what the next level of preparedness needs to be."

Several cities and states already have subterranean centers.

Los Angeles' Emergency Operations Center is located four floors underground. New York's State Emergency Management Office operates from a bunker below state police headquarters in Albany.

If there were a disaster in Iowa, state agencies would operate out of the STARC (State Area Command) Armory at Camp Dodge in Johnston, an underground bunker with a high-tech communications system and reinforced concrete walls a foot thick.

Massachusetts is giving consideration to modernizing its Emergency Operations Center in Framingham, an underground bunker commissioned by President Kennedy.

Renovating the nuclear-bomb-proof shelter will cost Baltimore about $400,000, part of $17.6 million in security enhancements ordered since Sept. 11 that are stretching out an already strained city budget.

The underground bunker, located beneath a fire station, was first built in 1952 as a Civil Defense Control Center. The 22-inch thick concrete walls were intended to withstand the blast from a nuclear explosion.

With food reserves and an air recirculating system, those inside could survive for two weeks.

William C. Codd II, a former city emergency management director, said the only time he recalls the center being used was during the 1968 riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Fourteen new fiber optic telephone lines and three computers have since been added. Antennas were erected on the roof so that pagers and cell phones will work underground.

There's now room for about 50 people in the shelter - with 18 able to sit at small cubicles facing each other in the main room, which is equipped with city maps stretching from the floor to the ceiling.

The nonperishable food stash has to be restocked and there's no room for those inside to sleep, save a few old canvas cots, said Richard McKoy, the city's Director of Emergency Management.

"They'd have to find a spot where they can," Codd said. "But it's a lot better being in here than being out there."

-------- minnesota

SECURITY COSTS
Additional Budget Cuts as States and Cities Address Safety Issues

New York Times
November 15, 2001
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/15/national/15COST.html?searchpv=nytToday

DENVER, Nov. 14 - The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks are leaving a hefty financial bill with state and local governments, forcing them to pay for immediate security needs that were once only vaguely contemplated.

From small towns like Red Wing, Minn., which is sharing weekly costs of $160 for a full-time guard at the local nuclear plant, to cities like Baltimore, where new security costs have reached $3.97 million since the attacks, government officials are taking a hard look at their budgets to figure out how to pay for efforts now deemed essential to homeland defense without layoffs and program cuts.

The National Governors' Association estimates that over the next six months, the post-Sept. 11 expenses could total as much as $10 billion in the 50 states. This is in addition to earlier projections of budget shortfalls totaling $15 billion due to the flagging economy and rising Medicaid costs.

The total impact represents as much as 3 percent of a given state budget.

"This makes a very bad situation catastrophic," Raymond C. Scheppach, executive director of the governors association, said of costs related to homeland security. "Most states have already done two to three rounds of budget cuts. Now they're preparing to do more and praying that the economy turns around."

For more than two months now, states and local governments have taken on the additional responsibilities to guard important buildings, improve airport security, protect water supplies, test for anthrax and pay the soaring overtime costs of police, firefighters and other emergency workers.

"So far as I can see, everybody is reprioritizing and refocusing," said Larry Kallenberger, executive director of Colorado Counties Inc., a public policy group.

No state has been immune to new security needs since the attacks. Acting Gov. Jane M. Swift of Massachusetts authorized spending $26 million for terrorism-related efforts, including overtime for state police. The Ohio State Highway Patrol needs $800,000 over the next six months for increased security and inspections. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas has approved spending $12 million for personnel and programs to handle biological and chemical attacks.

In Missouri, Gov. Bob Holden protected education and law enforcement programs when he cut $400 million from the budget earlier this year. Now, costs related to the terrorist attacks have raised the possibility of more cuts, "and in the next round," said Mr. Holden's spokesman, Jerry Nachtigal, "those areas may not escape unscathed."

While New York City, in particular, faces costs in the billions of dollars, other cities and counties, whose fire and police departments and emergency medical personnel are often the first line of defense, have their own problems.

A recent survey by the National League of Cities found that the impact of the attacks on local employment and tourism could lead to a 4 percent decline in revenues for cities, the equivalent loss of $11.4 billion. More than half the 214 cities surveyed in late October said they increased spending on security after Sept. 11 and they would offset the spending by dipping into surpluses and cutting other programs.

"We are hurting," said Mayor Marc Morial of New Orleans, president of the United States Conference of Mayors. "Against the backdrop of seven to eight years of prosperity, low crime rates and low unemployment, all of a sudden - bam - Sept. 11 hits, and our revenues have been affected."

In New Orleans, Mayor Morial said, sales tax revenues plummeted 11 percent in September, which has forced a hiring freeze in city government and cutbacks in a variety of programs. Security costs for the city and the New Orleans airport, he said, have dug a $10 million budget gap.

In Baltimore, Mayor Martin O'Malley said city budget officials estimated that security costs could reach $15.8 million for the fiscal year.

"I've told all my agencies to sharpen their pencils and make recommendations of how to close the gap," Mayor O'Malley said. "But we could still face layoffs in January unless the economy turns around and the federal government acts quickly to help us."

Security costs in Dallas have passed $2 million and could reach $6 million by the end of the year, said Lois Finkelman, a City Council member. City officials have already begun inspecting budgets and searching for security companies to help ease police overtime costs.

Other big cities have similar concerns, but most cities have a wide enough tax base to provide local leaders with room to spread the budget-cutting pain. That is not necessarily the case in rural areas, where many of the emergency services are performed by volunteers and where local leaders have to find clever ways to meet security needs.

In Red Wing, a town 50 miles south of Minneapolis, the need to post a guard at the road leading to the Prairie Island nuclear plant was solved by the plant management company assuming most of the costs, leaving the remainder to the city and to Goodhue County.

The solution - city and county each contributing $80 a week - seems reasonable, but the need to post a guard occupies one of Sheriff Dean Albers's 42 deputies for half a day, every day, at a time when the department has been told to step up its vigilance by "watching for suspicious low-flying planes and strange- looking people in the wrong place," as Sheriff Albers said.

"The whole thing adds more and more to our daily workload," he said. "Now, if we get a call that someone's mailbox has been damaged by vandals, it's not going to get handled."

The governors association and the mayors conference have lobbied Washington for help, asking for immediate reimbursements as well as access to long-term assistance through federal grants. At least one version of the economic stimulus package that Congress is now debating, a proposal from Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, would provide $6.3 billion for state and local efforts.

