------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Most Britons oppose new nuclear power plants - poll
U.K. Officer Who Criticized Nukes Dies
India Tests New Missile
India Tests Long - Range Version of Prithvi Missile
Kazakhstan: Experts Report Progress On Safeguarding Nuclear Site
2 Nuclear Experts Briefed Bin Laden, Pakistanis Say
Russia PM Says Would Regret U.S. Withdrawal From ABM
Sweden sees Barseback reactor closure by end - 2003
Cold War fears are revisited
The First Line Against Terrorism
clear Experts Briefed Bin Laden, Newspaper Says
U.S. to pull out of Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
U.S. to Pull Out of ABM Treaty, Clearing Path for Antimissile Tests
US nuclear plants face downtime for reactor cracks
Colorado Radiation Cleanup Will Leave Overly Contaminated Soil
Nevada will ask court to stop Energy Department decision
Nuclear response team is suddenly silent
Memo renews concerns about Hanford cleanup
Military tribunals hearing

MILITARY
Tribal Commanders Make New Offer for Al Qaeda Surrender
Lobbyists Are Boeing's Army, Washington Its Battlefield
Panel Passes Iraq Resolution
Palestinian Militants Attack Israeli Bus and Gaza Settlement
Cuban Spy Gets Life in Prison
Bush touts high-tech military to Citadel cadets
Panel OK's Defense Base Closings

POLICE / PRISONERS
Wolfowitz defends tribunals to Senate
69 charged in pre-Olympics airport sweep
U.S. says tribunals just for terror leaders
FBI Probe of Scientist Wen Ho Lee Found Flawed
American in Taliban: Biological strike on U.S. near
Videotape shows bin Laden laughing at fate of hijackers
F.B.I. Arrests Chairman of Militant Anti-Arab Group
Defense Dept. Not Consulted on Indictment
Somalia Terror Activity Concerns U.S.

ENERGY AND OTHER
Chrysler offers fuel cell van with soapy twist
Think big, Europe's offshore wind farms urged
Environmental Group Sues for Records Of Energy Task Force
Energy security illusions
Gulf War researcher welcomes decision on U.S. vets

ACTIVISTS
Write/Fax/Email Bush, Congress Now
Vieques mayor, jailed for bombing protest, freed



-------- NUCLEAR

-------- britain

Most Britons oppose new nuclear power plants - poll

Reuters:
12/12/2001
http://www.planetark.org/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=13673

LONDON - Two thirds of Britons oppose the construction of new nuclear power stations during the next decade, according to a survey published yesterday.

The poll, commissioned by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), also found that 82 percent of the public would not want a nuclear power plant built within three miles of their home.

"Nuclear power is the least popular of power station types," said the RSPB in a statement as it published the findings of the survey, carried out by BRMB International between 27 September and October 3, 2001.

The findings come as the government prepares to publish the results of a review of energy policy for the next 50 years.

The review, by the Cabinet Office Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU), considers the future role of all energy sources including nuclear, fossil fuels and renewable energy such as solar and wind power.

The RSPB sits on a committee advising the PIU, which is due to deliver the review to Prime Minister Tony Blair by the end of the year.

Nuclear plants, which produce radioactive waste but emit no greenhouse gases, currently account for about a quarter of electricity supply in the UK.

The RSPB survey showed high levels of support for renewable energy sources. Only three percent of those surveyed were opposed to the construction of onshore wind farms, although 14 percent did not want wind farms built within three miles of their home.

"The RSPB is firmly behind renewable energy, which is environmentally friendly and socially sustainable. This polling shows that the British public is behind us on this," said John Lanchbery, the RSPB's climate change policy officer, in the statement.

--------

U.K. Officer Who Criticized Nukes Dies

December 12, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Obit-Carver.html?searchpv=aponline

LONDON (AP) -- Field Marshal Lord Carver, who rose to become Britain's top military officer and was a persistent critic of nuclear weapons, has died at age 86.

Carver died Sunday at home in Wickham, southern England, his family said.

He began moving up the ranks with a commission in the Royal Tank Corps in 1935 and went on to become chief of the defense staff -- equivalent to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff -- from 1971 until 1973.

Carver was chief of staff in Kenya in 1954 during the Mau Mau rebellion, which led to Kenya's independence from Britain in 1963. He commanded U.N. peacekeeping forces in Cyprus in 1964, but later criticized them as impeding progress toward a political settlement. He was Britain's resident commissioner in 1977-78 in the then-British colony of Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

As a member of the House of Lords, Carver opposed Britain's decision to buy Trident submarines with nuclear-armed missiles.

In a House of Lords debate on Britain's nuclear weapons in 1997, Carver tartly asked a government minister ``who is supposed to be deterred by the deterrent to which she referred, and from doing what?''

Carver was a member of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, created by the Australian government, which released a report in 1996 outlining a plan for nuclear disarmament.

``The destructiveness of nuclear weapons is so great, and their use so catastrophic, that they have no military utility against a comparably equipped opponent other than the belief that they deter such an opponent from using his nuclear weapons,'' Carver said at the time.

``Therefore, their elimination would remove that justification for their retention. Their use against a non-nuclear opponent is politically and morally indefensible, as history has shown,'' Carver added.

He was also a critic of NATO. In a Lords debate in December, Carver urged abolition of the NATO command, saying it existed only to camouflage the reality that the United States commands the allied forces.

NATO, Carver said, was ``manned by inflated allied staffs, most of whom have nothing significant to do, and every expansion of NATO makes that worse.''

He is survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters.

-------- india / pakistan

India Tests New Missile

December 12, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-India-Missile-Test.html?searchpv=aponline

NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- India tested an improved version of its nuclear- capable, surface-to-surface Prithvi missile from a remote testing center off the east coast, the defense ministry said Wednesday.

The improved version of the medium-range missile was fired over the Bay of Bengal from India's testing range at Chandipur, 750 miles southeast of New Delhi, said P.K. Bandopadhyaya, defense ministry spokesman.

The five-ton missile, whose name means ``earth'' in Hindi, has a range of up to 155 miles, Bandopadhyaya said. It can be fitted with a nuclear warhead.

``The test was flawless and the missile impacted at the intended target point accurately,'' he said.

The missile tested Wednesday was an advance on an earlier version tested in March with a range of 93 miles.

India conducted five nuclear tests in 1998, prompting its neighbor and longtime rival Pakistan to set off its own test bomb.

--------

India Tests Long - Range Version of Prithvi Missile

December 12, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-arms-india-missile.html?searchpv=reuters

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India test fired for the first time on Wednesday a longer-range version of its Prithvi surface-to-surface missile from a launch site off the eastern coast.

The Defense Ministry said the 155-mile range Prithvi blasted off from the interim test range at Chandipur-on-Sea in the Bay of Bengal at 10:41 a.m. (12:11 a.m. EST).

``The flight was flawless and the missile impacted at the intended target point accurately,'' the ministry said in a statement. A naval ship tracked the flight of Prithvi, which means earth in Hindi, before it touched the waters.

The longer-range version of the Prithvi, which Western experts believe to be nuclear capable, is intended to be used by the air force. A 93-mile version of the missile has already entered service in the army.

``It is a forerunner of missiles for the air force,'' said retired Air Vice Marshal Kapil Kak.

India, which conducted nuclear explosions in May 1998, has been developing a range of missiles including its ballistic intermediate range missile, Agni.

Neighbor Pakistan, which answered India's nuclear tests with explosions of its own, too has been pursuing a missile development program. Both nations have resisted international pressure and committed themselves to developing nuclear weapons.

``Too much should not be read into this test, an air force version has been a reality for quite some time now,'' said Kak. ''But I do expect the Pakistanis to use this opportunity to make some noise.''

A government official told Reuters that two more tests of the longer version of Prithvi were planned before it was introduced into the air force. A shorter naval version of the missile was also under development.

Islamabad in the past has expressed concern over Indian missile tests including the Prithvi which it sees as targeting Pakistan.

``They might see it that way, and why not,'' said Kak. ``But there is a certain inevitability about security imperatives, nations perforce do what they have to.''

Tensions between India and Pakistan have remained high, despite the two supporting the U.S. military campaign to hunt down Islamic militants in neighboring Afghanistan.

India, which blames Pakistan for fomenting the revolt in Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir, has been seeking to widen the global war to include the rebels fighting its rule in the disputed Himalayan region.

Islamabad denies direct involvement but says it gives moral and diplomatic support to what it calls Kashmir's freedom struggle.

-------- kazakhstan

Kazakhstan: Experts Report Progress On Safeguarding Nuclear Site

By Nikola Krastev,
Radio Free Europe,
December 12, 2001
http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/2001/12/11122001090708.asp

The U.S. Department of Energy is reporting progress in its efforts to provide for the safe shutdown of the BN-350 nuclear breeder reactor in Aktau, Kazakhstan. At a time of heightened concern over the proliferation of nuclear materials, experts say the U.S.-led program is on track to eliminate a major source of weapons-grade plutonium production, while at the same time avoiding any possible environmental incident on the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea.

New York, 11 December 2001 (RFE/RL) -- The BN-350 fast-breeder reactor in Aktau, in western Kazakhstan, was commissioned in 1972 for the dual purpose of producing plutonium for the Soviet nuclear arsenal and providing electricity, heating, and water desalination.

After a 1998 report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) criticized safety at the reactor, Kazakhstan announced it would shut down the plant and secure it. It requested technical and financial assistance from the United States, which earlier in the 1990s removed a large quantity of weapons-grade uranium from another site in the country.

The U.S. State and Energy departments in May 1999 initiated a project to provide assistance to Kazakhstan. This past summer, U.S. and Kazakh officials marked the completion of one phase of the project -- packaging spent fuel from the reactor. An international team of technicians placed the last of 478 canisters of spent fuel in the BN-350 water storage pool under the seal of the IAEA, completing one of the largest such efforts ever undertaken.

Other key accomplishments recently announced include the installation of extensive fire-safety equipment, the design and fabrication of "cesium traps" to decontaminate the reactor's radioactive sodium coolant, and the start of procedures for sodium coolant draining and processing.

Douglas Newton, the project's manager, recently discussed the program at New York's Columbia University. Speaking later to RFE/RL, he praised the cooperation of the Kazakh government: "I don't think we can ask for very much more in terms of cooperation at a national level. On the individual day-to-day basis, the people at the Nuclear Technology Safety Center have been absolutely invaluable in organizing the various Kazakhstan organizations that have worked with us."

The U.S. concerns about these kinds of old-fashioned nuclear reactors are as much about safety as they are about the ability of these reactors to produce weapons-grade plutonium. During its lifetime, Newton said, Aktau's BN-350 has produced several tons of so-called "ivory-grade," premium plutonium.

Paul Josephson is an associate professor of Soviet history at Colby College in Maine and has written a book on Russian nuclear programs. He tells RFE/RL that the BN-350 type of reactor was long ago abandoned in the United States: "Breeder reactors were abandoned under President Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s because he recognized that reactors that produce as part of their operation more plutonium than they start with contribute directly to proliferation. They make more plutonium available throughout the world. It's much easier to make a nuclear weapon out of plutonium than it is out of uranium."

To make sure that Aktau's nuclear facility will never be able to restart plutonium production, the U.S. engineers have devised a plan that calls for "irreversible shutdown." Under this plan, the radioactive molten sodium coolant of the reactor will be gradually decontaminated (of Cesium-137) and then drained. Once the bulk sodium is drained, pockets will remain throughout the reactor's body. These pockets will be filled with an inert gas to corrode the steel and prevent the reactor from being used again.

Newton tells RFE/RL that the U.S. Energy and State departments are discussing with Kazakh officials where to store the plutonium that has already been produced: "The Kazakhs have signaled their intention to store the fuel in northeastern Kazakhstan. But the [U.S.] State Department is still working with them in conjunction with the Department of Energy. And there are several options, and [there has been] a series of options studies. And, of course, our primary concern is the nuclear safety and security of the material that's coming out of the reactor."

