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DoD Launches Depleted Uranium Training
By Linda D. Kozaryn American Forces Press Service August 17,
1999
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Aug1999/n08131999_9908131.html
WASHINGTON -- Beware. Be careful. But don't be overly alarmed. Depleted uranium, found in some ammunition and armored vehicles, is a potentially toxic heavy metal, but defense officials say limited exposure is not dangerous.
The Defense Department has launched a DoD-wide training initiative to ensure service members know the pros and cons of the substance known as "DU."
"Depleted uranium carries a 'radioactivity tag' that makes some people nervous," said Dee Dodson Morris, a retired Army chemical corps colonel and the Lessons Learned Implementation director in the Office of the Special Assistant for Gulf War Illnesses. "What we're trying to do is make sure service members understand the hazard and what they can do to mitigate it."
The services have incorporated DU awareness training into their overall training programs. Recruits' basic training now includes DU instruction, and more advanced training is given to such service members as nuclear, biological and chemical specialists and others likely to encounter DU.
Depleted uranium is used in M-1 Abrams tanks, Phalanx gun systems and some cruise missiles, as well as A-10s, Harriers and other military and civilian aircraft. The Abrams, Bradley fighting vehicles and other weapon systems use ammunition containing DU penetrators.
DU is used in armor because its superior strength, hardness and density can defeat conventional armor-piercing ammunition. By the same token, ammunition with needle-like DU penetrators punches right through conventional armor.
Morris said the U.S. armed forces first used DU munitions and armor during the Gulf War and decisively demonstrated its effectiveness. In one incident, a DU round went through a bermed revetment, through an Iraqi vehicle and through the berm on the far side. In another incident, three Iraqi vehicles ganged up on and couldn't stop a lone Abrams tank -- the Abrams crew destroyed all three Iraqis.
Radiation is the "bogey" associated with DU, Morris explained, but it's not the real health problem. She said DU emits only extremely low levels of gamma radiation and low levels of alpha and beta particles that are easily blocked by skin and clothing. Running a radiation meter over DU armor or ammunition would indicate radioactivity, but at a level so low that career-long exposure wouldn't be enough to hurt you, she said.
"DU is about 40 percent less radioactive than naturally occurring uranium, and natural uranium is something we live with every day," Morris said.
She said the primary health concern is DU's chemical toxicity. "Uranium is a heavy metal, like lead. It can, in fact, poison the body, but it takes an awful lot to do that." Prolonged exposure is known to cause kidney failure, Morris said, but Department of Veterans Affairs studies done since the Gulf War have found no evidence of kidney damage, even among veterans who still have DU fragments embedded in their bodies.
Gulf War friendly fire incidents exposed American troops to the heavy metal. About 113 soldiers were in or near combat vehicles hit by DU rounds. Another 30 to 60 rescuers entered these vehicles immediately after the hits. Some soldiers inhaled or ingested DU particles or were struck by DU fragments. Others had DU contaminate their wounds.
A VA program in Baltimore is assessing the health effects on 33 of these service members. About half still carry DU fragments in their bodies. They've shown higher than normal levels of uranium in their urine since monitoring began in 1993, while veterans with no retained fragments show normal levels, VA officials said.
Overall, Morris said, the study has found no adverse health effects that can be attributed to DU. Tests of kidney functions in the 33 subject veterans have all been normal. Their reproductive health also appears to be normal -- there have been no birth defects in any of the babies they've fathered since 1991.
The Army, executive agent for the training initiative, has produced a video slated to reach the field by October. The film explains how to operate safely and effectively in environments where service members could encounter DU contamination.
Working with DU is safe if done in accordance with the training the military provides, Morris stressed. Ammo handlers should take the same precautions with DU that they would with any other ammunition, she said. Service members in a vehicle struck by a DU munition, or in a DU armored vehicle struck by any munition, can safely exit their vehicle without any concern for what they might be breathing, she added.
"There is no need to take specific precautions at that time because it would take an awful lot of the aerosolized uranium oxide from the impact to harm them," Morris said. "Their first concern should be emergency exit and life saving."
People assigned to decontaminate those vehicles and to assess battle damage, however, should protect themselves by wearing a respirator and covering exposed skin, she added. "It's a simple precaution, because they are on the site a lot longer," she said.