But some places are not waiting for the federal government to act. Colorado and Illinois are debating the idea of using revenue from the state lottery to offset defense costs. And as a sign that virtually no area has escaped the impact of the terrorist attacks, officials in Catron County, N.M., who normally provide annual flu shots for local senior citizens at no cost, have been told that the sudden demand for flu shots amid the anthrax scare around the country means that the county will now have to pay $8.95 a shot.

With at least 150 people in need of the shots, said Jan Porter, the county treasurer, the cost could approach $1,500. But rather than use county money, Ms. Porter said, local residents are prepared act on their own.

"We hold a lot of fund-raisers when we have to," she said. "I suppose this time, we'll raise the money with an arts and crafts fair or maybe a bake sale."

-------- new york

Nuclear Plant Plans to Add Gas Power

New York Times
November 15, 2001
By DAVID W. CHEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/15/nyregion/15NUKE.html?searchpv=nytToday

Arguing that gas and nuclear power can co-exist peacefully, Entergy Corporation, the owner of the Indian Point nuclear power plants, has announced its intention to build eight gas-fired power plants at the nuclear site in Westchester County.

The eight plants would produce electricity only during the summer and other peak periods to complement the two nuclear generators already at the site in Buchanan, 35 miles north of New York City. The $250 million project would probably be completed in the spring of 2004, said Jim Steets, an Entergy spokesman.

But the prospect of housing sizable gas and nuclear facilities less than a quarter-mile apart is already worrying some elected officials, environmental groups and local residents. And the proposal offers a vivid reminder of how so many critical and interlocking issues revolve around energy and environment in New York's northern suburbs. Indian Point's reactors are in the most densely populated area around any nuclear plant in the country.

Some officials and environmental groups are concerned that the rare combination of combustible gas and radioactive waste could create a major safety risk in the event of an accident. According to Neil Sheehan, a spokesman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the only other plant that has ever accommodated gas and nuclear power simultaneously is Oyster Creek, in rural Lacey Township, in southern New Jersey.

The plans for the gas plants, while not unexpected, also come at an awkward time for Indian Point. Some local officials have called for the temporary closing of the plants, fearful that they could become terrorist targets. Last week, the Westchester County Legislature ordered a feasibility study on converting the nuclear operation to gas. And last night, some legislators began to circulate petitions demanding that the gas plants be blocked unless Indian Point abandons or converts its nuclear operations.

But the nuclear-to-gas conversion is fraught with complications, too. Indian Point would require a bigger supply of gas than is now possible through an existing pipeline running through the site. And that supply, presumably, would have to come from another source: in all likelihood, the highly controversial Millennium Pipeline, a proposed 422-mile high-pressure natural gas line from Lake Erie to Mount Vernon.

"What we do not want to end up with is natural gas-fired plants, plus nuclear plants, plus a gas pipeline," said Dani Glaser of Croton-on-Hudson, a member of a civic group called Not Under My Backyard. "And that, right now, is entirely possible. And we'll fight that with everything."

Entergy has not filed a formal application for the gas plants with the New York State Public Service Commission, Mr. Steets said. Instead, what it did on Tuesday was announce its intention to file, setting off the start of the public hearing process. A formal filing is expected by May.

Entergy wants to build eight 45- megawatt gas plants to provide a total of 360 megawatts whenever its two nuclear generators, which produce 1,000 megawatts each, are pushed to capacity. The gas plants would be housed in a single structure on a site, now a gravel parking lot, about 1,500 feet from the generators, and at a higher elevation.

"What's important is making sure that we have enough energy to power up the energy needs for now and the future," said Representative Sue W. Kelly, a Republican who represents the Buchanan area. She called the gas-fired plant a promising idea that needed to be studied thoroughly.

Fred Zalcman, executive director of the Pace Law School Energy Project, which studies energy issues, said that the fears of a possible gas explosion at Indian Point could be dealt with during the required feasibility study, and should not be a cause for alarm. "In general," he said, echoing Ms. Kelly, "I think it's prudent to start looking at alternatives in Indian Point."

Since the advent of electricity deregulation, Entergy, which is based in Jackson, Miss., has focused much of its efforts on acquiring nuclear power plants in the northeastern United States, including Indian Point 3 in March 2000 and the troubled Indian Point 2 reactor in September.

But because of the prospect of surging energy demand in New York City and its suburbs, Entergy first floated the idea of building gas plants at Indian Point this spring. "It's important for people to understand that safety is our primary consideration before we would go forward with this," Mr. Steets said.

-------- tennessee

DOE seeks progress on contractor's safety plan

Thursday, November 15, 2001
by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff
http://www.oakridger.com/stories/111501/new_1115010018.html

The Department of Energy has revoked validation of a key safety process implemented by Bechtel Jacobs Co., but the decision isn't expected to impact the work the company is doing in Oak Ridge.

Bechtel Jacobs is in charge of nuclear cleanup activities at facilities under the jurisdiction of DOE's Oak Ridge Operations office, including the Oak Ridge K-25 site. The process under scrutiny is known as the Integrated Safety Management System.

Rod Nelson, assistant manager for DOE's Oak Ridge Environmental Management program, briefly addressed DOE's decision during the Oak Ridge Site-Specific Advisory Board meeting Wednesday night at the Garden Plaza Hotel. He says it stems from a letter the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board sent last month to Robert Gordon Card, undersecretary of Energy, Science and Environment.

The board pointed out that several Integrated Safety Management System-related deficiencies have yet to be remedied despite the fact that DOE pointed them out to Bechtel Jacobs Co. over a year ago.

The system is a process that incorporates safety into management and work practices at all levels, addressing all types of work and all types of hazards, to ensure safety for the workers, the public and the environment.

"DOE felt that maybe there had not been enough progress," Nelson said.

Dennis Hill, a spokesman for Bechtel Jacobs, said this morning that the company will have to go through the process of being validated, adding that DOE's decision should not affect its work in Oak Ridge.

"Neither DOE nor the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board have indicated that they think there are any imminent hazards to workers, the public, or the environment associated with our work performance," Hill said.

"We all recognize that Integrated Safety Management System implementation is never finished," he said. "It is a framework for continuous improvement as we strive to attain our goal of zero accidents. We believe that Bechtel Jacobs and our subcontractors have made great strides in implementing the Integrated Safety Management System."

Hill did say that there are some areas where Bechtel Jacobs needs to make improvements.