Professor Josephson, who has visited nuclear power plants in the former Soviet Union, tells RFE/RL that from a geographic and economic point of view, the best place to store the produced nuclear fuel would be in Russia: "Kazakhstan recognizes this, that it's best not to have any plutonium within your borders, but to have it somewhere where it can be safeguarded. And I would think that Russian facilities are the best place, given the geographic location and the long-term experience."

The U.S. Department of Energy and other agencies have also been active in helping to secure Russian nuclear facilities but acknowledge there are still many sites that require safeguarding. One difficulty at a number of formerly secret sites is the unwillingness of Russian officials to give U.S. technicians access.

But experts on nonproliferation issues say the experience in Kazakhstan has been very positive. Shutting down Aktau's BN-350 reactor has been a collaborative effort involving technical personnel and financing from the United States, Kazakhstan, the European Union, Japan, and Britain. The IAEA has been instrumental in organizing much of the international cooperative effort.

Andrew Weiss is a fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York and former director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian affairs at the U.S. National Security Council. He tells RFE/RL that the Aktau shutdown project could serve as a model for international cooperation on nonproliferation issues: "The work at Aktau, I think, is just an illustration of the kind of cooperation that's developed. We've seen even in more sensitive circumstances -- like Operation Sapphire, where the United States helped secretly airlift a load of very sensitive material out of Kazakhstan -- that they are willing to do the right thing. I think that this kind of cooperation is something that's going to be enduring and hopefully continuing into the future."

Operation Sapphire involved the removal of 600 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium from Kazakhstan in 1994. Aside from collaborating on improving its nuclear facilities, Kazakhstan has also turned over all of its nuclear weapons.

Since declaring independence in 1991, Kazakhstan has returned to Russia all 1,410 nuclear warheads stored on its territory and closed the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, where 456 tests had been performed in the previous four decades.

-------- pakistan

2 Nuclear Experts Briefed Bin Laden, Pakistanis Say

By Kamran Khan and Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, December 12, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28540-2001Dec11?language=printer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Dec. 11 -- Two Pakistani nuclear scientists reportedly have told investigators they conducted long discussions about nuclear, chemical and biological weapons with accused terrorist Osama bin Laden in August in the Afghan capital of Kabul, according to Pakistani officials familiar with the interrogations of the men.

Pakistani intelligence officials said they believe that the two retired nuclear scientists -- who have been under questioning for more than two months -- used an Afghan relief organization partially as a cover to conduct secret talks with bin Laden.

The Pakistani officials characterized the discussions between the scientists and bin Laden as "academic" and said they have no evidence the information resulted in the creation or production of any type of weapon.

The reported admissions by Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, who held key appointments in each of Pakistan's three most important nuclear facilities, and his associate, Abdul Majid, represent a turnabout from their earlier claims that they met with bin Laden only to discuss their charitable endeavors in Afghanistan, according to the accounts provided by Pakistani intelligence authorities.

Mahmood and Majid, who are being detained at an undisclosed location, could not be reached to confirm the purported statements described by Pakistani officials. Because the interrogations are being conducted in secrecy, it is impossible to determine the nature of the investigatory techniques being used. Neither of the men has been charged with a crime.

Officials here said the Pakistani government is considering charging Mahmood and Majid with violating the national official secrets act, a crime that carries a seven-year jail term. It would be the first known case of a nuclear official charged with that offense, officials said.

Pakistani officials said Mahmood -- who had experience in uranium enrichment and plutonium production but was not involved in bomb-building -- had neither the knowledge nor the experience to assist in the construction of any type of nuclear weapon. The scientists were not believed to be experts in chemical or biological weaponry.

Pakistan has been under pressure from the U.S. government to pursue the investigation of the scientists' relationship with bin Laden at a time of heightened concerns by U.S. authorities that bin Laden may have acquired nuclear, biological or chemical materials, or weapons. The investigation was a major issue discussed during CIA Director George J. Tenet's recent visit to Pakistan, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials.

Though neither U.S. nor Pakistani officials say they have evidence that bin Laden has obtained any such material, intelligence agencies for both countries have indicated they believe he has sought it.

Pakistani officials familiar with the investigation said representatives of the CIA and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency are in contact almost daily concerning the investigation.

Pakistani authorities said Mahmood and Majid changed their accounts recently after they were presented with compelling evidence of their relationship with bin Laden. The evidence was provided to authorities here by the CIA, but Pakistani intelligence officials declined to describe it.

Mahmood and Majid reportedly met with bin Laden; his top lieutenant, Egyptian Ayman Zawahiri; and two other al Qaeda officials several times over two or three days in August at a compound in Kabul, the Pakistani officials said.

The scientists described bin Laden as intensely interested in nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

Mahmood and Majid said bin Laden indicated that he had obtained, or had access to, some type of radiological material that he said had been acquired for him by the radical Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. The scientists said they left the meetings believing that bin Laden had some such material, but Pakistani officials said they have been unable to verify those claims.

The scientists reportedly said bin Laden asked how the material could be made into a weapon or something usable. They also said they told him it would not be possible to manufacture a weapon with the material he might have.

Pakistani officials noted that organizations and individuals throughout South and Central Asia have frequently approached Pakistani officials offering to sell nuclear materials smuggled from nuclear facilities in former Soviet republics.

The scientists have insisted they provided no material or specific plans to bin Laden, but rather engaged in wide ranging "academic" discussions, Pakistani officials said.

"They spoke extensively about weapons of mass destruction," one Pakistani official said. The official described the scientists as "very motivated" and "extremist in their ideas," but added they were "discussing things that didn't materialize, but fall under the breaking secrets act."

U.S. officials recently have expressed concerns that bin Laden could have access to radiological materials that could be combined with conventional explosives to create a "dirty bomb." Though far less potent than a nuclear weapon, such a device could nonetheless contaminate several city blocks with radiation if exploded, according to experts.

Mahmood, who received one of Pakistan's highest civilian honors for nearly three decades of work in the country's nuclear programs specializing in uranium enrichment, was largely forced out of his job through a demotion in 1999. Officials were concerned about his vocal advocacy of producing an extensive amount of weapons-grade plutonium and enriched uranium to help equip other Islamic nations with nuclear arsenals.

After his departure, Mahmood continued to espouse his views in public speeches, and one friend recalled that Mahmood said his knowledge about Pakistan's nuclear program was a state secret, but not his expertise on enriching uranium and producing weapons-grade plutonium.

Majid worked for Pakistan's Atomic Energy Commission until 1999.

After Mahmood was forced out, he helped start an organization called Ummah Tameer-e-Nau (Islamic Reconstruction), which he described as a relief agency dedicated to construction and redevelopment projects in Afghanistan. The Pakistani government gave Mahmood and some of his associates, including Majid, permission to travel to Afghanistan three times this year, including one visit after the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and on the Pentagon, according to Pakistani officials.

Mahmood reportedly told investigators he met several times with Mohammad Omar, leader of the Taliban militia that then ruled Afghanistan, during a long visit to Kandahar in mid-summer. He is said to have discussed a flour mill his agency operated in Kandahar, as well as the need for alternative agricultural programs to persuade farmers to stop growing poppies for opium production. At one point in that visit, Omar introduced Mahmood to bin Laden, officials said.

Mahmood said he did not discuss any issues related to nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in his first meeting with bin Laden, describing it as an introductory encounter in which he discussed his relief program.

Mahmood and Majid returned to Afghanistan in August, traveling to Kabul, where they held extensive meetings with bin Laden and his associates, the officials said. Omar was not present at any of the sessions, they said.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the two scientists returned to Kandahar, where they met with Omar, but not with bin Laden, they said. The scientists said they never discussed nuclear, chemical or biological issues with Omar.

Pakistani authorities have detained or questioned at least seven members of Mahmood's relief agency in connection with the investigation, including two air force general officers, an army one-star general, a third nuclear scientist, a well-known Pakistani industrialist and at least one financial officer of the organization, according to Pakistani officials. The two air force officers, the third nuclear scientist and the industrialist have been released. The others remain in detention.

U.S. officials have long raised concerns about the safety of Pakistan's nuclear program and the reliability of some of its scientists. Pakistan is believed to have the materials to assemble between 30 and 40 warheads, and has test-fired intermediate-range missiles that potentially could be used to launch the warheads, according to intelligence reports and nuclear experts. Both Pakistan and neighboring India tested underground nuclear devices in 1998, and the two countries are viewed by many security experts as the globe's most worrisome nuclear flash point.

Khan reported from Karachi. Researcher Robert Thomason in Washington contributed to this report.

-------- russia

Russia PM Says Would Regret U.S. Withdrawal From ABM

December 12, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-arms-russia-usa.html?searchpv=reuters

BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov said on Wednesday his country would ``very much regret'' if the United States withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty.

The White House told congressional leaders the United States plans to withdraw from the pact viewed by Russia, European allies and Democrats as a cornerstone of international arms control, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said.

Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, said congressional leaders were informed of the decision at a meeting with President Bush and other White House officials.

A formal announcement could come as early as Thursday, a U.S. official said.

Kasyanov, who was visiting Brazil, said his government's position on a possible U.S. withdrawal from the treaty is well known.

``We would very much regret if they left the treaty,'' Kasyanov told journalists in Brasilia. ``What worries us is strategic stability.''

The Bush administration has said the time is near to move beyond the ABM treaty, which bars the kind of multibillion-dollar national missile defense system it wants to develop to protect the country and its allies from states such as North Korea and Iraq.

In Moscow on Wednesday the Interfax news agency quoted a senior Russian Foreign Ministry official as saying Moscow was aware of the U.S. intention and that it was ``not dramatizing this situation and will keep an attentive eye on the development of events.''

A formal U.S. move to withdraw requires six months' notice, so any announcement would signal the start of this period.

Secretary of State Colin Powell said Russia and the United States ``still have disagreements'' on ABM after talks in Moscow this week.

-------- sweden

Sweden sees Barseback reactor closure by end - 2003

Reuters:
12/12/2001
http://www.planetark.org/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=13672

STOCKHOLM - The Swedish parliament decided yesterday that the time was not yet ripe to close the Barseback 2 nuclear power reactor, but said the conditions required for its closure ought to be in place by the end of 2003.

The single-chamber legislature's decision was in line with the Social Democratic government's proposal to extend the life span of the 600-megawatt facility.

Sweden has earlier committed itself to phase out nuclear power and one of the two reactors at the Barseback plant was shut down in 1999.

Wednesday's decision not to close Barseback 2, yet, was based on conditions set by the house in 1997 stipulating that a closure must not raise electricity prices, reduce the supply of electricity to Swedish industry or harm the environment.

"The conditions are expected to be fulfilled at the latest by the end of 2003," the parliament said in a statement.

Denmark, where nuclear power is prohibited and whose capital Copenhagen lies in the immediate vicinity of Barseback across the narrow Oresund strait, has often criticised Sweden's repeated delays in closing the second reactor.

-------- terrorism

Cold War fears are revisited
'Dirty' bombs could spread radiation over wide area

By Ralph Ranalli,
Boston Globe
Staff and Michele Kurtz Globe Correspondent,
12/12/2001
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/346/metro/Cold_War_fears_are_revisitedP.shtml

By the time the Cold War ended in 1989, the billions of dollars that taxpayers had spent preparing for nuclear war seemed good for one thing: a few good yuks.

Cambridge Emergency Management director David O'Connor, in fact, maintains a sort of museum of the absurd from the age of fallout shelters, those rooms stocked with materials that once passed as preparation for the ultimate disaster. There's the 1960s-vintage protective tin hat, canisters of sodium bicarbonate for burns or upset stomachs, and his personal favorite: tin cans of pineapple-flavored candy sour balls labeled as emergency ''carbohydrates.''

Yet, amid news that terrorists have tried to obtain and use so-called ''dirty'' bombs that could spread radiation across entire cities, officials such as O'Connor aren't finding talk of radiation so funny anymore.

Local emergency planners across Massachusetts are now drawing up new disaster strategies, replacing 40-year-old Geiger counters, meeting with community groups and, in general, starting to take the threat of nuclear attack seriously again.