In fact, Morris pointed out, the vast majority of Gulf War DU exposure cases didn't occur in combat, but were people who toured the battlefields and climbed in and on vehicles struck by DU munitions.
"So the big message in the video is: Leave things alone. If you don't need to touch something, don't," she said.
--
An ammunition specialist examines a 105mm armor- piercing round to be used in an M-1 Abrams main battle tank during Operation Desert Shield in 1991. The object on the nose of the round is a sabot, a cover that protects and stabilizes the round's needle-like depleted uranium penetrator, then falls away as the projectile leaves the gun barrel. DoD Photo
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An ammunition specialist carries a 105mm armor- piercing round to be used in an M-1 Abrams main battle tank during Operation Desert Shield in 1991. The object on the nose of the round is a sabot, a cover that protects and stabilizes the round's needle-like depleted uranium penetrator, then falls away as the projectile leaves the gun barrel. DoD Photo - http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Aug1999/9908131b.jpg
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From: Tara Thornton <mtpdu@ime.net> To: "'du-list@egroups.com'" <du-list@egroups.com> Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1999 16:21:27 -0400 Subject: [du-list] DU resolutions
1. The Belgian MEP Paul Lannoye (Green Group) will introduce a project of resolution to the European Parliament to prohibit the production, trade and use of DU munitions. Copy of this project on GRIP web site: http://www.grip.org/bdg/g1673.html
2. Martine Dardenne, Green (ECOLO) member of the Belgian Parliament will introduce a project of law to the Belgian Parliament to prohibit the production, trade, and use of DU munitions. Copy of this project on GRIP web site: http://www.grip.org/bdg/g1674.html
3. In Canada: the text of the resolution that will be debated at the annual convention of the New Democratic Party of Canada at the end of August in Ottawa.
"Be it resolved that the NDP request the Government of Canada to:
1) Renounce the use of depleted uranium ammunition, missiles and bombs (hereinafter referred to as"DUMBs'').
2) Take active steps to have NATO renounce the use of DUMBs.
3) Promote the view in the international community that DUMBs should be treated as chemical weapons, and their use as chemical warfare.
4) Implement export controls to ban the export of depleted uranium to any country that has not renounced the use of DUMBs.
5) Implement export controls to ban the export of depleted uranium to any country that manufactures DUMBs.
6) Refuse to participate in any military conflict in which any of its allies permits the use DUMBs."
There was actually a seventh item in the version that I presented, but it got dropped after some debate:
7) Refuse to send Canadians as peacekeepers to any region in which DUMBs have been used.
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LETTERS - Nuclear Waste Politics
August 17, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/081799sci-letters.html
Feedback: mailto:letters@nytimes.com
To the Editor:
The science of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository is truly political science ("New Questions Plague Nuclear Waste Storage Plan," Science Times, Aug. 10). Each side interprets geological data to suits its views, with no way to ultimately prove anything that will happen over the next 10,000 years.
The reality is that the waste is safer in a repository than sitting above ground, and that no final decision needs to be made for a number of decades.
The long-term plan has been to monitor the repository for 50 or more years, retaining the ability to remove the waste if problems arise.
The Yucca Mountain site needs to be developed, the waste put in storage and the system closely watched.
We can in clear conscience then leave it to the science of the next half of the 21st century to sort it all out.
DR. THEODORE M. BESMANN Oak Ridge, Tenn.
The author is a Research Group Leader at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, but the opinions of this letter do not necessarily represent those of the laboratory.
Related Article
Study Advances Plan for Nuclear Storage Site, but Questions
Remain
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/080799sci-yucca-mountain.html
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Paducah -- Never Again
By Arjun Makhijani, Tuesday, August 17, 1999; Page A15
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/17/018l-081799-idx.html
Joe Harding worked at the Department of Energy's Paducah, Ky., uranium enrichment plant and died in 1980 of cancer at age 58. He was one of a half-million people who processed nuclear and other materials and turned them into the 70,000 nuclear warheads that the United States produced during the Cold War. He worked in a highly polluted environment and died with uranium in his bones. Yet, the DOE and its contractor Union Carbide denied that radiation might have caused his illness. His case is unusual only in that he wrote a diary and spoke out freely before he died, so that his plight is now well known, thanks to a recent Washington Post story [front page, Aug. 8].