"We already have initiated several self-assessments of our authorization basis program, and we will be utilizing the services of several outside independent experts to review our efforts and provide advice," Hill said. "These efforts are in preparation for a DOE Headquarters assessment of our facility authorization basis and hazard classifications, which has yet to be scheduled."

He also pointed out that Bechtel Jacobs and its subcontractor teams have celebrated some recent significant safety achievements.

"The National Safety Council, in an independent survey report, cited Integrated Safety Management System implementation as a strong characteristic of our safety culture," Hill said. "Our recordable injury/illness rate continues to be lower than the DOE average."

DOE's decision concerning Bechtel Jacobs is just one of several issues that have recently arisen concerning safety issues at the local federal facilities.

Jessie Roberson, assistant secretary for DOE headquarters' Environmental Management Program, recently revoked the Oak Ridge Operations office's authority to approve safety plans and, last week, DOE halted cleanup activities involving uranium at K-25 because of deficiencies in several key safety documents. DOE is reportedly working on remedying its safety issues. The Oak Ridger requested an update on these efforts Tuesday, but as of this morning, the federal agency has yet to provide that information.

On the brighter side, a 12-person team representing DOE headquarters determined this week that BWXT Y-12 has successfully implemented its Integrated Safety Management System at the Y-12 National Security Complex. The team noted that it had found significant improvements in the Y-12 safety system after spending a week and a half looking at a broad range of management activities and work practices including fire protection, chemical safety, project management, environmental management and hazard identification.

In June, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board had urged DOE to make safety improvements at Y-12. The independent federal agency indicated inadequate attention had been paid to the storage of hazardous materials, maintenance needs and fire prevention.

-------- washington

Bechtel taxes could pay for services

Thu, Nov 15, 2001
By John Stang Herald staff writer
Tri-City Herald
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2001/1115-2.html

Future Bechtel tax money being rerouted to Benton County could pay for some of the extra school and government services needed because of Hanford's growing tank waste glassification project.

Earlier this week it was announced a new state tax law will result in about $8 million in Bechtel National's taxes being shifted to Benton County. But it's not clear how much money will go to which government or school service and when.

On Aug. 1 a new state law went into effect that says a business can petition Washington's Department of Revenue for permission to pay "use" taxes instead of sales taxes -- if the company spends at least $10 million a year on items subject to taxes.

Under a use tax, the company buying taxable items pays taxes to the county where the items will be used rather than the counties where the items are purchased.

Bechtel National is the first -- and so far only -- company in Washington to get permission to reroute its taxes this way. The company is in charge of designing, building and testing Hanford's top-priority $4 billion tank waste glassification complex through 2011.

Bechtel expects to buy about $1 billion in taxable items for the project. That means about $7 million in sales taxes collected in the Mid-Columbia plus a predicted $8 million covered by the use tax.

In all, about $15 million is expected to go to local government and school coffers. Most of that money is expected to materialize in the next three to four years, the period of the project's heaviest construction, said Ron Naventi, head of Bechtel's glassification team.

That also will be the period when the glassification project's work force will zoom from about 1,500 people to 4,000. Those workers are expected to translate to about 7,000 new Mid-Columbia residents. And local governments and schools expect those new residents to require more classrooms, additional police and firefighters and other services.

A ballpark estimate is that the local governments and three school districts will need $20 million to cope with these extra demands, said John Darrington, Richland's city manager. He's also a representative of the Hanford Communities, a coalition of local governments cooperating on Hanford issues.

But it's difficult to figure out how much of the predicted $15 million in taxes will actually be applied to that speculated need of $20 million, Darrington said.

Because Hanford is in Benton County, that county will likely collect the use taxes and receive a good portion of the sales taxes. The county would then distribute the money to the appropriate cities, counties and school districts.

-------- us nuc waste

Yucca guideline unveiled
NRC has doubts about plan to bury nuke waste here

Las Vegas Sun
November 15, 2001
By Mary Manning <manning@lasvegassun.com>
and Benjamin Grove <grove@lasvegassun.com>
http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/lv-other/2001/nov/15/512624511.html

Department of Energy officials on Wednesday unveiled what they think are the essential criteria for licensing a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain -- an important milestone in the 14-year-old plan to bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste in the Nevada desert.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which would be responsible for licensing the world's first high-level nuclear waste repository, promptly stressed that it still has many concerns about the site.

The NRC is "not drawing any conclusions concerning the actual site suitability," commission officials said in a prepared statement. The DOE published its report in the Federal Register, saying a repository at the Yucca Mountain site, based on 15 years' worth of scientific studies, is capable of containing radiation from 77,000 tons of nuclear waste for 10,000 years. The Federal Register is the official legal repository for agency regulations, rules, notices and presidential documents.

Nevada officials said they are reviewing the DOE's 40 pages of guidelines. They object to numerous provisions that suggest the site is a safe waste site.

Nevada officials, including Gov. Kenny Guinn and Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa, said the state may sue the government to stop the project based on the DOE document.

State officials have opposed the repository project since it was listed as one of nine possible sites for waste burial in 1982. Congress in 1987 designated Yucca as the best site, and scientists have been analyzing it ever since.

The criteria have addressed: how fast ground water travels through Yucca Mountain; earthquake potential because the mountain is in a seismically active area; and the possible failure of containers filled with nuclear waste that would release radiation before the 10,000-year legal timeline for a repository.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said the DOE report does not contain key studies, including an assessment of terrorism threats and the transportation risks of shipping nuclear waste cross-country to Nevada.

"The report is flawed, just as all the other reports have been flawed," Gibbons said. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., agreed.

"We have said all along that the DOE had its mind made up about Yucca 10 years ago," Ensign said. "They have always said, 'Here is the safest site. Now let's go out and try to prove it.' "

Although the DOE has had established safety criteria for a repository since 1984, Guinn said the department has refused to adequately compare them with Yucca Mountain, because the site would have been disqualified.

"The department's response is the issuance of new regulations in an attempt to ensure that the site would pass," Guinn said. "Changing the rules to fit the site has been the hallmark of this entire program."

Del Papa said her office will soon file a formal challenge to the DOE's guidelines. The legal action would be filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. within weeks.

While the DOE has now published its safety criteria for the waste site, the DOE has not published its final results of scientific studies on the mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

But at a meeting in Washington this week, DOE Yucca chief Lake Barrett said the DOE has gathered enough scientific evidence to begin briefing Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.