''It's a very serious situation we're in now,'' said Anthony Siciliano, acting director of Quincy's Emergency Management Agency. ''People are calling up all the time and asking, `Where is my bomb shelter?' and, `Where do I buy my mask?'''

Siciliano last week said he met with dozens of day care operators, who were anxious to know how to protect their children in case of a nuclear attack. In Newton, Mayor David Cohen this month ordered his emergency planning committee to rework the city's disaster plan to include new contingencies for radiological attack.

''We will develop a plan ... and come up with a thorough response,'' Cohen said.

Unfortunately, officials said, even with their renewed focus on mitigating the effects of a radioactive assault, the words they can offer residents aren't particularly comforting. Part of the reason that the nuclear preparedness in the past seems so inadequate, they said, is that there is so little that actually can be done in the event of a nuclear attack.

Of the two nuclear terrorism scenarios, the one city officials are most concerned about is the so-called ''dirty bomb'' - a relatively crude device that combines conventional explosives with radioactive material such as plutonium, uranium, or cobalt.

While far less dangerous than a fission explosion, such a bomb would spread radiation that could cause death, long-term illness, and genetic damage, depending on a victim's proximity to the blast and level of exposure.

If such a bomb were to go off, some communities no longer even have their own equipment to detect the radiation, and would have to rely on state hazardous materials teams instead.

Newton is one of those places, Fire Chief Edward J. Murphy said. For years, his department had an annual ritual of sending its radiation detector to US Army experts at Fort Devens to be recalibrated. When the facility closed, the machines had to be sent to a facility in the Midwest instead.

One year, they never came back, Murphy said, and since they were never used, nobody bothered to track them down.

Siciliano said a dirty bomb blast would be treated like other localized toxic disasters. The immediate area would be cordoned off, triage stations would be set up for the injured, and residents within a designated danger zone would be relocated to above-ground shelters on the other side of town.

The problem, officials said, would be the aftermath. Unlike other toxic spills, an area heavily contaminated with radiation might be unusable for tens, hundreds, even thousands of years.

If terrorists got hold of even a small nuclear bomb, the scenario would be exponentially bleaker, the experts said.

Though good-humored, O'Connor's impromptu museum - the remnants of what was once a vast system of hundreds of Cambridge fallout shelters tucked away in old subway tunnels, schools, and the basements of Harvard and MIT - is a study in the futility of nuclear disaster planning.

When he became director in 1984, O'Connor discovered tons of supplies, unused medical kits, even a small portable hospital - amassed in the 1950s but stored for decades. The pineapple sour balls alone weighed 21/2 tons.

Built in the '50s and '60s, the underground shelters in Cambridge could accommodate a total of 120,000 people. They were stocked with 30-pound drums of crackers, aspirin, penicillin, and 5,000-tablet bottles of phenobarbital, a sedative for citizens stressed out by a nuclear war.

By the mid-'70s, fallout shelters were no longer in vogue. Scientists found that they actually offered little more protection than buildings above ground.

Cities such as Cambridge stopped replacing old supplies. The shelters became dusty storage areas and were eventually cannibalized by city departments hungry for office and storage space. Eventually, the city donated most of the sour balls to nursing homes and fire departments. A local pig farm got the crackers to use for animal feed and the medical supplies went to Ecuador.

Officials think they recovered most of the medical kits, but warn people who might stumble upon one to call the Fire Department because they may contain ether, which could explode.

In the late 1970s, the government began pushing ''relocation plans'' which called for entire Boston-area municipal populations to pick up and move en masse to small towns in New Hampshire and Western Massachusetts - and were virtually guaranteed to produce instant gridlock and chaos, O'Connor said.

As the joke went, he said, it would be the responsibility of Cambridge officials to alert their citizens to flee, while the town fathers in Greenfield would rally citizens there to ''bomb all the bridges leading into town.''

Now, officials say that - in the unlikely event of a nuclear bomb threat - people should stay put in whatever shelter they can find close to home rather than trying to flee and create chaos. Or find a municipal shelter, but those are all gone, officials said.

In fact, the only nonmilitary, working, hardened shelter in Massachusetts is the state's own emergency bunker in Framingham. But only high-ranking officials can count on getting in.

In the end, the best preparedness for a true nuclear attack is to prevent one from happening in the first place.

''It's one thing we're not planning for much,'' said Murphy, the Newton fire chief. ''Really, what would you do?''

----

The First Line Against Terrorism

By Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin
Wednesday, December 12, 2001; Page A35
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28777-2001Dec11?language=printer

In the spring of 1946, J. Robert Oppenheimer was asked in a closed congressional hearing room "whether three or four men couldn't smuggle units of an [atomic] bomb into New York and blow up the whole city." The father of the atomic bomb answered, "Of course it could be done, and people could destroy New York."

When a nervous senator then asked how such a weapon smuggled in a crate or even a suitcase could be detected, Oppenheimer quipped, "With a screwdriver." A few years later, he persuaded the Atomic Energy Commission to write a top secret study on the dangers of nuclear terrorism. The document, known as the "Screwdriver Report," remains classified to this day. Our leaders realized then that there was no defense against such an attack and, because we were defenseless, chose to play down its possibility.

But on Sept. 11 Islamicist terrorists used knives and box-cutters to turn commercial aircraft into weapons of mass destruction. And then there was anthrax. The next time they could use spent nuclear reactor fuel wrapped in explosives. And if they are determined to sacrifice their own lives, the assassins will achieve a high degree of success.

Oppenheimer understood a half-century ago that by unlocking the power of the atom he and his colleagues had suddenly made the world a smaller place. That's why in 1946 he proposed banning nuclear weapons.

The globalization of science and technology has now reached a point where weapons of mass destruction really can be wielded by a handful of individuals. In such a world, our military prowess is our very last line of defense.

To our own peril in this interdependent world, we are foolishly squandering our first and strongest line of defense: the imponderable that the venerable World War II secretary of war, Henry L. Stimson, called our reputation for fair play. In this sense Sept. 11 was the ultimate failure of a foreign policy that has systematically sullied our reputation.

For a half-century our foreign policy establishment complacently assumed that America could act with impunity in the Third World. We fought the Cold War on Third World battlefields; the list of our interventions is staggering: Iran, Korea, Guatemala, Congo, Cuba, Vietnam, Chile, Nicaragua and, of course, the entire Middle East. Millions died.

In the decade since the collapse of the Soviet Union, our policymakers have pursued a "triumphalist" stance based on America's invincibility as "the world's only superpower." They told us that the smoldering ethnic and tribal conflicts in Bosnia, Rwanda, East Timor, Congo, Sudan, Chechnya, Afghanistan and dozens of other places were not America's business.

They were wrong. America needs a radically new foreign policy. The artificial Cold War dichotomy between realism and idealism must be abandoned. No foreign policy devoid of sound moral principles is realistic today. Even a "victory" in Afghanistan will do little to protect us from terrorists if we once again become complicit with authoritarian regimes that abuse their own people.

We need a smart foreign policy that addresses the underlying grievances that foster suicidal rage. We need to go back as a nation to where we were in 1945 -- before Hiroshima, before we took the road to a permanent national security state. Most Americans have no memory of the designs Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Dealers had for postwar American foreign policy. Human rights, self-determination, an end to colonization in the developing world, nuclear disarmament, international law, the World Court, the United Nations -- these were all ideas of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.

We need to return to this Rooseveltian vision of a foreign policy based on human rights. We need to encourage the weak and afflicted to take their grievances to the United Nations, the World Court and the new International Criminal Court. And that means we too must abide by U.N. and World Court decisions.

We desperately need to engage with the world -- and not just dominate it with dollars, cruise missile diplomacy and secret military courts. The billions we contemplate spending on missile defense should instead be invested to promote peace agreements and meet basic human needs in the world's poorest societies. And right now, we need to end our long illicit affair with nuclear weapons.

In 1948 Oppenheimer observed that nuclear weapons -- born in secrecy and designed as "unparalleled instruments of coercion" -- were by definition antithetical to a free society. And so paradoxically he insisted that even a nuclear-armed America must nevertheless remain loyal to two mutually interdependent ideals, the minimization of secrecy and coercion: "We seem to know, and seem to come back again and again to this knowledge, that the purposes of this country in the field of foreign policy cannot in any real or enduring way be achieved by coercion."

Kai Bird, a fellow at the Smithsonian's Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and Martin Sherwin, a professor of history at Tufts University, are writing a biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer.

--------

Nuclear Experts Briefed Bin Laden, Newspaper Says

December 12, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-attack-pakistan-scientists.html?searchpv=reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two detained Pakistani nuclear scientists have admitted they held wide-ranging discussions on nuclear, chemical and biological weapons with Osama bin Laden, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing Pakistani officials.

The officials characterized the talks between the two retired nuclear scientists and the Islamic extremist as ''academic'' and said they had no evidence the discussions resulted in the production of any weapons, the newspaper reported.

The scientists, who have been undergoing questioning for more than two months, had earlier claimed they met with bin Laden only to discuss Afghan relief efforts, the newspaper said, citing Pakistani intelligence authorities.

The newspaper cited Pakistani authorities as saying Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Abdul Majid changed their story recently after being confronted with compelling evidence of their relationship with bin Laden, the chief suspect in the Sept. 11 suicide aircraft attacks on the United States.

Mahmood and Majid reportedly told authorities bin Laden indicated he had obtained or had access to some type of radiological material. But Pakistani officials said they have been unable to verify those claims, the newspaper reported.

Pakistani officials told the Washington Post the scientists insisted they provided no materials or specific plans to bin Laden, but did hold wide-ranging ``academic'' discussions.

According to the report, the officials also said Mahmood had neither the knowledge nor the experience to assist in building any kind of nuclear bomb. The scientists were not believed to be experts in chemical or biological weaponry, the newspaper said.

Mahmood and Majid reportedly met with bin Laden and several of his top lieutenants over two to three days in August in the Afghan capital of Kabul, the newspaper said.

Neither of the men has been charged with a crime, but the Pakistani government is considering charging them with violating the national official secrets act, the Post reported. The two men were being held at an undisclosed location and could not be reached for comment, the newspaper said.

Pakistan has been under pressure from the U.S. government to investigate the scientists' relationship with bin Laden amid concern that the al Qaeda leader may have acquired nuclear, biological or chemical material or weapons.

-------- treaties

U.S. to pull out of Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty

December 12, 2001
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20011212-668152.htm

President Bush soon will give Russia a required six-month notice that the United States will withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which bans missile-defense systems, administration officials said yesterday.

Mr. Bush vowed in a speech at The Citadel military academy in Charleston, S.C., to "move beyond" the accord to clear the way for robust testing, and administration officials said the president's announcement could come as early as the next few days.

"The time is coming when we will need to move beyond the ABM Treaty," a National Security Council spokesman, Sean McCormack, told reporters traveling with Mr. Bush. "The president will let you know. The time is near."

Reports of imminent U.S. withdrawal from the pact were first circulated yesterday by the Russian Itar-Tass news agency, which quoted anonymous Russian sources as saying the United States would make the announcement as early as tomorrow.

Moscow, the reports said, had been informed of the decision by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell during his visit to the Russian capital Sunday. Mr. Powell said after meeting with President Vladimir Putin that the two sides "still have disagreements" on the treaty's future but would continue working on the issue.

Separately, Republican Senate sources told the Reuters news agency that Mr. Bush would give formal notice of abandoning the ABM Treaty in January.

Administration officials didn't deny those reports but cautioned against expectations of an official announcement tomorrow, saying it could happen in the next few days.

Mr. Bush pledged to scrap the accord during his election campaign last year, and his advisers repeatedly have called the treaty a relic of the Cold War. Russia has termed it "the cornerstone of strategic stability."

In his speech yesterday, the president said the treaty "was written in a different era, for a different enemy."

"America and our allies must not be bound to the past," he said. "We must be able to build the defenses we need against the enemies of the 21st century."

He argued that the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States have made the need for missile defense even more urgent and vigorous testing more important.

"Last week, we conducted another promising test of our missile-defense technology," Mr. Bush said. "For the good of peace, we are moving forward with an active program to determine what works and what does not work."

