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Washington Daybook
Today's events of interest in and around Washington.
TODAY'S HEADLINERS, Washington Times November 8, 1999
http://www.washtimes.com/daybook/daybook.html
Nuclear-weapons protest -- 6 p.m. -- Project Abolition holds a candlelight vigil protest against nuclear weapons. Location: Third Street & Independence Avenue NW. Contact: 202/393-5201.
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Military Grappling With Guidelines For Cyber Warfare
Questions Prevented Use on Yugoslavia
By Bradley Graham Washington Post, November 8, 1999; Page A01
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/08/143l-110899-idx.html
During last spring's conflict with Yugoslavia, the Pentagon considered hacking into Serbian computer networks to disrupt military operations and basic civilian services. But it refrained from doing so, according to senior defense officials, because of continuing uncertainties and limitations surrounding the emerging field of cyber warfare.
"We went through the drill of figuring out how we would do some of these cyber things if we were to do them," said a senior military officer. "But we never went ahead with any."
As computers revolutionize many aspects of life, military officials have stepped up development of cyber weapons and spoken ominously of their potential to change the nature of war. Instead of risking planes to bomb power grids, telephone exchanges or rail lines, for example, Pentagon planners envision soldiers at computer terminals silently invading foreign networks to shut down electrical facilities, interrupt phone service, crash trains and disrupt financial systems. But such attacks, officials say, pose nettlesome legal, ethical and practical problems.
Midway through the war with Yugoslavia, the Defense Department's top legal office issued guidelines warning that misuse of cyber attacks could subject U.S. authorities to war crimes charges. It advised commanders to apply the same "law of war" principles to computer attacks that they do to the use of bombs and missiles. These call for hitting targets that are of military necessity only, minimizing collateral damage and avoiding indiscriminate attacks.
Defense officials said concern about legalities was only one of the reasons U.S. authorities resisted the temptation to, say, raid the bank accounts of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Other reasons included the untested or embryonic state of the U.S. cyber arsenal and the rudimentary or decentralized nature of some Yugoslav systems, which officials said did not lend themselves to computer assault.
U.S. forces did target some computers that controlled the Yugoslav air defense system, the officials said. But the attacks were launched from electronic jamming aircraft rather than over computer networks from ground-based U.S. keyboards.
No plan for a cyber attack on Yugoslav computer networks ever reached the stage of a formal legal assessment, according to several defense officials familiar with the planning. And the 50 pages of guidelines, prepared by the Pentagon general counsel's office, were not drafted with the Yugoslav operation specifically in mind.
But officials said the document, which has received little publicity, reflected the collective thinking of Defense Department lawyers about cyber warfare and marked the U.S. government's first formal attempt to set legal boundaries for the military's involvement in computer attack operations.
It told commanders to remain wary of targeting institutions that are essentially civilian, such as banking systems, stock exchanges and universities, even though cyber weapons now may provide the ability to do so bloodlessly.
In wartime, the document advised, computer attacks and other forms of what the military calls "information operations" should be conducted only by members of the armed forces, not civilian agents. It also stated that before launching any cyber assaults, commanders must carefully gauge potential damage beyond the intended target, much as the Pentagon now estimates the number of likely casualties from bomb attacks.
While computer attacks may appear on the surface as a cleaner means of destroying targets--with less prospect for physical destruction or loss of life than dropping bombs--Pentagon officials say such views are deceiving. By penetrating computer systems that control the communications, transportation, energy and other basic services in a foreign country, cyber weapons can have serious cascading effects, disrupting not only military operations but civilian life, officials say.
Other U.S. government agencies have sided with the Pentagon view that existing law and international accords are sufficient to govern information warfare. But Russia is challenging this view.
Over the past year, Moscow has tried to gather support for a United Nations resolution calling for new international guidelines and the banning of particularly dangerous information weapons. In comments to the U.N. secretary general published last month, Russia warned that information operations "might lead to an escalation of the arms race." It said "contemporary international law has virtually no means of regulating the development and application of such a weapon."
But the Russian initiative has drawn little backing. U.S. officials regard it as an attempt to forestall development of an area of weaponry in which Russia lags behind the United States.
In a formal response rejecting the Russian proposal, the Clinton administration said any attempt now to draft overarching principles on information warfare would be premature.
"First, you have extraordinary differences in the sophistication of various countries about this type of technology," said a State Department official involved in the issue. "Also, the technology changes so rapidly, which complicates efforts to try to define these things."
Instead of turning cyber assaults into another arms control issue, the administration prefers to treat them internationally as essentially a law enforcement concern. U.S. officials have supported several efforts through the United Nations and other groups to facilitate international cooperation in tracking computer criminals and terrorists.
For all the heightened attention to cyber warfare, defense specialists contend that there are large gaps between what the technology promises and what practitioners can deliver. "We certainly have some capabilities, but they aren't what I would call mature ones yet," a high-ranking U.S. military officer said.
The full extent of the U.S. cyber arsenal is among the most tightly held national security secrets. But reports point to a broad range of weapons under development, including use of computer viruses or "logic bombs" to disrupt enemy networks, the feeding of false information to sow confusion and the morphing of video images onto foreign television stations to deceive. Last month, the Pentagon announced it was consolidating plans for offensive as well as defensive cyber operations under the four-star general who heads the U.S. Space Command in Colorado Springs.
But complicating large-scale computer attacks is the need for an extraordinary amount of detailed intelligence about a target's hardware and software systems. Commanders must know not just where to strike but be able to anticipate all the repercussions of an attack, officials said.
"A recurring theme in our discussions with military operators is, well, if we can drop a bomb on it, why can't we take it out by a computer network attack," said a senior Pentagon lawyer specializing in intelligence. "Well, you may be able to. However, you've got to go through a few hoops and make sure that when you're choosing an alternative method, you're still complying with the law of armed conflict and making sure collateral damage is limited."
In their guidelines document, titled "An Assessment of International Legal Issues in Information Operations," the Pentagon's lawyers warned of such unintended effects of computer attacks as opening the floodgates of a dam, causing an oil refinery in a populated area to explode in flames or triggering the release of radioactivity. They also mentioned the possibility of computer attacks spilling over into neutral or friendly nations and noted the legal limits on deceptive actions.
"It may seem attractive for a combatant vessel or aircraft to avoid being attacked by broadcasting the agreed identification signals for a medical vessel or aircraft, but such actions would be a war crime," said the document, which was first reported last week by defense analyst William M. Arkin in a column on The Washington Post's online service. "Similarly, it might be possible to use computer morphing techniques to create an image of the enemy's chief of state informing his troops that an armistice or cease-fire agreement had been signed. If false, this also would be a war crime."
The document also addressed questions about whether the United States would be any more justified in using cyber weapons if a foreign adversary first hacked into U.S. computer networks. The answer: It depends on the extent of damage. One complicating factor, the defense lawyers wrote, is the difficulty of being certain about the real source and intent of some cyber attacks, whose origin can easily be disguised.
In the case of Yugoslavia, U.S. military authorities were slow to put together a plan for conducting information operations. But one was eventually assembled and approved by the middle of the 78-day war, the high-ranking officer said.
The plan involved many traditional information warfare elements--psychological operations, deception actions, electronic jamming of radar and radio signals--targeting not just Yugoslav military and police forces but Milosevic and his associates, the officer said. One tactic was to bombard the Yugoslav leadership with faxes and other forms of harassment.
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US Military Smaller After Wall Fall
By Robert Burns AP Military Writer Sunday, Nov. 7, 1999; 12:22 p.m. EST
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991107/aponline122226_000.htm
WASHINGTON -- The most recognizable change in the U.S. military in the decade since the Berlin Wall fell is its size - fewer troops, fewer weapons, fewer bases. Less well known is that the military now is more far-flung - showing the flag in such unlikely lands as Albania, South Africa and even Russia.
As a result, an American military in transition is doing more, in more places, with less.
As Defense Secretary William Cohen is fond of saying, this is not the bipolar world of the Cold War in which the United States and the former Soviet Union were locked in a superpower struggle.
Today, American forces operate in obscure places such as East Timor, Haiti and Kosovo. Defense dollars now go toward stopping black market Russian nuclear materials and preparing against North Korean long-range missiles.
In just the past year, U.S. forces have participated in a 78-day NATO air war over Kosovo while keeping a shaky peace on the ground in Bosnia - even as U.S. warplanes skirmished almost daily in the sky over Iraq.
"Within a very short period of time we had more people involved in more deployments, of longer duration, of a greater variety ... than ever before," Cohen said in a speech last week.
This is partly because the nature of security threats has changed since 1989 and partly because the Clinton administration, recognizing that change, is using the military as a tool to prevent future conflicts.
"Preventive defense," is what William Perry, Cohen's immediate predecessor, calls it.
In many ways the American military is busier now than in the final days of the generation-long Cold War. The Berlin Wall then symbolized not just the East-West division of Germany but also the split between Moscow and its communist allies on the one hand and Washington and its capitalist allies on the other.
When the wall came down on Nov. 9, 1989, the Soviet Union still was the focal point of the U.S. military's structure, planning and thinking. While the Pentagon was moving into nontraditional duties such as fighting the drug war, it was geared toward stopping the Red Army in central Europe. Now the United States is helping Russia improve the security of its nuclear weapons.
Retired Army Gen. George Joulwan was a 2nd lieutenant when he was first sent to Germany in 1962, just months after the wall went up. He commanded the Army's 5th Corps in Europe when it came down.
Looking back, Joulwan said the military did not realize how difficult the post-Cold War changes would be.
"We're very slow to adapt to the new challenges we face," said Joulwan, who rose to become Supreme Allied Commander Europe, head of all American and NATO forces, before he retired in 1997.
Leighton Smith, a retired Navy admiral, agreed that the adjustment has been slow but believes the U.S. military is stronger today in some ways.
"We have gone down in numbers, but we have gone up in technology," said Smith, who was director of operations at U.S. European Command in Germany when the Wall came down and later commanded Allied Forces Southern Europe.
There were 2.1 million American men and women on active duty when the wall came down, including about 325,000 in a dozen European countries - all of them allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Today there are 1.4 million men and women on active duty. While there are only about 100,000 in Europe, they are spread across 36 countries, from Finland to Bulgaria - neither of which is in NATO.
The defense budget has gone from about $300 billion in 1989 to about $270 billion this year. About $1 billion of today's budget is for something few could have imagined in 1989: aid to states of the former Soviet Union.
Ten years ago, keeping the peace meant preventing the outbreak of World War III, avoiding a nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union.
Today, peacekeeping of a different sort is a staple of the U.S. military's mission, especially in the Balkans where about 5,200 soldiers are in Bosnia and 6,300 are in Kosovo. That is nearly as many as were in strategically important Panama or the Philippines a decade ago.
In Pentagon parlance, the U.S. military has become more expeditionary - ready on short notice to jump into the fray far from home. An example of this was the role of Air Force B-2 stealth bombers in the Kosovo air war, which flew round-trip missions from their home base in Missouri, refueling in flight.
Today's military looks different in other ways:
-The share of federal spending devoted to defense has shrunk to about 15 percent of the government's total budget from 23 percent. But the Pentagon still is spending billions of dollars yearly to maintain a nuclear arsenal of bombs and missiles that remains at the core of the nation's defense strategy.
-The Army no longer has a single nuclear weapon, yet the backbone of the U.S. nuclear arsenal remains intact: intercontinental ballistic missiles in underground silos in Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado and Nebraska; long-range missiles carried about Trident submarines based in Georgia and Washington state; and bombs for aircraft. The only U.S. nuclear weapons stationed outside the United States now are aircraft bombs based in Europe, and there is talk of removing those, too.
-More combat roles are available to women. Early in the first Clinton administration the Pentagon opened up numerous slots, including duty on aircraft carriers and bombers and fighters, although the Army still accepts men only for front-line combat positions like tank drivers and attack helicopter pilots. There also is more gender integration in military training, except in the Marine Corps.
For all the change, some constants remain. The Army and Air Force maintain about 37,000 troops in South Korea, nearly half a century after the Korean War ended in a truce but with no peace treaty.
There also are about 40,000 American troops in Japan, including Marines on Okinawa and the USS Kitty Hawk home ported at Yokosuka, outside of Tokyo.
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Missile Flexing
Monday, November 8, 1999; Page A20
http://search.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/08/000l-110899-idx.html
STRATEGIC DIALOGUE between the two great nuclear powers, the United States and Russia, is coming down to the flexing of real and imagined missiles. The other day the Russians fired off a short-range interceptor missile -- a possible hint of a more ambitious shield to come. On any given day, its American advocates are urging a program to go beyond limited "theater" missile defense and to organize a full national missile defense.
Here lies one of the paramount, and most neglected, issues of American security policy. Americans insist the new program would be intended to defend just against rogue-state and terrorist missiles. But Russians see it as the core of a program that could overwhelm their own missile-defense forces. This is why Moscow opposes American-sought changes in the 1972 antiballistic missile (ABM) treaty -- changes that would propel the United States down a broad missile-defense path. The same basic considerations extend to Beijing as well.
There is real harm in these rhetorical and symbolic exchanges. They ignore the considerations of greatest psychological and political weight on each side. The United States, which has committed itself to the seeking of global stability, thereby needs a missile defense to stand up to rogues wherever they may be. To treat the new Russia the way Washington treated the old Soviet Union, as the single nuclear threat, will no longer do. Russia now is in a stage of acute internal shock. Its insecurities must be respected. This means that a new American national missile defense must not tread on Russia's legitimate fear for the integrity of its deterrent. It is the kind of project that urgently needs to be handed off to the negotiators.
What retards negotiation, on the American side anyway, is unusually fierce partisanship in Congress. A strong clique there sees a chance not merely to frustrate President Clinton's strategy but to undo the whole Cold War structure of arms control agreements and inspection procedures and to substitute for it a doctrine of defending America chiefly by unilateral applications of American power. This is largely a matter of faith, not logic, for those who feel that way. But there is a constituency available to support it, mostly in the Republican Party.
A careful revision of the anti-missile treaty can open the way to the sort of missile defense that makes nuclear sense and that contributes to an improved relationship with Russia. A curvy line can be drawn to ensure the United States of the missile defense it needs to conduct a global policy and to ensure Russia of the security and respect it needs while it is convalescing from calamitous systemic breakdown. It may not be too late for President Clinton to manage a diplomatic attack on these lines.
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New Pakistan Gov't Issues Ultimatum
By Kathy Gannon Associated Press Writer Monday, Nov. 8, 1999; 11:17 a.m. EST
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991108/aponline111741_000.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Pakistan-Nuclear.html
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistan will not sign the nuclear test ban treaty unless economic sanctions against this impoverished nation are lifted, the new military-led government said today.
But Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar also said Pakistan will not conduct further nuclear tests unless another nation in the volatile South Asia region, including Pakistan's main rival, India, does first.
"We will not be the first to conduct further nuclear tests," Sattar said in his first news conference since the military took power on Oct. 12. "We have no intentions of taking any provocative steps."
Sattar's comments represent the government's first foreign policy statement since Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf came to power after overthrowing the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif last month.
The comments also appear to depart from the previous government's repeated threats to test new missiles and build a nuclear arsenal if India did. Last year, Pakistan followed India in testing nuclear devices and proclaiming itself a nuclear weapons state.
Sattar was one of the first Cabinet ministers to be named by Musharraf. The country is being ruled by a seven-member National Security Council of army officers and civilians and led by Musharraf.
While both Pakistan and India have said they were willing to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, neither has.
Pakistan wants the economic and trade sanctions that followed last year's underground nuclear tests by the two uneasy neighbors lifted before signing the treaty. Further sanctions were imposed last month after the army took over.
Meanwhile, financial experts recruited by Pakistan to revive the economy promised a game plan for economic revival within four weeks, Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz told The Associated Press today.
Aziz said the plan, which involves tax reform and increased agricultural and industrial output, aims to reduce poverty and restore business and investor confidence.
"The task is daunting," Aziz said on his first day on the job in Islamabad. "But the economy is the government's top priority."
In his first visit to a NATO member since seizing power, Musharraf arrived today in Turkey, where he spent seven years as a child. He has said he wants to broaden ties with Turkey, especially in the field of defense.
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[One way Lockheed could recover, and set an example to the other beleagured defense industries, would be to actively support HR-2545, the "Nuclear Disarmament AND Ecoomic Conversion Act of 1999." See http://prop1.org/prop1/letter.htm.]
The Defense Company That Bombed Lockheed Martin's Performance This Year Has Angered Major Investors
By Peter Behr Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, November 8, 1999; Page F20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/08/030l-110899-idx.html
As the nation's largest defense contractor, Lockheed Martin Corp. knows plenty about building gun sights.
Now, however, it's Lockheed Martin that's caught in the cross hairs.
A cascade of mistakes, misjudgments and misfortune over the past year has buried the company's stock, wiping out $14 billion of shareholder value and infuriating major shareholders.