The U.S. government practice of denying overexposure to radiation to workers without proper scientific analysis of available data has resulted in gross injustices for large numbers of people. For instance, workers at DOE's Fernald, Ohio, plant, where uranium was fashioned into metal targets and fuel elements for reactors, were told for years that they were not overexposed and that the plant was safe.
But a 1994 study done by my colleagues who analyzed the raw data files in the context of a class-action lawsuit filed by plant workers showed that during the 1950s and early '60s, more than half the workers were overexposed in every year but one. In 1955, 90 percent of the workers were overexposed by then-prevailing standards. The research also showed that the data were so sparse that it was impossible to reliably calculate individual exposures -- only group radiation doses could be estimated with confidence.
The DOE settled the lawsuit on behalf of the contractor for $15 million and medical monitoring, but admitted no wrongdoing. The government had previously settled a similar suit by the plant's neighbors about off-site contamination for $78 million.
In 1997 the DOE admitted that, until 1989, it had never calculated the radiation doses to workers resulting from inhalation or ingestion of uranium, plutonium and other radioactive materials present at any of its nuclear weapons plants, even though the raw data to do so were often available. These data sat un-analyzed in internal files. Moreover, the allegations of the Paducah health physicists reported by The Washington Post indicate that, despite DOE claims to the contrary, the problems leading to flawed dose records may have continued past 1989.
The poor and incomplete state of the dose records, frequently terrible working conditions (uranium air contamination at Fernald, for instance, was often tens or hundreds of times above maximum allowable limits) and the lack of any records for exposures to many toxic non-radioactive materials, point to one stark conclusion. The DOE and its contractors have often made scientifically incorrect and baseless denials of harm.
Given that reality, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson's statement that the DOE will not be a "Department of Excuses" and will actually help workers who have been harmed is laudable but highly inadequate. Many nuclear weapons workers are sick from causes that are not readily identifiable partly because poor and grossly incomplete records mean that it is often impossible for them to prove causation.
All surviving nuclear weapons complex workers should be provided with medical monitoring. In cases where medical benefits are needed, there should be a presumption of causation for a variety of ailments. Where regulations were egregiously violated, contractors should be made to pay. And there should be generous compensation for surviving family members in cases such as Joe Harding's.
Department-wide investigations in the wake of the Paducah scandal should attempt to determine whether there has been fraud in maintenance of data records -- for instance, were any of the dose data fabricated? Such inquiries should also be directed toward the reforms that will prevent a recurrence of the lamentable conditions that workers and their families have suffered for decades.
The signs are not reassuring. Current proposals for DOE reorganization are headed in the wrong direction. Past failures arose not from a lack of legal mandate -- the DOE and its contractors were and are required to protect health and the environment. The central problem has been DOE self-regulation and secrecy in health and environmental matters.
Despite this record, the Los Alamos National Laboratory spy scandal has led to reorganization proposals that would entrench self-regulation and downgrade the already weak position of DOE's internal environment, safety and health division. This is a prescription for a tragic repetition of past abuses. Whatever security reorganization results from the spy scandal, it is imperative that the worker health, safety and environmental protection aspects of DOE's nuclear weapons work be externally regulated. Three agencies would be involved: the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the Occupational Health and Safety Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency. Such regulation has been much studied and debated; it is time to put it firmly into place.
The writer is president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park.
---
Clinton Signs $8.4B Military Bill
By The Associated Press August 17, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Military-Construction.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- With reservations about unnecessary spending and an admonition to Congress to speed up its work, President Clinton signed an $8.4 billion spending bill Tuesday to underwrite new military construction.
Clinton said the Military Construction Appropriations Act pays for ``the vast majority'' of his requested military construction projects and housing program.
``The requested projects are critical to supporting military readiness and the quality of life of our soldiers and their families,'' Clinton said.
Although he signed the bill, Clinton criticized lawmakers for providing $93 million less than he requested for a chemical weapons decommissioning program and adding $301 million for 40 projects the Defense Department did not list as priorities.
Clinton made a similar complaint Tuesday in signing a $4 billion bill funding flood control and other water projects. He said he is disappointed that Congress piled on new projects the Army Corps of Engineers cannot afford, especially since the Corps already has a $27 billion backlog in water resources projects.