"Everybody at this point is anxious for a decision to be made one way or the other," Barrett said. "We're not learning as much per dollar per day as we did in the past."

Abraham has said he plans to issue a decision on Yucca Mountain at the end of this year or early next year to President Bush.

Then, if Bush and Congress approve Yucca Mountain, and the plan withstands opposition by the state of Nevada, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must review and approve it before any waste is shipped to Nevada on trucks and trains.

NRC Chairman Richard Meserve issued a 25-page report to the DOE on Wednesday that outlined 47 areas of concern about Yucca. The concerns ranged from ongoing research on how fast water flows through the mountain to what could happen if a volcano erupts through the buried waste containers.

The DOE has promised to deliver more information to the NRC before asking the commission for a license by 2003 to build Yucca Mountain.

Meserve's report also contains a critical area of concern, one that has been watched by the NRC throughout the DOE's studies of Yucca Mountain: "Among the areas warranting management's attention is improving the safety conscious work environment in the Yucca Mountain Project."

The National Academy of Sciences and Engineering, an organization of independent scientists, issued a statement Wednesday that said it has "not taken a position on whether the Yucca Mountain site should be recommended for a mined geological repository."

The academy has concluded that geologic disposal is scientifically and technically sound, a Sept. 21 letter to the DOE said.

---

Bill orders terror plan for Yucca

Las Vegas Review-Journal
Thursday, November 15, 2001
By STEVE TETREAULT DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU
http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/Nov-15-Thu-2001/news/17454790.html

WASHINGTON -- A bill introduced in the U.S. House on Wednesday directs Office of Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge to develop a terrorism protection plan for Yucca Mountain and for nuclear waste shipments to the proposed repository site.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., sponsored the legislation, which she had announced in early October.

The bill requires Ridge to solicit federal, state and local agencies to identify the potential for terrorist attacks on a spent fuel repository if it were to be built at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

It further directs the Federal Emergency Management Agency to develop response and evacuation plans if terrorists attack waste shipments along transportation routes from nuclear power plants.

Berkley said her aim was to place obstacles in the way of Yucca Mountain development by demonstrating the lengths the government would have to go and the costs it would incur to ensure security.

"The (Bush administration) and the Energy Department have not demonstrated to me in any way they can protect the transportation routes or Yucca Mountain," Berkley said. "We know there are targets of terrorist attack and I don't want to add another one 90 miles out of Las Vegas."

The bill contains no deadline for studies to be finished.

"The longer it takes the better," Berkley said.

A White House spokesman referred queries on the bill to the Energy Department, where Yucca Mountain managers had no immediate comment.

Earlier this week, acting nuclear waste program director Lake Barrett expressed confidence a repository can be made safe from attack.

Berkley conceded the legislation might not become law by the time Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is expected to make a decision this winter on Yucca Mountain's suitability as a repository, although it could affect licensing that will be considered in the coming years by the Nuclear Regulatory Committee.

The Energy Department projects a repository could be opened by 2010.

Berkley has begun seeking support from other Democrats, and she said she may try to attach the legislation to a Homeland Security bill being developed by a party task force.

-------- us nuc politics

We Can Only Guess What Secrets Bush Is Keeping

November 15, 2001
Newsday
http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-vpcoc152464413nov150.column

BLACK SMOKE rises up from terrorism and war, perfect concealment for a Bush administration assault of a different kind. This other attack is on history itself.

The White House has delayed nearly a year the scheduled release of thousands of presidential documents from the Reagan administration. The stall has now, in a way, ended. The records remain secret. They will, most likely, forevermore.

President George W. Bush signed an executive order that promises to scrub the truth out of presidential history after Jimmy Carter. It is, even in this White House with a penchant for secrecy, an extravagant indulgence of the habit.

Under Bush's order, any incumbent president - that is, Bush himself - can block release of presidential documents of a predecessor. He can do this even if the past president wants the records disclosed. A former president who wants to keep secrets could do so, too, with or without agreement of the incumbent.

The Bush order effectively works like this: A Republican like Bush - say, one whose top advisers did their first tour of duty in a previous Republican administration and could be embarrassed by old White House files - could just keep them locked up. This proves especially convenient if the incumbent president's father, in fact, served as vice president under a previous Republican administration and has his own papers in the vault.

A Democrat - say Al Gore, who served as vice president under Bill Clinton - could come into office and decide unilaterally to keep boxes of old Democratic papers off-limits.

The Bush order also gives family members of a deceased or disabled former president these privileges. Bush would enable Nancy Reagan to one day claim authority to keep her husband's papers secret; so, too, might Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.).

Bush's own mother could out-do them both. She could sift through papers of two presidents and decide what is, or is not, to be seen by history. Thanks, Mom.

Private control over public papers is what the Presidential Records Act of 1978 was to end. The post-Watergate law made White House records property of the people, not the presidents. It set a 12-year timetable after a president leaves office for release of sensitive material. This made the Reagan papers eligible for release in January.

And this is the law Bush now shreds. The administration, as is its custom, does little to explain. It talks of need for an "orderly process" for releasing records. White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales claims, as well, the desire to protect "records that could impact national security."

This is how they cover up the cover-up.

Classified national security material isn't covered by the act at all. It isn't even reviewed for release for 25 years, according to the National Archives.

And there was nothing disorderly about the release of Carter's White House documents, nor those of former President Gerald R. Ford. That is because these presidents disclosed about everything. Ford, instinctively decent, followed the emerging outlines of the records law, though as he left office it hadn't yet passed.

No one has come forward to declare this Bush restriction welcome, or necessary. Historians are apoplectic. Reagan's librarians already were preparing a big release when the White House called it to a halt.

Congress grumbles. Its members - notably Republicans in the House - grouse about their own curtailed right to have a look. Clinton, through his longtime aide Bruce Lindsey, has publicly opposed the strictures as unneeded and contrary to the law's intent.

Just this week, Lindsey said in an interview, he searched papers relating to presidential gifts that had been requested by Rep. Douglas Ose (R-Calif.). The memos from White House lawyers were clearly eligible for disclosure before now. They could just as clearly be withheld under Bush's new order.

"We could have unilaterally withheld them, but we didn't," Lindsey said.

None desires this secrecy, save the current occupant of the White House. We are left only to guess at why. And to shiver at all the possibilities, now and in the future.