Ten days ago, a contrite Lockheed Martin Chairman Vance D. Coffman acknowledged that worse news lay ahead. Next year's profit is expected to be just $1 a share, he announced -- far below the $2.15 the company had forecast in June. Lockheed Martin president and chief executive Peter B. Teets took the hit and resigned.
The questions confronting the Bethesda-based defense and aerospace giant have become fundamental:
Can Coffman survive the anger of major investors?
And can Lockheed Martin recover without wrenching changes to its operations, personnel and culture? There is a growing expectation on Wall Street that major downsizing and restructuring will be required to stabilize a $25 billion company with shrinking cash flow and $11 billion in debt.
Wall Street appears divided on whether the 55-year-old Coffman will stay or go. A highly respected Stanford University engineer, Coffman rose through Lockheed's top-secret defense work to its top management before becoming Lockheed Martin's president in 1996. However, critics say Coffman's background in business, finance and politics hasn't been deep enough to avoid damaging miscues on all three fronts.
"There are irate phone calls going around" among Lockheed Martin's major institutional investors, said Martin Knoblowitz, a director of Standard & Poor's Corp., the financial rating service.
"These people aren't happy being underwater [with their Lockheed Martin investments] and made to look foolish," added Knoblowitz, whose firm last week pushed Lockheed Martin's debt rating down to the lowest investment grade level, a step above junk-bond status.
Coffman gets a vote of confidence from some on Wall Street like Knoblowitz and Pierre Chao of Credit Suisse First Boston.
"The hopping up and down on Wall Street and the screaming for managerial blood is often a knee-jerk reaction to bad news. It doesn't mean it's the right answer," Chao said.
Others are not so generous.
An official of one of Lockheed Martin's largest shareholders wants to see the company's board replace Teets with a top executive from outside the company who could move Coffman aside next year as chief executive. "That's the one thing that could get the stock turned around in three to six months," said this person, who declined to be identified.
Coffman's fate won't be clear, analysts say, until a president is chosen to replace Teets, and perhaps not even then.
In what some analysts see as a signal of future changes, Lockheed Martin's board divided the responsibility for picking a new president between Coffman and one of the board's most influential outside directors, General Electric Co. Vice Chairman Eugene Murphy. Some key investors hope Murphy will insist on an outsider in the president's post, breaking from the past practice of alternating top assignments between veterans of the Lockheed and Martin Marietta companies that merged in 1995.
But while that decision is being made, Coffman has begun a counteroffensive, aimed both at Wall Street and the Defense Department, where Lockheed's performance on some key contracts has been sharply criticized.
Under the new Lockheed strategy, according to Coffman, the company will concentrate on rebuilding its performance and reputation with the Pentagon and other federal customers while it clamps down with new controls over cash flow.
And secondly, it has begun sizing up some major non-defense businesses to see which could be downsized, spun off or shared with new investment partners.
Some analysts believe that the list of spinoff candidates has gotten much larger after the company's latest setbacks.
Heading the list is the company's global telecommunications business. It includes a 49 percent interest in Bethesda-based Comsat Corp., a satellite communications firm that is the U.S. link to the global satellite network Intelsat.
In perhaps the most controversial step of his tenure so far, Coffman sought to acquire all of Comsat, to extend Lockheed Martin's tech know-how from the government to the commercial arena.
In his critics' view, the challenge of winning political and regulatory approval for the Comsat deal tied up so much of top management's time that problems with space-related businesses and some Pentagon contracts were allowed to mushroom. "If we could go back in time and make that go away, investors would be all smiles," said one investment group official.
Now, assuming Congress finally approves the merger's completion, that business may be sold or shared with new partners, if they can be found.
Robert Stevens, Lockheed's chief financial officer, said in an interview that other Lockheed divisions outside the defense core, such as commercial information technology services and state and local contracting, will be similarly scrutinized to see if they would do better as separate businesses or partnerships.
"It's very clear to us that those markets have different appetites for capital and require different skills and expertise" than do Lockheed's basic defense businesses, he said.
"We're looking in the short term at strategic opportunities . . . to unlock value" in these non-core businesses, Stevens said. Lockheed intends to see whether these businesses could produce better value for shareholders if they were run by managements that understand their markets "better than the management team in Lockheed Martin."
"That doesn't mean that there's a fire sale here," he added. "We know these businesses are valuable."
Stevens did not spell out where these moves may lead, but some analysts predict it will be well beyond Lockheed's current plans, announced in September, to sell off units with $1.8 billion in annual sales and 9,000 employees -- including the Manassas-based electronics group.
"They must make additional divestitures in non-core areas like information technology. The sale of $1.8 billion in assets is grossly inadequate" given the size of the company's debt and its reduced cash flow, said James A. McAleese, a McLean lawyer specializing in defense industry issues. "I believe he [Stevens] is signaling to prospective buyers to make offers."
The right pieces would clearly be attractive to defense industry investors such as the District-based Carlyle Group, analysts say.
Major investors do not appear to be calling for a full-scale dismemberment of the company along the lines of the self-engineered breakup of General Dynamics Corp., the Falls Church-based defense contractor that downsized severely in the early 1990s in response to the plunge in military spending following the end of the Cold War. Its consolidation around a smaller portfolio of businesses has rewarded GD shareholders handsomely.
"I'm not aware of any strong voices today from any major institutional investors placing pressure in that direction," said Tassos Philippakos, senior vice president of Moody's Investor Service.
The fate of Lockheed's broad array of businesses may hinge on a third key question: Has the company's free fall bottomed out?
"This is a painful process for all of us," Coffman told analysts during an Oct. 29 telephone conference call. "You are wondering if there are more surprises to come."
To reach its new earnings target of $1 a share, Lockheed has to cash in on a long-delayed sale of C-130J cargo transports to the United Arab Emirates, seek other customers for the aircraft, and hope that a steep slide in its space launch and services business is halted. Lockheed officials expect the UAE orders before the end of this year.
There's much less optimism about a pickup in orders for satellite launches, where the supply of launching services now runs far ahead of global demand.
Lockheed also must see to it that failures of its booster rockets -- major contributors to its current malaise -- don't continue.
"There's a certain amount of luck involved," said CSFB's Chao. "If there's a launch failure, that would obviously have an impact."
Once again, the financial analysts' outlook is divided.
"After several surprises, it may be reasonable to expect that the company may be close to the bottom," Philippakos said.
But Standard & Poor's analyst Robert Friedman isn't as hopeful.
"I think the company is in a bind because the whole is not greater than the sum of the parts, even at $19 a share," he opined. (Lockheed shares closed at $17.37 1/2 on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday, down 62 1/2 cents for the day.)
"As long as they're involved in the defense business and satellite services, those are just not very good businesses. Defense markets are slow-growing at best and shrinking in some areas." And the competition in satellite services makes it hard to profit there, Friedman said.
Coffman's strategy of re-centering Lockheed Martin on its core defense contracts strikes many analysts as an overdue move.
But as he has acknowledged, the company has major fence-mending ahead with its largest customer.
One view of that relationship comes from notes of a meeting in September between senior Lockheed executives, headed by former executive vice president James Blackwell, and Air Force Deputy Assistant Secretary Darleen Druyen.
The notes taken by Lockheed officials found their way to an Internet bulletin board. Although neither Lockheed nor the Air Force have commented on the incident, sources close to the company say the notes accurately reflect Druyen's comments.
They quote her as giving an "excellent" grade to Lockheed's management of the F-22 jet fighter program and an "outstanding" mark to its work on the F-117 Stealth Fighter. But Druyen is quoted as blistering Lockheed for "arrogance" in handling its space division contracts.
Druyen also chastised Lockheed's proposal for a new line of spy satellites -- a potential $5 billion contract that Lockheed had just lost to a Boeing Co. team despite having controlled that field for decades.
It "was a crappy design. No innovation," according to the notes.
Notwithstanding Druyen's criticism, the Pentagon now appears worried about the health of its primary weapons supplier.
So worried, in fact, that Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre last week took the surprising step of lecturing Wall Street about its severe treatment of Lockheed and other defense companies recently.
"The stock market has pummeled our top defense contractors in the past few weeks. . . . I'm startled and frankly disappointed that [investors] have taken such a short-sighted view of the importance of defense to the country," he said.
While some Wall Street analysts found Hamre's comments detached from reality, defense analyst Loren Thompson said the defense official's unusual remarks reflect the Pentagon's concern about the plight of the defense industry -- and notably Lockheed Martin.
Lockheed's self-made problems are compounded by constant changes in Pentagon orders for weapons systems, Thompson said. "How can you tell investors what you're going to do when your biggest customer constantly changes its mind?"
A Look at . . .
Lockheed Martin
Third-quarter sales, in millions
43% Systems Integration
$2,700
22% Space systems
$1,400
19% Aeronautical systems
$1,200
9% Technology services
$584
7% Other units
$316
SOURCE: Company reports, Bloomberg News
Business: The largest U.S. defense supplier and a major NASA contractor. The company also provides information technology and space services to commercial clients.
Headquarters: Bethesda
Founded: 1995, through a merger of Lockheed and Martin Marietta
Chairman, chief executive: Vance Coffman
President: vacant
Ticker symbol: LMT on NYSE
Employees: 150,000
*Local employees: 9,500
Web address: www.lockheedmartin.com
*1999 figures
SOURCE: Company reports
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Dangerous Fictions About Bioterrorism
By Donald A. Henderson Monday, November 8, 1999; Page A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/08/013l-110899-idx.html
Biological terrorism is a hot media topic these days, but by confusing fact and fiction, coverage could cause more harm than good. While national security and public health experts become increasingly concerned about bioterrorism, misleading stories are appearing -- including the recent anthrax scenario on ABC's "Nightline."
In a five-part series that aired between Oct. 1 and Oct. 8, "Nightline" presented "Biowar," a fictitious scenario of a bioterrorist attack in which an epidemic was unleashed when unknown terrorists broke glass bottles containing anthrax spores in a city subway. Panelists on the show, who in real life hold elected office or serve as governmental or public health authorities, represented the beleaguered professionals trying to cope with the fictional attack.
The "Nightline" series endeavored to call attention to a serious national security problem. It did succeed in illustrating how poorly informed and unprepared the country is at this time. In so doing, it also presented several inaccuracies.
First, "Nightline" incorrectly portrayed medical and public health intervention as ineffectual. In fact, an epidemic caused by bioterrorism would benefit from the application of expertise similar to that required in responding to a naturally occurring disease outbreak. These efforts include clinical recognition of cases, confirmation by laboratory testing, epidemiological investigation by public health staff, and the initiation of treatment and control measures. Medical and public health professionals would bear the primary responsibility for designing and executing such a response. Thus far, however, health professionals have been little involved in bioterrorism response planning sponsored by the federal government and were not much in evidence on "Nightline" either.
In "Nightline's" scenario, inhalation anthrax was depicted as having a three- to seven-day incubation period. What this means is essentially that all those infected in the scenario became ill within a week after exposure. By the close of the scenario, 65,000 had fallen sick, and 80 percent were expected to die. In the "Nightline" story, antibiotics were erroneously depicted as being of little value, and vaccines, arriving by airlift by Day Six, were too late to be beneficial.
The truth is, the incubation period for anthrax would extend far longer than the seven days portrayed. So too would the window of opportunity for carrying out life-saving medical interventions extend beyond a week. The only known epidemic of inhalation anthrax occurred in Sverdlovsk, Russia, in 1979 when anthrax spores were accidentally released from a bioweapons factory. About 80 cases followed, some occurring as early as two days after exposure and some as late as 47 days later.
Why does this matter? "Nightline's" story ended at Day Seven, implying -- incorrectly -- that no further interventions would be useful. In the real world, an anthrax epidemic is unlikely to be recognized any sooner than three or four days after the attack. It would take another 24 to 48 hours to obtain and distribute large quantities of antibiotics and vaccines. By Day Seven in the real-life epidemic at Sverdlovsk, 75 percent of cases had yet to show the first signs of illness; antibiotics and vaccines given at this point still could have saved many lives.
Other misleading scenes showed emergency health personnel wearing space suits and helmets; it was suggested that persons bringing in food or essential supplies might have to be similarly garbed. This is curious because, as the scenario correctly notes, anthrax does not spread from person to person, and workers run no risk of becoming infected after the event.
It is hoped that a terrorist attack using biological weapons will remain in the realm of fictional scenarios. But should such an event occur, professionals and the public need to be accurately informed and appropriate measures need to be taken to mitigate the effects. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others have begun to raise awareness of the need for coherent medical and public health responses to potential bioterrorism. These efforts should be improved by increasing public understanding of the true threat of bioterrorism -- a result that can only come from careful media coverage of this easily sensationalized topic.
The writer, a public health physician, is director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies.
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Computer Worries Prompt Offer to Withdraw U.S. Diplomats
By MICHAEL R. GORDON November 8, 1999http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/11/biztech/articles/08russia.html
MOSCOW --The State Department is planning to withdraw hundreds of government employees and family members from Russia and three other former Soviet republics before Jan. 1 because of concerns over the Year 2000 computer problem.
Experts at the American Embassy in Moscow, however, have concluded that there is virtually no risk to diplomats from the computer problem, although there may be some disruption in telephone communication and electrical power in Russia.
The cost of withdrawing those who wish to leave could run into millions of dollars. It reflects anxiety in Washington and among some government employees in Moscow, but is also being encouraged by the State Department's bureaucratic procedures.
Of the more than 100 nations in which the United States maintains diplomatic posts, it plans to withdraw personnel over the Jan. 1 period from just four: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova.
Diplomats in other nations, like China, either did not see a need to leave because of possible computer glitches or because they are already inured to hardships like power cutoffs, according to American officials.
Certainly, Russia is likely to experience its share of disruptions. An internal assessment by the American Embassy notes that computer foulups may interfere with telephone service and produce electrical outages, which it says might last for a day or so in Moscow.
But such short-term problems are likely to be inconveniences rather than real dangers for American government employees, the review suggests. Even if such disruptions occur, the American Embassy here and the compound where many diplomats live have their own backup generators, fuel, stores of food and water, and telephones that make calls via communications satellites.
"The short-term risk to lives, health and safety as a result of these disruptions is negligible," the review states.
The Year 2000 problem could affect computers that have been programmed to read only the last two digits of a year. Unless adjustments are made, they could read the year 2000 as 1900, interfering with public utilities, aviation, banks and other enterprises that use computers.
After a slow start, the Russian government appears to be taking the problem seriously.
"Most Russians recognize that this problem is not hypothetical," John R. Beyrle, a State Department specialist on the former Soviet states told the Congress in September. "They do not have their heads in the sand, but are struggling to do what is needed as the clock winds down. In our assessment, the failures are not likely to be severe or long-lasting."
American experts have said, for example, that the risk of the accidental launch of a Russian nuclear missile will be virtually nil. The United States plans to share radar data with the Russians to help prevent any miscalculations if the Russian early warning system goes on the blink.
Russia's aviation system appears to be well prepared, according to American officials. The air traffic control system in Moscow, for example, has already been tested by the Swedish contractors that supplied it.
The American Embassy has told Washington that the Year 2000 problem will not increase the likelihood of a Chernobyl-type accident at Russia's nuclear power plants.
Electricity is a bigger worry, especially since it is needed to produce heat during Russia's frigid winters. Most heat in Moscow, for example, is generated by plants that produce hot water using natural gas. The plants use analog systems and thus are not vulnerable to the Year 2000 problem. But they use electricity to pump water through their pipes.
To prevent computer problems, Russia's electricity monopoly says it plans to change over to manual control on Dec. 31.
Western experts also point out that Moscow's politically ambitious mayor, Yuri M. Luzhkov, has taken a special interest in avoiding disruptions in the capital. If electrical outages do occur, they are more likely to take place in small towns and settlements in the countryside than in Moscow and other major cities.
Much of the Russian public does not appear to be overly concerned. Most people have more pressing economic worries and routinely put up with disruptions to hot water supply and other utilities.
The Jan. 1 period will be unusually active politically because of the horse-trading and maneuvering expected to follow Russia's parliamentary elections on Dec. 19.
Britain and some other Western governments are reducing embassy staffing around the Jan. 1 period, but the American exodus is expected to be the largest.
In deciding to withdraw some diplomats from Russia, the State Department is erring on the side of caution. American officials said the embassy will stay open and will maintain a staff to deal with diplomatic issues, embassy security and the possible problems encountered by American citizens here.
But the scope of the withdrawal also seems to have been influenced by State Department personnel procedures that were devised more to deal with the evacuation of diplomats due to civil wars than the subtle computer issues facing Washington.
In Moscow, the first step was taken when a special "Y2K Committee" was formed, headed by the embassy's chief science officer. Drawing on extensive discussions with Russian and Western experts, it concluded that there was a "negligible" risk to American personnel and distributed hundreds of copies of its assessment to American employees here.
But the embassy's Y2K Committee did not have the final word. It reported to the embassy's Emergency Action Committee, which is made up of senior diplomats and administrative personnel.