The president noted that Congress has finished work on only two of the 13 appropriations bills it must complete by the end of September. Republican provisions in many of the remaining bills already have drawn veto threats.
``Many of the remaining bills would require deep cuts in essential government programs, including education, law enforcement, science and technology, the environment,'' Clinton said.
``I urge Congress to approach this work responsibly in order to pass funding bills which are sufficient to meet our nation's needs.''
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Ex-Official: Bomb Lab Case Lacks Evidence
Suspect's Ethnicity 'A Major Factor' in China Spy Probe
By Vernon Loeb Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, August
17, 1999; Page A01
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-08/17/031l-081799-idx.html
Federal investigators targeted physicist Wen Ho Lee as an espionage suspect largely because he is a Chinese American and they still do not have a "shred of evidence" that he leaked nuclear secrets to China, the former chief of counterintelligence at Los Alamos National Laboratory said yesterday.
Breaking a long public silence, Robert S. Vrooman also said he does not believe that China obtained top-secret information about U.S. nuclear warheads from Los Alamos or any other laboratory belonging to the Department of Energy. The stolen data, he said, could have come from documents distributed to "hundreds of locations throughout the U.S. government" as well as to private defense contractors.
While some Chinese American rights organizations previously have charged that Lee was unfairly targeted, Vrooman is the first high-ranking participant in the investigation to state that Lee's ethnicity was "a major factor" in his identification as the government's prime suspect.
Vrooman made his remarks in an interview with The Washington Post less than a week after Energy Secretary Bill Richardson recommended disciplinary action against him and two other former Los Alamos officials for alleged missteps during the espionage probe.
"I've had a distinguished career," said Vrooman, 62, a former CIA operations officer who retired from Los Alamos in March 1998 and is now working there as a consultant. "And I'm not going to go down in history as the guy who screwed up this case, because I wasn't. This case was screwed up because there was nothing there -- it was built on thin air."
In a separate statement faxed to The Post, Vrooman said Lee "was identified by the Department of Energy's Office of Counterintelligence as the prime suspect based on an, at best, cursory investigation at only two facilities, Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory."
While "details of this investigation are still classified," he added, "it can be said at this time that Mr. Lee's ethnicity was a major factor."
The fact that Lee had visited China and met with officials at a physics institute there in 1986 and 1988 became another strike against him, Vrooman said, even though "Caucasians at Los Alamos who went to the same institute and visited the same people -- I counted 13 of them -- were left out of the investigation."
A bipartisan congressional committee chaired by Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) concluded in May that China had stolen information about the design of U.S. nuclear weapons, including the nation's most advanced warhead, the miniaturized W-88.
Vrooman said, however, that the information could have leaked from many sources. While "no complete inventory of documents containing this data has been made or is possible," he said, one "rather detailed description of the W-88" was distributed to 548 different addresses at the Defense Department, Energy Department, various defense firms, the armed services and even the National Guard.
Lee, a Taiwan-born nuclear physicist and U.S. citizen, was fired in March for alleged violations of Los Alamos's security regulations. He has denied ever passing secrets to China, and he has not been charged with any crime. The Justice Department is weighing whether to charge him with transferring classified information from the secure computer system at Los Alamos to his vulnerable desktop computer.
In recommending last week that Los Alamos take some unspecified disciplinary action against Vrooman, Richardson said Vrooman had failed to remove Lee from the laboratory's top-secret Division X or to deny him access to secret information after he came under suspicion of espionage.
Vrooman countered yesterday that the decision to allow Lee to keep working was made in 1997 by the Energy Department's chief intelligence officer, Notra Trulock -- the same officer who had identified Lee as the government's main suspect.
"We could not have removed [Lee] from access [to classified materials] without alerting him, and that would have just blown everything," Vrooman said. "It was a judgment call -- I think it was the right call. And it was made in concert with the FBI."
Richardson also recommended unspecified disciplinary action against Terry Craig, another counterintelligence official at Los Alamos, saying Craig had failed to inform the FBI in 1996 that Lee had signed a waiver authorizing officials to search his computer.
Craig told The Washington Post yesterday that no one in the FBI ever asked him to look into whether Lee had signed a waiver. He said he lacked authority to perform the research without authorization from FBI investigators.