Email: cocco@newsday.com


-------- MILITARY

-------- afghanistan

Taliban brass talk of handing over terrorist

USA Today
11/15/2001
By Barbara Slavin, Jonathan Weisman and Jack Kelley, USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/11/15/hunt-usatlede.htm

U.S. commandos are hunting Osama bin Laden with high-tech surveillance traps, heat-seeking spy planes and suitcases full of cash. As his Taliban protectors collapse throughout Afghanistan, the alleged mastermind of the attacks Sept. 11 on New York and Washington has fewer places to run, U.S. intelligence officials said Wednesday. In a late development, U.S. officials in Islamabad, Pakistan, said a number of Taliban commanders in southern Afghanistan have offered to deliver bin Laden to the United States.

The commanders are not among the Taliban top leadership, but intelligence officials believe they have knowledge of bin Laden's whereabouts. Some are asking about the reward of $5 million while others, surrounded by opposition forces, are looking for a way out, the officials said.

Meanwhile, officials disclosed that military jets on Tuesday bombed and destroyed a building where top al-Qa'eda leaders were hiding. Several people were reportedly killed. U.S. officials had not determined who was among the dead.

On the war front, Taliban forces continued to retreat toward the southern city of Kandahar and its surroundings. U.S. jets moved in to target the fleeing forces. There were reports of uprisings against Taliban forces in the south. The Pentagon reacted with caution.

"We don't have enough factual information to assume that this war in Afghanistan is about to end," said Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, deputy director of operations with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

U.S. officials and leaders of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance said they believe bin Laden retreated from Kandahar, the Taliban spiritual center, to the remote mountains of Afghanistan's central Oruzgan province, home to Taliban leader Mohammed Omar.

Taliban spokesman Mullah Abdullah said bin Laden and Omar are in Afghanistan "and, thanks be to God, no harm has come upon them." Some bin Laden lieutenants may have slipped into Pakistan, a U.S. official said.

Intelligence sources said bin Laden could shave his beard, cut his hair and try to slip into Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province.

To prevent his escape, several hundred Army commandos are in Afghanistan interviewing captured Taliban commanders and setting up surveillance gear, such as radar, heat detectors and cameras, U.S. officials said. Many are posted at roadblocks outside Kandahar.

Asked whether the troops would engage in battle, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "If they're the kind you want to shoot, you shoot them."

Teams of two to 12 men are searching abandoned caves, tunnels and buildings for maps, documents or computer disks that could lead to bin Laden, officials said. From the skies, pilots are using heat detectors to locate warm bodies in cold Afghan caves. CIA agents are using cash to bribe sources for information about bin Laden's whereabouts, officials said.

Bin Laden has trimmed his once-large entourage to about 100 security troops and supporters, and he is separated from Omar, U.S. officials said.

Afghan expert Rahimullah Yusufzai, who has interviewed bin Laden, said, "They will not let themselves be taken alive."

Slavin and Weisman reported from Washington, Kelley from Islamabad, Pakistan; wire reports.

------

U.S. jets zero in on pockets of Taliban resistance

USA Today
11/15/2001
http://usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/11/15/attack.htm

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - U.S. warplanes zeroed in near the town of Kunduz on Thursday, where Taliban fighters and followers of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network were apparently set to make a stand at one of their last pockets of resistance in northern Afghanistan. Elsewhere in Afghanistan, U.S. airstrikes on two buildings killed some senior Taliban and al-Qaida leaders, the Pentagon said Thursday. Victoria Clarke, spokeswoman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, told reporters that she had no numbers or identities of those killed in the strikes on buildings near the capital Kabul on Tuesday and the southern city of Kandahar on Wednesday. But she said there was no evidence that bin Laden was among them.

Meanwhile, ending a three-month drama that has overlapped with the standoff between the United States and bin Laden, eight international aid workers who had been accused of preaching Christianity in Afghanistan arrived in neighboring Pakistan after being plucked to safety by U.S. special forces helicopters early Thursday.

Despite a series of stunning setbacks that cost the Islamic militia its grip on the capital and deprived it of huge swaths of territory, Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar was defiant in a BBC interview broadcast Thursday, saying he'd rather die than "join an evil government" with the country's former leader.

The Taliban pullback from urban centers, he also said, was part of a larger strategy that aims to destroy America.

"If God's help is with us, this will happen within a short period of time - keep in mind this prediction," he said. "The real matter is the extinction of America, and God willing, it will fall to the ground."

Omar also ruled out taking part in a multiethnic government like the one the United Nations has proposed for Afghanistan.

"The struggle for a broad-based government has been going on for the last 20 years, but nothing came of it," he said. "We will not accept a government of wrongdoers. We prefer death than to be a part of an evil government."

The BBC asked the questions through an intermediary over a satellite phone, who passed them on to the Taliban leader through a hand-held radio. Earlier Thursday, the private Afghan Islamic Press agency reported that Omar was in a safe place and in charge of his troops.

In northern Afghanistan, anti-Taliban forces said they were preparing to launch an offensive against the front line outside Kunduz, the region's only town of significant size remaining under Taliban control. It lies between the northern alliance-held cities of Mazar-e-Sharif and Taloqan.

U.S. warplanes launched dozens of strikes against Taliban tank and troop positions in the area, refugees and witnesses said. According to refugees, thousands of foreign fighters - Arabs and Chechens - are concentrated near Kunduz.

Northern alliance commanders said they were trying by radio to get the Taliban to surrender, but Sayaf Baick, a northern alliance commander, said the foreign fighters had killed several local Taliban officials in Kunduz who wanted to give up the town.

Just who was in control of particular areas was difficult to pin down. The Taliban were reported to have left the eastern town of Jalalabad, but one Shiite Muslim northern alliance leader, Saeed Hussein Anwari, told The Associated Press in Kabul on Thursday that the city's status was unclear.

Francesc Vendrell, the deputy U.N. special representative for Afghanistan, told Associated Press Television News that Jalalabad "is clearly not in Taliban hands, but it's a little confusing to know in whose hands it is."

At the Pakistan-Afghanistan border post of Torkham - the border crossing nearest to Jalalabad - Taliban guards have left.

Gul Wali, who described himself as the new security chief at the border post, said alliance faction leader Yunus Khalis and his supporters also had control of Jalalabad and surrounding Nangarhar province, and that there was no fighting.

Meanwhile, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press said American warplanes hammered areas around the Taliban's stronghold of Kandahar, killing eight civilians and injuring 22. That claim could not be confirmed.