Russia, China and other countries, including U.S. allies, have warned that abandoning the ABM Treaty and building missile defenses would jeopardize the results of decades of arms control and trigger a new arms race. Critics of the plan also question its effectiveness and enormous cost.

But Mr. Putin has indicated that he is willing to work with Mr. Bush on reaching a broad agreement on a new strategic framework, which also would include reductions of both countries' nuclear stockpiles. The two leaders announced during Mr. Putin's visit to the United States last month that they would slash their arsenals by two-thirds over 10 years.

Unlike Washington, Moscow insists on a formal agreement in the form of a treaty. Such an accord is expected to be signed when Mr. Bush visits Russia next year.

According to some administration officials, Mr. Putin assured Mr. Bush during their November talks in Washington and in Crawford, Texas, that U.S.-Russia relations would not suffer even if Washington pulled out of the treaty.

In yesterday's speech, Mr. Bush called for enhanced cooperation with Moscow on nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Russia has become an important U.S. ally in the war on terrorism since September 11.

"Our two countries will expand efforts to provide peaceful employment for scientists who formerly worked in Soviet weapons facilities, and the United States will also work with Russia to build a facility to destroy tons of nerve agents," Mr. Bush said.

--------

INTERNATIONAL
U.S. to Pull Out of ABM Treaty, Clearing Path for Antimissile Tests

December 12, 2001
By DAVID E. SANGER and ELISABETH BUMILLER
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/12/international/12CND-MISS.html

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 - President Bush is expected to announce before the weekend that Washington will withdraw from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty in six months, the first time in modern history that the United States has renounced a major international accord.

Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Democratic leader, said today that Mr. Bush had informed him and three other Congressional leaders of his decision at a breakfast meeting.

The White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, noted today that "the president has said multiple times that he believes very strongly . . . the best way to promote the peace is to move beyond the A.B.M. treaty."

Mr. Fleischer offered no insight on the timing of an official announcement. "I expect you will hear from the president about that when the president is ready to say something," he said.

But he did nothing to discourage speculation that it is imminent, as other administration officials said on Tuesday.

The decision came after Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, visiting Moscow in recent days, was unable to bridge differences with Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, on how to deal with an arms control accord that Mr. Bush has called a "relic" of the cold war, and "dangerous." But Mr. Bush concluded last week that Secretary Powell's last effort would likely fail, and it appears that he gave warning of his intentions in a phone conversation with Mr. Putin on Friday.

The decision ends a raging debate within the administration over the wisdom of withdrawing from the treaty, and marks a major policy defeat for Secretary Powell. He has long maintained that it was still possible to negotiate an agreement with Russia that would allow the Pentagon to move forward with the kind of tests it insists are necessary to develop an antiballistic missile system initially capable of handling the launch of a handful of nuclear weapons at the United States.

At the same time, Mr. Bush's decision was a major victory for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, fresh from the success of the military campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Mr. Rumsfeld has countered that there is no technologically satisfying way to amend the accord that President Richard M. Nixon signed with the former Soviet Union nearly three decades ago.

In the end, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, sided with Mr. Rumsfeld, several administration and congressional officials said.

Mr. Bush made no mention of his decision when he gave a speech on the future of the American military on Tuesday at the the Citadel, the military college in Charleston, S.C. But he forcefully repeated his contention that the treaty is outdated, noting that last week the Pentagon conducted another "promising test" of missile defense technology.

"For the good of peace, we're moving forward with an active program to determine what works and what does not work," Mr. Bush told a cheering crowd of cadets. "In order to do so, we must move beyond the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty, a treaty that was written in a different era, for a different enemy."

The treaty allows either signatory to withdraw with six months' notice. If Mr. Bush goes ahead with his announcement this week, it would mean that the administration would be free to conduct any type of test it wants by mid-June. The Pentagon plans to start construction on silos and a missile defense command center at Fort Greely, Alaska, in late April or early May. The silos and center would initially be used for testing allowed by the treaty. But Russian officials note that part of the plan is for the "test bed" to become part of an operational missile-defense system. For that reason, some ABM experts contend that the work would violate the treaty.

Pentagon officials have also said they want to schedule tests in which ship-based radars track long-range missiles early next year. Such tests are not allowed under the treaty.

Aides say Mr. Bush hopes his announcement will prompt discussions with Russia on what kind of agreement should become the successor to the ABM treaty. Presumably that will be the focus of his expected trip to Moscow, his first, sometime next spring. Ms. Rice said after the last meeting between the two leaders, at Mr. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Tex., that the relationship between the two countries had been so strengthened that it could glide past the difference of opinion about the value of the treaty. "This is a smaller element of the U.S.-Russia relationship than it was several months ago and certainly than it was before Sept. 11," she said in Crawford.

At a meeting in Washington that preceded the Crawford summit by a day, Mr. Putin and his aides made it clear that while they were inclined to allow the United States to conduct antimissile tests despite the treaty, they wanted the right to approve each test of the system. "It was something we couldn't live with," a senior administration official said. "It would mean subjecting each test to separate scrutiny, and sooner or later they were going to say `no,' " one senior official said.

A senior administration official said on Tuesday that "the Russians won't like it, but the calculation is that they will learn to live with it, and they will quickly get beyond it. They've certainly known it's coming."

Another official later said, "In a way, the bigger question is how the Chinese will react." While China is not a signatory to the treaty, its arsenal of strategic nuclear weapons is so small - only 20 or so weapons can reach American shores - that Chinese officials fear that the arsenal would be neutralized by a modest American antimissile system built in Alaska or deployed on ships in the Pacific. That could prompt China to speed the modernization of its nuclear forces, something the White House believes it will do anyway.

In contrast, even when Russia reduces its nuclear arsenal to 1,500 or so weapons, a goal Mr. Putin has set, Russia would be able to overwhelm any antimissile system now on the Pentagon's drawing boards.

While White House officials maintain that strategic concerns, not politics, have always been at the heart of Mr. Bush's decision on the ABM treaty, it seems likely some major political calculations went into the timing.

Mr. Bush's approval ratings are as high as ever - nearly 9 out of 10 Americans say they approve of how he is handling his job, a New York Times/CBS News poll released late Tuesday reports - and 75 percent say they approve of how he is handling foreign policy. In the spring, only about half of those polled said they approved.

Other polls show that since Sept. 11, more Americans believe in the need for missile defense, even though the attacks three months ago used airplanes, not missiles. Mr. Bush has argued that the next attack could well come in a missile attack from a rogue state or terrorists.

But the critics of his plan are not persuaded. Many say that Sept. 11 proved that America's major vulnerabilities have little to do with missile attacks. And Senator Joseph R. Biden, Democrat of Delaware and the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, issued a statement Tuesday evening warning that "unilaterally abandoning the ABM treaty would be a serious mistake. The administration has not offered any convincing rationale for why any missile defense test it may need to conduct would require walking away from a treaty that has helped keep the peace for the last 30 years."

European leaders have also criticized American discussion of abandoning the treaty, saying before Sept. 11 that the administration's treatment of the treaty was a prime example of a worrisome move toward unilateralism. But now administration officials appear to be calculating that the European reaction will be muted, especially if European leaders do not want cracks to appear in the coalition against terrorism.

Mr. Bush's speech at the Citadel on Tuesday was, in many ways, a reprise of a 1999 address on military policy that he delivered there as a presidential candidate. The remarks served as both a marker of the three-month anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks and a call for a more agile, modern military.

The White House also used the event as a kind of "I told you so" about the threat of terrorism, a large theme of Mr. Bush's earlier speech. He warned Tuesday that "rogue states" were the most likely sources of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, and said that they would be regarded as "hostile regimes" if they aided terrorists. "They have been warned, they are being watched, and they will be held to account," the president said.

Mr. Bush cited the American military campaign in Afghanistan as a model for future wars, and said the United States needed to further develop unmanned planes, like the Predator, and precision-guided bombs. Both have been used in Afghanistan.

He also called for rebuilding "our network of human intelligence" as well as new intelligence-gathering technology. "Every day I make decisions influenced by the intelligence briefing of that morning," Mr. Bush said. "The last several months have shown that there is no substitute for good intelligence officers, people on the ground...

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

US nuclear plants face downtime for reactor cracks

Story by Leonard Anderson
Reuters
12/12/2001
http://www.planetark.org/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=13685

SAN FRANCISCO - The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has identified 13 atomic reactors that are developing tiny cracks that could seriously damage plant equipment and cause lengthy shutdowns for repairs.

The NRC, which licenses and oversees the nation's fleet of 103 nuclear plants, doesn't believe the cracks in gear that controls the rate of atomic fission in the reactors could release poisonous radiation into the atmosphere, said Victor Dricks, a spokesman for the NRC.

Instead, the chief headache is an economic one for the plant owners because complex inspections and repairs could idle a reactor - and shut off sales of electricity - for weeks, according to utility officials. Nuclear plants produce about one-fith of the nation's electricity.

The hairline cracks in the reactor heads are believed to be caused by stress and corrosion triggered by high temperatures and pressure inside the reactors combined with years of producing electricity, according to the NRC.

Akron, Ohio-based FirstEnergy Corp.'s 935-megawatt Davis Besse nuclear plant in Ohio was one of the 13 units the NRC identified as having the cracks or being "highly susceptible" to them, said Dricks.

The plant was scheduled to shut in April for refueling and maintenance work, but the work was moved up to February at the NRC's request.

Richard Wilkins, a spokesman for FirstEnergy Nuclear Operations, said the company hoped to complete the work in 35 to 40 days.

CRACKS IN REACTOR NOZZLES

The NRC investigation focused on metal alloy nozzles on 69 pressurized water reactors. Equipment known as control rods pass through the nozzles atop the "head" of the reactor.

By raising or lowering rods of neatly stacked cylindrical uranium pellets, the control rods regulate the intensity of the atomic reaction taking place inside the reactor core.

Pressurized water reactors typically have from 50 to 100 nozzles atop each reactor head.

Cracks have appeared in the past along the length of the nozzles, but the NRC did not consider they needed immediate attention. Inspections and repairs usually were made during routine maintenance outages.

Earlier this year, however, circular cracks around the nozzle width began to show up, raising a "potentially significant" safety concern, the NRC said in a bulletin sent to plant operators in August.

Circular cracks are difficult to find, and plants may need to do inspections with the help of fiber optic cameras to pinpoint all of them, according to the NRC.

The regulators' main worry is that a nozzle with circular cracks could separate from the reactor head, causing debris to fall into the fuel core and rupture cooling tubes and damage other power equipment, in turn allowing water to escape from the main plant cooling system.

"It's like a leak in your car radiator. The system is under high pressure, so a break will cause coolant to leak out. You have to shut down the plant to find out what's going on," said a utility official.

Exelon Nuclear's 786-megawatt Three Mile Island 1 unit in Pennsylvania, one of the 13 plants, had to extend a refueling outage expected to be finished in mid-November by about three weeks for more work, inspection and tests on the nozzles and two steam generators.

Three Mile Island owner AmerGen Energy is a joint venture between Exelon Corp. , of Chicago, and British Energy Plc of Scotland.

The NRC's list also includes Virginia Power Co.'s 800-megawattt Surry 1 and 921-megawatt North Anna 2 plants in Virginia. Virginia Power, a unit of Richmond, Virginia-based Dominion , is making the repairs, Dricks said.

-------- colorado

Critics Say Colorado Radiation Cleanup Will Leave Overly Contaminated Soil

Wednesday, December 12, 2001
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.sltrib.com/12122001/nation_w/157501.htm
http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/12/12122001/ap_45864.asp

WASHINGTON -- The government is spending $7 billion to decontaminate a former nuclear weapons plant in Colorado and turn it into a wildlife refuge. But critics said Tuesday that the cleanup will still leave the soil too polluted.

Legislation before Congress would officially designate the Rocky Flats site, 15 miles northwest of Denver, a wildlife refuge after cleanup is completed.

Rocky Flats is contaminated with tons of plutonium and other radioactive materials, in buildings and in the soil, after years of weapons work. The Energy Department and its civilian contractor will decide early next year how clean the site should become.