"By leaking our names, [DOE officials] in essence damaged our reputations -- and it seems to me there's way too much of that going on," said Craig, 55, a career employee at Los Alamos who transferred two months ago to another job unrelated to counterintelligence.
The third official facing disciplinary action, former Los Alamos director Sig Hecker, who remains a scientist at the facility, has not returned telephone messages.
An Energy Department spokeswoman said Richardson recommended disciplinary measures only after commissioning two internal inquiries. "Based on the evidence gathered in these inquiries, the secretary concluded that these individuals had specific responsibilities with respect to the FBI investigation that they did not meet," the spokeswoman said.
Richardson also has denied that Lee's ethnicity played a major role in the investigation, and he has assured employees at the national laboratories that he will not tolerate any discrimination against Chinese Americans.
Both Craig and Vrooman said there is no evidence pinpointing Los Alamos as the source of secrets stolen by China. Similar conclusions were reached earlier this year by the CIA, the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.
Vrooman also said he disagreed when Trulock, the Energy Department intelligence official, concluded in 1995 that China had stolen the design of the W-88. Trulock's conclusion was based largely on a document obtained by the CIA from a Chinese intelligence agent showing the warhead's explosive yield and external dimensions.
"If I give you the exterior dimensions of my home, could you recreate the floor plan? No," Vrooman said.
Despite those doubts, Vrooman said, he pressed the FBI to pursue the case vigorously and succeeded in getting the bureau to replace an agent who was busy with other matters. But he said he now believes "they picked the wrong guy for the wrong reason."
"I have been an outspoken critic of the flawed investigation that identified Mr. Lee as the prime suspect in this case," Vrooman said. "I do not agree with Mr. Trulock or with the secretary of energy that the information obtained by the Chinese came from the Department of Energy. I consider disciplinary action against me to be retaliation for opposing them on this issue."
--
Report: Ex-CIA Chief Defends Lee
Tuesday, August 17, 1999; 3:41 a.m. EDT
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WAPO/19990817/V000658-081799-idx.html
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92% of Pentagon security checks lax
By Edward T. Pound, USA TODAY August 15, 1999
http://usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncssun06.htm
WASHINGTON - In a stinging draft report, a congressional agency says the Defense Department has "created risks to national security" by failing to conduct thorough security background investigations on personnel requiring access to classified information.
Nine out of every 10 security investigations reviewed by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, were found to have been incomplete, according to government officials familiar with the preliminary report.
The officials say the GAO reviewed 531 background investigations and found that 488, or 92%, did not fully meet federal investigative standards. In 59 cases, or 12%, the Defense Department failed to follow leads on potentially serious issues involving criminal histories, alcohol and drug use, and financial problems, the GAO reported.
The figures could change. The GAO will issue its final report in October, and officials declined to comment, except to say their analysis is continuing.
Background checks are made by the Defense Security Service and are essential to keeping the nation's secrets out of the wrong hands. The service conducts 120,000 inquiries each year on people needing top-secret and secret clearances. They include military and civilian personnel in the Defense Department and defense contractor employees.
The problems facing the security service are daunting. In June, the Pentagon removed the director, Steven Schanzer, and installed a retired general, Charles Cunningham, after an inquiry by USA TODAY. Cunningham has vowed to fix the agency. He was briefed on the report by the GAO last month but declined to comment.
The security service currently has a backlog of 600,000 investigations involving personnel who have been cleared but are due for an updated review. The GAO report says those re- investigations are vital because most spies are grown within, government officials say.
The officials say the GAO blames many problems on poor management during the past three years. The service eliminated a key training program for agents, cut back on supervisors and installed a case-management computer system that didn't work. In its zeal to close cases, the service didn't follow through on all investigative standards required for background inquiries.
Government officials say the GAO study shows that in the vast majority of cases the security service failed to comply with two or more standards. They include reviewing financial and law-enforcement records, verifying education and citizenship, and interviewing applicants and references.
The GAO, the officials say, found that the security service changed policies and relaxed standards, contrary to federal regulations and over the opposition of other security officials.
Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., requested the GAO review after a Pentagon lawyer, who had a clearance, was imprisoned in a high-profile spy case.