Vendrell said he had been told that there were northern alliance forces in Kandahar, the Taliban's birthplace and spiritual home.

On the eastern border, Pashtun tribesmen once loyal to the Taliban were said to be rising up against them, and Taliban fighters were reportedly taking shelter in the mountains. Anwari said the border provinces of Paktika, Paktia and part of Logar were all in control of anti-Taliban Pashtun forces.

With the Taliban having fled Kabul, speculation has grown that Burhanuddin Rabbani, Afghanistan's president from 1992-96 and titular head of the northern alliance, will return to the capital.

Anwari, the Shiite Muslim northern alliance commander, said Rabbani was remaining for the time being in the Panjshir Valley, a staging ground for the alliance during its long anti-Taliban campaign in the north, because of the alliance's promise not to take power in the capital.

He warned, however, that if the United Nations and the world community fail to act soon to fill the power vacuum, the alliance would have to establish a government.

Meanwhile, U.S. special forces were watching key roads in southern Afghanistan, hunting for Taliban leaders, Rumsfeld said Wednesday. At the Pentagon, senior defense officials speaking on condition of anonymity said a new military plan was being prepared to hunt down bin Laden and other leaders of al-Qa'eda and the Taliban.

"One of our primary objectives over the last few days has been to go after command and control - Taliban and al-Qa'eda leadership," Clarke, Rumsfeld's spokeswoman, said Thursday.

President Bush launched airstrikes against Afghanistan on Oct. 7 after the Taliban refused to surrender bin Laden, sought in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

As the Islamic holy month of Ramadan approached, authorities said there would be limited U.S. bombing of the caves and mountain redoubts where the Taliban and al-Qa'eda leaders were believed to be hiding.

------

Southern tribes help fight Taliban

USA Today
11/15/2001
By Paul Wiseman, USA TODAY
http://usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/11/15/warnews.htm

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - For the first time, southern Afghan tribes joined the fight against the Taliban on Wednesday, and there were reports of these ethnic forces advancing on Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual center. Also, anti-Taliban forces seized the eastern city of Jalalabad, and Northern Alliance troops consolidated their hold on the capital, Kabul. The victory at Jalalabad was scored by local leaders unaffiliated with the Northern Alliance, including ethnic Pashtuns, long the backbone of Taliban support.

The U.S. effort to foster anti-Taliban sentiment among Pashtun leaders reportedly helped persuade some of the groups to rise up, though tribes also acted on their own, a U.S. official said.

Two hundred anti-Taliban Pashtun tribesmen reportedly took control of Kandahar's airport Wednesday, but it was unclear exactly where they came from or who was commanding them, a senior U.S. official said. There were reports that fighting was still going on at the airport.

Separately, as many as 1,000 men under the command of anti-Taliban Pashtun leader Gul Agha Sherzai, governor of Kandahar Province before the Taliban era, crossed into Afghanistan from the area of Quetta, Pakistan, Tuesday night. They were armed with semiautomatic weapons, some supplied by the United States, the official said.

Some observers in Islamabad doubted that Pashtun tribesmen were rising en masse against the Taliban. "This is not a Pashtun uprising," said Abdul Jabbar Naeemi, spokesman for the Pakistan-based National Islamic Front of Afghanistan, a predominantly Pashtun group that has tried to help form a post-Taliban government.

In some places, Taliban officials are ceding power to local Pashtun commanders and fleeing to the hills, leaving territory in relatively friendly hands instead of letting the Northern Alliance move in.

Taliban officials were engaged in furious negotiations with local Pashtun leaders Wednesday, trying to form a united Pashtun front against the Northern Alliance.

In other news Wednesday:

- A number of U.S. military analysts declared the Taliban all but beaten with its leaders hiding in caves or attempting to flee the country. "They're panicked," said Bill Taylor, senior adviser of international security affairs at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "As a governing entity, the Taliban is finished."

- U.S. military officials are retooling the war campaign after the Taliban's surprisingly quick retreat. They predicted that the bombing campaign, entering its 40th day, will likely be dramatically scaled back, perhaps coinciding with the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which begins this weekend. Bombing might be limited to cave complexes and pockets of Taliban resistance.

- The United Arab Emirates has agreed to a United Nations request to host talks among Afghan factions on a political future for their country after the fall of the Taliban, a UAE official said.

- The British government said "there is evidence of a very specific nature" linking bin Laden and his associates to the suicide attack Sept. 11 on the USA. But as before, that evidence is too sensitive to release, officials said.

Contributing: Tim Friend and Thor Valdmanis in Taloqan, Afghanistan; Elliot Blair Smith in London; and Barbara Slavin and Gregg Zoroya in Washington

---

Alliance 'has broken' Geneva code of war

BY HELEN RUMBELOW
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 15 2001
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001390014-2001395711,00.html

THE Northern Alliance is obliged to treat prisoners of war under the terms of the Geneva Convention, which was ratified by Afghanistan in 1951. Under its terms, it is the country, not the regime in power, that agrees to abide by its rules.

The convention gives protection to captured soldiers once they lay down their arms and the civilian population in times of war.

In broad terms this states that "all those who are detained must be spared and protected against abuse, whatever the circumstances and regardless of their affiliation". It bans torture, reprisals and hostage taking, with the emphasis "that women and children must be treated with special respect and protected against any form of indecent assault". Amnesty International claimed that early indications showed that the Alliance had violated the convention.

A spokesman said: "We have heard through a UN spokesman that the Northern Alliance killed a few hundred people hiding in a school in Mazar-i Sharif and there have been pictures from Kabul showing some executions."

-------

Alliance Force, in Charge, Tries to Ease Fears

New York Times
November 15, 2001
By DAVID ROHDE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/15/international/asia/15KABU.html

KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 14 - Serving alongside Pakistani, Chechen and Arab volunteers, Atiqurahman manned a post on the second line of Taliban forces in the village of Kalai Nasro near the Bagram air base 35 miles north of Kabul.

Now, after abandoning his position and trudging toward the capital as Northern Alliance forces burst through his line, the 23- year-old soldier from Kandahar is a prisoner, and fearful of his future.

"What should I do?" Atiqurahman whispered at one point during a meeting in his temporary jail, a shipping container in Kabul. "Will they kill us or not?"

The Northern Alliance tried to calm such fears as they tightened their control over Kabul today and as rebellion against the Taliban spread to the eastern city of Jalalabad and to the mullahs' southern stronghold of Kandahar.