The Emergency Action Committee had to confront deep worries among some of the staff. So it sought to work out with the State Department's Office of Management a procedure that would allow the most anxious government employees to return to the United States during the Jan. 1 period or, at least, send their families there.
But under the State Department's regulations on "voluntary authorized departure," it was impossible to offer some diplomats a chance to leave without making the proposal available to all American government employees not required to be on duty on during the Jan. 1 period.
Not everyone who may leave is so fearful, embassy officials say. Some may just be playing it safe while others may be looking for a free trip back home. Those who leave for Washington will be provided with free air fare, will be put up in hotels and given daily living allowances.
A further complication is that those that elect to leave must be prepared to stay away for up to 30 days, in keeping with State Department regulations.
Just how many American government employees and family members plan to leave Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldovoa for the United States is still unclear. A State Department official said that the estimates range between as many as 800 and as few as 250.
The estimated cost to the United States government is $10,000 per person for 30 days, and $5,000 per person if the leave is limited to 15 days. That means the cost to the American government could be as high as $8 million and as little as $1.25 million. (In contrast, the United States is spending $7.5 million this year under its program to create civilian jobs for scientists in Russia's closed nuclear cities.)
The hope is that serious disruptions will not occur and that State Department will be able to sound an all-clear by Jan. 6, allowing many people to return several days later.
The State Department procedures have produced some unwelcome results for American diplomats here. Diplomats who were planning to go to Western Europe, Southeast Asia or other foreign locations for a brief break over the Christmas holidays will not be allowed to return to Moscow until the State Department declares that the computer danger has passed, confronting them with the possibility of prolonged and prohibitively costly foreign vacation.
The regulations, a State Department official said, were intended to keep as many people as possible out of harm's way during a civil war or some other type of crisis. Now, many diplomats here may be forced to choose between forgoing their foreign holiday and staying in Moscow or returning to Washington.
The State Department has issued a travel advisory, warning American citizens to avoid travel to Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova during the Jan. 1 period. But its plan to assist the approximately 10,000 American citizens in the Moscow region who do not work for the government is less clear.
The American Embassy has advised Americans here to fill up their bathtubs with water and make sure that they have manual as well as electric can-openers.
American citizens here are still awaiting the answer to some questions, like how they should contact the embassy for help if the telephones do not work.
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U.S. Embassies Allow Y2K Departures
By The Associated Press, November 8, 1999, Filed at 8:41 a.m. EST
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/i/AP-Russia-US-Y2K.html
MOSCOW (AP) -- The United States will pull out some embassy employees in Russia and three other ex-Soviet states in case anything goes wrong because of the year 2000 computer glitch, an embassy official in Moscow said today.
``We have what's called an authorized voluntary departure policy,'' said the official, who declined to be named. ``People are not being evacuated, but they can choose to leave if they wish.''
The decision by the State Department came after officials agreed that Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova will be among countries worst affected by the changeover glitch, which could foul up computers that cannot distinguish between the years 2000 and 1900.
The U.S. Embassy official said the State Department had asked embassies around the world to study what Y2K problems could occur and recommend possible options.
He said a committee of embassy officials agreed that some problems were likely to occur in Russia. He said the embassy did not believe Y2K-related problems would be serious, but that some nonessential personnel would be allowed to leave.
The United States had said previously that, though accidental missile launches or nuclear-reactor breakdowns in connection with the bug are unlikely in Russia, there may be power outages and communications failures.
The Moscow embassy will remain open during the New Year, the official said. He said he didn't know how many embassy employees would take advantage of the State Department's offer, which will pay for plane tickets out of Russia, hotel rooms and a daily allowance.
No one knows exactly how bad Y2K-related problems could be in Russia. The country's electricity monopoly -- expected to be one source of problems -- said last week it will shift its huge grid to manual control on Dec. 31 to ensure it avoids outages.
But United Energy Systems cannot guarantee that breakdowns will not occur, deputy chairman Alexander Remezov said.
``We can't give a 100 percent guarantee that not one of these many systems will fail,'' Remezov said last week. He said generating plants will have a week of coal or fuel oil reserves on hand at the New Year in case something goes wrong.
Russia has done far less than other countries to prepare for the year 2000 bug, partly because it has been more focused on trying to counter severe economic problems.
But the country has proportionately fewer computers than more developed countries, and government officials have said repeatedly that no major breakdowns will occur.
---
[Once again a treaty is unenforceable?]
U.S. Criticism of Russia Grows
By Barry Schweid AP Diplomatic Writer Monday, Nov. 8, 1999; 4:52 p.m. EST
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991108/aponline165242_000.htm
WASHINGTON -- Escalating a disagreement with Moscow, the Clinton administration on Monday said Russia was not in line with the Geneva Convention by inflicting casualties among civilians in Chechnya.
The criticism stopped short of accusing Russia of violating the international accord, which is designed to shield civilians from indiscriminate attack. But it was still an unusual accusation.
And it followed a top Pentagon official's declaration that the United States would go ahead with an anti-missile defense even if it meant withdrawing from the 1972 Antiballistic Missile Treaty with Russia.
"We will not permit any other country to have a veto on actions that may be needed for the defense of our country," Under Secretary of Defense Walter B. Slocombe said in a speech Friday.
The friction with Russia on these two fronts - Chechnya and missile defenses - raises questions about the warm relationship the administration has tried to foster with Moscow for more than six years.
Russia is gaining support, meanwhile, from U.S. allies in its insistence that the 1972 treaty be kept intact. All of the European Union members either voted with Russia or abstained on a mostly symbolic vote Friday at the United Nations.
For weeks, the administration has pleaded with Russia to restrain its offensive against the restive republic of Chechnya, particularly in attacks that kill or injure civilians.
The U.S. campaign took a new turn Monday as Russia infantry reinforcements with tanks and artillery headed toward Chechnya after air raids on the capital, Grozny, killed more than 60 people.
"I think we've made very clear that we don't understand the objectives of the Russian policy," said State Department spokesman James P. Rubin.
"We do not believe that a purely military solution to the conflict is possible," he said, urging Russia to ask the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to "play a useful role."
The organization, which includes most European countries, Canada and the United States, will meet later this month in Istanbul, Turkey. President Clinton plans to attend.
"We remain extremely concerned about the indiscriminate use of force, and like other countries, Russia has assumed obligations under the Geneva Conventions and commitments under the OSCE code of conduct on political-military aspects of security," Rubin said.
Asked if the administration was flatly accusing Russia of violating the Geneva accords and OSCE understandings, Rubin stopped short.
"What I can say is that the indiscriminate use of force and the impact of escalation on innocent civilians is a matter of deep concern to us," he replied. "Russia's current campaign is not in keeping with these commitments."
However, said the spokesman, "Violation is a term of art that often is used for political purposes, and sometimes is a legal term. And you can use your own words, but our words are 'not in keeping with' or 'not in conformity with'."
On a related issue, Rubin said Russia is above the military equipment limit it is allowed to have in Chechnya under the Conventional Forces in Europe agreement. Under projected changes in the agreement, Russia would get more flexibility in deploying its tanks and other non-nuclear equipment, but Rubin said the agreement would not be changed still further to accommodate Russia's actions in Chechnya.
Rubin reiterated, meanwhile, that the administration considers Chechnya to be part of Russia and supports Russia's attempt to maintain sovereignty over the republic.
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IN AMERICA -- Marathon Man
By Bob Herbert, November 8, 1999
http://www.nytimes.com/library/opinion/herbert/110899herb.html
NASHUA, N.H. -- Al Gore seemed to be enjoying himself. The instant reviews were coming in and they were quite favorable. The vice president had just finished a two-hour open meeting with 125 mostly independent voters in Plymouth, N.H. He answered every question they came up with, including one from a man who was convinced that the search for a cure for cancer should be financed by a steep dedicated tax on beer and "every bottle of booze" sold in America.
"I respect your opinion," Mr. Gore said, "but I am not prepared to endorse it right now."
Most of the people at the Saturday morning meeting expressed surprise at the range and the depth of the vice president's knowledge of complex issues, and his eloquence as he talked about matters like gay rights.
In response to a health care question, Mr. Gore offered -- as he does at nearly every stop -- a ferocious critique of Bill Bradley's health care proposal, saying it would devour the budget surplus over 10 years, largely destroy the Medicaid system and jeopardize financing for Medicare.
He said his own, more modest plan, based on providing access to health insurance for every child in America within four years, was politically doable and had the virtue of remaining within the constraints of a balanced budget. "It's affordable," he said.
Al Gore may finally have stumbled upon himself. He's chucked those long and dreadfully boring speeches. He no longer genuflects before every politician in the house. He speaks frequently to relatively small gatherings of ordinary citizens and talks to them about whatever is on their minds. This plays to his strengths -- his intelligence, his fundamental decency, his enormous capacity for hard work and the experience he has gained from nearly seven years as vice president.
In response to a question about gay rights, Mr. Gore told the audience: "I do not believe that God could have intended for people to be persecuted all their lives because of who they are or who they fall in love with."
In addition to health care and gay rights, the vice president spoke easily and knowledgeably about the test ban treaty, gun control, the environment and the dangers of excessive partisanship in Washington.
"He did very well," said Eileen Curran-Konrad, an English teacher from New Hampton. "He doesn't have charisma, but he has substance and that's important. I'm going to vote for him."
Paul Normandin, a lawyer from Laconia, said: "He did an outstanding job here. He displayed experience that other candidates don't have, and he will bring respect and dignity to the White House."
Mr. Gore's appearance in Plymouth was one of several around the state. There were no inside-the-Beltway questions, no queries about campaign staffers, or the shift of his headquarters from Washington to Nashville, or the recent flap over Naomi Wolf, the writer who has been advising him on women's issues. The voters were interested in health care, education, human rights at home and abroad, the danger of nuclear proliferation and Mr. Gore's vision of America's future.
During a stop in North Conway, the Vice President devoted a few gleeful minutes to George W. Bush's foreign policy follies.
"I sympathize," said Mr. Gore, "with those who say it's not necessarily important whether a candidate for President who's just getting his feet wet knows the names of the leaders of foreign countries. But I think that it is an issue if a candidate for President has no idea why it's important to stop the spread of nuclear weapons with a comprehensive test ban treaty."
The audience applauded. Mr. Gore then referred to Mr. Bush's comment about the coup in Pakistan. (Mr. Bush had said: "The new Pakistani general, he's just been elected -- not elected, this guy took over office. It appears this guy is going to bring stability to the country and I think that's good news for the subcontinent.")
Said Mr. Gore: "I think it's important if a candidate for president in our country, the world's oldest democracy, doesn't know that when a democracy is overturned by a military coup, it's not good news for America."
It was a good day for Al Gore. He ended it with a well-received speech, delivered without notes, in Dover. He told the dinner audience, among other things, that "democracy is a marathon, not a sprint." Hardly anyone missed the point.
---
Bush Discusses Foreign Policy
By Ron Word Associated Press Writer Monday, Nov. 8, 1999; 5:12 p.m. EST http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991108/aponline171251_000.htm
... "The voters know that I intend to rebuild the military power of the United States so we can keep the peace," said Bush, who also is the governor of Texas. "The voters know I intend to use our technological brain power to bring certainty to an uncertain world."
Bush, who was making his third campaign visit to the state this year, also raised about $450,000 at a $1,000-a-plate luncheon. He was accompanied by his younger brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.
At the Duval County Jail, Bush sat among a group of youth offenders, mentors and teachers involved in the state's "Listen and Learn" juvenile justice program. He sat next to 18-year-old Julius Mills, who was serving time for drug dealing, and listened as others explained their crimes and how they were learning in the school set up in the jail.
"I'm going to do whatever it takes to succeed," Mills said.
Bush described the mentors and teachers as "armies of compassion" and told the juveniles, "I hope that you have learned the lessons of right and wrong."
In his speech to about 450 supporters, Bush reiterated his plans to cut taxes, protect Social Security and strengthen the education and military systems.
He drew his most enthusiastic response with his comments about the military. Jacksonville is the home of two Navy bases.
"This is still a dangerous world, an uncertain world, a world of madmen, and terrorists, and missiles," Bush said, promising to replace aging weapons systems and to improve morale among the men and women in the military.
He headed to Orlando for a fund-raising reception.
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Narayanan says India keen to resume talks with Pakistan
November 8, 1999 Express India
http://www.expressindia.com/news/31223199.htm
VIENNA: President K R Narayanan today said India was willing to resume stalled dialogue with Pakistan but Islamabad must cease cross-border terrorism and create an atmosphere of trust destroyed by armed intrusions in Kargil.
Addressing a joint press conference with his Austrian counterpart Thomas Klestil after their wide ranging talks on regional and international issues, Narayanan said, "we are willing to resume the dialogue for mutual benefit of India and Pakistan and whole lot of south Asian region." Narayanan, speaking at a luncheon hosted by Austrian Chancellor Viktor Klima, said, "we are committed to the peaceful resolution of all differences through bilateral dialogue with our neighbours and to building mutually beneficial and forward-looking relationships."
The lahore process that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee initiated with the then Pakistani Premier Nawaz Sharif received a setback when Pakistani forces violated the Line of Control (LoC) and mounted an attack in the Kargil sector. During their nearly half an hour tete-a-tete after Narayanan was formally welcomed by the Austrian President, the two leaders discussed a host of issues including the situation in Pakistan, Afghanistan, nuclear issue, problem posed by international terrorism to world peace and india's relation with neighbours, particularly China and Bangladesh, reports PTI.
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Pakistan accuses India of "resisting" improvement in relations
November 8, 1999 Express India
http://www.expressindia.com/news/31222999.htm
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's new foreign minister Abdus Sattar tonight accused India of "resisting" improvement in relations and asserted that Islamabad had no plans to abandon nuclear option. "Pakistan wants to improve relations, but India does not give that prospect a chance... Instead of resolving difference on basis of law and justice it seeks to exploit power disparity to impose unilateral preferences," Sattar said in his first press conference after assuming office.
A former Pakistani ambassador to India, Sattar, considered like his chief executive Gen Pervez Musharraf to be hawkish on India, was particularly critical of New Delhi's demand that a south Asian summit of leaders be postponed following the military takeover.
Asserting that his nation will not give up its nuclear option, Sattar also ruled out signing the Global Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) unless sanctions imposed against it were lifted. "Minimum credible deterrence will remain our policy," Sattar declared saying this did not mean the development of a full-scale strategic nuclear arsenal.
At the same time Sattar said Pakistan would not be the first to conduct further nuclear tests. "We have no intentions of taking any provocative steps." Sattar pressed for an early settlement to the Kashmir issue and reiterated Pakistan's support for fundamentalist Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, reports AP.
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Sharifs agreed on Nuclear rollback, claims Leghari
08 November 1999, Monday 29 Rajab 1420
http://dawn.com/daily/text/top11.htm
ISLAMABAD, Nov 7: Former president and leader of Millat Party, Farooq Leghari said on Sunday former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz Sharif had committed to the United States to rollback nuclear and missile programmes, and to accept the Line of Control as permanent border.
"They had made these commitments against national interests and in return asked US officials to take care of those in uniform. This amounts to treason," Leghari said while talking to newsmen here.
He said his party believed in healthy, corrective criticism. "We did so in the past and we would criticize the military government if it does not work well," Leghari claimed.
The Millat Party chief said it was wrong on the part of the present military setup to believe that it would remove all ills. "If the present government performs well, we will support, and if not we will criticise it," he added.
Leghari said his party never had the one-point agenda of ousting Nawaz Sharif. "We wanted the Nawaz government out, as well as the removal of ills from the society," he maintained.
He said that accountability process should continue without any discrimination and all big defaulters be brought to book.
"Both the major parties of the country have lost people's confidence. Masses have lost faith in politicians. In these circumstances we would continue our efforts to pull the country out of crisis and to ensure early restoration of democracy," he added.
Leghari said the present setup should be given a year or so. He said before the next elections, existing identity cards be phased out and replaced with computerized ones. He further demanded preparation of new electoral lists for the elections.-NNI
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Austria acknowledges India as nuclear power
November 8, 1999
http://www.expressindia.com/news/31223099.htm
VIENNA: Austria, a strong critic of the Pokhran nuclear tests and a leading member of the European Union (EU), today acknowledged India's status as a nuclear power. "I have great pleasure in welcoming the President of India, the world's largest democracy and a nuclear and economic power," Austrian President Thomas Klestil told reporters after a 30-minute meeting with visiting Indian President K R Narayanan.
EU member states have been scrupulously avoiding acknowledging India as a nuclear power. EU has supported key western countries including the US in asking India to adhere to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Austria is the only neutral country in the world which has voiced its stiff opposition even to peaceful use of nuclear programmes.
Earlier, speaking at a banquet hosted in his honour, Narayanan emphasised that India's commitment to disarmament, especially universal, comprehensive and non-discriminatory nuclear disarmament, was a central feature of the country's foreign policy. "Our commitment is clearly reflected in our unilateral announcement of a moratorium on nuclear testing, a no-first use of nuclear weapons policy as well as non-use against non-nuclear weapon countries," he said, reports PTI.