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Big Lapses Found in Pentagon's Security-Clearance Check
By ELIZABETH BECKER, August 17, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/washpol/security-checks.html
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon is making incomplete background investigations of a majority of its candidates for security clearance and has built up a backlog of over 500,000 cases, according to preliminary findings of a congressional investigation.
The problems uncovered at the Pentagon's Defense Security Service, which conducts investigations of 120,000 defense employees and contractors each year, pose a threat to national security, according to the early draft report by the General Accounting Office, an investigating arm of Congress.
The preliminary findings have already prompted the Pentagon to remove the head of the agency, to begin altering its computer system and to institute new procedures.
In a sample of 531 cases, the General Accounting Office found that the Defense Security Service failed to make critical checks on 92 percent of the cases under review, according to a government official familiar with the early findings.
"This has been a troubled agency," said Kenneth Bacon, the Pentagon spokesman. "The GAO report acknowledges we are on the road to solving the problem, but it is a big problem."
The investigation was initiated after a Pentagon lawyer was arrested and convicted in 1997 of spying for East Germany. Even though Secretary of Defense William Cohen promised to review the Pentagon's security procedures, Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., asked for the independent review by the GAO. The preliminary findings were reported Monday in USA Today.
The Defense Security Service has lost nearly half of its staff since 1989 as part of the "reinventing government" initiative of the Clinton administration, a reduction from 4,080 to 2,466 people that several Defense Department officials say is part of the reason why the agency has failed to do thorough background investigations. The Pentagon also acknowledges that the agency purchased a new computer system to streamline the investigations, but the equipment is so poorly designed that it breaks down routinely and has created the case backlog.
"What the agency did in the name of efficiency instead created great inefficiency," Bacon said.
In June, the Pentagon appointed Gen. Charles Cunningham, a retired Air Force officer, to replace Steven Schanzer as head of the Defense Security Service. In the past two months Cunningham has standardized investigations for security clearance, set up quality checks of those investigations and set up an academy to train agents in making security checks, the Pentagon said. He has also brought in computer experts from the Air Force to sort out problems in the agency's computer system and has asked for advice from the government's Office of Personnel Management to help reduce the backlog of pending security clearances, according to Bacon.
The backlog of cases has grown so serious that the Pentagon is considering asking private security firms to help undertake the background investigations.
While Pentagon officials acknowledge responsibility for some of the problems at Defense Security Service, Bacon said that a 1996 presidential order requiring the review of all low and mid-level security clearances also helped create the backlog.
Under that provision, all government departments and agencies are to review the "confidential" clearances of their employees every 15 years and the higher level "secret" clearances every 10 years. To meet this requirement the Pentagon is reviewing an additional 54,570 cases this year, according to a Defense Department official.
"This explains some of the managerial confusion and the backlog," Bacon said.
At the same time, the Pentagon is reviewing whether the secret clearances are necessary at all.
The General Accounting Office declined to comment on the preliminary findings of their investigation. The final report is due in October.
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Influential Depot Caucus Members
By The Associated Press, August 17, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Depot-Caucus.html
The 77 members of the bipartisan Depot Caucus include many committee and subcommittee chairmen and ranking minority members of the House with facilities in their districts, such as:
--Rep. Floyd Spence, R-S.C., Armed Services Committee chairman.
--Rep. Herb Bateman, R-Va., House Armed Services readiness subcommittee chairman, Yorktown Naval Weapons Station.
--Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., senior Democrat on Armed Services Committee, Lake City Ammo Plant.
--Rep. James Hansen, R-Utah, co-chairman of the Depot Caucus, chairman of the Resources subcommittee in charge of public lands, Dugway Proving Ground, Tooele Army Depot Ogden, Air Logistics Center.
--Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Texas, co-chairman of the caucus, senior Democrat on the Armed Services readiness panel, Corpus Christi Army Depot Readiness Ranking.
--Rep. Bud Shuster, R-Pa., chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Letterkenney Army Depot.
--Rep. Thomas Bliley, R.-Va., chairman of Commerce Committee, Defense Depot Richmond.
--Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Okla., the fourth-ranking member of the House Republican leadership, McAlester Army Ammo Plant, Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center.
--Rep. Tillie Fowler, R-Fla., vice chairwoman of the House Republican Conference and member of the military installations and readiness subcommittees of the Armed Services Committee, Jacksonville Naval Aviation Depot.
--Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., chairman of Appropriations defense subcommittee, Barstow Marine Corps Logistics Base, China Lake Naval Weapons Center.
--Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., senior Democrat on the Appropriations defense subcommittee.
--Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., who serves on the Appropriations defense and military construction subcommittees, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard Keyport NUSWC.
--Rep. Randy ``Duke'' Cunningham, R-Calif., a former Navy ``Top Gun'' pilot who sits on the Appropriations defense subcommittee, Naval Aviation Depot North Island -- San Diego.
Other caucus members:
--Rep. Neil Abercrombie,D-Hawaii, Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard.
--Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
--Rep. John Baldacci, D-Maine, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
--Rep. Bill Barrett, R-Neb., Cornhusker Ammo Plant.
--Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-Calif., Naval Aviation Depot North Island -- San Diego.
--Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., Albany Marine Corps Logistics Center.
--Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, Iowa Army Ammo Plant.
--Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., Radford Army Ammo Plant.
--Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla., Jacksonville Naval Aviation Depot.
--Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, Ogden Air Logistics Center.
--Rep. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., Warner Robins Air Logistics Control, Albany Marine Logistics Center.
--Rep. Eva Clayton, D-N.C., Cherry Point Naval Aviation Depot.
--Rep. Mac Collins, R-Ga., Warner Robins Air Logistics Center.
--Rep. Merrill Cook, R-Utah, Ogden Air Logistics Center.
--Rep. Jerry Costello, D-Ill., Scott Air Force Base.
--Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Ala., Redstone Arsenal.
--Rep. Jay Dickey, R-Ark., Pine Bluff Arsenal Lone Star Army Ammo Plant.
--Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., Sierra Army Depot Defense Depot Region West.
--Rep. Lane Evans, D-Ill., Rock Island Arsenal.
--Rep. Ernie Fletcher, R-Ky., Blue Grass Army Depot.
--Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., Hawthorne Army Ammo Plant.
--Rep. Wayne Gilchrest, R-Md., Indian Head Naval Ordnance Station.
--Rep. Tony Hall, D-Ohio, Air Force Logistics Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
--Rep. Wally Herger, R-Calif., Sierra Army Depot.
--Rep. Tim Holden, D-Pa., Tobyhanna Army Depot.
--Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., Colt Neck Naval Weapons Station.
--Rep. John Hostettler, R-Ind., Crane Army Ammo Activity, Crane Naval Weapons Supply Center.
--Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., NADEP North Island.
--Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center.
--Rep. Bill Jenkins, R-Tenn., Holston Army Ammo Plant.
--Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, D-Ohio, Ravenna Army Ammo Plant.
--Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., Cherry Point Naval Aviation Depot.
--Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa., Tobyhanna Army Depot.
--Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, Iowa Army Ammo Plant.
--Rep. Karen McCarthy, D-Mo., Lare City Army Ammo Plant.
--Rep. Jim McCrery, R-La., Louisiana Army Ammo Plant.
--Rep. Mike McIntyre, D-N.C., Tarheel Army Ammo Plant.
--Rep. Mike McNulty, D-N.Y., Watervleit Arsenal.
--Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., Concord Naval Weapons Station.
--Rep. Dennis Moore, D-Kan., Sunflower Army Ammo Plant.
--Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., Colts Neck Naval Weapons Station.
--Rep. Ed Pastor, D-Ariz., Yuma Proving Ground Aerospace Maintenance & Regernation Center.
--Rep. Edward Pease, R-Ind., Newport Army Ammo Plant.
--Rep. Owen Pickett, D-Va., Norfolk Naval Shipyard.
--Rep. Bob Riley, R-Ala., Anniston Army Depot.
--Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station.
--Rep. Max Sandlin, D-Texas, Red River Army Depot.
--Rep. Mark Sanford, R-S.C., Charleston Watercraft.
--Rep. Don Sherwood, R-Pa., Scranton Army Ammo Plant, Tobyhanna Army Depot.
--Rep. Norm Sisisky, D-Va., Norfolk Naval Shipyard.
--Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., Defense Depot Region West.
--Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., Jacksonville Naval Aviation Depot.
--Rep. Bob Stump, R-Ariz., Navajo Army Depot.
--Rep. John Sununu, R-N.H., Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
--Rep. John Sweeney, R-N.Y., Watervleit Arsenal.