As American jets continued to bomb targets south of Jalalabad - an area thought to contain hideouts of Osama bin Laden's Qaeda terrorists - Gen. Fazil Ahmed Azimi, commander of alliance forces in eastern Afghanistan, said his troops hoped to secure firm control of the eastern city within days. They would count on more defections from the Taliban rather than a military attack, he said.

"We don't want more fighting," he said. "We don't want more victims."

That seemed to be a message the Northern Alliance was eager to spread today, perhaps to counter reports from United Nations aid workers of massacres, executions, looting and other crimes committed by alliance soldiers as half of Afghanistan fell suddenly into their hands in recent days.

Foreign governments pondering Afghanistan's governance are also pressing the alliance to show restraint and to reach out to all Afghans.

General Azimi said alliance representatives were in Jalalabad negotiating with local commanders, who would hold a council to reach a decision about linking up with the alliance. "We should know the result in a day or two," the general said.

But Yunus Khalis, a Pashtun mullah in Jalalabad and a leader of some influence there, was quoted in Afghan media as rejecting any deal and saying Northern Alliance forces should not try to enter the city.

Alberto Cairo, who has worked for the International Red Cross in Afghanistan for 12 years, said the shift in power was the most peaceful he had seen in a country ruined by 22 years of almost continual fighting and fast-shifting alliances among rival clans and warlords.

He said his organization had collected the bodies of 10 Afghan and Pakistani fighters in the capital, but could not say whether they had died in fighting or in reprisals as the Northern Alliance forces entered Kabul on Tuesday.

He praised the general lack of violence and looting in the city and the work so far of the roughly 2,000 alliance policemen and soldiers securing it.

"I am surprised that things have gone so well," he said. "Bad things could still happen, but for now I'm very optimistic."

For a second day, Kabul's streets hummed with activities barred by the Taliban. Restaurants blared music, men skipped the call to prayer and some cast off their burkas, the head-to-toe veil required by the Taliban.

Workers clambered on to the building of Radio Afghanistan, proudly restoring its lettering, and a broadcaster who had run a radio station for the Northern Alliance, Muhammad Alam Ezdediar, took control, hiring three women as news readers and airing music and statements from the alliance defense ministry urging people to remain calm and to go to work.

Alliance leaders like Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the foreign minister, moved into cavernous, empty ministry buildings. Alliance officials also said their president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, would head an interim government and enter the city soon, a move likely to bring protests from Pakistan, which had insisted that one price for its new allegiance to Washington was that the alliance not take power.

But Yunus Qanooni, an alliance leader, reiterated that the alliance favored what he called a broad- based, multiethnic interim government.

In what they called a precautionary step, alliance officials imposed an 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew. They also said carrying firearms would be banned as of Saturday. Truckloads of alliance soldiers continued to move through the city, but the bulk of them appeared to be headed for the front lines east and south of Kabul, which were off limits to reporters.

Atiqurahman, the Taliban soldier, who has only one name, was not convinced by the alliance's message of control and tolerance. A wiry, bearded young man with piercing light-brown eyes, dressed in soiled clothes, he anxiously protested his innocence, insisting that the Taliban had forced him to fight against his will.

When American planes began bombing their positions in October, he said, neither he nor his fellow fighters were much impressed. Then, in the last two weeks, heavy bombing runs, particularly by B-52's, intensified, and Taliban soldiers were getting killed. "Our morale was getting lower and lower," he recalled.

Atiqurahman and his remaining comrades abandoned their positions on Monday, after alliance soldiers suddenly appeared behind Taliban lines because Taliban units on his flanks had defected. "We realized we couldn't fight," he said, and he spent the next 14 hours walking toward Kabul with three other soldiers.

Atiqurahman said he had surrendered without resistance. Alliance soldiers said he was captured after a fire fight in which he killed an alliance soldier.

But his captors, apparently eager to impress Western reporters with their lack of desire to take murderous revenge, said Atiqurahman and his fellow prisoner, a 45-year-old man named Khyali who said he was a cook, would be sent to a regular prison.

The picture painted by the captured Taliban soldier of heavy bombing, defections in the ranks and general unpopularity of the Taliban was reflected in the accounts of Kabul residents today.

Zabihullah, a 21-year-old welder, reported that two weeks ago, a B-52 dropped six enormous bombs on the Badam Bagh tank base a mile from his home.

The strikes blew the windows out of his house and reduced the base to rubble. Twisted bits of the tin roof landed more than 100 yards away on a hillside. Two tanks were flipped upside down in the yard. Hours after the bombing, he said, three pickup trucks full of bodies left the smoldering base.

But the Taliban had hidden eight tanks in the mountains and residential areas nearby, he said, and they survived the bombing unscathed.

The exact number of civilians killed in the bombing may never be known. Hospitals betrayed almost no signs of treating patients wounded in bombings. Many of the dead are transported directly to cemeteries for burial, and their deaths are never recorded. The International Red Cross had an estimate of 300 to 400 people treated for various wounds during two months of bombing, but Mr. Cairo, the aid worker, could not say how reliable that count was.

One Afghan who works for an international aid group and who was able to move around the city said the bombing had forced the Taliban to constantly change position. "They moved every day, every hour," said the worker, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "This wore their morale down completely."

An undercurrent of hostility from the city's population also added to the pressure, according to the aid worker. For years, Kabul residents had chafed under what they saw as the heavy hand of Pakistani and Arab Taliban supporters. "They came to our country just to rule us," said Yahya, a 22-year-old carpet weaver. "We were like hens."

Zabihullah, the welder, said the Taliban eventually grew to fear the population. "They really did wrong to the Afghan people," he said. "They were afraid the people would start attacking them."

There were reports that Taliban leaders were seeking refuge in Kandahar. But Atiqurahman, the captive soldier, predicted that they would fare no better there, his native city.

"I think they have very low morale," he said. "There will be more defections."

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U.S. Policy Towards Taliban Influenced by Oil - Say Authors

World - OneWorld.net
Thursday November 15 01:21 PM EST
By Julio Godoy, Inter Press Service

PARIS, Nov 15 (IPS) - Under the influence of U.S. oil companies, the government of George W. Bush initially blocked U.S. secret service investigations on terrorism, while it bargained with the Taliban the delivery of Osama bin Laden in exchange for political recognition and economic aid, two French intelligence analysts claim.