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Weldon: Russia left nukes here
Delco lawmaker says FBI dragging its feet
by Myung Oak Kim, November8, 1999 Philadelphia Daily News
http://www.phillynews.com/daily_news/99/Nov/08/local/BOMB08.htm
Local congressman Curt Weldon is making headlines with claims that Russia has buried dozens of suitcase-sized nuclear bombs in the United States.
"There is no doubt that the Soviets stored material in this country. The question is what and where," Weldon, a Republican House member from Delaware County, told the New York Post in a story published yesterday.
Weldon did not return repeated phone calls yesterday to his home in Aston, Delaware County.
Weldon told the Post that the FBI won't ask its former Cold War foe what happened to the 10 kiloton nuclear bombs. Citing the congressional testimony of KGB defector Vasili Mitrokhin and Russian Gen. Alexander Lebed, Weldon said the former Soviet Union made 132 of these bombs but accounted for only 48.
A kiloton has the explosive force of 1,000 tons of TNT.
The FBI has refused comment. But the Post, citing congressional sources, said agents have already conducted one search in Brainerd, Minn., for stashes of nuclear weapons, guns, radios and maps.
Weldon said FBI Director Louis Freeh told him two weeks ago that there is a possibility of hidden weapons in the U.S., but Freeh would not perform thorough searches. Weldon said the caches possibly exist in New York, California, Texas, Montana and Minnesota.
The former fireman and Marcus Hook mayor used these claims to again criticize the Clinton administration for being soft on President Boris Yeltsin and refusing to push sensitive security issues.
"The administration is not asking the right questions," Weldon told the Post.
The KGB had orders to blow up power stations, dams, telecommunications centers and landing strips for Air Force One in the event of war, the Post wrote, citing Russian intelligence experts.
Two weeks ago, Weldon and Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.) sent Secretary of State Madeleine Albright a letter about the nuclear weapons stashes. The letter urged the administration to "aggressively pursue the Russian government to identify all pre-deployed weapons sites in the United States, and. . .eliminate such remnants of the Cold War," the Post wrote.
Weldon, who chairs the House Armed Services subcommittee on military research and development, has visited Russia 19 times and teaches a course at Widener University on American National Security.
During the war in Kosovo, Weldon led a group of Republican Congressmen who negotiated a peace deal with the Russian lower house. Weldon opposed the NATO bombing campaign and drew strong criticism for trying to get involved in peace negotiations.
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Secret Weapons in U.S.
NewsMax.com November 8, 1999
http://www.newsmax.com/articles/?a=1999/11/8/73601
FBI Director Louis Freeh admitted that Russia may yet have stored weapons - including nuclear suitcase bombs - at secret locations around the U.S.
The stunning revelations appeared in yesterday's editions of the New York Post. The paper quoted Congressman Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) as having had a conversation with Freeh in the past two weeks.
Weldon said that Freeh "acknowledged the possibility that hidden weapons caches exist in the United States . . ."
Weldon, a leading congressional expert on Russia and chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on military research and development, said, "There is no doubt that the Soviets stored material in this country. The question is what and where."
Congressional scrutiny has focused on dozens of nuclear suitcase bombs that have disappeared from Russian's nuclear arsenal. According to Russian sources, including Russian General Alexander Lebed, Russia produced 132 nuclear suitcase bombs, each carrying 10-kilotons of explosive material. Only 48 remain in Russia's inventory; the rest have disappeared.
The FBI has taken a nonchalant approach to locating the secret caches.
Congressional sources indicates that the FBI scoured the area around Brainerd, Minn. - one area Russian agents were believed to have forward-deployed weapons in the event of a war.
But Weldon said the Clinton administration is not interested in pressing the Yeltsin government for fear of destabilizing his shaky position vis-à-vis the country's military leadership.
Concerns about the secret stockpiles have been fueled in recent years by revelations made by Russian defectors.
One KGB defector, Vasili Mitrokhin, provided information to British intelligence that secret weapons stockpiles are scattered throughout the U.S., including upstate New York, California, Texas, Montana and Minnesota.
Mitrokhin has also stated that such stockpiles were also made throughout Europe. Some Russian weapons caches have been located in Belgium and Switzerland.
Colonel Stanislav Lunev, the highest ranking military spy ever to defect from Russia, has testified that the Soviet military developed elaborate plans for the use of weapons during the outset of a war with the U.S.
Lunev said Russian military plans include the destruction of military bases, command and control centers, and the assassination of top U.S. leaders, including the president and members of Congress.
Lunev has also told members of Congress that suitcase nuclear devices may have already been forward-deployed into the U.S.
While the secret stockpiles appear to be remnants of the Cold War period, Lunev, a NewsMax.com columnist and author of Through the Eyes of the Enemy, has warned U.S. authorities that Soviet military strategy continues under the guise of Russian "democracy."
Lunev has stated that Russian military leaders continue to see a nuclear conflict between Russia and the United States as "inevitable."
In recent years, the Russian government has continued to invest heavily in strategic weapons. Russia is currently mass producing the Topol-M intercontinental missile - a weapon more sophisticated than anything produced by the U.S. military.
Russia also continues to invest billions in building large underground bunkers for use during a nuclear conflict. Last month, the Yelstin government announced plans to increase military spending by 50 percent in next year's budget.
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`Russians Can't Let Us Go'
Ten Years After The Berlin Wall/s Fall, The Former Soviet States Still Feel Moscow's Hot Breath.
By Colin McMahon Tribune Foreign Correspondent November 08, 1999 http://www.chicago.tribune.com/version1/article/0,1575,SAV-9911080258,00.html
TELAVI, Georgia Zurab Goletiani was losing patience.
He was trying to explain the mixed emotions many fellow Georgians feel about the old Soviet Union, trying to explain a nostalgia fueled by despair.
"So, you want the Soviet Union back?" Goletiani is asked.
"No, no, that's not it, definitely not," he replied, taking a sip of wine and choking back a sigh of exasperation. "It's not that simple."
Indeed, life in the former Soviet Union is a whole lot more complex than it promised to be a decade ago.
Communism was on the run then, with even the Berlin Wall crumbling. Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika was in full bloom, by design or not, and by the end of 1991 the USSR would be no more. Many of its 290 million inhabitants looked forward to a more open, more independent, more prosperous future.
It has not turned out that way, of course. Like Georgia, most of the 15 Soviet republics that became independent states are profoundly troubled.
Some of these societies are nearly as closed as during Soviet times, stained by political repression and fraudulent elections. Ethnic and territorial conflicts remain unresolved. Prosperity is a dream. Even independence remains a concern for some.
Moscow may have lost the Cold War but it continues to regard the Baltic states, Ukraine, the Caucasus and Central Asia as being in its sphere of influence. At the very least.
A decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Poland and other former East Bloc nations may look to the West with growing confidence. But when the former Soviet states themselves reach out to the European Union or, perish the thought, to NATO, they feel Moscow's hot breath on their shoulder.
"Our position is that Lithuania's joining NATO would increase regional security, not decrease it," said a Lithuanian diplomat in Vilnius, the capital. "But Russia does not want to hear a word of it. In meetings, their faces turn to stone."
Many of the post-Soviet states are searching for an identity after so long under Moscow's thumb. All are wondering how to catch up to a developed world whose political, legal and economic systems are far sturdier, fairer and more efficient.
A look at headlines from this autumn alone could sober any celebration of the Soviet Union's collapse: A terrorist attack on the parliament in Armenia; a brutal clash between police and political protesters in Belarus; a rebel uprising in Kyrgyzstan; an assassination attempt on a presidential candidate in Ukraine; Russia's war in Chechnya.
The residents of such places will be forgiven for losing their patience, forgiven if they occasionally look back on their Soviet past with rose-colored glasses.
"The dissolution of the Soviet Union," Gorbachev writes in an upcoming book, "truly was a tragedy--a tragedy for the majority of Soviet citizens and for the republics that were part of the Soviet Union.
"I am convinced that the world today would be living more peacefully if the Soviet Union--of course in a renewed and reformed version--had continued to exist."
Well, many people would say, Gorbachev is Russian. Of course the Russians are dismayed at the collapse of the Soviet Union.
But that does not mean that the rest of the former USSR wants to put back together an empire with evils that are still coming to light even now.
"We want more Russian partners here, yes, but not their tanks," said an Armenian businessman in Yerevan. "We want the Americans here too."
The violence plaguing parts of the former Soviet Union is only the most obvious, and the most painful, manifestation of its difficulties. Poverty, crime, suicides and similar social ills have risen in many of the nations. Life expectancy has declined.
"There's no order," said Goletiani, a winemaker in Georgia's rich grape-growing region of Kakheti. "The corruption is everywhere. There is potential here, for small businesses, for small vineyards. But forget about getting a loan. From where? Forget about getting investment. From whom?"
Those are the nations' internal problems. Externally, the former Soviet states are trying to find their place in the world.
Even Russia is searching. Maybe especially Russia.
Russia's nuclear arsenal, its huge land mass and its relatively well-educated population make the nation of 146 million people an important international player. But try as it might, wish as it may, Russia can no longer match the United States on the world stage.
"Economic realities will compel Russia to abandon hopes of remaining a global great power and to be content with a role as an important European actor," said Tarja Halonen, Finland's foreign minister. "It is up to Russia herself to decide how she wants to avail herself of this opportunity."
Such diplomatic language may fit the halls of the European Union. But in places like Tbilisi, the Georgian capital; or Vilnius, Lithuania; or Tashkent, Uzbekistan, or Baku, Azerbaijan, talk of Russia's designs is far more frank.
It's called imperialism.
"The Russians can't let it go," said Alexander Rondeli, an analyst with Georgia's Foreign Ministry. "They can't let us go."
Though Russia's military cannot pay its troops, house its officers or update its nuclear arsenal, it finds the money to deploy forces in places such as Moldova, Georgia, Ukraine and Tajikistan. Diplomatically it challenges efforts to build economic and military ties with the West.
"If Russia were just a normal country, it would be interested more in stability and prosperity," Rondeli said. "But Russia has this self-destructive idea that everyone is out to destabilize it. It's not true.
"The most traumatized state in the post-communist world is Russia," he said. "Look at all they lost overnight. Let's face it: The Soviet Union was a Russian state."
Russia's decay over the past decade is well documented. A few have gobbled up the nation's wealth and spirited it out of the country. Political wars hold back reforms. Whole generations are clueless as to what happened to their world and what to do next.
Leonid Kesselman looks back fondly and sheepishly on the days when communism fell. The St. Petersburg political analyst said Russia's liberals and intelligentsia made the mistake of thinking that everyone in the nation wanted only what they wanted: Freedom, democracy, the right to self-determination.
In fact, Kesselman said, a lot of Russians supported a liberal revolution with far more practical, though unrealistic, ambitions in mind.
"When they pushed the communists out, they didn't vote for democracy," Kesselman said. "They voted for the quality of life that is offered under a democracy.
"Like Sweden, for example, where everyone drives nice cars, eats good food, lives in good houses. Who's against it?
"But when they realized that they have to do something that wasn't done before, that you have to leave a factory that produces nothing but tanks, that you have to go out and get an education, they didn't know how to do it."
Perhaps this is one reason--there are many others, some having to do with history and geography--that the Baltic states have fared best. For the people of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, throwing the Soviets out was a matter of fierce ethnic and national pride. They are keen not to squander the opportunity that independence has presented them.
Then there is Belarus.
President Alexander Lukashenko, a throwback to the Brezhnev days, is eager for his impoverished nation of 10 million to rejoin Russia. Not only does he think Russia's military and (relative) economic strength can help his people, but Lukashenko also asserts that he has some lessons for Moscow as well.
Among these are a state-controlled economy, a tough hand with political opponents and a firm policy of thumbing one's nose at the West.
Lukashenko's opponents liken him to Josef Stalin. It is both an insult and a compliment that Lukashenko does not deserve. Stalin built the USSR into a world power; Lukashenko is an insect on the world stage. Stalin killed tens of millions of people; Lukashenko's thugs beat and jail without cause his opponents, but so far Minsk has yet to resort to widespread murder as a tool of political control.
"The Stalin comparison might be too much," acknowledged a human-rights activist in Minsk. "But you have to understand that we view Lukashenko from a European perspective. We can look at our neighbors, at Poland and Lithuania and Latvia, and see how they are doing. We could be like them if we had the right economic system and political freedom."
Geography plays no small part in the fortunes of the former communist world.
"The single most important factor determining success has proven to be the reform country's distance from Frankfurt," the financial capital of continental Europe, wrote Jeffrey Sachs, the Harvard University economist who helped draft Poland's reforms and advised governments in Estonia, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Ukraine.
So, again, the Baltics are making progress. Western Ukraine is faring better than eastern Ukraine and better than most of Russia.
The Caucasus states are a mess. Armenia's economy is moribund, and its politics explosive, as evidenced by the attack on parliament last month that left the prime minister and several deputies dead.
Georgia struggles to maintain its territorial integrity amid secessionist movements and meddling by what it calls dark forces in Russia. President Eduard Shevardnadze, along with Gorbachev a hero in the West for his role as Soviet foreign minister in ending the Cold War, has escaped several attempts on his life.
Oil from the Caspian Sea provides Azerbaijan some hope even if the nation's political system doesn't.
Meanwhile, Armenia and Azerbaijan have never settled their war over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Large swaths of Georgia, also through bloodshed, have declared their independence. The northern Caucasus of Russia also have seen ethnic and territorial wars, the bloodiest and most intractable continuing today in Chechnya.
Moving farther east, one comes to mostly Muslim Central Asia. There, poverty and political repression are fertilizing fundamentalist Islamic movements.
Even Lukashenko might blanch at, if he is not cheering, some of the methods used by the authoritarian regimes in this part of the post-Soviet world.
In retrospect, the giddy excitement that greeted communism's fall was in a way unwarranted. The expectations of people from Vilnius to Vladivostok, from Yakutsk to Yerevan were unreasonably inflated.
Their disappointment is valid and pitiable. But it should not obscure the astounding positive changes of the past 10 years.
Russia has pulled its nuclear weapons out of every other former Soviet republic. It has, overtly at least, respected the territorial integrity of those new nations. It has held its own mostly free and fair national elections.
While the economic and political performances of the former Soviet states mostly range from middling to desultory, social changes have been immense.
Across much of the former Soviet Union, young people are exposed to ideas of democracy and self-determination that were heretical when they were children. They are pushing their nations to leave behind the communist-era ways of thinking, particularly when it comes to relations with the West.
"The search for identity among people that started long ago in Western Europe started later in Eastern Europe and later here," Rondeli said. "Much of this is a problem of transition after totalitarianism."
Success in that transition remains a test of patience.
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ComEd fined in treatment of worker
November 7, 1999 Chicago Sun Times
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/comed07.html
Federal regulators fined Commonwealth Edison $110,000 Friday for lowering a nuclear reactor operator's performance rating and blocking his training for promotion after he complained about the use of faulty equipment.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the senior control room operator made the complaints in October 1997, at ComEd's Zion nuclear plant, two months before the utility announced that the troubled power station would be closed for good.
ComEd spokesman Don Kirchoffner acknowledged the employee's complaints about equipment had played a role in the lowered performance rating and the blocked training. But he said the "middle manager" who had taken the actions "had performed prudently and properly" because management believed the operator hadn't sufficiently considered all options before urging the equipment be taken off-line.
The company has 30 days to pay or protest the fine.
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Recognize soldiers used in experiments, MP urges Ceremony requested
Stewart Bell National Post (Southam Canada) November 08, 1999 http://www.nationalpost.com/news.asp?f=991108/121573&s2=national
A Liberal MP is urging his own government to officially recognize the plight of Canadian soldiers used as human guinea pigs in military experiments that have been blamed for a range of health problems.
In a panel discussion to be aired tonight on the Women's Television Network, John Bryden says veterans who were used to test such hazards as mustard gas and nuclear bombs deserve better compensation and formal thanks.
He calls for a ceremony to be held at Suffield, Alta., where thousands of soldiers were subjected to open-air tests of toxic substances as part of Canada's secret weapons research program.
"I think it has to be a ceremony ... And I think it has to be someone like the minister of defence or the governor-general, or someone who comes and says to a representative sample of the veterans ... thank you," according to a transcript of the show. "Thank you from Canada for what you did during the war."
Mr. Bryden, MP for Wentworth-Burlington, makes the remark on the WTN show Open for Discussion, which airs at 9 p.m., following the film Advance to Ground Zero, starring Martin Sheen, who plays a physician who took part in a U.S. nuclear testing program in Nevada in the 1950s.
His appeal is endorsed in the program by Harvey Friesen, one of the soldiers who took part in mustard gas testing in the 1940s and Kenneth Umpherville, one of hundreds of Canadians who took part in atomic weapons tests in Nevada.
"They've got to recognize that people are suffering," said Mr. Umpherville. "And it's the recognition that soldiers were put in harm's way."