--Rep. John Tanner, D-Tenn., Milan Army Ammo Plant.
--Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., Mississippi Army Ammo Plant.
--Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., China Lake Naval Weapons Center.
--Rep. Thomas Tancredo, R-Colo., Rocky Mountain Arsenal.
--Rep. Bruce Vento, D-Minn., Twin Cities Army Ammo Plant.
--Rep. Jerry Weller, R-Ill., Joilet Army Ammo Plant.
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Workload of Major Military Depots
By The Associated Press, August 17, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/w/AP-Depot-States.html
Many of the military's major maintenance and repair centers aren't used to their capacity. The facilities' main missions, number of employees, and percentage of workload capacity, such as workstations and buildings, in use during fiscal year 1999: ARMY
Anniston Army Depot, Anniston, Ala. -- Heavy and light tracked combat vehicles, self-propelled artillery, land combat missiles; ammunition storage. 2,600 employees. At 68 percent capacity.
Corpus Christi Army Depot, Corpus Christi, Texas -- Helicopters; depot training; crash analysis. 2,700 employees. At 76 percent capacity.
Letterkenny Army Depot, Chambersburg, Pa. -- Missile systems; ammunition storage. 1,300 employees. At 73 percent capacity.
Red River Army Depot, Texarkana, Texas -- Bradley Fighting Vehicles, Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, railroad track and roadwheels for tanks; Hawk and Patriot missiles. 1,600 employees. At 37 percent capacity.
Tobyhanna Army Depot, Tobyhanna, Pa. -- Communications, electronics equipment. 3,000 employees. At 73 percent capacity.
AIR FORCE
Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center, Tuscon, Ariz. -- Aircraft, aerospace vehicle storage; supplies planes and parts; carries out reduction of aircraft under START treaty with Russia. 600 employees. Workload not available.
Ogden Air Logistics Center, Ogden, Utah -- F-16, KC-135 aircraft; overhauls landing gear, brakes, struts and wheels; imaging and reconnaissance equipment; simulators; radar components; software engineering. 9,500 employees (including military). At 53 percent capacity.
Oklahoma Air Logistics Center, Oklahoma City, Okla. -- Logistics support on multiple aircraft including E-3, KC-135, B-52 and B-2; inventory management of aircraft and missile parts; engine management; missile system management; employees 20,700 (includes 8,000 military). At 78 percent capacity.
Warner Robins Air Logistics Center, Warner Robins, Ga. -- Manages 200,000 avionics items; support for missiles, vehicles, electronic systems; firefighting equipment; gyroscopes; electronics; propellers; F-15, C-141, C-5 and U-2 aircraft. 17,000 employees (including military). At 73 percent capacity.
NAVY
Naval Air Depot, Cherry Point, N.C. -- AV-8B Harrier, helicopters; composite materials; engine repair; blade repair; avionics components. 4,100 employees. At 95 percent capacity.
Naval Air Depot, Jacksonville, Fla. -- P-3, F-14, EA-6B, F/A-18 aircraft; engine repair; electronic warfare systems; anti-submarine warfare systems. 4,000 employees. At 98 percent capacity.
Naval Air Station, North Island, San Diego -- F/A-18, E-2, C-2, S-3 aircraft; calibration standards; deployments to ships for on-side repair; component, engine repair. 3,600 employees. At 93 percent capacity.
Norfolk, Va., Naval Shipyard -- Repair, overhaul, drydock, convert, modernize ships. 7,000 employees (including military). At 78 percent capacity.
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Naval Shipyard -- Ship repair. 4,000 employees (including military). At 56 percent capacity.
Portsmouth, N.H. Naval Shipyard -- Nuclear submarine overhaul, refueling, modernizing and repair. 3,300 employees. At 52 percent capacity.
Puget Sound, Wash. Naval Shipyard -- Ship repair and overhaul, ocean research, home port. 15,300 employees. At 81 percent capacity.
MARINES
Marine Corps Logistics Base, Albany, Ga. -- Repair, rebuild, modify, inspect all types of Marine equipment. 800 employees. At 99 percent capacity.
Marine Corps Logistics Base, Barstow, Calif. -- Repair, rebuild, modify, inspect all types of Marine equipment. 900 employees. At 106 percent capacity.
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