A report by the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research contends that the residual contamination levels being considered by the government are 40 times greater than what would be allowed if the land is used for something other than a wildlife refuge.

The report by IEER, a research group long involved in nuclear watchdog activities, contends that designating the area a wildlife refuge will allow the cleanup to be less stringent.

Whatever the final standard, "We will provide a safe and effective cleanup of Rocky Flats," said Jeremy Karpatkin, spokesman for the Energy Department.

The government already has spent nearly $3 billion on the cleanup, and will spend another $4 billion over the next five years, he said.

-------- nevada

Nevada will ask court to stop Energy Department decision on nuclear waste site

Wednesday, December 12, 2001
By H. Josef Hebert,
Associated Press
http://www.enn.com/news/wire-stories/2001/12/12122001/ap_45862.asp

WASHINGTON - Nevada officials will ask the federal courts to block a decision on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site, claiming the Energy Department has abandoned a congressional mandate that the site's natural geology must protect the public from radiation.

Instead, the Nevada officials say, the latest design for the waste burial ground, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, relies "nearly 100 percent" on engineered barriers to assure the waste's isolation.

The design amounts to "a glorified waste package" that could be deemed scientifically suitable "even if sited on the shores of Lake Tahoe," Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican, wrote Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.

The salvo is only the latest in the increasingly bitter confrontation between Nevada officials and the Bush administration over the proposed nuclear repository. It is supposed to hold thousands of tons of used reactor fuel now kept at nuclear power plants in 31 states. If given the go-ahead, it is scheduled to open in 2010.

Early next year Abraham is expected to recommend to President Bush that the site be approved, although department officials emphasized Tuesday that no decision has been made by Abraham so far.

Robert Loux, the Nevada governor's top adviser on the nuclear waste site, said in an interview that Nevada will file a lawsuit next week, possibly Monday, and ask the court to block Abraham from making a recommendation.

The Nevada lawsuit will argue that the Energy Department has failed to follow the legal requirement that the waste site rely almost exclusively on its natural geology to safeguard the waste, including radioisotopes that will remain highly radioactive for more than 10,000 years.

Instead, the state argues, the Energy Department is incorporating numerous engineered barriers to counter shortcomings in the site's geology. "The notion that geological features must be the primary form of containment is ... explicitly required" by the 1982 law that is the basis for developing a nuclear waste repository, Guinn wrote.

Energy Department officials dismissed the state's latest threat of legal action and strongly defended the use of both geology and engineered barriers. "We're not relying specifically on engineered barriers to meet the regulations. We are looking at the scientific evidence of both the geological and engineered barriers together to determine the site's suitability," said DOE spokesman Joe Davis. "One doesn't outweigh the other. They both work hand in hand," said Davis. The department contends that Congress in 1992 cleared the way for use of a "total system performance" approach to safeguarding the waste.

But Loux said that Congress also envisioned that the site's geology "be the primary barrier" to isolate the waste and that the approach by the Energy Department "does not even come close to being in compliance the law."

In recent years, the scientists and engineers working on the Yucca Mountain project have incorporated more human-made protective devices. For example, after concern was raised about the possible effect of water moving through the rocks, stronger and more corrosion-resistant canisters were added to the design. Drip shields were added to keep water from hitting the waste once the containers begin to disintegrate hundreds of years from now.

An alternative design spreads out the canisters to deal the impact of high temperatures on surrounding rocks.

These improvements only add to the site's safeguards and do not detract from the fact that "the mountain performs pretty well" in protecting the waste, said Marvin Fertel, a vice president for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's trade association.

-------- tennessee

Nuclear response team is suddenly silent

By Frank Munger,
News-Sentinel Senior writer
December 12, 2001
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/opinion_columnists/article/0,1406,KNS_364_905404,00.html

In the three months since Sept. 11, much has been written about the future of terrorism - with speculation that the next big threat may come from crudely fashioned nuclear weapons or explosives that splatter radioactive debris all over the place.

If there is a nuclear terrorism attack, you can bet the Radiation Emergency Assistance Center/Training Site (REACT) will be integrally involved in the response. But the Oak Ridge institution has been unusually low key this fall and that's by design, not wishing to draw attention to its work or potential role in terrorism response.

Whatever discussions are taking place behind the scenes regarding strategies or preparations, the folks at REACTS aren't sharing those publicly.

"Because of the heightened security, we're just being extra cautious," spokeswoman Pam Bonee said.

The radiation experts have turned down interview requests from a number of major news organizations, including such notables as "60 Minutes" and - ahem - The Knoxville News-Sentinel.

REACTS is a part of the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education and is funded largely by the U.S. Department of Energy. It also collaborates with the World Health Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

"The center's specially trained team of physicians, nurses, health physicists, radiobiologists and emergency coordinators is prepared around the clock to provide assistance on either the local, national or international level," according to info on the Web site for Oak Ridge Associated Universities, which manages the institute for DOE.

In the event of an accident or attack, the Oak Ridge center would provide a medical response in support of other emergency units - such as NEST (Nuclear Emergency Search Team), RAP (Radiological Assistance Program) and FRMAC (Federal Radiological Monitoring and Assessment Center).

The Oak Ridge staff, headed by Dr. Robert Ricks, has taught radiation-response courses for hundreds of physicians and other medical specialists at hospitals in the United States and many other countries.

FEAR OF FLYING: Gene Hoffman, a retired Energy Department official, is concerned that DOE hasn't evaluated the potential consequences of a large airplane crash at sites where thousands of containers of depleted uranium hexafluoride are stored.

About 14,000 cylinders of depleted UF6 are stored outdoors at DOE's K-25 Site in Oak Ridge, and even greater numbers are housed at facilities in Paducah, Ky., and Portsmouth, Ohio.

Hoffman is pushing the government to include such a worst-case scenario in the environmental impact statement for a project that will convert the uranium compounds to a more stable chemical form for long-storm storage or disposal.

He said he first raised the issue a couple of years ago and those concerns were amplified by the events of Sept. 11.

An airplane crash would likely rupture many of the thin-walled containers and result in a massive release of fluorides and other toxic materials into the atmosphere, Hoffman said.

"It would be a very serious problem," he said.

BADGE OF COURAGE: Among the winners at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Awards Night was Kathy Rosenbalm, executive secretary for the Spallation Neutron Source.

Rosenbalm received the Secretarial Support Award for "unparalleled administrative competence, strong leadership and an unfailing cheerful attitude."

I can testify to Rosenbalm's cheerful attitude because she's even pleasant to members of the news media, and that can be thankless effort.

Here's an example:

A couple of years ago, while I was visiting the SNS project office for an interview with then-Executive Director David Moncton, Rosenbalm inadvertently gave me a partial copy of a draft report - a report I apparently wasn't supposed to see. I returned that draft report in order to get the rest of another report I had actually requested, but I later - of course - requested the full draft report I had seen only briefly.

This didn't sit well with the SNS leadership, and Moncton argued mightily that I shouldn't have access to a draft report on the project's progress. But eventually, after some prodding by DOE, he released the report.

I don't know this for a fact, but I have every reason to believe that Rosenbalm got chewed out for the mix-up which led to a news story some folks didn't want to see.

Whether she did or did not, her demeanor never changed in subsequent encounters. She was pleasant as ever, and it's hard not to applaud that kind of professionalism.

I add my congratulations for the deserved award.

-------- washington

Memo renews concerns about Hanford cleanup

By Linda Ashton
The Associated Press
Wednesday, December 12, 2001
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=hanford12m&date=20011212

YAKIMA - A U.S. Department of Energy memorandum on the treatment of radioactive waste has raised questions again about the federal government's commitment to cleaning up the Hanford nuclear reservation.

"I think the jury's still out on this one," Sheryl Hutchison, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Ecology, one of Hanford's regulators, said yesterday.

The Nov. 19 memo from Energy Department cleanup chief Jessie Roberson to the agency's budget officer was distributed last week at a meeting of the Hanford Advisory Board in Portland.

In it, Roberson recommends eliminating plans to turn into glass - or vitrify - at least 75 percent of the high-level radioactive waste targeted for vitrification at Energy Department complexes.

It goes on to suggest that at least two "proven, cost-effective" solutions be devised for treating high-level radioactive waste.

But it's not clear exactly what that would mean for Hanford, where the Energy Department is to begin construction next year on a huge complex to turn radioactive waste into glass cylinders for permanent storage.

The Energy Department's Office of River Protection, which oversees the vitrification project at Hanford, referred questions to agency headquarters.

Plans and deadlines for cleaning up 25 percent of radioactivity in the 53 million gallons of radioactive waste stored in underground tanks at Hanford already have been negotiated, Hutchison said. But the idea of having the 177 tanks emptied and all the waste vitrified by 2028 is still to be negotiated, she said.

"So we're looking at this memo with a lot of questions," she said. "It could be the Energy Department is starting the planning process on the other 75 percent of waste. It might be a good thing, or it's a start of the war over that remaining waste."

Vitrification is an important issue at Hanford because 60 percent of the nation's high-level radioactive waste is stored at the 560-square-mile desert site, where plutonium was made for nuclear weapons for 46 years.

The lethal waste is stored in aging tanks that have leaked more than 1 million gallons, contaminating groundwater and threatening the Columbia River.

Hutchison said if the Energy Department is considering some other technology for treating the high-level radioactive waste, the Ecology Department needs more information on it.

Nationally, the Energy Department wants to cut $100 billion and 30 years from current estimates that it would take 70 years and $300 billion to clean up the waste at its nuclear sites.

Just last month, President Bush signed a bill that would keep Hanford's cleanup plans on schedule through next fall. The $1.8 billion allocated for Hanford is an increase from the administration's original budget proposal of $1.4 billion.

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., was "just absolutely livid" last week when she learned the Energy Department might try again to cut funding for Hanford cleanup after she fought this year to preserve the $400 million the administration wanted to cut out of the new budget, said her press secretary, Todd Webster.

"This memo indicates that they are back at it," Webster said.

In a subsequent statement, Murray said: "The people living near Hanford made a sacrifice to win World War II and the Cold War. Now, this administration wants to sacrifice the people living near Hanford. It is morally reprehensible."

U.S. Rep. Richard "Doc" Hastings, R-Yakima, said he had been assured by senior Energy Department officials that the administration is committed to seeing Hanford's vitrification plant built and ready for processing waste by 2007.

Hastings said he had "made clear to DOE officials that any delay is unacceptable and would violate the federal government's legal obligations in the Tri-Party Agreement," the 1989 pact by the state, Energy Department and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency governing Hanford cleanup.

-------- us politics

Military tribunals hearing - 9:30 a.m. -

December 12, 2001
Washington Times Daybook
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011212-549099.htm

Senate Armed Services Committee holds a hearing on the Defense Department's implementation of the President's military order on detention, treatment and trial by a military commission of certain noncitizens in the war on terrorism. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld or Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz will testify. Location: 325 Russell Senate Office Building. Contact: 202/224-3871.


-------- MILITARY

-------- afghanistan

Tribal Commanders Make New Offer for Al Qaeda Surrender

New York Times
December 12, 2001
By JOHN KIFNER
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/12/international/12CND-AFGH.html

TORA BORA, Afghanistan, Dec. 12 - Afghan tribal commanders set a new deadline today for the surrender of Osama bin Laden's embattled fighters trapped in the snowcapped mountains here after efforts to arrange a turnover of weapons this morning broke down.

They also demanded that the top terrorist suspects turn themselves in, a demand that has been consistently pressed by United States military officials.

As American bombers continued to pound a desolate canyon where Al Qaeda fighters are hiding out, leaders of the tribal eastern alliance gave Mr. bin Laden's men until noon on Thursday to surrender.

The alliance said any surrender would be rejected if it did not include Al Qaeda leaders, which would include Mr. bin Laden and others on Washington's list if they are indeed somewhere among the caves and tunnels of Tora Bora.

"But we don't know where Osama is," said Ghafar, the mayor of the nearby city of Jalalabad, who like some Afghans uses only one name.