A backbencher and military historian who has championed issues such as charity reform, Mr. Bryden is the author of the book Deadly Allies, the first account of a Canadian weapons research program that developed gases, germs, poisons and viruses from 1937-47.
Mr. Bryden said the government did acknowledge the plight of mustard gas victims following the publication of his book and offered some compensation, but he says "the compensation is not, perhaps, at the level it should be for the risks that were taken," and he wants the veterans recognized at a ceremony.
The issue is a sensitive one for the Liberal government, which has been under fire over its treatment of veterans of the merchant navy and soldiers in Croatia who may have been exposed to toxic soil.
Mr. Friesen was an 18-year-old soldier when he participated in a mustard gas test at Suffield on March 31, 1945.
Mr. Umpherville, president of Canadian Atomic Veterans, was among a group of soldiers taken to the Yucca Flats in Nevada in 1957 to "witness" a nuclear detonation.
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Cruise missile testing approved
London Free Press, Monday, Nov. 8, 1999 (Canada)
http://www.canoe.ca/LondonNews/lf.lf-11-08-0026.html
OTTAWA -- The national Liberal convention followed its leader during the weekend, giving emotional approval to the testing of U.S. cruise missiles in Canada.
The vote of 320 to 183 came after Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau said while he hopes the missiles do not have to be pointed at the Soviet Union from Europe, they represent an important bargaining chip in disarmament negotiations.
There can be no unilateral reduction of nuclear weaponry while the two superpowers mistrust each other, he said.
The convention also rejected the idea of a nuclear freeze or anything else that smacked of unilateralism.
But it accepted by a massive majority the prime minister's four-year-old policy that the world needs nuclear suffocation with both East and West agreeing to arms cuts.
They agreed Canada's armed forces, equipped with sometimes elderly conventional weapons, must be beefed up and said the fundamental criterion in foreign policy should be human rights.
The disarmament-cruise debate, one of the most emotional of the three-day convention, came as voters in many Ontario municipalities prepared to cast ballots today in a referendum calling for Canadian leadership in forcing the superpowers to the bargaining table.
NATO hopes deployment of the cruise will worry the Soviets enough to start talking about nuclear cuts.
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World: Asia-Pacific
Nuclear sites fail safety checks
Standards have not improved despite recent accidents
By Juliet Hindell in Tokyo November 8, 1999 Published at 09:38 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia-pacific/newsid_509000/509272.stm
Fifteen of Japan's leading nuclear facilities have inadequate safety measures, according to a report published on Monday by the Labour Ministry.
It found that only two of 17 key nuclear facilities had adequate health and safety measures.
The facilities were inspected between 1 October and 22 October, just after Japan suffered its worst nuclear accident on 30 September at Tokaimura.
The report found 25 violations of Health and Safety Law. Most were related to inadequate checks on radiation exposure.
In some cases regular health checks by industrial doctors were not being carried out and measurements of radiation not taken.
It is a legal requirement that records be kept of an individual's radiation exposure, but the inspections found that this was not being done at some facilities.
The ministry has issued the facilities with instructions on how to improve their record and has announced that more frequent inspections will be made.
But the findings may further undermine the Japanese public's confidence in the safety of nuclear power.
In the incident at Tokaimura, three workers accidentally caused nuclear fission by mixing too much uranium solution in a steel bucket. They were following an illegal manual.
The three men were exposed to huge doses of radiation, and more than 300,000 people in the surrounding area were told to shelter inside for 24 hours.
The incident raised questions about safety and training throughout Japan's nuclear industry.
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World: Asia-Pacific
Japan's nuclear facilities failing
November 8, 1999 Published at 09:53 GMT
http://news2.thls.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/asia%2Dpacific/newsid%5F509000/509226.stm
A Japanese government study -- which was carried out just after the country's worst nuclear accident in September -- has said fifteen out of seventeen leading nuclear facilities have inadequate safety measures.
The study, by the Labour Ministry, said, in particular, not enough individual health checks for radiation exposure were being carried out, as required by law.
Now, the Labour Ministry has issued instructions to the nuclear facilities on how to improve their record and has also said there'll be more frequent inspections.
In September's nuclear disaster at Tokaimura, workers accidentally caused nuclear fission by mixing too much uranium solution in a steel bucket. They were exposed to huge doses of radiation and more than three-hundred-thousand people in the surrounding area were placed in danger.
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TVA power program gets top marks from peers
The Associated Press 11/08/99 1:42 AM Eastern
http://flash.al.com/cgi-bin/al_nview.pl?/home1/wire/AP/Stream-Parsed/BAMA_NEWS/j3930_PM_TN--TVA-Nuclear
SPRING CITY, Tenn. (AP) -- During the 1980s, the Tennessee Valley Authority's nuclear power program was rated as one of the worst in the United States. It's ending the 1990s ranked among the country's best.
Last week, TVA became the first American utility to gain top performance grades from its industry peers for all its nuclear plants.
The World Association of Nuclear Operators gave the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant in Spring City its top rating and the best score ever for a TVA nuclear reactor.
Earlier, the organization and its American counterpart, the Institute for Nuclear Power Operations, gave top ratings to the Sequoyah Nuclear Plant near Soddy-Daisy and the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant near Athens, Ala.
TVA's nuclear reactors are expected this year to generate a record amount of electricity with the fewest number of equipment or personnel problems ever. The Sequoyah plant could end the year with the lowest operating costs of any of the 109 commercial reactors in the United States.
"We're performing with the best in the industry," O.J. "Ike" Zeringue, TVA's president and chief operating officer, told the Chattanooga Times and Chattanooga Free Press.
TVA launched the nation's most ambitious nuclear power program in the 1960s with plans for 17 nuclear reactors.
But when costs soared and safety problems developed, TVA scrapped eight units in the early 1980s and then was forced to idle all five of its operating units in 1985.
TVA's nuclear plants were charter members of the "watch list" started by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 1986 to monitor the most troubled reactors in the country.
"There were some dark times in the 1980s when a lot of people didn't think some of these plants would ever run again and I honestly wasn't sure if I would have a job," said Richard O'Rear, a senior reactor operator and shift supervisor in the Watts Bar control room.
TVA Chairman Craven Crowell, who joined the TVA board in 1993, said last week the nuclear turnaround is one of his proudest achievements.
"The ratepayers should expect excellence and we're delivering that now," Crowell said.
TVA's three nuclear plants are among 31 across the country to receive the top industry rating. The ratings are based upon a review by other nuclear industry officials of all aspects of plant operation, including equipment, personnel and procedures.
Even some of the environmentalists who opposed TVA's nuclear program concede TVA has made significant improvements.
"You can't be objective and not see that TVA has changed course and is doing much better with its nuclear program," said Stephen Smith, executive director of the Tennessee Energy Reform Coalition, a consumer group that opposed construction of TVA's nuclear plants. "But this is an unforgiving science and the jury is still out on the long-term success of these plants."
Anti-nuclear activists have had less success in the Tennessee Valley than in other parts of the country in generating opposition to atomic power.
Phyliss Jarvis has only praise for the nearby Watts Bar plant.
"TVA has done a lot for Meigs County," she said. "The plant has given a lot of people good-paying jobs and the plant seems to be doing just fine."
The TVA nuclear program, which in 1987 had more than 16,000 staff and contractor employees, now has less than 4,000. The capacity factor -- a measure of how frequently nuclear plants are available for electricity generation -- has risen from just over 50 percent a generation ago to more than 80 percent today.
But while operating costs of nuclear are comparable with other energy sources, construction costs still remain much higher. To finish just the first reactor at Watts Bar took TVA 24 years and more than $6 billion.
The only additional nuclear power TVA is now considering involves the restart of its oldest nuclear reactor.
Preliminary estimates suggest that the Unit 1 reactor at Browns Ferry -- idle since 1985 because of piping and other regulatory issues -- could be recovered for a price comparable with the $1.3 billion restart expense for each of the other two reactors at Browns Ferry.
"My personal opinion is that nuclear power will continue to be an important part of the energy mix in the future," Crowell said. "It doesn't cause air pollution and it supplied 28 percent of TVA's power last year. But I don't see any more nuclear plants in the immediate future."
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Robot removes the heart of Windscale
By Russell Jenkins November 8 1999 Britain http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/99/11/08/timnwsnws01033.html?999
Engineers have begun to dismantle the irradiated core of Windscale's nuclear reactor in a decommissioning scheme costing £80 million.
From a protected control room they can manipulate an £8 million robot capable of cutting, shearing and grinding through metal and graphite, using a bank of television screens for guidance. During the past week the team, working in shifts, has carefully lowered a "grab" down through the fuel channels on the top of the nuclear reactor's Hot Box to retrieve abandoned neutron shield plugs. The plugs look like a series of innocuous metal rods, but each remains highly radioactive 18 years after Windscale ceased to generate electricity.
The engineers have now filled the first of about 140 concrete boxes to be stacked three deep in a purpose-built store on site, which, if necessary, could remain entombed for the next 100 years.
The scheme, classed as the UK's lead power-decommissioning exercise, is designed to demonstrate that the nuclear industry can clean up its own mess. It has been paid for by the Department of Trade and Industry, the European Union, and the nuclear industry.
It will prove, its supporters claim, that "Safestore", where old reactors are weather-proofed and left until radiation levels are more manageable, is not the only option. So far three old Magnox reactors have been stored in this way.
It will take about six years to remove the 1,200 tonnes of intermediate and low-level nuclear waste, working from the top of the reactor downwards, from the Hot Box, pressure vessel to the core, in a sequence of "campaigns".
Once completed, the theory is that Project WAGR (Windscale Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor) will demonstrate conclusively that the technology exists to transform the world's ageing nuclear power stations back to greenfield sites. The race to win contracts is big business. There is decommissioning work worth potentially £100 billion in America and Europe, including the countries of the former Soviet bloc.
The prototype Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor was opened by Lord Hailsham in 1961. Project WAGR's promotional video shows a clip of Harold Wilson delivering his "white heat of technology" speech.
The golf ball shape of Windscale on the Cumbrian coastline became a potent symbol of the nuclear age and its promise of "electricity too cheap to meter". It is not yet clear whether the shell of the building will be preserved.
The UK Atomic Energy Authority has been steadily decommissioning the WAGR, which stands on the edge of BNFL's processing plant at Sellafield, since it ceased to generate energy in 1981. The enriched uranium fuel rods were removed for reprocessing early on. In 1995 its four heat exchangers were removed and buried in BNFL's low-level waste dump at Drigg, Cumbria.
The UKAEA and BNFL Magnox, the main contractor in the project, are now working towards the "active decommissioning" of the reactor. Barry Hickey, UKAEA's head of site for WAGR, said: "This is a demonstration of the fact that reactors can be decommissioned and that we can safely deal with all the waste until a below-ground repository becomes available.
"Any delay of decommissioning of reactors around the country will be decided on economic grounds and not because the technology does not exist."
For once the nuclear industry finds itself standing on the same side of the barricades as the green lobby.
Environmentalists see active decommissioning as the only option, given the inevitability of ageing nuclear power stations coming to the end of their active life. Patrick Green, Friends of the Earth's senior nuclear campaigner, said yesterday: "This is a chance for the nuclear industry to turn from social pariah into an organisation doing something useful."
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Former nuclear site workers to get medical tests
Laura Tanis Anchorage, Nov. 6 1999 - Medical screening is about to begin on hundreds of workers exposed to nuclear testing on the Aleutian chain three decades ago.
http://www.msnbc.com/local/KTUU/43469.asp
THE DEPARTMENT of Environmental Conservation and the District Council of Laborers presented a check for $130,000 Friday, the first installment for the health monitoring program. About 2000 people will be tested, and the federal government will pay over $1 million to screen those who might have been exposed to three underground nuclear blasts during the 1960s and 1970s.
"It's a great relief," said Michele Brown, DEC commissioner. "I mean, we've all had a lot of frustration, getting the Department of Energy to work with us, and treat our workers the same way they treated workers at sites in the lower 48. So it's a great relief. It's a first step. It's just a first step."
At least 40 workers developed cancer years after working on Amchitka, which was the second largest underground nuclear testing site in the United States.
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Local resident opposes the missile defense project
MSNBC November 7, 1999
http://www.msnbc.com/local/KTUU/43492.asp
Anchorage, Nov. 6- Alaska leaders are joining US and Japanese officials in Hawaii to discuss ballistic missile defense. Although the White House approved a plan to build a missile defense system in Alaska, at least one local resident opposes the plan.
MILITARY OFFICIALS have finished touring the state, asking Alaskans what they think about the proposed defense system that will cost $10 billion. But a retired aerospace engineer is trekking the state as well, asking Alaskans to think about the global ramifications of this project.
For 40 years, Don Whitmore has been studying war games on paper, visualizing a nuclear attack. Then, the ramifications of nuclear war started creeping in.
"I'm opposed to the way they're running it," said Whitmore, who is against constructing the proposed national defense missile system.
The system could detect a foreign missile by laser and would launch interceptors to smash the incoming weapon.
The White House Friday gave its approval to build the system in Alaska. Supporters said the system offers protection from accidental missile launches and rogue nations such as North Korea and Iran, who have been beefing up their arsenals.
"We build here because there is a very genuine threat to the United States and we have no way of defending ourselves against that threat today," said Chris Nelson, staff director of Alaska Joined Armed Services Committee. "We can build it in Alaska and we can defend Americans living everywhere."
But Whitmore said the system wastes dollars and loses sight of the bigger picture. "I think we could get more defense for our dollar in other ways," he said.
Whitmore thinks this system is trying to do too many things at once and a non-effective shield will give false security. "I think we could fool ourselves into thinking we're protected from the threat if we erect a shield," Whitmore said. "We might not pursue arms control as vigorously as we could if we think we're protected."
The system is still not perfected, but President Clinton is expected to give his final approval by next summer, making construction possible by 2001. Fort Greely and Clear Air Force Base are the two possible sites.
Russia is vehemently opposed to building the missile defense system, saying constructing the defense system violates the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty.
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Millions, State's Rights, Worker Safety at Stake in Nuclear Shipment Lawsuit
By Cat Lazaroff, Environment News Service November 4, 1999
http://ens.lycos.com/ens/nov99/1999L-11-04-06.html
WASHINGTON, DC, November 4, 1999 (ENS) - Does the state of New Mexico have the right to force the Department of Energy to open sealed containers of radioactive waste shipped into the state by the federal government? The courts will have to decide.
The U.S. Department of Energy is suing the state of New Mexico over the state's restrictions on hazardous waste shipments to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson says the state permit requirements could cost taxpayers an additional $33 million and put workers at risk, but New Mexico officials say the federal government is breaking its promise to let the state oversee operations at the waste storage site.
Westinghouse miners use a Marietta Drum Miner to cut passages and rooms 2,150 feet underground in ancient, stable salt deposits (Photo courtesy WIPP)
The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is a federal waste disposal site built into salt beds a half mile beneath the earth's surface. The site was built to store radioactively contaminated materials like tools, protective clothing and sludge, collectively known as transuranic waste. Barrels of transuranic waste have been shipped to WIPP since March.
WIPP can also store transuranic waste mixed with nonradioactive hazardous chemicals, but the Department of Energy has been delaying those shipments pending a state permit which would detail handling requirements for mixed waste.
Last week, officials at the New Mexico Environment Department issued a Hazardous Waste Facility Permit for WIPP, which will allow the plant to begin receiving shipments of mixed waste. The waste will be shipped from Department of Energy (DOE) sites including the Rocky Flats Environmental Technology Site in Colorado and the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL).
The permit calls for the opening of 11 percent of the 12,000 barrels in the first series of shipments from Rocky Flats, for a visual examination to verify that they are correctly labeled and not under pressure. Prior to December 1989, Rocky Flats made parts for nuclear weapons using various radioactive and hazardous materials. The production of nuclear weapons left behind a legacy of contaminated facilities, soils and ground water that must now be safely cleaned up before the Site can be closed down.
Barrels of transuranic waste may include radioactively contaminated protective clothing and tools (Photo courtesy WIPP)
But reopening those barrels and sifting through their ingredients would expose workers to radiation and be prohibitively expensive, the DOE contends.
"We will continue to operate WIPP safely and in compliance with all regulatory requirements," said Dr. Carolyn Huntoon, DOE's assistant secretary for environmental management. "But our goal is to have a permit that does not unnecessarily increase costs or risks to our workers."
The DOE estimates that reexamining the barrels could cost Rocky Flats an additional $10 million. At INEEL, the permit requires the recharacterization of wastes that are already packed for shipment, a process the DOE estimates would cost $7 million.
The permit also requires the federal government to monitor groundwater near the WIPP site for alpha and beta radiation, which the DOE lawsuit asserts would duplicate monitoring efforts already in place. Due to the presence of naturally occurring radioactive materials, groundwater monitoring would also be unreliable and misleading, the suit contends.