In the book ''Bin Laden, la verite interdite'' (''Bin Laden, the forbidden truth''), that appeared in Paris on Wednesday, the authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, reveal that the Federal Bureau of Investigation's deputy director John O'Neill resigned in July in protest over the obstruction.

Brisard claim O'Neill told them that ''the main obstacles to investigate Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it''.

The two claim the U.S. government's main objective in Afghanistan was to consolidate the position of the Taliban regime to obtain access to the oil and gas reserves in Central Asia.

They affirm that until August, the U.S. government saw the Taliban regime ''as a source of stability in Central Asia that would enable the construction of an oil pipeline across Central Asia'', from the rich oilfields in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean.

Until now, says the book, ''the oil and gas reserves of Central Asia have been controlled by Russia. The Bush government wanted to change all that''.

But, confronted with Taliban's refusal to accept U.S. conditions, ''this rationale of energy security changed into a military one'', the authors claim.

''At one moment during the negotiations, the U.S. representatives told the Taliban, 'either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs','' Brisard said in an interview in Paris.

According to the book, the government of Bush began to negotiate with the Taliban immediately after coming into power in February. U.S. and Taliban diplomatic representatives met several times in Washington, Berlin and Islamabad.

To polish their image in the United States, the Taliban even employed a U.S. expert on public relations, Laila Helms. The authors claim that Helms is also an expert in the works of U.S. secret services, for her uncle, Richard Helms, is a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The last meeting between U.S. and Taliban representatives took place in August, five weeks before the attacks on New York and Washington, the analysts maintain.

On that occasion, Christina Rocca, in charge of Central Asian affairs for the U.S. government, met the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan in Islamabad.

Brisard and Dasquie have long experience in intelligence analysis. Brisard was until the late 1990s director of economic analysis and strategy for Vivendi, a French company. He also worked for French secret services, and wrote for them in 1997 a report on the now famous Al Qaeda network, headed by bin Laden.

Dasquie is an investigative journalist and publisher of Intelligence Online, a respected newsletter on diplomacy, economic analysis and strategy, available through the Internet.

Brisard and Dasquie draw a portrait of closest aides to President Bush, linking them to oil business.

Bush's family has a strong oil background. So are some of his top aides. From the U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, through the director of the National Security Council Condoleeza Rice, to the Ministers of Commerce and Energy, Donald Evans and Stanley Abraham, all have for long worked for U.S. oil companies.

Cheney was until the end of last year president of Halliburton, a company that provides services for oil industry; Rice was between 1991 and 2000 manager for Chevron; Evans and Abraham worked for Tom Brown, another oil giant.

Besides the secret negotiations held between Washington and Kabul and the importance of the oil industry, the book takes issue with the role played by Saudi Arabia in fostering Islamic fundamentalism, in the personality of bin Laden, and with the networks that the Saudi dissident built to finance his activities.

Brisard and Dasquie contend the U.S. government's claim that it had been prosecuting bin Laden since 1998. ''Actually,'' Dasquie says, ''the first state to officially prosecute bin Laden was Libya, on the charges of terrorism.''

''Bin Laden wanted settle in Libya in the early 1990s, but was hindered by the government of Muammar Qaddafi,'' Dasquie claims. ''Enraged by Libya's refusal, bin Laden organised attacks inside Libya, including assassination attempts against Qaddafi.''

Dasquie singles out one group, the Islamic Fighting Group (IFG), reputedly the most powerful Libyan dissident organisation, based in London, and directly linked with bin Laden.

''Qaddafi even demanded Western police institutions, such as Interpol, to pursue the IFG and bin Laden, but never obtained co-operation,'' Dasquie says. ''Until today, members of IFG openly live in London.''

The book confirms earlier reports that the U.S. government worked closely with the United Nations during the negotiations with the Taliban.

''Several meetings took place this year, under the arbitration of Francesc Vendrell, personal representative of UN secretary general Kofi Annan, to discuss the situation in Afghanistan,'' says the book.

''Representatives of the U.S. government and Russia, and the six countries that border with Afghanistan were present at these meetings,'' it says. ''Sometimes, representatives of the Taliban also sat around the table.''

These meetings, also called ''6+2'' because of the number of states (six neighbours plus U.S. and Russia) involved, have been confirmed by Naif Naik, former Pakistani Minister for Foreign Affairs.

In a French television news programme two weeks ago, Naik said during a ''6+2'' meeting in Berlin in July, the discussions turned around ''the formation of a government of national unity. If the Taliban had accepted this coalition, they would have immediately received international economic aid.''

''And the pipe lines from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan would have come,'' he added.

Naik also claimed that Tom Simons, the U.S. representative at these meetings, openly threatened the Taliban and Pakistan. ''Simons said, 'either the Taliban behave as they ought to, or Pakistan convinces them to do so, or we will use another option'. The words Simons used were 'a military operation','' Naik claimed.

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-------- arms sales

McDonnell Douglas to Pay $2.1 Million Fine in Export Case

By Bill Miller
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 15, 2001; Page A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A31714-2001Nov14?language=printer

McDonnell Douglas agreed yesterday to pay a civil penalty of $2.1 million to settle charges that it violated U.S. export laws by selling to a Chinese-run company aerospace machine tools that ultimately wound up in a Chinese military plant.

McDonnell Douglas, a subsidiary of Chicago-based Boeing Co., said it admitted no wrongdoing by settling a complex, six-year investigation. As part of the settlement, federal prosecutors in Washington agreed to drop criminal charges filed against the firm in 1999. U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman dismissed the criminal case yesterday.

Commerce Department officials, who also brought administrative proceedings against the company, said the fine resolves that civil matter and is the second-largest penalty ever levied in an export control case. In 1995, Halliburton Co. agreed to pay $2.6 million in civil penalties for violating a U.S. trade embargo in its dealings with Libya. The McDonnell Douglas case had generated widespread attention because it came amid allegations that Chinese firms were engaged in industrial espionage. The penalty against McDonnell Douglas is the maximum fine possible, Commerce officials said.

The settlement preserves the right of McDonnell Douglas to conduct business overseas. Under the terms of the agreement, the company has 30 days to pay the fine.

The controversy stemmed from McDonnell Douglas's 1994 sale of $5.4 million in sophisticated machining equipment used to build aircraft parts. The equipment went to the China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corp., known as CATIC, a Chinese government-run defense firm that is t