He said Mr. bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, might be hiding in thick alpine forest along the nearby border with Pakistan. Other leaders might have escaped during the failed cease-fire attempt overnight, he said.

The Pentagon has said many times that it does not want to see a deal that lets Al Qaeda leaders go free. "We have made it very clear what our intents are," the Pentagon spokeswoman, Victoria Clarke, said today.

A senior military officer in Washington said on Tuesday that United States intelligence had intercepted radio communications among Al Qaeda forces talking about Mr. bin Laden's location in the Tora Bora area.

"He's in a shrinking area," the officer said, "and the sense is, he's going higher and deeper into his complex of caves and tunnels." But his exact whereabouts today were clearly not known.

Although a turnover of weapons had been scheduled for 8 a.m. local time, the morning began in confusion as opposition fighters, at first resting on the hillsides, began racing up and down the dirt tracks in pickup trucks stuffed with weapons.

Cmdr. Hajji Mohammad Zaman frantically waved back international journalists who had gathered near forward positions to witness the supposed surrender.

Al Qaeda fighters holed up around Tora Bora demanded to be handed over to the United Nations in the presence of diplomats from their respective countries, the Afghan Islamic Press reported.

As the bombing resumed this morning, the first big plume of dirty smoke appeared over the mountain peaks. Quickly, the sky was streaked with the white contrails of B-52 bombers and other high-flying American planes.

Afghan tribal forces backed by American bombs and commandos had forced their way up the slopes of the mountain redoubt of Al Qaeda on Tuesday, driving the besieged troops to negotiate a surrender and apparently pushing Mr. bin Laden deeper into retreat.

With the breakdown in negotiations, mujahedeen fighters moved back south up the valley toward their old positions.

American bombing and strafing by AC-130 gunships had continued through Tuesday night. As morning broke, a B-52 bomber circled lazily overhead, but by 9:30 a.m. it had dropped two loads of bombs.

At least some of the foreign fighters recruited by Mr. bin Laden could be heard pleading for mercy over their radios after a morning of heavy shelling on Tuesday and fierce ground combat in the bare brown hills. The fighting left parts of the area once held by Al Qaeda a shambles of shattered stone bunkers, gaping shell holes and scraps of military equipment.

Dozens of Al Qaeda fighters were killed on Monday when the Americans dropped a huge 15,000-pound bomb near entrances to the caves, a senior military officer said in Washington. The bomb explodes just off the ground and sends fire and shards laterally over a wide area.

Thousands of Pakistani soldiers have been deployed on the mountains, which soar to 15,000 feet, and in valleys along the border in a bid to cut off escape routes for Mr. bin Laden and his fighters, Pakistani military officials said on Tuesday.

The Pakistan Army normally maintains a very low profile on the border, which is governed by semi-autonomous tribal authorities. But the government has negotiated an agreement with tribal leaders to increase border security.

In a sign that the American military command fears that Al Qaeda leaders may try to flee into Pakistan, AC-130 gunships teamed with unmanned Predator reconnaissance drones prowled the mountainous border on Tuesday.

At Tora Bora, tank, rocket and machine-gun fire echoed through the valleys on Tuesday until a cease-fire was called over the radios just after noon to begin surrender negotiations. "They said, `We don't want to fight with you; we surrender,' " said Commander Zaman, the defense minister of the region around Jalalabad, the main city in eastern Afghanistan.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said on Tuesday that the United States expected to take custody of a relatively small number of Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders, if they are captured alive. "Not hundreds" was how he characterized the number of such potential prisoners.

"Whether we hold these detainees in Afghanistan, as we may in some cases; put them aboard ships at sea, as we may in some cases; return them to their countries of origin for punishment, as we may in some cases; or whether we bring some back to the United States, which we may well do, we will in every case attempt to do it the right way," Mr. Rumsfeld said. He did not elaborate.

The attack by the Afghan tribesmen began early Tuesday morning and was backed around 10 a.m. by a heavy American barrage from the air. There was little return fire from Al Qaeda troops, who had repulsed earlier attacks by the tribal forces with well-aimed mortar fire. There were no casualties known on the Afghan side and apparently only a few among Al Qaeda troops.

The fighting on Tuesday appeared to have been joined by a small force of Special Operations commandos. Helicopters were heard flying low over the area on Monday night, apparently to land troops or equipment.

An Afghan tank crew member named Safaiullah said he saw a helicopter land and unload a number of armed Americans, who got into a convoy of six pickup trucks. Several other people also reported seeing Americans in the truck convoy.

One result of the American bombing could be seen on the strategic ridge line above the valley that the tribal fighters captured on Monday, at the start of their offensive.

For several hundred yards around a bomb crater, the trees were mere black stubs, scorched and limbless. A bullet-riddled pickup truck had its paint burned off to the gray metal. Scraps of clothing and a few shredded pieces of paper with Arabic script indicated that this had once been the site of some kind of Al Qaeda camp.

At midday Tuesday, the local warriors picked apart the half-destroyed pickup truck with jacks, wrenches and makeshift tools, ripping it up for spare parts. Others rooted through the rubble near the crater with sticks, searching, quite successfully, for unexpended cartridges.

-------- business

Lobbyists Are Boeing's Army, Washington Its Battlefield

New York Times
December 12, 2001
By JAMES DAO with LAURA M. HOLSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/12/business/12BOEI.html?searchpv=nytToday&pagewanted=all

WASHINGTON, Dec. 11 - Staggered by the loss of the largest military contract in history and the collapse of the commercial airline market, Boeing (news/quote) has sharply intensified its efforts in Congress and the Pentagon to win an array of other big-ticket military contracts.

Mobilizing an armada of well-connected lobbyists, sympathetic lawmakers and Air Force generals, the company argues that by financing its contracts Congress would reduce the need for thousands of layoffs and help keep Boeing, the second-largest military contractor, healthy in a time of war.

"You've got the nation's leading exporter, and one of its leading military contractors, who has been hit hard," said Representative Norm Dicks, a Washington State Democrat who has led the charge for Boeing on Capitol Hill. "We can really help them."

The push underscores a broader trend for Boeing, company officials and analysts say. The company, with most of its production in the Seattle area, has suffered a sharp downturn in commercial aircraft business, which last year generated two-thirds of its $51.3 billion in sales. Boeing is expected to announce this week that production of its 717 commercial airliner will be cut by half, to as little as one plane a month from two, company executives said. As recently as a month ago, analysts predicted that the company would end all 717 production, in part because the Sept. 11 attacks have slowed demand for commercial jets.

As a result, Boeing is looking more than ever to its military and space divisions to bolster sagging revenue.

Last week, it won a big lobbying battle when the Senate approved a sharply contested plan for Boeing to lease to the Air Force 100 new 767 wide- body jets for use as refueling tankers and reconnaissance planes. The proposal next goes before a House-Senate conference committee.

At an estimated cost of more than $20 billion over 10 years, that plan has been attacked as a costly corporate bailout by critics led by Senator John McCain, a Republican from Arizona. But supporters say that it would not only significantly offset Boeing's loss of orders from ailing commercial airlines but also help the Pentagon by accelerating the replacement of aging midair refueling tankers and reconnaissance aircraft that both have been worn down by heavy use in the war in Afghanistan.

"Near term, it's a very nice financial salve to an immediate wound," said Howard Rubel, a military industry analyst at Goldman Sachs (news/quote).

The 767 plan is just one of several major Pentagon programs that Boeing is prodding Congress to sustain, expand or accelerate. The company is the lead contractor on more than a dozen major contracts accounting for well over $10 billion in the 2002 Pentagon budget alone. Those include the F/A-18 fighter jet for the Navy, the V-22 Osprey tilt- rotor aircraft for the Marine Corps, the AH-64 Apache Longbow helicopter for the Army and the airborne laser for the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense Organization.

In addition, Boeing has been trying for years to become the dominant player in an array of new businesses, including unpiloted aircraft, battlefield and cockpit communications, surveillance technology and precision-guided munitions. The war on terrorism has only underscored the Pentagon's need for more of those systems, Boeing and its allies assert.

"What we're about to see was the reason for the merger with McDonnell Douglas in the first place," said Gerald E. Daniels, president of Boeing's military aircraft and missile systems division. "With the cyclical nature of the commercial business, building strong military and space units serves to tamp down those gigantic swings."

In 1999, two years after the merger with McDonnell Douglas, Boeing delivered 620 commercial aircraft, for revenue of $38.5 billion. By next year, analysts estimate, deliveries are expected to tally only 367, with revenue down to $26 billion.

The collapse in the commercial market resulted, of course, from the suicide hijacking attacks of Sept. 11. Air travel plummeted and airlines canceled dozens of jet orders, prompting Boeing to announce plans to lay off 30,000 workers over the next two years.

Just when it seemed Boeing's fortunes could not be worse, in October the Pentagon awarded a $200 billion contract for the Joint Strike Fighter to Boeing's larger rival, Lockheed Martin. The stealthy jet is expected to become the mainstay fighter for the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps in the next two decades, raising doubts about Boeing's future in the tactical fighter business.

Those events sent Boeing reeling. But like battle-tested generals on the retreat, Boeing executives swiftly moved to recover their losses in a time-tested Washington way: wooing Congress and the Pentagon to support other contracts.

Few companies can rival Boeing's influence in the capital. Its Washington office, headed by Rudy F. de Leon, the deputy secretary of defense in the final year of the Clinton administration, employs 34 in-house and more than 50 outside lobbyists.

One of the Boeing lobbyists' first moves after Sept. 11 was to prod the Air Force to reconsider the 767 lease deal, which had stalled months before. Though the Air Force has said it plans to replace its 40-year-old KC- 135 tankers in the next decade or two, it has preferred to spend its money on elite fighter jets like the F-22.

But the war in Afghanistan has kept dozens of KC-135's in the air almost constantly, putting pressure on the Air Force to accelerate its replacement program. James Roche, the secretary of the Air Force, and Gen. John P. Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff, signed onto the lease-purchase idea because it would spread the cost out into the future, Pentagon documents show.

Boeing next had to break down resistance to lease arrangements in Congress. According to one internal Pentagon study, a lease-purchase deal for 100 767's would cost 15 percent more than simply buying the planes. Moreover, federal rules discourage such deals by requiring that most of the entire contract cost be paid in the first year. To get around that, Boeing proposed having the Air Force simply lease the aircraft without a purchase option. But that would not cover the cost of adapting them for refueling and surveillance, or of ultimately buying them, as the Air Force is expected to do.

The company recruited the Congressional delegations from Washington and Missouri - the two states where it assembles most of its aircraft - to support the plan. And in the Senate, it found a powerful ally in Ted Stevens of Alaska, the ranking Republican on the Appropriations Committee, who is a fan of lease- purchase deals for the military.

Boeing lobbyists with Congressional experience - including Mr. de Leon, who also was a staff director for the House Armed Services Committee, and Denny Miller, a former chief of staff to the late Senator Henry M. Jackson of Washington - helped negotiate the lease language.

With Senator Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, the Boeing president, Philip A. Condit, has repeatedly met with senior lawmakers like Daniel Inouye, the chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on the military, and the Senate majority leader, Thomas Daschle. Last week, Mr. Condit returned to discuss the deal with several leading skeptics in the House, including the speaker, J. Dennis Hastert, and Representative Jerry Lewis of California, the influential chairman of the House subcommittee on defense appropriations.

A spokesman for Mr. Lewis, Jim Specht, said the congressman remained undecided on the lease deal, but added: "There is the concern that because of the Joint Strike Fighter contract, something has to be done to make sure we support all of our industrial base."

All that work, however, did not win over Senator McCain, who last week accused Boeing of "playing victim, blaming its own job cuts, many of which occurred before Sept. 11, on the tragedy itself."

Boeing seems to have won Congressional support for accelerating purchases of C-17's, the all-purpose cargo planes it builds in Long Beach, Calif., at a former McDonnell Douglas plant. Last spring, Boeing formally asked that the Pentagon buy 60 more planes at a cost of about $150 million each. Without that increase, the Long Beach production line is scheduled to close later this decade.