New Mexico wants assurances that the government will monitor groundwater contamination at WIPP, and pay for closing the site once it is filled (Photo courtesy WIPP)
Finally, the permit obligates DOE's private contractor, Westinghouse, to post a $100 million bond to demonstrate its financial ability to close the site once it is filled, which the DOE says is unnecessary. "Under federal law, the United States is required to pay for the closure and monitoring of WIPP, and therefore the assurances provided by Westinghouse would only become effective in the very unlikely event that the United States failed to meet its obligation," the lawsuit states.
The DOE lawsuit calls the permit "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, not supported by substantial evidence in the record, and otherwise not in accordance to the law."
"The hazardous waste permit places onerous requirements on the Department of Energy (DOE) that could lead to workers being unnecessarily exposed to radiation, additional delays and expenditures for DOE sites cleaning up the legacy of the Cold War and a further strain on existing resources. My hope is that Governor Johnson intervenes to fix these problems with the permit," said Richardson. "We plan to challenge provisions in the permit requiring additional waste characterization at DOE sites and financial assurances for eventual closure of the WIPP facility."
The DOE plans to continue shipping waste to WIPP until the permit takes effect on November 26, in order to meet its commitments to the state of Colorado concerning the closure of Rocky Flats. On Monday, a former plutonium research building at Rocky Flats was torn down, the first of six buildings that must be decontaminated and dismantled.
Building 779 at Rocky Flats held "glove boxes" in which workers could manipulate plutonium for nuclear weapons experiments (Photo courtesy Rocky Flats)
"The Energy Department will move swiftly to ship and dispose of waste in order to comply with agreements and commitments made with several states," said Richardson. "We will aggressively ship from Rocky Flats to WIPP until the end of November and we will do what it takes to bring that site, and Hanford (Washington), into compliance with the permit to resume shipments early next year," said Richardson. Shipments from INEEL are projected to resume next spring, while shipments from Los Alamos in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina are not slated to start until later next year.
A New Mexico Environment Department spokesman said the lawsuit indicates the DOE is breaking promises it made to the state in exchange for building the $2 billion plant.
"The state of New Mexico is agreeing to take the nation's transuranic waste," said spokesman Nathan Wade. "In exchange for that agreement, the DOE agreed to allow the state to oversee WIPP, and to provide some highway money. WIPP is here now, and the promises are vanishing."
Richardson said Monday the DOE may withhold highway funds from New Mexico if the permit is not changed.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson (Photo courtesy DOE)
"We want to open WIPP in a safe, secure manner and honor our commitment to Rocky Flats," Richardson said. "But if we keep getting roadblocks from New Mexico we're going to have to reciprocate."
The WIPP facility is scheduled to receive 37,000 waste shipments over about 30 years. Though so far only a small area has been excavated, eventually its underground storage area will include 56 large rooms, each 300 feet long by 33 feet wide by 13 feet high.
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Nuclear waste alert
The Nation (Nairobi) November 6, 1999 By Nation (Nairobi) Correspondent
http://www.africanews.org/east/kenya/stories/19991106_feat14.html
Nairobi - Developed countries are dumping nuclear waste in Africa, participants attending the All Africa Peace Conference heard yesterday. Mr. Paul Saoke said nuclear plants were getting obsolete in the North and countries in the South were being targeted to shoulder this burden.
He called for disarmament programmes. Mr. Saoke said the US alone spends $4 trillion in arms despite the fact that environmental effects of nuclear arms are enormous.
He said the US panicked when India and Pakistan were testing their nuclear weapons. "The US says it has a moral authority to the world, yet it has in the past used nuclear weapons on innocent civilians," he said.
Mr. Saoke claimed that African countries are militarily marked with nuclear weapons. He challenged scientists to down their tools because the weapons they were manufacturing were being used to terrorise people and not for protection.
Ms Mereso Agina of Kenya Coalition Against Landmines said greatest number of victims of landmines are women and children. She said the implementation of the landmine treaty is slow despite having been ratified by 42 out of 48 African countries.
Ms Agina said demining activities in Africa are the preserve of the military and hardly any demining activities take place. She called for general goodwill if the hurdles of demining are to be defeated.
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Transcript: Pentagon Spokesman's Regular Thursday Briefing
(EgyptAir 990/Egyptian military officers, US/China relations, Russia/ABM system) (3380) 05 November 1999
http://www.usia.gov/cgi-bin/washfile/display.pl?p=/products/washfile/latest&f=99110501.tlt&t=/products/washfile/newsitem.shtml
Pentagon Spokesman Ken Bacon briefed.
Following is the Pentagon transcript:
(begin transcript)
DoD News Briefing Thursday, November 4, 1999 - 2:00 p.m. Presenter: Mr. Kenneth H. Bacon, ASD PA
BACON: Good afternoon.
Well, it's your second briefing of the day, Charlie. I hope that we're keeping you properly supplied with information.
We have a bluetop back there on an event that took place earlier today, which was the event honoring the employer support for Guard and Reserve. We announced some awards for companies that have taken a leading role in this important area, supporting the Guard and Reserve. And there's information on those companies.
Admiral Johnson, the chief of Naval Operations, will host the 15th annual -- the 15th International Sea Power Symposium, starting next week, November 7th through the 10th, at the Naval War College in Newport. There will be representatives from 72 countries in attendance. And you can get more information from CHINFO, the Navy news office.
Later this afternoon Secretary Cohen will present the Department of Defense Distinguished Civilian Service Award to nine career employees. This is the highest award given to civilians. And these are people who have done outstanding work for the department.
Tomorrow Undersecretary Slocombe will give a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on national missile defense. I don't know if any of you caught his testimony several weeks ago on this topic, but this will be a continuation of his explanation of our national missile defense policy.
And finally, tomorrow in Los Angeles, Secretary Cohen will be the keynote speaker at the dedication of the National Medal of Honor Memorial at Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, California. There will be a large number of Medal of Honor recipients there, along with their families. I think it's one of the largest gatherings of Medal of Honor recipients to take place. They do have reunions, and I don't know how these compare. But there will be a large number of Medal of Honor recipients there.
With that, I'll take your questions.
QUESTION: Ken, there's a report in Brussels, I understand -- I think it's a France Presse report -- that the United States has decided to pull what few nuclear weapons it has remaining in Europe and NATO countries. How would you -- have you anything on that?
BACON: I have no information suggesting that report's correct. NATO maintains a small nuclear deterrent, and I have no information suggesting that's about to change.
Q: It's been four days since the crash of EgyptAir 990. Can you tell us anything more about who the Egyptian military officers were who were on the plane and what they were doing in the United States? I know you told us sort of in broad, general terms what they were doing, but can you give us any idea of exactly what they were doing here in the U.S.?
BACON: Yes. I think I've been chastised a little by what I've said because this information keeps evolving, and at one point I suggested that most of them were helicopter pilots here for training. That came from the revelation that some of them were at Fort Rucker. But it turns out they weren't there for training, they were just sleeping there. But let me give you the latest best information I have, and this was developed by the American Embassy in Cairo and sent to us recently.
First of all, there were five groups, five separate groups of Egyptian officers here on official business, sponsored by their Ministry of Defense. In addition, there was a group of officers here not traveling on official business. They happened to be military officers; they could have been here as tourists, they could have been here visiting family, they could have been here for a variety of reasons, and we have no visibility on why they were here. So let me run through the groups.
The first group had six people in it. They were here to deal with a commercial contractor who was providing network planning and communications analysis services to the Egyptian military under a private contract. These six officers were dealing with that contractor in Boston.
Second, there were seven officers here to receive and test two H-3 helicopters. I believe these were the officers that were staying at Fort Rucker. But they were dealing with the contractor.
The third group, comprised of six people who were here dealing with a company in California that is providing training on high frequency telecommunications equipment to the Egyptian military. So they were here training on that equipment with the contractor under a commercial contract.
The fourth group, three people, were also training on telecommunications equipment in Florida. This was also under a commercial contract.
The fifth group, six people, were here for a conference dealing with repairs, and I think this deals with contractual arrangements for repairing Chaparral missiles.
In addition, there were five other officers here on whom we don't have a track. We believe that they were here on personal business. They had visas that were not sponsored by the Ministry of Defense.
So those are the groups. That adds up to 33 people. Just let me say, put it into context, that the number of Egyptian officers who visit the U.S. under MOD business varies from year to year, but on the average it's approximately a thousand a year.
Q: So it appears that none of them was receiving IMET or any U.S. government training.
BACON: No. No. Most of them seemed to be dealing with private contractors.
Q: What are the rules of the road when a foreign military person visits the United States on official business with all -- sponsored by embassy, MOD, whatever, on whether or not they are subject to going through airline security at U.S. airports, or is there some sort of diplomatic or military courtesy that they travel on extended to them by the Pentagon or the U.S. government that means they don't have to go through that security?
BACON: I don't know the answer to that question. That's an FAA question. I mean, they are the people who deal with airport security, it's not the Pentagon. So you'd have to ask them.
Q: What can you tell us about the radar systems that the Air Force uses along with the FAA that have come with the new data? What are those radar systems used for, do we still have early warning in the United States along the coast?
BACON: There's a group called the 84th Radar Evaluation Squadron based at Hill Air Force Base in Utah that sort of gathers and collates radar information that's collected, and they are the ones that have been assisting the National Transportation Safety Board in assembling a radar picture of what happened to EgyptAir flight 990. They provided the National Transportation Safety Board with a consolidated radar picture covering the entire flight path of the plane and, basically, they pull together radar from a variety of sources -- radar images -- and they can put them on -- I suppose that what they do is try to combine them onto one tape or one moving image.
They were the ones who provided the last indication of the plane's location to Air Force rescue people after the accident, or disaster, whatever it was, took place. Certainly a disaster. They provided the last known position to the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, which is at Langley Air Force Base. And after that, they basically spent three days, 72 hours, sifting through information and providing data files from all sorts of radars to the National Transportation Safety Board.
Q: Well, what do they do when they are not putting together composite pictures of airplane crashes? I mean, what do they really do for a living, this bunch?
BACON: Well, I mean -- look, we have a variety of radar around the country that is used to defend our territorial integrity, to monitor air traffic. Obviously, there's a huge amount of air traffic coming in and we monitor it all the time. I suppose they do exercises and they do a variety of other things, trying to improve their capabilities, but the advantage of having these people there is that when there is a disaster like this they can put together a detailed picture relatively quickly, but not, you know -- by news business standards, maybe not quickly enough. It takes them several days to pull all this stuff together.
Q: But they are, I gather, an expert group of people that do composite radar pictures, but -- I mean, clearly their main function is not to --
BACON: This is their function. They are -- I'll give it to you in typically military terms. Their function is to evaluate, optimize and integrate long-range radars. And it is the primary agency that operates in support of Air Force mishap investigations. So if there is a mishap involving Air Force planes, they would pull together all the radar information and try to present a unified picture of what happened. And this would be information from the planes themselves, from other radars that might be monitoring the planes at a range or elsewhere.
Q: Did they have anything to do with the Learjet crash? Did they do any work on that?
BACON: That's a very good question. I suspect they're the operation that followed the Learjet and pulled together all the radar information.
Q: They pull together information from military radars only, right? They're not --
BACON: I think they can pull together all sorts of radar information. What they have is a great synthesizing capability.
Yes? Let me get Elizabeth; she's been very -- then.
Q: There was a report today that the United States and China are close to reviving military ties. Is a Chinese delegation coming here next month? Do you have the initial go-ahead on that?
BACON: The Chinese have said that they want to resume military-to-military relations. We have yet to work out the details, including the details of when a defense consultative committee or team will get together to actually figure out what the next steps are. But there has been one very encouraging event so far, which is the U.S.S. O'Brien just completed a port visit in Hong Kong, the first visit by a U.S. ship since the Operation Allied Force involving Kosovo. So that's a positive sign. I think she left Hong Kong this morning Hong Kong time.
The next step is to get together the U.S. and Chinese officials to work out how we plan to restart this relationship. Right now Kurt Campbell, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asian affairs, is scheduled to go to China with an official, a military official from the Pacific Command, later this month. And we hope that we will be able to have a meeting of the -- revive the so-called "defense consultative talks," probably in January. But no date has been set yet, and that remains to be worked out. So we won't have any firm information on when the relationship will be revived and how it will be revived until we have these Defense Consultative Talks.
Q: You're not expecting a Chinese visitor next month?
BACON: There is no firm date set on a Chinese visitor next month, no. And I would think that the visitor may come in January, but we don't have a firm date set. Obviously, from our standpoint, we would welcome a visit next month, but we don't know of firm plans for a visitor to come.
Q: And when exactly did the Chinese say that they did want to resume military-to-military contacts?
BACON: Well, it was, I think, during Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering's last visit to China. He's been there several times recently working on a variety of issues, and I think his last visit may have been last week, and I think that's when it came, the information -- the suggestion from the Chinese came that they were willing. But remember, we already had the one important sign, which was their willingness to accept a port visit by the USS O'Brien in Hong Kong.
Q: Could you explain the difference between military-to-military contacts and what the deputy assistant secretary will be doing? How is that different from the military-to-military contacts?
BACON: Well, what we had talked about was reciprocal port visits. We had talked about possible participation in certain table-top exercises dealing with disaster relief and things like that. In the past we had negotiated some maritime rules of the road which dealt with the way our navies would deal with each other if there were problems, incidents at sea. There are various military exchanges we've had in the past. I'll give you a perfect example. General Krulak, when he was commandant of the Marine Corps, was scheduled to go to China on an official visit; that visit never took place. It's conceivable that General Jones, the 32nd commandant, will go at some future time, but that's yet to be worked out. Those are exactly the type of details that would be resolved during Defense Consultative Talks, and as I say, those are the talks that haven't been scheduled yet but are really a necessary precondition to knowing where we go next.
Q: And -- I'm sorry -- Campbell and the PACOM officials then are the precondition to beginning the Defense --
BACON: I think it's the PACOM J-5, yeah. I think --
Q: Precondition to beginning the Defense Consultative Talks?
BACON: Yeah -- I mean, we could schedule the Defense Consultative Talks before that. But I think it's most likely to happen during the Campbell PACOM J-5 as it now -- you know, this is currently scheduled. I assume it's going to take place. But a scheduled visit isn't necessarily when that will take place.
Q: Two quick questions, one on Indian Army chief Mr. Malik will be here in Washington next week; if he had any business to do here at the Pentagon, number one?
Number two, if anybody from this building had been in touch with the military dictatorship in Pakistan, as far as military relations will be concerned?
BACON: The answer to both questions is I don't know. That's the simplest answer. I'll attempt to find out.
But I am not aware that we have had any direct military-to-military contact with the new military government in Pakistan, but I had better check before saying anything further.
Q: Well, did --
Q: Any -- just to follow up --
BACON (?): Sorry.
Q: -- any military-to-military contact with the Indian Army or Indian Defense Ministry?
BACON: I am not aware of any military-to-military contact with the Indian Defense Ministry. There has been some at a higher level, where -- American officials, mainly from the State Department; I think entirely from the State Department -- have met with the defense minister over the last six to eight months. But I am not aware of any specific military-to-military contact.
We made it clear to both countries that we disagreed strongly with their tests. And we have had some dealings with them but mainly through the State Department.
Q: Just to go back to the 33 Egyptian military officers. I realize that this is somewhat well-worn territory at this point. But now that we know a little more about them and what they were doing here, is there anything in the profile of who they are that would suggest that they would somehow be more likely targets for terrorists?
BACON: Not that I can see.
But I caution you again, to heed the warning given by the head of the National Transportation Safety Board, which is it's too early to rule anything in or anything out. We just don't know enough about what caused this plane to come down. And I think it's wise, particularly after all of the groundless speculation in the TWA 800 incident, it's wise for everybody to be cautious and to follow the evidence.
Q: Ken, just a brief follow-up on what the secretary commented about -- (inaudible) -- when asked about the Russians saying that they had tested their ABM system; and he said again, the United States -- that the planned National Missile Defense was no direct threat against the Russians -- are not even aimed at that. But he said that he didn't know whether the Russians had tested this missile. Does the Pentagon know whether or not there was a test?
BACON: We are currently looking at a variety of evidence. We have the public statements by the Russians, and we're seeing if we can back up those public statements.
Q: If I could follow, Ken, as -- does the Pentagon have knowledge of the Russians modifying their -- what they call their A-135 ABM system, taking those rockets and taking the nuclear warheads from them, and are they converting to inertia-type kill vehicles, or -- or what's -- what can you tell us?
BACON: Well, I can't tell you much about that except it would be a good thing if they were removing nuclear warheads and substituting other warheads on their -- it would be a step toward more stability and certainly more safety for the people of Russia.
Q: You can't confirm that that's actually happened, that --
BACON: No.
Q: -- warheads have been taken off.
Q: Secretary Cohen said this morning that if they tested an interceptor, it would show that they have the system and the United States doesn't. Do we know, not necessarily from this test, which you said you're still looking at, but do we know as a general rule, does Russia have a working system that's capable of shooting a missile out of the sky, which the United States at the moment does not have?
BACON: My understanding of what the Russians have is a 1970-vintage system designed to protect their national capital, Moscow. And it depends on using nuclear blasts in space to deflect, destroy, stop incoming missiles. That would be a, as I said, a very radiation-intense, dirty way of protecting the capital. That's my understanding of the system. It is not surprising that they would be looking at ways to modernize their system, given all of the technological developments that have occurred since the '70s. But I'll just stop and say it would not be surprising if they were thinking of doing that.
Q: Will you take this question about whether or not you could confirm that they, indeed, conducted a test on Tuesday and whether it was --
BACON: I won't take the question, I'll answer it. We cannot confirm it at this stage.
Q: You cannot confirm it. But at some point in the -- days, or -- you know, I -- you said you were going to be evaluating it. I assume that at some point you'll reach an opinion, and you might share that with us?
BACON: If I can.
Q: And the only other part of it I would ask you is if that point comes where you can share with us, if you would tell us whether or not this was actually an interceptor test, like the ones the United States is conducting, or whether it was simply a test of the missile itself to see if was -- its capability.
BACON: Yeah, I mean, the fact that the Russians have an ABM system is not new. They've had an ABM system. We used to have an ABM system, but we dismantled ours shortly after it was deployed, and they kept theirs.
The options under the treaty were to build a system that protected a national capital or protected a launch site. We chose to protect a launch site, to preserve a retaliatory capability under any circumstances. They chose to protect their national capital. We dismantled our system. They kept theirs up, and it is still there.
Q: Thank you.
BACON: You're welcome.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State)
---
Text: U.S. DOE Team Observes Russian Y2K Nuclear Plant Drill
(U.S. Department of Energy says no major problems found) (700) 05 November 1999 http://www.usia.gov/cgi-bin/washfile/display.pl?p=/products/washfile/latest&f=99110506.wlt&t=/products/washfile/newsitem.shtml
Russian nuclear plant workers "generally performed well" during an emergency drill observed by a U.S. technical team, according to a press release by the U.S. Department of Energy.
The team was invited to observe a Russian Y2K nuclear power plant emergency drill November 1 in response to a request from Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson.
The aim of the drill was to train Russian personnel in emergency procedures required in case of Y2K-related problems. The U.S. technical team observed the drill and recommended that future drills should address such issues as busy telephones and the need for improved flow of information between the technical support staff and the crisis team.
The drill included the Kursk nuclear power plant south of Moscow, the Rosenergoatom (REA) nuclear facility crisis center in Moscow, and a transmission/grid system dispatch center in Moscow.
Richardson said that the Department of Energy is prepared to provide the Russian government with technical assistance "in order to do everything possible to ensure that the transition to the next century is a smooth one for Russian nuclear power plants."
Following is the text of the press release:
(begin text)
U.S. Department of Energy November 4, 1999
ENERGY DEPARTMENT OBSERVES RUSSIAN NUCLEAR POWER PLANT Y2K DRILL
-- No Major Problems Found; More Drills to Come
In response to a request from Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson, Russian Minister of Atomic Energy Yevgeniiy Adamov invited a Department of Energy technical team to observe a Y2K nuclear power plant emergency drill on November 1. The DOE team reported that the Russian workers at the plant generally performed well, with issues that should be addressed in future drills such as the need for improved flow of information between the technical support staff and the crisis team, and busy telephones.
The drill simulated the failure of the "SKALA" data information computers and plant shutdown at the Kursk nuclear power plant units 1, 2, 3 and 4; the disconnection of the Kursk power plant from 750 kV transmission lines; the startup of the Kursk emergency diesel generators; and the reconnection of Kursk to the grid by dispatches from an alternate power supply (the "southern" 110kV transmission line).
"The Department of Energy stands ready to continue to provide technical assistance to the Russian government in order to do everything possible to ensure that the transition to the next century is a smooth one for Russian nuclear power plants," said Secretary Richardson.
The purpose of Monday's drill was to train personnel in emergency response procedures needed in case of Y2K related problems. U.S. participants observed the drill and provided information and lessons learned based on U.S. experience with similar drills.
The drill involved operators at the Kursk nuclear power plant several hundred miles south of Moscow, the Rosenergoatom (REA) nuclear facility crisis center in Moscow, and a transmission/grid system dispatch center in Moscow. The drill started at 12:30 p.m., lasted about two hours and involved approximately 75 people.
For the drill, the Kursk nuclear power plant notified the REA crisis center of the SKALA computer failure. The crisis center used phones, cell phones and pagers to call up staff for the emergency. Kursk provided information to REA using normal and backup communications procedures; the information was analyzed and exchanged with government ministries, technical institutes and regulatory government agencies. All participants joined in a post-drill evaluation to review emergency crisis procedures and systems.
The Energy Department sent technical experts who are part of a comprehensive effort to improve safety at 65 operating Soviet-designed nuclear power reactors at 21 nuclear power plants in nine countries. Russia has 29 operating nuclear power reactors. The DOE safety program reduces the likelihood of a nuclear accident through training, technology and equipment transfer, in-depth safety assessments, and a heightened focus on regulatory practices.
The Department of Energy is working closely with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the International Science and Technology Center in Moscow to assist the Russian government's efforts to minimize Y2K issues associated with Soviet-designed reactors in Russia.
Additional Russian nuclear power plant Y2K readiness drills are expected later this year.
(end text) (Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State)
---
Text: International Development Center for Russian Nuclear Workers Opens
(Aims to create commercial opportunities for former nuclear workers) (940) 04 November 1999 http://www.usia.gov/cgi-bin/washfile/display.pl?p=/products/washfile/latest&f=99110401.wlt&t=/products/washfile/newsitem.shtml
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the opening November 2 of the first International Development Center (IDC) in the closed and formerly secret Russian "nuclear city" of Zheleznogorsk.
The goal of the center, according to a DOE press release, is to assist in attracting and creating new businesses within Russia's nuclear cities so that there will be jobs for the nuclear scientists, engineers and technicians who have been displaced by the reduction in Russia's nuclear weapons complex.
The IDC is sponsored by the Energy Department's Nuclear Cities Initiative (NCI), a nonproliferation program to help create commercial jobs for these workers "so that they are not tempted to sell their knowledge of designing and producing nuclear weapons to rogue nations or terrorist states," according to DOE.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson called the project "unprecedented. It signals a strong commitment by both the United States and Russia to do whatever it takes to contain the knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons."
DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) near Hanford, in the state of Washington, is coordinating the establishment of the IDC in Zheleznogorsk and two other IDCs expected to open in the coming year in the closed Russian nuclear cities of Sarov and Snezhinsk. PNNL, which has helped attract outside businesses into the Hanford region, already has extensive experience working with the Russian business community.
The Zheleznogorsk IDC will be staffed by professional Russian business counselors. Among its functions:
-- To coordinate economic development efforts planned and already underway, with city and local officials
-- To provide businesses and workers with skills training and strategic planning
-- To conduct an economic assessment of Zheleznogorsk to determine what businesses would likely be successful and what skills are in demand
-- To assist companies with the tools to access financial backing
Following is the text of the press release:
(begin text)
U.S. Department of Energy Washington, D.C. November 2, 1999
NUCLEAR CITIES INITIATIVE OPENS FIRST INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT CENTER IN RUSSIA
-- Energy Department to Assist in Bringing Business Skills to Displaced Nuclear Weapons Workers
The Department of Energy (DOE) today celebrated the opening of the first International Development Center (IDC) to provide business resources to displaced Russian nuclear scientists, engineers and technicians in the closed and formerly secret Russian nuclear city of Zheleznogorsk.
The center, which will be staffed by professional Russian business counselors, is sponsored by the Energy Department's Nuclear Cities Initiative (NCI), a nonproliferation program to help create commercial jobs for Russian nuclear workers so that they are not tempted to sell their knowledge of designing and producing nuclear weapons to rogue nations or terrorist states.
Russia is downsizing its nuclear weapons complex and has asked the United States Department of Energy to share the lessons it has learned from its own experience in shrinking the U.S. nuclear complex.
"This invitation for Energy Department experts to help nuclear scientists in Russia's formerly secret nuclear materials production city of Zheleznogorsk is unprecedented," said Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson. "It signals a strong commitment by both the United States and Russia to do whatever it takes to contain the knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons."
The goal of the International Development Centers is to grow new businesses that keep profits within Russia's nuclear cities for long-term success and jobs creation. The IDCs will work to tailor local economic strategies to the needs of each individual nuclear city.
The Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is coordinating the establishment of the Russian IDCs on behalf of DOE. PNNL supports and assists with economic diversification efforts near Hanford, Washington, by transferring technology to the private sector, helping existing businesses grow, and attracting outside businesses into the region. The laboratory has helped create 40 new companies in 40 months including Mundo Communications, Credit Card Solutions and Corona Cat. New businesses PNNL has helped attract to the Richland [Washington] area include Oregon Metallurgical, a manufacturer of titanium alloys for the aerospace industry. PNNL has extensive experience working with the Russian business community, developed while modeling groundwater contamination in the West Siberian Basin, improving the safety of Soviet-designed nuclear power plant reactors, and sending technical specialists to Russia to control nuclear materials and engage in business creation programs through the Energy Department's Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention (IPP).
The Zheleznogorsk International Development Center will coordinate economic development efforts planned and already underway with city and local officials. It will serve as a resource for new businesses by providing businesses and workers with skills training and strategic planning. The IDC will conduct an economic assessment of Zheleznogorsk to determine what businesses are making or losing money, what skills are in demand, and what businesses would be likely to be successful. The IDC will assist companies with the tools to access financial backing available in Russia and in the international financial community.
IDC operations in Zheleznogorsk are governed by a board of directors which consists of representatives from Russia's Ministry of Atomic Energy (MinAtom), PNNL, the city of Zheleznogorsk and the Foundation for Russian/American Economic Cooperation (FRAEC) of Seattle, Washington. Board members include Jana Fankhauser, PNNL; Carol Vipperman, FRAEC; Pavel Yakushin, First Deputy Mayor of Zheleznogorsk; and Vasily Zhidkov, Mining and Chemical Combine, a MinAtom production entity in Zheleznogorsk.
Two additional International Development Centers are expected to open in the coming year in the closed Russian nuclear cities of Sarov and Snezhinsk.
(end text)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State)
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100 countians' TMI suits get new life
Burden of proof in reinstated cases has been reduced
By Ad Crable New Era Staff Writer Saturday, November 6
Lancaster New Era
http://www.lancnews.com/newera_news/lawsuits.htm
There is new hope for at least 100 Lancaster County residents, or their families, who have maintained they were harmed by a nuclear accident 20 years ago.
Three years after a federal judge dismissed approximately 1,900 health-related lawsuits filed against the owner of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, a three-judge appeals court panel has reinstated all but 10 of them.
Three of those 10 involved Lancaster County residents, including two who are now dead.
Attorneys for the 1,900 litigants who lived in the region or were visiting during the accident say they are eager to get back into court.
They say they can prove that radiation released during the infamous 1979 accident caused cancers, birth defects and deaths.
Lee Swartz of Harrisburg, one of the plaintiffs' attorneys, says new studies have documented the link between low levels of radiation and cancer.
Perhaps the most significant ruling Tuesday by the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, according to attorneys who brought the lawsuits, is that plaintiffs don't have to prove, as they did in 1996, that a specific amount of radiation was released.
Philadelphia attorney Arnold Levin said the judges' comments in the ruling provide a "road map" for a renewed case with a lesser burden.
Plaintiffs will have to show that radiation was released above federal limits and that residents suffered from medical conditions caused by radiation, Levin said.
There are experts who will prove those things, he said.
"This case is not going to go away," said Eric Epstein of the Three Mile Island Alert anti-nuclear group.
Epstein said news of the court ruling has brought a new wave of calls from local residents who believe their newly diagnosed cancers were caused by the accident.
The 1,900 lawsuits seek a combined $560 million in medical claims and punitive damages.
In 1996, after more than a decade of legal maneuvering, 10 cases deemed to be representative of the entire 1,900 went before U.S Middle District Court Judge Sylvia Rambo in Harrisburg.
Rambo, however, refused to allow some witnesses to testify, citing what she called their lack of credibility. Days before the trial was to open, she threw out all the cases, citing lack of scientific evidence that a large amount of radiation was released.
Rambo dismissed all 1,900 lawsuits.
On Tuesday, the appeals court upheld Rambo's dismissal of the 10 "test" cases but said the other 1,900 should not have been tossed out.
Lori Dolan, a 38-year-old schoolteacher from Elizabethtown who was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in 1992, was one of the original 10.
"I'm terribly disappointed that we're not part of it (future litigation), because we were good candidates for what happened at the time," Dolan said Friday from her home.
Her attorney, Swartz, said he is considering appealing the dismissal of the 10 cases. The two other county residents who were part of the 10 have died from cancer.
Attorneys for GPU Nuclear, TMI's operator, say they are weighing whether they should ask the appeals judges to rehear the case or ask for a hearing on the issue in front of the entire appeals court.
GPU attorneys applauded the court's upholding of the dismissal of the original 10 cases, but said the court erred in thinking the testimony presented for the test cases only applied to those cases.
The lack of evidence found in the test cases applied to all 1,900 lawsuits, said Alfred H. Wilcox, GPU's Philadelphia attorney.
Since the lawsuits were filed in the 1980s, about 100 plaintiffs have died, according to Swartz. The rest remain determined to pursue the case, he said Friday.
TMI Alert's Epstein called this week's ruling a "landmark" in what may continue to be a lengthy court process.
"The bitter irony is," he said, "any sense of justice or closure has already passed for a large number of the plaintiffs."
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Review Says Clinton Dodging DOE Bill
By John Fleck Journal Staff Writer November 5, 1999
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/4news11-05-99.htm
The Clinton administration is illegally sidestepping Congress' intent in implementing the Department of Energy reorganization bill signed into law last month, according to a new congressional legal review.
The bill creates an independent agency within the department to manage nuclear weapons work and improve security.
But steps taken since President Clinton signed the bill undercut the independence Congress required, according to the review by the Congressional Research Service.
A major concern is that officials throughout DOE could be given authority over parts of the new agency, weakening its independence.
The administration and key congressional leaders have been talking about possible changes to the law to clear up the conflict.
"I want to get some clarifications with Senate Republicans," Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said during a news conference in Albuquerque on Saturday.
But it's not clear whether a deal is possible.
"I can't see any compromise based on anything that's been offered so far," Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said in a phone interview Thursday.
The congressional report alleges a directive from Clinton on how to implement the law flouts Congress' ability to make laws defining lines of authority between agency heads and their subordinates.
A DOE spokeswoman disagreed, saying the steps the administration is taking are within the law.
"We have every confidence that Secretary Richardson can carry out the president's directive and comply with the law," Brooke Anderson said.
The fight surrounds a new law intended to extricate the weapons program from a welter of sometimes conflicting lines of authority over its operations.
Currently, one Energy Department office is responsible for managing weapons research at New Mexico's nuclear labs, while a second office is in charge of environmental cleanup and a third handles worker safety and health.
The result, lab officials have long argued, can be confusing lines of authority and sometimes conflicting directives.
Such confusions have been blamed in part for the department's slow response to allegations of nuclear espionage that surfaced earlier this year.
Under the new National Nuclear Security Agency, or NNSA, created by Congress, one office will be responsible for the weapons labs and factories. Authority over environment, safety, health and security will be placed in the hands of a newly created undersecretary.
The bill grew out of longstanding criticisms of DOE management and gained steam last spring and summer, driven by a scandal over allegations that U.S. nuclear secrets were leaked to China.
Congress overwhelmingly passed the bill and President Clinton reluctantly signed it in early October because it was attached to a larger defense spending bill the president was unwilling to veto.
But in his signing message, Clinton made clear his discomfort with the idea, arguing that it took too much authority away from the Secretary of Energy.
The law's provisions "limit the secretary's ability to employ his authorities to direct -- both personally and through subordinates of his own choosing -- the activities and personnel of the NNSA," Clinton said.
To get around the problems, Clinton put Richardson in the job of the new undersecretary, allowing him to wear two hats.
He also directed Richardson to allow his underlings to wear two hats, so the Energy Department's Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management, for example, could also run the environmental programs within the new independent agency.
Richardson also asked for new legislation allowing him to use whomever he wants within the Energy Department to provide outside oversight over the new agency.
That, Domenici and his colleagues wrote in an Oct. 27 letter to Richardson, "would muddle the clear and direct lines of authority necessary to ensure accountability for the performance of the NNSA."
It also is "plainly contrary to the letter and intent of the law," the Congressional Research Service analysis found.
DOE spokeswoman Anderson disputed that, saying so-called "double-hatting," allowing one federal official to hold multiple responsibilities, has been permitted under federal law for 35 years.
Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, who requested the analysis, disagreed. "This report confirms that Secretary Richardson will be violating the law if he carries out the instructions included in the President's October signing statement," Thornberry said in a statement issued Thursday by his office.