Boeing has also tried to wiggle its way into the strike fighter deal. The company has quietly hinted that it could urge Congress to buy more unmanned aircraft or its F/A-18 to take the place of Navy and Air Force versions of the Joint Strike Fighter if Lockheed did not agree to give it a substantial piece of the work.

It has urged Senator Christopher S. Bond, a Missouri Republican, to continue promoting legislation requiring Lockheed to split the strike fighter work with Boeing. Senator Bond withdrew his bill for lack of support, but on Friday he won Senate funds for a study into whether the Pentagon should have two manufacturers of tactical fighter aircraft.

"I want to make sure we maintain that production line in St. Louis, because it's in the national interest," Mr. Bond said in an interview.

Lockheed, however, notes that it already has two major partners, the British military contractor BAE Systems (news/quote) and Northrop Grumman. "There is only so much work to go around," said Charles Thomas Burbage, director of the fighter project for Lockheed.

Boeing, with the help of Senator Bond and Representative Richard A. Gephardt, the House Democratic leader, who comes from the St. Louis area, is also pushing the Navy to replace its aging EA6-B Prowler radar-jamming planes with an electronic-warfare version of the F-18, a move that could help keep Boeing's St. Louis plant open longer.

Unmanned aircraft are another focus of Boeing lobbying. Last month, Boeing organized a new division headed by a senior executive from its strike fighter program, Mike Heinz, to help it expand into a market the company estimates will top $1 billion a year.

Boeing is already building a prototype unmanned fighter for the Air Force, a project that many industry officials say is Boeing's to lose. At a recent meeting of industry executives, Darleen A. Druyun, the principal deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition and management, spoke glowingly about the future of unmanned aerial vehicles.

"I see a very bright future for Boeing when it comes to aviation," she said, "particularly in the areas of UAV's and in sales of C-17's."

-------- iraq

Panel Passes Iraq Resolution

December 12, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Congress-Iraq.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Iraq's refusal to allow U.N. weapons inspectors into the country presents a mounting threat to the United States and its allies, according to a House International Relations Committee resolution.

The committee vote Wednesday came days after President Bush warned Iraq it would be held accountable if it developed weapons of mass destruction, and amid public debate over whether Saddam should be the next target in the war against terrorism.

The resolution, now headed for the full House, said Iraq should allow U.N. weapons inspectors ``immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access'' and refusal to do so ``presents a mounting threat to the United States, its allies and international peace and security.''

Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill., said there is every reason to believe that Saddam has rebuilt his nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs since he stopped allowing inspections in 1998.

The events of Sept. 11 ``demonstrate the severity of this threat to the United States,'' Hyde said.

Time was running out for the Iraqi leader, said Rep. Tom Lantos of California, the top Democrat on the committee. ``Saddam Hussein has one last chance to comply,'' he said.

The resolution writers toned down original language that said keeping out weapons inspectors ``should be considered an act of aggression against the United States,'' and stressed that they were not authorizing the president to use military force against Saddam.

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, the single holdout in the 32-1 vote, said it still went too far. ``It's jingoistic, it talks about confrontation,'' he said, asking why the United States singles out Iraq for attack when it tries to promote dialogue in other world disputes.

The Iraqi government agreed to weapons inspections as part of its acceptance of terms ending the Gulf War in 1991. The United States accused Iraq of withholding documents and otherwise impeding the inspections until they were finally halted in 1998.

The bill is H.J. Res. 75
On the NET:
International Relations Committee: http://www.house.gov/international--relations/

-------- israel

Palestinian Militants Attack Israeli Bus and Gaza Settlement

New York Times
December 12, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Palestinians fired on an Israeli bus in the West Bank, and suicide bombers set off their explosives in the Gaza Strip in near simultaneous attacks outside Jewish settlements Wednesday, killing eight people and wounding at least 25.

Israel was expected to respond harshly for the attacks.

``We are facing a campaign of terror,'' said Israeli Cabinet Minister Tsipi Livni, adding that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has done little to stop the attacks.

The eight were killed in the bus attack, which took place at about 6 p.m., as the unarmored vehicle was on a winding uphill road approaching the Jewish settlement of Emmanuel in the West Bank, about 25 miles north of Jerusalem.

Police said a roadside bomb exploded as the bus passed, causing casualties among the passengers. Capt. Jacob Dallal, an Israeli army spokesman, said gunmen then opened fire from surrounding hills, both on the bus and on rescue crews that rushed to the scene in the darkness.

Dallal said eight people were killed and between 25 and 30 were injured in the attack.

At virtually the same time, two suicide bombers blew themselves up near the Gush Katif settlement bloc in the Gaza Strip, wounding several people, the army said. The assailants jumped on a car leaving the Ganei Tal settlement and detonated the explosives, TV reports said. The passengers in the car escaped with minor injuries but the assailants were killed, the reports said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either attack.

The attacks came amid a day of violence that raised questions about a peace mission by U.S. envoy, Anthony Zinni, who had asked both sides to observe 48 hours of calm.

After the double attacks, the White House said Zinni was undeterred in his attempt to push forward security talks. ``The president remains hopeful that the talks can begin,'' White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. He urged Arafat to ``take every step possible to reduce the violence and bring an end to the terrorism.''

Israeli helicopter gunships attacked a Palestinian refugee camp Wednesday morning in response to mortar fire on nearby Jewish settlements. Four Palestinian militiamen were killed and 20 bystanders wounded in the airstrike.

Earlier Wednesday, five Israeli tanks drove into the center of the West Bank town of Jenin, triggering a firefight with hundreds of Palestinian activists. Fourteen Jenin residents were wounded by Israeli fire before the tanks left, doctors said.

In truce talks Tuesday, Zinni requested that Israel refrain from targeted killings of suspected militants and from shelling Palestinian Authority targets, said a Palestinian security official. The Palestinians were asked to stop mortar fire and round up more suspected Islamic militants, the security official said.

Yarden Vatikay, an adviser to Israel's defense minister, denied that Zinni made specific demands of Israel. ``His request of Israel was to act in a responsible fashion, but there was no demand to stop actions which are meant for self defense,'' Vatikay said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in a statement that Israel was acting responsibly. He said Israeli troops would continue to respond to Palestinian mortar fire and to strike against militants suspected of planning attacks on Israelis. Last week, three Palestinian suicide bombers killed 26 people in Israel in a series of attacks by the Hamas and Islamic Jihad groups.

Tuesday's truce talks were stormy, as were two previous rounds in recent days, and Mohammed Dahlan, the Palestinian security chief in the Gaza Strip, left abruptly after a loud argument with the head of Israel's Shin Bet security service, Avi Dichter, said Palestinian officials close to the talks.

Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo, meanwhile, described the Palestinians' crackdown on suspected militants as a ``very serious battle we have never experienced before.''

Israel has dismissed the arrests as insufficient, saying many of those taken into custody were minor activists, not planners of terror attacks. The Palestinians say more than 180 suspects have been detained, including 17 on a list of 33 names of wanted militants submitted by the United States.

Late Tuesday, Palestinians fired four mortar shells at Jewish settlements in the southern Gaza Strip. The mortar shells caused no damage or injuries.

In retaliation, Israeli helicopters fired missiles at the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza overnight, killing four Palestinians and wounding 20, including four who were in serious condition, Palestinian doctors said.

The first air strike targeted a hiding place of members of a local militia, the so-called Abu Rish group, which has tentative links to Arafat's Fatah movement, camp residents said. Two of the militiamen were killed immediately and two more in another Israeli strike an hour later, witnesses said.

Israel's military said those targeted in the air strike had been involved in firing mortars at Israeli settlements. It said members of the Islamic militant group Hamas were also involved in the shelling. The Palestinian police chief in the Gaza Strip, Brig. Gen. Abdel Razek Majaida, accused Israel of attacking civilian areas.

-------- spy agencies

Cuban Spy Gets Life in Prison

December 12, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Cuban-Espionage.html

MIAMI (AP) -- The leader of a Cuban spy ring was sentenced to life in prison Wednesday for trying to infiltrate U.S. military bases and conspiring in the deaths of four Cuban-Americans whose private planes were shot down by Fidel Castro's government in 1996.

Gerardo Hernandez, 36, received the maximum sentence after a 20-minute speech in which he denounced his federal trial as a ``propaganda show'' and blamed his prosecution on the political clout of Miami's Cuban exile community.

Hernandez was one of five men convicted June 8 of operating as unregistered foreign agents and conspiring to do so.

``This was a crime against America,'' prosecutor Caroline Miller said. ``The threat was to the country at large and to this community.''

Hernandez was the only one convicted of murder conspiracy in the deaths of four Brothers to the Rescue members whose planes were shot down nearly six years ago by Cuban fighter jets in international airspace. The exile group patrols the sea between Florida and Cuba, looking for refugees.

Prosecutors accused Hernandez of knowing about the plot to shoot down the planes because he warned two agents who infiltrated the group not to fly during a four-day period that included the day of the attack.

``Every night and every day, I have been praying for justice,'' said Eva Barba, mother of Pablo Morales, one of the four pilots.

Hernandez denied he played a role in the attack or plotted espionage against the United States.

Relatives of the spies called them patriots, and the Cuban government insisted in a radio report Monday that the men were protecting their country from terrorism by Cuban-Americans.

Hernandez and two others also were convicted of espionage conspiracy for trying to penetrate U.S. military bases, though they never obtained classified information. Those two, Ramon Labanino and Antonio Guerrero, also could face life in prison. Labanino's sentencing began Wednesday afternoon and was expected to continue Thursday.

Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez, who are not related, face up to 15 years for failing to register as foreign agents and conspiracy. All five men have said they will appeal.

The prosecution's case was based largely on 2,000 pages of decrypted communications seized when the agents were indicted in 1998 as part of the 14-member spy network.

Five others pleaded guilty in exchange for reduced sentences, and four are fugitives believed to be in Cuba.

-------- us

Bush touts high-tech military to Citadel cadets

By Joseph Curl
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 12, 2001
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011212-868669.htm

CHARLESTON, S.C. - President Bush yesterday said defending America against "the enemies of the 21st century" requires a revamped, high-tech military, a streamlined intelligence-gathering community and an all-out effort to stem the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Addressing 2,000 cadets at The Citadel military college, Mr. Bush said the U.S.-led war against terrorism has offered a glimpse into the future.

"Afghanistan has been a proving ground for this new approach. These past two months have shown that an innovative doctrine and high-tech weaponry can shape and then dominate an unconventional conflict," he said to cheers from the gray-and-white-clad cadets.

The use of the unmanned Predator aerial vehicle for surveillance is one example of the future, the president said.

"Our special forces have the technology to call in precision air strikes, along with the flexibility to direct those strikes from horseback in the first cavalry charge of the 21st century," Mr. Bush said, drawing a standing ovation.

A new focus on intelligence gathering has led to the sweeping victories in the war against Afghanistan's ruling Taliban and its terrorist ally al Qaeda, he said, adding that America has never before had such an opportunity to shape the future of the military.

"This combination - real-time intelligence, local allied forces, special forces and precision air power - has really never been used before. The conflict in Afghanistan has taught us more about the future of our military than a decade of blue-ribbon panels and think-tank symposiums."

The U.S. military post-September 11 - "three months and a long time ago" - should learn the lessons of World War II, Mr. Bush said. After Pearl Harbor, the armed forces swiftly transformed into a lethal machine using amphibious vehicles and strategic air power.

"To win this war, we have to think differently. America is required once again to change the way our military thinks and fights. And starting on Oct. 7, the enemy in Afghanistan got the first glimpses of a new American military that cannot - and will not - be evaded," Mr. Bush said to cheers.

But the president warned Congress, which soon will debate military spending, against "micromanaging the Defense Department," adding every service branch "must be willing to sacrifice some of their pet projects."

Still, Mr. Bush warned that balancing "the need to build this future force while fighting a present war [is] like overhauling an engine while you're going 80 miles an hour. Yet we have no other choice."

The "enemies of the 21st century" are unlike those the United States military faced in previous wars because many seek to develop and use weapons of mass destruction.