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Domenici Will Try To End WIPP Dispute
By Barry Massey The Associated Press November 5, 1999
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/1wipp11-05-99.htm
SANTA FE -- U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said Friday he would ask Congress to block New Mexico from imposing a financial assurance requirement on the contractor of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant.
If the proposal is enacted, it would eliminate any reason for the U.S. Department of Energy to withhold part of the state's federal highway monies, Domenici said in a telephone interview.
New Mexico highway officials are warning that the state will have to cancel or delay $200 million in highway construction if the Energy Department follows through on a threat to withhold $20 million a year in road money because of the dispute over regulation of the nuclear waste storage site near Carlsbad.
The Energy Department has sued New Mexico over regulations imposed by a state hazardous waste permit, including a requirement for the WIPP contractor to post a $110 million financial assurance to cover eventual costs of closing the nuclear waste storage site.
Congress has empowered the agency to use New Mexico's share of federal road monies to cover any financial assurance requirement -- such as a bond or letter of credit -- the state imposed on WIPP.
Domenici said he would try to attach a provision to a congressional spending bill that would prohibit states from imposing such financial assurance obligations in cases involving federal facilities.
The proposal will be offered soon because Congress is trying to wrap up its work for the year. Lawmakers hope to adjourn next year.
Domenici contends that it's unnecessary for the state to impose a financial requirement on the WIPP contractor because the U.S. government pledges its "full faith and credit" to cover maintenance and closure costs of a federally owned facility such as WIPP.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson has said the department would withhold $20 million a year in federal road money to cover the financial assurance if the state doesn't drop the requirement.
The department contends that the financial assurance requirement will increase costs of operating WIPP and will establish a precedent for other states to take similar actions if the New Mexico provision isn't stopped.
Federal law does not allow a financial assurance requirement to be imposed directly on a federal agency. However, the state Environment Department maintains it can impose such financial provisions on a federal contractor, such as Westinghouse, which is paid by the government to operate WIPP.
Nathan Wade, a spokesman for the state agency, said there were ways for Westinghouse to comply with the financial assurance without spending any money, such as through a letter of credit.
Wade also expressed doubts about the federal commitment to fully cover costs of environmental clean-ups that might be necessary when WIPP closes.
"The federal government's promise to clean up is just a promise, and based on the experience of other sites in other states we know the Department of Energy has a terrible track record in cleaning up, a terrible track record of complying with state environmental law," said Wade.
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Physicist: Cox Report Lacking
By Ian Hoffman Journal Northern Bureau November 5, 1999
http://www.abqjournal.com/news/10news11-05-99.htm
LOS ALAMOS -- Noted physicist and defense consultant Wolfgang Panofsky attacked Congress' report on alleged Chinese nuclear thefts as a "poor" and "sloppy job."
The report, publicly released last May by a select House committee, is laden with inaccuracies, exaggerations and an anti-China bias, Panofsky told scientists Thursday at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
"My personal feeling is the Cox Report, by any standard of accuracy or scholarship, is exceptionally poor," Panofsky said.
The Cox Report, named after committee chairman Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., charged that China stole secrets to every U.S. nuclear warhead and is now producing a miniaturized warhead using design elements of Los Alamos' W88 warhead.
But no clear evidence supports either allegation, said Panofsky, whose counsel on nuclear-defense matters dates from the Manhattan Project to build the first A-bomb.
"The Chinese object (warhead) that has been used for comparison has quite different parameters," he said.
Panofsky said the Cox Report also wrongly claimed nuclear spying put China "on par" with U.S. weapons science, suggesting a dramatic new threat to national security. At present, according to published estimates, the United States possesses 10,000 nuclear weapons to China's estimated 450; the U.S. Air Force and Navy can deliver 300 times as many warheads and bombs on Chinese soil than Beijing could return.
"The Cox Report has vastly exaggerated the security impact of this alleged spying," Panofsky said.
The New York Times reported partisan-driven leaks from the Cox committee as unalloyed fact. The Times' stories and the report itself worked Congress into such a lather that lawmakers revamped the U.S. Department of Energy and imposed security crackdowns that nuclear-weapons scientists say could pose more dire risks to U.S. nuclear security than stolen bomb secrets.
Weaponeers at Los Alamos stayed largely mum over the Cox Report's inaccuracies, fearing Congress might cut their budgets. Now bewildered and angry, most still despair of reversing their political misfortune at this late date.
"The question is, what can we do now?" a Los Alamos scientist asked Panofsky during a question-and-answer session. "I mean, we got raped."
Panofsky offered little hope.
"To reduce the Cox Report to ashes isn't in the cards," he said. "I think getting Mr. Cox to say 'I'm sorry, I was wrong' is not going to happen, not on this world."
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Seminar: Study Examines National Security Implications
U.S. Newswire 4 Nov 11:04
http://www.potomacinstitute.org
Seminar Presents New Study Examining National Security Implications To: National and Assignment desks, Daybook Editor Contact: Erin O'Connell of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, 703-525-0770; Web site:
News Advisory:
WHAT: A luncheon seminar hosted by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies will include a presentation of the results and implications of the recent research initiative, "The Project on the Gap between the Military and the Civilian Society."
The luncheon speaker and co-director of the study is Dr. Peter Feaver, associate professor of Political Science at Duke University. This study, conducted over the past two years by a large team of scholars, was an effort to compare the values, attitudes, opinions, perspectives, and behaviors of the American military and civilian society. The results of the study will be presented, along with an assessment of potential implications for national security, particularly military effectiveness and civil-military cooperation.
WHEN: Thursday, Nov. 18, at 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. (Lunch will be provided)
WHERE: POTOMAC INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES 1600 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 1200 Arlington, Va. (Rosslyn Metro)
BACKGROUND: Dr. Feaver's (Ph.D., Harvard, 1990) area of expertise is international relations and national security studies. He has published numerous works on nuclear proliferation, civil-military relations, information warfare, and U.S. national security. Dr.
Feaver has held post-doctoral fellowships at the Olin Institute at Harvard, the Mershon Center at Ohio State, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the McArthur Foundation. From 1993-94, he served as director for Defense Policy and Arms Control on the National Security Council.
For information and to RSVP, contact Erin O'Connell at 703-525-0770.
-0- /U.S. Newswire 202-347-2770/ 11/04 11:04
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Long Billions, Short Millions
by Amitai Etzioni Thursday, November 04, 1999 Comments: 34 posts
http://www.intellectualcapital.com/issues/issue316/item7095.asp
Russia's Troublesome, Scandalous Times : Once again corruption and conflict are the name of the game in Russia, Richard Pipes reports.
Putting the Test Ban to the Test : Richard Haass urges proponents of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to bide their time.
A leading item in the competition for the most inane piece of public policy of the 1990s is Congress' refusal to extend and expand the program that provides a select group of former Soviet scientists with a meager salary of about $7,000 a year. These salaries are being paid to keep them working on civilian projects, rather than further developing nuclear weapons or sharing their knowledge with terrorist supporting governments. (Funds also have been refused for converting the scientists' labs from military to commercial use.)
The total State Department budget for these scientists' salaries (under a program called International Science and Technology Centers) requested by the Clinton administration was $274 million over five years, some $51 million per average year. The amounts involved are quite a bit lower than the funds the press reports that Russian political leaders and their associates have siphoned off to cover their credit-card debts, overseas junkets and simple fattening of their Swiss bank accounts from the billions we granted Russia.
The wrong target
Republicans in Congress have raised several kinds of objections to converting these nuclear swords into plowshares. They fear that the program will turn into a new welfare racket, in which former Soviet nuclear scientists will stay "forever" on the American dole. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC) and Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), have complained that the civilian program has so far failed to turn most of the labs involved into commercially viable "profit centers." This is hardly astonishing, given that even in the much more benign American context, attempts to convert military facilities and talents into commercial ones have been slow, prohibitively expensive and often unsuccessful. The talents needed to make bombs are somehow rather distinct from those required to develop and market washing machines and toasters.
Republicans also have complained, drawing on a study by the General Accounting Office (GAO), that the expenditures of Russian facilities are not monitored closely enough. Some of the funds, it has been reported, do not end up quite where they are supposed to. Having recently been to Russia, where I witnessed the depth and scope of the prevailing corruption, it is hard to expect otherwise.
Moreover, funding spillage has not stopped us in the past from continuing to ship billions to Russia for privatization and for economic development. Congress objected to taxes paid by the program to Russia and the cut American contracts having been taken out of the budget. Actually, these criticisms apply to some programs run by the Defense Department, trying to convert so-called nuclear cities, but not to those conducted by the State Department.
One cannot help but wonder if the difference between those programs whose funding is continued and those that pay for the civilian employment of Russian scientists where funding is being cut off, is the money American corporations get off the deal. Big business gains a goodly portion of the orders placed by the Russians using the "economic development" billions and, hence, lobbies Congress for more such grants. At the same time, these corporations stand to gain little, if anything, if we succeed in stopping Russian nuclear specialists from moving to or working for rogue states, so who cares if the program ends?
A valuable proposition
The total amount of money involved, an increase of merely $170 million from the previously allotted $104 million, is minimal even when projected over five years. It sounds like a lot of dough, until one compares it to most items in our defense budget; for instance, compare it to the billion-and-a-half dollars that Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) inserted in the just-approved defense bill for building a naval vessel in his state. Too bad the Navy neither needs nor wants it.
Moreover, others, including the European Union, Norway, Canada, Japan and even global financier George Soros, are picking up part of the total costs of the conversion drive. If we cut back our support, one hardly can expect these countries to maintain their contributions, let alone pick up the slack, given their weaker economic condition and sense that the United States already has greatly fallen behind on its other international obligations, especially paying its United Nations dues.
We seem to be entering an especially partisan period -- particularly when it comes to foreign policy. But given the small amounts involved and the obvious merit of the plowshare project, maybe this can be one area in which party differences are left at the Capitol's doors. After all, it does not take a Ph.D. in nuclear physics or strategic studies to realize the value of providing harmless pursuits to the scientists involved or trying to slow down the proliferation of nuclear know-how to rogue states such as Iraq and Iran. If all else fails, maybe Congress could take the millions needed for the plowshare project from the "economic development" billions we have been granting Russia with next to no conditions attached.
Amitai Etzioni is a university professor at George Washington University and the author of Winning Without War and The Hard Way to Peace. He can be reached at etzioni@gwu.edu.
Related Links Carnegie Endowment for International Peace publishes a report on Russian nuclear insecurity. Several nuclear weapons links can be found here. Read about the U.S. State Department and the policies they handle. A division of the State Department, Arms Control and International Security, can be found here. Visit the Politics and World channels at Voxcap.com to explore this topic further.
How dangerous are Russian "loose nukes?" How about Russia's loose nuclear scientists? Should the U.S. subsidize them? Is this a case of the Congress being shortsighted -- or simply fiscally responsible?
Below are the last ten comments in chronological order. Click here to view the full comment history.
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11/5/99 2:22:00 PM alanH Speed: ok, well we disagree on this issue.
11/5/99 2:55:00 PM amitai etzioni etzioni@gwu.edu Several commentators wondered if it makes sense to pay Russians not to share informations with terrorists given that it is easy to make nuclear bombs. But much work goes into making them smller, more powerfull and so on. Iraq and Iran have been spending billions to get their hands on the staff. It might be worth some millions to make it harder for them. Someone who calls himself a "real American" defined me as an enemy of the people, a common trick employed by people who have no valid arguments to support their position. Try to smear the author rather than respond. I feell sorry for any one who still beliees this works.
11/5/99 3:40:50 PM Academie So, Mr Etzioni, what about allowing Russians to immigrate? Is there a reason this won't work, or shouldn't be done?
11/5/99 4:29:23 PM Len Instead of wasting money on cheap bribes (obviously, a Bin-Laden or foreign govt. can pay more than $7,000) on people who've spent their lives designing nuclear weapons that are aimed at US taxpayers, let's stick a Lo-Jack (one of those anti-car theft sensors) in each one of these communists and then tell them to drop dead. We can use our satellites to follow them as they go to work for the North Korea's and Iraq's of the world. Then we slam a few nuclear-tipped cruise missiles into their new labs. Voila, the world's a safer place. Of course, these days, Los Alamos is probably a bigger problem than a few Russian scientists.
11/5/99 4:43:24 PM alanH Amitai: you mean you're not more dangerous than Saddam and Stalin rolled up into one? You're right by the way, and you'll see that alot here.
11/8/99 10:02:06 AM Speed Amitai: Say someone calls you up and says that they know an adversary of yours and can help train them to do harm to your family. He then says that he will not do this if you are willing to pay him an ever increasing amount each year. How would you handle this? Would you gladly pay him hoping that you family would be safer? Or would you gain help to lock him away? If he actually became involved with this adversary and your family members started to be harmed, wouldn't you defend them to the death? This is how I see this situation. The discussion about the difficulty of making and delivering nuclear weapons is just to show how EASY it is and how many people out there could do the same thing. We are not paying these scientists because they have unique knowledge, we are paying them because they are extortionists. The rest of the people with this knowledge are not threatening to sell it to antagonists, only these Russian extortionists.
11/8/99 10:29:42 AM alanH Speed: how do you plan to lock away a Russian? Also, they are not extortionists if they didn't approach us, but rather we are engaging in preventative medicine by paying them off.
11/8/99 1:46:35 PM Mopmap If I were one of those Russian scientists reading these posts I could be very insulted that anyone would assume that my loyalties could be reduced to dollars and cents. I would also bemoan the lack of imagination that in effect turned all my knowledge into a deadend proposition rather than in being able to transform it into something benign. When DO electrochemical reactions become electromagnetic anyhow?
11/8/99 2:16:17 PM Speed AlanH: So are you saying that someone just made up this threat? That no one ever really had the intent to help an adversary of ours develop nuclear weapons? We are paying out of the fear that they might do this, but they really never expressed an intent to do it? If this is the case, what makes us think that they would do it even if they had the chance? Either way, you are paying people without the need for them to provide something in exchange.
11/8/99 3:01:36 PM alanh Speed: are you saying with a straight face that we should not suspect anyone of doing anything or wanting to do anything without first hearing them express as much? If there are scientists that know how to create a nuclear arms program, these same scientists are not being paid, and there are other countries willing to pay these scientists, it's a reasonable assumption that some job offers will be made. This is not, you'll pardon me, rocket science. And what we are getting in exchange, or hoping to get in exchange, is a safer planet with fewer nukes in the hands of rogue states.
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Tsohatzopoulos on nuclear weapons issue
Athens News Agency: News in English (AM), 99-11-04
http://www.hri.org/news/greek/apeen/1999/99-11-04.apeen.html
Greece does not have means to transport or use nuclear weapons, Defence Minister Akis Tsohatzopoulos said yesterday, responding to a relevant question in Parliament.
Commenting on the question, tabled in Parliament by Communist Party of Greece (KKE) deputy Orestis Kolozov and Coalition for the Left (Synspismos) deputy Maria Damanaki, Mr. Tsohatzopoulos said: "We stand against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and we have the moral and political weight to oppose the construction of a Turkish nuclear plant oposite Cyprus," he said.
Mr. Tsohatzopoulos said the deputies who tabled the question are creating an issue for no reason, while he also denied reports that there is danger of a nuclear accident in Greece.
Israeli Worker Dies in Fall
The Associated Press Monday, Nov. 8, 1999; 2:33 p.m. EST
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/aponline/19991108/aponline143357_000.htm
JERUSALEM -- A worker at Israel's nuclear reactor fell to his death on Monday while hanging scaffolding for a welding job, authorities said.
The man fell from a height of about 12 feet, police and the Labor Ministry said in a statement. The release did not say if the accident was related to any nuclear work at the facility. It did not name the worker.
Israeli authorities hardly ever refer to the reactor, and may have been seeking to stem speculation once it emerged that an employee had died.
Israel has never admitted that it possesses nuclear weapons or produces them at the Dimona plant.
Western intelligence reports say that Israel is the only nuclear power in the Middle East and has a significant stockpile.
An Israeli newspaper recently reported that current Prime Minister Ehud Barak has ruled out international inspections at the Dimona plant.
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Nuclear Weapons: Safe and Secure
Monday, November 8, 1999; Page A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-11/08/009l-110899-idx.html
The Oct. 20 editorial "Fission at the DOE" criticized Congress's establishment of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to better manage and secure the nation's nuclear weapons programs. However, for two decades, the Department of Energy has been afflicted with an oversized headquarters staff, a confusing multiplicity of oversight organizations and unmanageable lines of authority.
The new law replaces this complex structure with a streamlined organization that has a clear chain of command. The NNSA administrator now is under the explicit "direction, authority and control" of the secretary of energy, and the secretary of energy is given sole responsibility for setting policy for all of DOE -- including NNSA.
Both the House and Senate have, on a bipartisan basis, overwhelmingly approved these reforms. The resulting legislation will make significant strides in streamlining DOE's dysfunctional bureaucracy, dramatically improving accountability and, most important, the security of some of the nation's most important secrets.
FLOYD SPENCE
U.S. Representative (R-S.C.)
Chairman, House Armed Services Committee
Washington