"I wish I could report to the American people that this threat does not exist, that our enemy is content with car bombs and box cutters, but I cannot," the president said.

To handle the new threat, Mr. Bush said National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge will develop a comprehensive strategy on proliferation.

The president also said gathering intelligence - which has been given short shrift since the Cold War with the former Soviet Union - is once again of paramount importance.

"The United States must rebuild our network of human intelligence. Now, when we face this new war, we know how much we need them."

--------

Panel OK's Defense Base Closings

December 12, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Defense-Bill.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House Armed Services Committee's leaders cajoled reluctant colleagues Wednesday into endorsing a round of base closings, as demanded by President Bush, to enable the $343.3 billion defense authorization bill to move ahead.

The round would not occur until 2005, two years later than the administration requested. The compromise reached by leaders of the Senate and House Armed Services committees late last week was intended to get the bill moving and erase the possibility of a Bush veto.

The legislation authorizes spending for the Defense Department and military efforts of the Energy Department for the budget year that began Oct. 1.

``With our men and women putting their lives at risk, they need all of the resources that we can give them, and it's inexcusable that we would maintain bases that are not needed when we've got people putting their lives on the line,'' said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate committee.

The defense bill agreed to Wednesday by House negotiators -- and Tuesday by their Senate counterparts -- contains important programs for service members: minimum 5 percent across-the-board pay raises, with up to 10 percent increases for some; new housing benefits; more help with moving expenses.

Bush won not only his demand for a base closings round, but full funding of his $8.3 billion request for his prized missile defense plan, a $3.1 billion increase over 2001. Of the $8.3 billion, the president can use $1.3 billion for anti-terrorism instead, as the Senate had authorized.

Separate anti-terrorism spending totals $7 billion, a $1 billion increase from 2001.

The full House and Senate must pass the final version before it can go to Bush. The House was expected to consider the bill Thursday.

The administration contends up to one-fourth of base structure is not needed, and closing excess facilities would save about $3.5 billion a year. Some lawmakers are skeptical about touted savings.

It was unclear if the administration accepts the 2005 round.

Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke, asked if Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld might still recommend a veto over it, said Wednesday: ``I can say they're working hard on the issue right now.''

The issue caused a monthlong standoff between House and Senate negotiators reconciling their two versions of the defense bill. The Republican-led House adamantly opposed a 2003 round of base closings the administration sought, the Democratic-led Senate endorsed it.

Yet over the course of a half-dozen meetings involving the chairmen -- Levin and Rep. Bob Stump, R-Ariz. -- and the top minority members -- Sen. John Warner, R-Va., and Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo. -- the House leaders came up with a compromise of one round in 2005.

``Everybody's expressed concern that we should not be doing this while we're at war,'' Stump said, explaining how he sold the deal to House colleagues. ``The economy is down, but by 2005 it might improve somewhat. I laid it out, gave them the facts. I think everybody realizes we were putting passage of the bill in jeopardy.''

Ultimately, Stump said, only a few did not sign on.

The president, in consultation with congressional leaders, would appoint the nine-member base closing commission in March 2005. That May, the defense secretary would submit a list of facilities to be closed.

It would take seven members to add a facility to that list, but just a simple majority to remove one. The president could approve that list and send it to Congress, or reject it and send it back to the commission. Neither Congress nor the president could make changes to the list.

Previous closing rounds -- in 1988, 1991, 1993 and 1995 -- led to closure or realignment of 451 installations, including 97 major ones.

As the administration requested, the negotiators canceled the January referendum in Vieques on future use of that Puerto Rican island for military training. Anti-Navy protests broke out after off-target bombs killed a civilian guard in 1999. Bush has promised to end the maneuvers by 2003.

The bill would bar the Navy secretary from closing it until he certifies a site or sites providing ``equivalent or superior'' levels of training will be available.


-------- POLICE / PRISONERS

Wolfowitz defends tribunals to Senate

By P. Mitchell Prothero
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
December 12, 2001
http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/12122001-010520-8501r.htm

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 (UPI) -- Assistant Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told a Senate committee Wednesday that military tribunals offer better security for civilian judges and jurors and reduces the risk of retaliatory terrorist strikes.

He also testified that tribunals allow the use of classified intelligence without risk of illuminating sources and methods used to obtain it.

"Do we really want to be in the position of choosing between a successful prosecution of an al Qaida terrorist, and revealing intelligence information that, if exposed, could reduce our ability to stop the next terrorist attack -- at a cost of thousands more lives?" Wolfowitz said, repeating arguments made by the administration. "A military commission can permit us to avoid this dilemma. We can protect national security, including ongoing military operations in Afghanistan, while at the same time ensuring a full and fair trial for any individuals designated by the president."

Since the Bush administration suggested that some suspected terrorists could be tried by military tribunals, critics have expressed concern that this could discourage allied nations from helping with the investigation because of concerns about the fairness of the tribunal system and the possibility of death sentences for the convicted. Wolfowitz said that, while tribunals are not a normal part of the nation's justice system, these are not ordinary times.

"But those responsible for our national defense must not lose sight of the fact that these are not normal times," he said. "We have been attacked. We are at war. The people who planned and carried out these attacks are not common criminals -- they are foreign aggressors, vicious enemies whose goal was, and remains, to kill as many innocent Americans as possible."

The Defense Department is expected to develop guidelines for trial by tribunal and forward these recommendations to President Bush for final approval.

Members of Congress have been generally supportive of the tribunal proposal, but several have noted that they do not expect either citizens or residents of the United States to face such trials.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., took this thinking a step further and suggested that Zacarias Moussaoui, a 33-year old French citizen indicted on six counts of conspiracy related to the Sept. 11 events, should face a tribunal.

Moussaoui was indicted by a federal grand jury and is expected to receive a trial in Northern Virginia.

Wolfowitz replied that the final decision on whether anyone will face trial by tribunal was the president's alone to make.

----

69 charged in pre-Olympics airport sweep

December 12, 2001
UPI
http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/12122001-125716-8508r.htm

SALT LAKE CITY, Dec. 12 -- Authorities in Salt Lake City hoped to complete the arrests Wednesday of 69 airport workers who allegedly gave false information to conceal their criminal records or illegal immigration status in order to get jobs in secure areas of the airport.

The officials who announced the sweep late Tuesday said that while there was no evidence any of the workers had ties to terrorism, they did have access to airplanes, runways and cargo areas.

"These people were able to obtain security badges that put them one swipe away from access to the most secure areas of the airport," said U.S. Attorney Paul Warner.

Police and federal agents Tuesday swept through Salt Lake City International Airport -- the airport that will handle the bulk of the people flying in for the 2002 Winter Olympics -- looking for the 69 workers that were primarily charged with using falsified documents such as Social Security cards to obtain security clearances giving them access to secure areas of the airport.

Around two-dozen of the suspects were in custody by late Tuesday with the remainder expected to be picked up Wednesday.

"None of the individuals arrested that we know of are involved in any terrorism activity. This was a pre-emptive strike ... to ensure the people who work in secure areas are who they claim to be," said Robert Flowers, head of the Utah Department of Public Safety.

Warner said that the suspects included six U.S. citizens who allegedly hid criminal records; the others were from Latin America and apparently were only trying to land a job. All of the suspects worked for sub-contractors that provide security screening, aircraft cleaning and refueling, catering and construction.

"We think we had people who wanted to work and didn't have the proper documentation," Warner said.

The sweep comes in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States and prior to the Winter Olympics scheduled to begin in February.

Warner said the seven-week investigation, dubbed "Operation Safe Travel," was a priority due to the impending Olympics. Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson boasted to reporters that Salt Lake International was now "the safest (airport) in the country."

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U.S. says tribunals just for terror leaders

December 12, 2001
By Frank J. Murray
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20011212-462945.htm

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday that only the leaders of al Qaeda and the Taliban will face U.S. military tribunal trials.

He also said the United States had received assurances that Osama bin Laden and his top aides will not fall into the hands of allies who oppose their execution.

"It's not hundreds or thousands" who would be tried in military tribunals, Mr. Rumsfeld said as he disclosed the first details of how the Bush administration intends to deal with enemy forces in postwar Afghanistan amid prospects of imminent mass surrender by al Qaeda forces.

Ordinary al Qaeda troops will face prison sentences, perhaps in their home nations if those states will treat their crimes with the severity sought by Washington. Rank-and-file Afghan Taliban troops will be left for their new Kabul government to deal with, he said.

"Senior level of Taliban are quite different. They need to be punished, and they need to be taken care of by somebody," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

Before any trials begin, U.S. and allied troops will question all prisoners where they are captured, not for law-enforcement purposes, but to obtain intelligence that Mr. Rumsfeld said would protect American lives in the United States as well as on the battlefield.

Prisoners will be moved to prison camps under U.S. control until their identities and fates are sorted out. None is expected to be brought to the United States.

Trials of noncitizens violating "the laws of war" may be held wherever defendants are found.

Officials may impose security procedures to protect state secrets or shield identities of the officers who sit as judge and jury and decide verdicts and sentences by two-thirds majority.

"With respect to al Qaeda, from the top to the bottom, they're bad folks doing terrible things," Mr. Rumsfeld said. "It would be just a crime if they are let loose in any way to go to the neighboring countries or to other countries, our country, or anywhere in the world to continue the terrorist acts that they've been engaged in.

"The senior al Qaeda leadership we obviously hope to get control over and have a very deep involvement as to what their ultimate disposition might be," Mr. Rumsfeld said.

He said the group facing U.S. military tribunals would be small and that no decision has been made to close those trials to the public.

"My guess is it would be handled differently with respect to different individuals," said Mr. Rumsfeld, who was placed in charge of the process by President Bush's Nov. 13 order authorizing military commission trials.

Mr. Rumsfeld said allies have assured him of a free hand on what he called the U.S. "idiosyncrasy" that military trials must include the possibility of death sentences.

"The response we've received is 'not to worry,'" Mr. Rumsfeld said when asked whether Britain or other European Union nations with troops in Afghanistan might not turn over captives charged with plotting or aiding the September 11 terrorist attacks because of objections to the death penalty.

He told reporters that military forces from nations that do not agree to U.S. trials will not be allowed in areas where bin Laden or other al Qaeda leaders might be captured.

Debate about Mr. Bush's order to use military trials for civilians - not done since World War II - has swirled over charges that it is un-American.

Michael Nardotti, a former Army judge advocate general, defended the fairness of military commissions and said their disuse since World War II "doesn't make the proposition any less valid."

He said military commissions after World War II had an 85 percent conviction rate in war-crime trials of some 1,700 people in Europe and almost 1,000 from the Japanese theater. That meant acquittals were achieved at twice the rate now common in federal courts and military courts-martial, where 93 percent of defendants are convicted.

"These were U.S. military officers who sat in judgment of their enemy," Mr. Nardotti said.

The fact that 2,700 people among the millions from all theaters of war were tried after World War II seems consistent with Mr. Rumsfeld's statements yesterday that military courts will be highly selective.

Specific cases for trial under the current authorization must be approved by the president, and a White House spokeswoman said yesterday that Mr. Bush must do so in writing specifying each defendant and court member by name as President Franklin D. Roosevelt did in setting up a 1942 court.

Defenders of Mr. Bush's order say military justice is good enough for young Americans in uniform who risk their lives to defend their country, so it should be good enough for bin Laden and his aides. But military-law experts say courts-martial do not follow the guidelines Mr. Bush prescribed for the tribunals' rules of evidence, appeals or death sentences by two-thirds vote.

"There's consternation among military lawyers about the potential for confusion between military commissions and courts-martial," said Eugene R. Fidell, a highly regarded specialist in military law and president of the National Institute of Military Justice, which has taken no position on the order.

Mr. Fidell said military courts-martial allow a broad range of appeals through military courts, then to a special appeals court with civilian judges and on through the civil courts to the Supreme Court.

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FBI Probe of Scientist Wen Ho Lee Found Flawed

December 12, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-crime-lee.html?searchpv=reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI conducted a ``deeply and fundamentally flawed'' investigation from 1994 to 1999 of nuclear weapons scientist Wen Ho Lee, who was suspected o